THE LITURGY AND THE WORD OF GOD

		MARTIMORT
		JOUNEL
		DANIELOU
		VON BALTHASAR
		BOUYER
		ROGUET
		GELINEAU
		CONDREAU
		MOELLER
		LECUYER
		SPUELBECK


Papers given at the Third National Congress of the "Centre de 
Pastorale Liturgique," Strasbourg, France, 1958, first published 
under the title "Parole de Dieu et Liturgie," Lex Orandi Series, Ed. 
du Cerf.

Nihil obstat: John Eidenschink, O.S.B., J.C.D., Censor deputatus. 

Imprimi potest: +Baldwin Dworschak, O.S.B., Abbot of St. John's 
Abbey. 

Imprimatur: +Peter W. Bartholome, D.D., Bishop of St. Cloud. 
October 20, 1959.

Copyright 1959 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, 
Minnesota.



CONCLUSIONS FORMULATED BY THE STRASBOURG CONGRESS


1. No liturgy without the Bible.

The liturgy draws on the Bible for its readings and chants. 
Further, it is interwoven with echoes of the Bible, and in its 
hymns and prayers it makes use of words which are those of the 
Bible. Thus the Church prays throughout the whole world, and 
she has always done so.

It is not enough to say that the Bible occupies a privileged place 
in the liturgical celebration. It plays such a fundamental role that 
without the Bible there would be no liturgy.

We cannot enter profoundly into the liturgical celebration if we 
ignore sacred history. No liturgical progress is possible without 
the Biblical education of clergy and faithful alike.


2. The Church reads the Bible in the liturgical assembly.

Here we see the continuity between the Old Testament and the 
Church: the Word of God of old was addressed to the people 
assembled in the desert, gathered together by Moses. The Church 
always addresses the people as an assembly.

The liturgical assembly is the privileged site of the proclamation 
of the Word of God.


3. The Church reads the whole Bible.

The whole text of the Bible is not found in the books of the 
Roman liturgy. But four remarks must be made in this 
connection:

a) Every year, some pages of the majority of the holy Books have 
a place in the Breviary, as an invitation to read and meditate on 
the whole Book. The private reading of the Bible is the effect and 
fruit of the liturgical celebration.

b) If there are special passages to which the Church frequently 
refers, it is because these pages are the summits of sacred 
history. But these are understood the more fully the more one 
knows the whole of the Bible.

c) The Missal is more and more, for the faithful, the starting-point 
of Biblical culture.

d) Initiation into the Bible starting from the Missal allows us to 
avoid a subjective interpretation of the Biblical texts. It removes 
the danger of illuminism. It causes us to be the more fully aware 
of the fact that the Bible is given us by the Church. It emphasizes, 
furthermore, the profound bond which unites the Word of God 
and the sacrament.


4. The whole Mass proclaims the Word of God.

The first part of the Mass is, properly speaking, neither a 
Foremass nor a catechism lesson, but a liturgy of the Word of 
God. As the "Directoire" reminds us, "The Word of God is a 
proclamation in the Church of the mystery of salvation which is 
realized in the Eucharist" ("Directoire," n. 1).

At the consecration, the Word of God (which was pronounced 
before being written) becomes the living, efficacious, saving and 
sanctifying Word.


5. In the liturgy God speaks to us today.

The Word of God gathered up in the Bible is not presented to us 
as a collection of archives, but as a Word addressed to us today 
by the living God.

To the man who reads the Bible without faith, the Book is a 
witness to the past; to the Christian who hears the text 
proclaimed in the liturgical assembly, the Word is present, of 
today; it reaches the depths of his being and causes him to 
communicate in the present action of God in the world.


6. The liturgy carries out here and now what the Bible 
proclaims.

The Bible tells and sings of the great works of God. Throughout 
the whole of the Old and the New Testaments God creates, 
judges, delivers His people, makes a covenant with them, is 
present in their midst to sanctify them.

In the Church the sacraments carry on in our midst the works of 
God, those of the Old and the New Testament. The same God acts 
in an analogous manner yesterday and today, to create, judge, 
save, make covenant with, dwell with His people and sanctify 
them.

The liturgy causes us to enter into the history of salvation. We are 
in sacred history. There is a rigorous continuity between 
Scripture and the Church.


7. The sacraments are Biblical signs.

Instituted by the Lord as signs of the New Covenant, the 
sacraments have a pre-history which is rooted in the whole Old 
Testament. This is why in the course of their celebration the 
Church evokes the most ancient pages of the Bible (Abel, 
Abraham, Melchisedech in the Canon of the Mass; Sara, Rebecca, 
Rachel in marriage; paradise, the flood, the exodus in the 
consecration of the baptismal water, etc.)

It is a fact of tradition that in her liturgy the Church establishes 
analogies between the sacraments of the New Covenant and the 
works of God under the Old Law. She does not call up a kind of 
play of serviceable images; she goes straight to the religious 
content of these accounts. The liturgy (in its most authentic 
elements) reunites us with the soul of the Bible: God continues to 
act and to intervene in human history as He began to do long ago.

And this is why, at the same time as it refers to the Biblical past, 
the liturgy, faithful to the spirit of the Bible, announces the future 
toward which we are tending. It announces that God will in the 
future perform analogous and still greater works.


8. Even though the use of the Missal is more and more 
widespread, it is with their ears that the faithful should hear 
the Word of God.

