The Senses of Scripture

Fairly early on in the life of our Bible Study Group in San Diego, we took some time to read through the section of the Catechism beginning in paragraph #101 which addresses the subject of Sacred Scripture. We did this because when I first read that portion of the Catechism I was delighted to discover some truly wonderful guidance for understanding more fully the depth of God’s word.

In this post I would like to take some time to discuss the material outlined in the section of the Catechism entitled “The Senses of Scripture” (CCC #115). In five short paragraphs, it explains that there are two primary senses of Scripture: “Literal” and “Spiritual”, with the latter sense being subdivided into three additional subcategories: “Allegorical”, “Moral” and “Anagogical”.

Let’s look at each of these senses in turn…

Primary Sense #1: Literally starting at the beginning

Every Scripture passage has a “literal sense”. This is the meaning which the author intended to communicate to the reader.

We come to understand the literal meaning of a passage through careful exegesis. Identifying the genre of the document is very important here. Knowing whether the book I’m reading is history, poetry or parable will greatly affect how I understand it. Likewise, it is important to understand the idioms, phrases and allusions found in the text and how these would have been understood by readers at the time of authorship. For example, the Song of Songs might have been pretty fancy stuff in the ancient world, but I can assure you that if I told a girl that her hair looked like a “flock of goats” (Song of Songs 6:5), I would probably get slapped!

It is important to distinguish this understanding of Scripture from “literalism”. The two are not the same. For example, if I wrote “It’s raining cats and dogs outside!”, a literalist understanding of the text (devoid of idiomatic nuance) would lead the reader to conclude that household pets were falling from the sky, possibly due to some unexpected zoo air freight tragedy! A literal reading, however, would recognize that this is a colloquial expression used in present-day English which is meant to indicate a particularly heavy downpour of rain.

It’s now nearly time to examine to the spiritual senses of Scripture. However, before we do so, it must be emphasized that, when reading Scripture, we always begin with the literal sense. Before examining a passage of Scripture for possible spiritual senses, we must first have established the literal sense as our foundation:

“[The interpreter’s] foremost and greatest endeavor should be to discern and define clearly that sense of the biblical words which is called the literal” – Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu

With that said, let’s now look at the spiritual senses, as identified in the Catechism.

Primary Sense #2: Let’s get spiritual

All human literature has a literal sense, but because Sacred Scripture additionally has God as its author (in partnership with the human authors), sometimes there are also spiritual senses to the text. It is worth noting that not all passages will have a spiritual sense and some of these spiritual meanings will be clearer and more substantial than others.

Since God is the master storyteller, “realities and events…can be signs”. Since nothing in Scripture is an accident, events can be pregnant with deeper meaning. In the same way that men write books, God writes history. He uses the things of this world as visible signs to point to spiritual truths and communicate eternal realities.

This way of understanding Scripture isn’t something we invented in the 21st Century. This approach is found in Jesus’ ministry, as well as in the writings of St. Paul. It continued in the early centuries of the Church, with Fathers such as Justin, Athanasius, Ambrose and Augustine making great use of spiritual senses of Scripture:

“And the offering of fine flour…which was prescribed to be presented on behalf of those purified with leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed” – St. Justin Matyr, Dialogue with Trypho (2nd Century)

Before we look at the different categories of spiritual sense, it is worth pointing out the danger which is present with this kind of reading of Scripture. In looking for spiritual senses, we may end up over-spiritualizing the text, so much so that we end up divorcing it from its literal context. This is a mistake which must be avoided. Just because the text has a spiritual meaning doesn’t mean that it does not also affirm a historical reality. For example, the Gospels contain many spiritual meanings, but the Second Vatican Council strongly affirms that the Gospels also tell us what Jesus “really did and taught” (Dei Verbum). As noted in the previous section, the spiritual senses are built upon the literal sense. To quote Scott Hahn, “What the soul is to the body, the spiritual sense is to the literal. You can distinguish the two; but if you try to separate them, death follows” (Scripture Matters).

Subsenses

Over the years, there have been a number of different ways to categorize the spiritual senses of Scripture, but the Catechism gives us three groupings:

1. Allegorical Sense
This sense has to do with foreshadowing and fulfillment. In order to find the allegorical sense of a passage, we need to ask the question: “How does this relate to Jesus?”. In asking this question we can begin to discover the way in which the Holy Spirit used the words and events of the Old Testament to point to the good things which would come with Christ and the New Covenant. The Allegorical Sense isn’t restricted to the Old Testament though, as seen in St. Augustine’s treatment of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Example: In the Old Testament the Israelites left the slavery of Egypt and passed through the Red Sea to the Promised Land. This is an allegory for Christian salvation, whereby we leave the slavery of sin, passing through the waters of Baptism into freedom. 

2. Moral Sense (aka Tropological Sense)
This sense concerns moral truth. In order to discern the moral sense we need to ask the question: “In light of this passage, how should we live?”. As we ask this question, we take the passage and examine what it has to teach us about right living.

Example: Returning to the events of the Exodus, in 1 Corinthians 10:2 St. Paul says that those events were “for our instruction”. Christians have something to learn from the stubbornness of God’s people in the Exodus. Although they passed through the Red Sea and were fed with heavenly bread, the Children of Israel grumbled against God, questioning His goodness and doubting His saving power. That generation perished in the desert. From this, we are to learn that we should not doubt God’s care or providence.

3. Anagogical Sense (aka Eschatological Sense)
This sense considers events in light of their eternal significance. The question we need to ask in order to discover this sense is “How does this passage point to the Final Judgement, Heaven and Hell etc. ?”.

Example: If we return once more to our example of the Exodus, we may understand Israel’s forty years of wandering in the desert as pointing to our own pilgrimage towards our true home, Heaven.

You may have noticed that each example listed above is drawn from the Exodus. It is quite possible for a passage to have a literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical sense. However, this is not always the case.

As noted above, although the Spiritual senses of Scripture are fascinating, we must not neglect the literal sense because, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal”. No spiritual interpretation should exclude the literal sense because, detached from the literal meaning, spiritual interpretations can get pretty crazy. The Catechism tells us that “The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church”. 

Now what?

I do not wish this post to be purely academic. The different senses of Scripture are not simply the business of scholars. It is my belief that knowledge of the different senses can benefit every Christian in his study of Scripture. When we think we have exhausted the meaning of a text, knowledge of these different senses can open up new avenues of discussion and meditation, allowing the reader to plumb the depths of God’s revelation and to drink its rich goodness.

So, I would invite you, the next time you’re reading the Bible or hearing the Word proclaimed in the Liturgy, see if you can find different senses of Scripture present in the text. Treasure is there waiting to be discovered…