Divino afflante Spiritu

1943 papal encyclical letter issued by Pope Pius XII

Divino afflante Spiritu Latin for '[By] the divine inspiration of the Spirit' Encyclical of Pope Pius XII

Signature date	30 September 1943
Subject	On Sacred Scripture
Number	5 of 41 of the pontificate
Text	In English
AAS	35 (10): 297-325
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Divino afflante Spiritu ("[By] the divine inspiration of the Spirit") is a papal encyclical letter issued by Pope Pius XII on 30 September 1943 calling for new translations of the Bible into vernacular languages using the original languages as a source instead of the Latin Vulgate.

Catholic biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown, SS, described Divino afflante Spiritu as a "Magna Carta for biblical progress".^[1]

Context

The Vulgate, made mostly by Jerome, had formed the textual basis for all Catholic vernacular translations of the Bible until then. Divino afflante Spiritu inaugurated the modern period of Roman Catholic biblical studies by encouraging the study of textual criticism (or lower criticism), pertaining to text of the Scriptures themselves and transmission thereof (for example, to determine correct readings) and permitted the use of the historical-critical method (or higher criticism), to be informed by theology, Sacred Tradition, and ecclesiastical history on the historical circumstances of the text, hypothesizing about matters such as authorship, dating, and similar concerns.^[2]

Content

The encyclical appeared on the feast of Jerome to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus. With Providentissimus Deus, Pope Leo gave the first formal authorization for the use of critical methods in biblical scholarship.^[3]

Previously, Catholic translations of the Bible into modern languages were usually based on the Latin Vulgate, the text used in the Liturgy. They generally referred back to the source texts (in Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic and Biblical Greek) only to clarify the exact meaning of the Latin text.^[4]

In his encyclical, Pius stressed the importance of diligent study of the original languages and other cognate languages to arrive at a deeper and fuller knowledge of the meaning of the sacred texts:

We ought to explain the original text which was written by the inspired author himself and has more authority and greater weight than any, even the very best, translation whether ancient or modern. This can be done all the more easily and fruitfully if to the knowledge of languages be joined a real skill in literary criticism of the same text.^[5]

It is likely that in the detailed presentation of the work of textual criticism Pius had learned from the expertise of his confessor, Augustin Bea SJ, rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and professor of textual criticism.^[6]

References

^ Brown, Raymond E. (1990). "Church Pronouncements". In Brown, Raymond E.; Fitzmyer, Joseph A.; Murphy, Roland E. (eds.). The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. p. 1167. Cited in Donahue 1993, p. 76.
^ Soulen & Soulen 2001, p. 49.
^ Prior, Joseph G., The Historical Critical Method in Catholic Exegesis, Gregorian Biblical BookShop, 1999, p. 90.ISBN 9788876528255
^ Cunningham, Philip A.; Radtke, Barbara A. (2015). "Catholic Approach to the Bible". The Birth of Jesus: Two Gospel Narratives. Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts: Boston College. Archived from the original on 22 October 2017. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
^ The New American Bible 2011, p. xxi, xxiii.
^ Arias, Javier Velasco. "Celebrating 'Divino Afflante Spiritu'", The Pastoral Review 14 (2018) pp.22-27

Bibliography

Donahue, John R. (1993). "The Challenge of the Biblical Renewal to Moral Theology". In O'Brien, William James (ed.). Riding Time Like a River: The Catholic Moral Tradition Since Vatican II. Washington: Georgetown University Press. pp. 59–80. hdl:10822/551477. ISBN 978-0-87840-542-8.
Soulen, Richard N.; Soulen, R. Kendall (2001). Handbook of Biblical Criticism (3rd ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22314-4.
The New American Bible (rev. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-529803-1.