Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Word of God · Book I: On the Canonical Books
Chapter 1: Whether Scripture is the Word of God
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. I, De Verbo Dei, Book I: On the Canonical Books of Scripture. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
When I set myself to dispute concerning the sacred books, the first question that offers itself is this: whether the Prophetic and Apostolic Scripture is to be received as the word of God, or whether that alone is to be held for the word of God which the Holy Spirit speaks privately in the heart of each one. This question, otherwise unworthy to be treated among Christian theologians, has been raised for us in this age, partly by the raving of Schwenckfeld and the Libertines, partly by the wickedness and impudence of the Lutherans. Caspar Schwenckfeld (as Frederick Staphylus, in the book On the Concord of the Disciples of Luther, and Peter Palladius, in the book On the Heresies of This Time, testify) rejected the written word as a killing letter, and bids us be content with the inner spirit alone. Of the Libertines, who arose under their authors Coppin and Quintin, John Calvin writes in this manner: “We have already said that these men were wont at the first openly to laugh if anyone alleged the Scriptures, and did not dissemble that they held them for fables. Yet meanwhile they ceased not to use them, if there were any passage which they could twist to their own meaning — not that they gave them credit, but only that they might trouble the simple, and so shake them as at length the more easily to draw them to themselves. If any passage were objected to them, they answered: We are in no way bound to the letter, but must follow the spirit which quickeneth. Nay, that swine Quintin had marked each of the Apostles with some jibe, in his Picard speech, calling Paul a broken vessel, John a silly youth, Peter a denier of God, Matthew a usurer.” Thus he.
Further, Martin Luther and John Calvin, and as many as are their followers and disciples, fear not to ascribe this very error of Schwenckfeld and the Libertines, by a most impudent lie, to the Roman Pontiff and to the whole Catholic Church. The words of Luther, in the book On Councils and the Church, near the end, run thus: “The Pope, on this very matter, has stuffed almost the whole world with a monstrous mass of commentaries and books, and has turned into mere snares of consciences — laws, exactions, rights divine and human, articles of faith, the very name of sin and of justice: so that his Decretal has deserved to be given again to the flames; for the Church could easily do without such a book, which has done horrible and irreparable damage in a great part of mankind: it has buried the sacred Scripture in mire and dust, and has almost wholly destroyed Christian doctrine.” Thus Luther; and like things are read everywhere in his book against the King of England, and in the book On the False State of the Clergy, and elsewhere. The words of Calvin, at the beginning of his book, or Instruction, against the Anabaptists, are these: “For we do not say, after the manner of the Papists, that the most sacred Scriptures must be set aside, that we may rest in the authority of men; for we judge this evasion to be an execrable blasphemy.”
Wherefore, that we may briefly refute both the error of the former and the lie of the latter, this first of all must be laid down: that the Prophetic and Apostolic books, according to the mind of the Catholic Church — explained of old in the Third Council of Carthage, and lately in the Council of Trent — are the true word of God, and a sure and stable rule of faith. And this we prove by the following arguments.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT I. Sitne Scriptura Vwbum Dei. Instituenti mihi de libris sacris disputare, primo se offert illa Quaestio : Sitne Scriptura Prophetica et Apostolica ut verbum Dei re¬ cipienda : an id solum pro verbo Dei haben¬ dum sit, quod Spiritus sanctus privatim uni¬ cuique in corde loquitur. Quam quaestio¬ nem, indignam alioqui quas tractetur apud Theologos Christianos, peperit nobis, hoc tempore, partim Swenckfeldii et Libertino¬ rum deliratio, partim improbitas et impu¬ dentia Lutli eranorum. Gaspar Swenckfeldius (ut Fredericus Staphilus, in libro De Con¬ cordia discipulorum Lutheri, et Petrus Pal¬ ladius in libro De hseresibus hujus temporis testantur) verbum scriptum tanqnam litte¬ ram occidentem respuit, soloque spiritu in¬ terno contentos nos esse jubet. De Liberti¬ nis, qui auctoribus Copino et Quintino exorti sunt, in hunc modum scribit Joannes Calvi¬ nus : « Jam, inquit, diximus, istos initio aperte ridere solitos si quis Scripturas alle¬ garet : nec dissimulasse quin eas pro fabu¬ lis haberent. Interim tamen non desinebant iis uti, si quis esset locus, quem in sensum suum torquere possent. Non quod eis adhi¬ berent fidem, sed tantum ut perturbarent idiotas, atque ita concuterent, ut tandem eos ad se possent facilius adducere. Si quis locus ipsis objiceretur respondebant : Nos (1) In Instruet, aclv. Libertinos, Cap. IX. litterae minime obnoxios esse, sed spiritum qui vivificat sequi oportere. Quin etiam por¬ cus ille Quintinus unumquemque Apostolo¬ rum aliquo scommate notaverat, veluti Pi- cardico suo sermone, Paulum vocans vas fractum, Joannem juvenem stolidulum, Pe¬ trum abnegatorem Dei, Matthaeum fcenera- torem (1). » Haec ille. Porro Martinus Lutherus, et Joannes Cal¬ vinus, et quotquot sectatores et discipuli eo¬ rum sunt, hunc ipsum Swenckfeldii et Li¬ bertinorum errorem Romano Pontifici toti¬ que Catholicae Ecclesiae impudentissimo mendacio adseribere non verentur. Lutheri verba in libro De Conciliis et Ecclesia, prope extremo sic habent : « Papa, hac ipsa de re pene totum orbem terrarum immani mole commentariorum et librorum refersit, et in meros laqueos conscientiarum, leges, exac¬ tiones, jura .divina et humana, articulos Fi¬ dei, nomen peccati et justitiae convertit : ut meritus sit denuo tradi ignibus suum Decre¬ tale ; facile enim carere posset Ecclesia tali libro, qui horribile et irreparabile damnum dedit in magna parte generis humani : sa¬ cram Scripturam in cceno et pulvere sepe¬ liit, et doctrinam Christianam pene integram delevit.» Haec Lutherus, ..quorum similia pas- sim leguntur in libro adversus Regem An- gliae, et in libro de falso statu Cleri, et alibi. Calvini verba initio libri seu Instructionis adversus Anabaptistas haec sunt : « Nec enim Papistarum more dicimus, sacrosanc¬ tas Scripturas missas fieri oportere, ut auc¬ toritati hominum acquiescamus ; hoc enim effugium censemus blasphemiam exeerabi- lem esse. » Quapropter ut et illorum erro- 68 LIBER I. rem, et horum mendacium breviter refella¬ mus, illud imprimis statuendum erit : Pro¬ pheticos et Apostolicos libros juxta mentem Ecclesiae Catholicae, et olim in Concilio III Carthaginiensi (I) et nuper in Concilio Tri- dentino (2) explicatam, verum esse verbum Dei, et certam ac stabilem regulam Fidei. Id vero his argumentis comprobamus.