If the Bible is the Word of God addressed to men, they ought to 
listen to it. They ought to hear it with their ears; a lector is, then, 
indispensable. We cannot insist too much on the following:

a) before speaking to the faithful, the lector should wait until 
they have finished sitting down (for ordinary readings) or 
standing up (for the Gospel);

b) the reading must be carried out slowly enough and loudly 
enough to be heard;

c) pausing at appropriate places facilitates the understanding of 
the text;

d) before proclaiming a text, it is essential to have read it and 
understood it.

This technique is to serve a life of faith: the Word which we are to 
make heard is the Word of God. And, therefore, it is to be 
regretted that so often the reading in the mother tongue is 
carried out less carefully and that a less respectful attitude is 
maintained during it than when the proclamation is made in 
Latin.


9. The faithful must understand the Word of God.

For this we need a translation that is at once faithful and well 
phrased. Yet the attempt should never be made to render the text 
understandable by modifying it. The Bible is the Word of God; it 
is not man's business to soften it.

On the other hand, it is possible by means of a short comment 
given before the reading to remove textual difficulties. Finally, 
and above all, the proclamation of the Word should be followed 
by the homily which aids the actual congregation present to enter 
into the understanding of the Word of God. To be understood, the 
Bible demands a constant effort on our part. This effort must be 
made in order to allow the humblest of the faithful to receive the 
Word of God.

The homily is, furthermore, not simply an explanation; it is itself 
a glad proclamation. It echoes the Word of God. It should lead the 
hearer to adore that Word and to praise it.


10. God has spoken a human language.

This is the simple fact: the Bible is written with human words. 
The progress of the various Biblical sciences, far from lessening 
our admiration for the Bible, can only increase it, for they allow 
us to enter more deeply into the divine pedagogy here laid out.

For men of today, there are many stepping-stones leading to an 
understanding of the Bible. Modern man, like Biblical man, has a 
sense of the concrete and of history, a sense of solidarity, of love 
for the persecuted; he is rediscovering his sense of symbolism.

Because it speaks a human language, the Bible is rich in human 
resonances.


11. The Church replies to God by the Word of God.

God awaits a response to the Word that He addresses to us. The 
Word of salvation requires a dialogue.

God Himself, in the psalms and Biblical canticles, and in the Our 
Father, has given us the key-words of our response.

The liturgy takes up the psalms as being a prayer continually new 
and always springing up from the meeting between God and man.

When the Church prays, it is always in reference to what God has 
done for His people in the past, in hope that He will do the same 
for us today. The prayer of the Church is born of the Word of God 
and supports itself on it.


12. The pedagogy of the faith of the child and the adolescent 
is bound up with presenting the Bible in the liturgy.

The role of the Bible in the formation of Christians and 
particularly in the pedagogy of the faith of children and 
adolescents is primary. This fact is being rediscovered more and 
more clearly today.

But this formation would be misleading if the Bible or Biblical 
history were made to seem simply a memory exercise or matter 
for examination.

The Bible should cause the child to enter into the life of the 
people of God. This is why no catechesis is fully Biblical if it is 
not liturgical.

Participation in the Mass, attention to the liturgical cycle, 
celebrations of the Word that are carried out as part of catechesis 
are essential in order that the student may enter into the mystery 
of the people of God.


13. The work of the Word of God goes beyond the limits of the 
liturgical celebration.

Before coming to the sacramental life of the Church, man must be 
evangelized by the proclamation of the Word of God.

And when this Word is received in the liturgical assembly, it has 
not completed its course.

The believer is to keep this Word, it is to germinate in him, and 
little by little introduce him into a wisdom which is that of the 
children of God. It is fulfilled in prayer, in thanksgiving, in 
charity, in an apostolate. It wishes to transform the world and to 
establish in it the kingdom of God.

"And as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and 
return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make 
it to spring, and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so 
shall My Word be, which shall go forth from My mouth: it shall 
not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and 
shall prosper in the things for which I sent it" (Is. 55:10-11).



CONTENTS

CONCLUSIONS FORMULATED BY THE STRASBOURG CONGRESS

INTRODUCTION
	Canon A. G. Martimort
	Director of the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique

Chapter One
THE BIBLE IN THE LITURGY
	Rev. Pierre Jounel
	Professor at the Institut Superieur de Liturgie

Chapter Two
THE SACRAMENTS AND THE HISTORY OF SALVATION
	Rev. Jean Danielou, S.J.
	Professor at the Institut Catholique of Paris

Chapter Three
GOD HAS SPOKEN IN HUMAN LANGUAGE
	Rev. Hans Urs von Balthasar
	Author, Lecturer

Chapter Four
THE WORD OF GOD LIVES IN THE LITURGY
	Rev. Louis Bouyer, Cong. Orat.
	Professor at the Institut Catholique of Paris

Chapter Five
THE WHOLE MASS PROCLAIMS THE WORD OF GOD
	Rev. A. M. Roguet, O.P.
	Director of the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique

Chapter Six
THE CHURCH RESPONDS TO GOD WITH THE WORD OF GOD
	Rev. Joseph Gelineau, S. J. 
	Professor at the Institut Superieur Catechetique and the
		 Institut Superieur de Liturgie

Chapter Seven
THE BIBLE AND THE LITURGY IN CATECHESIS
	Rev. Francois Coudreau, S. S.
	Honorary Director of the Institut Superieur Catechetique

Chapter Eight
IS IT POSSIBLE, IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, TO BE A "MAN 
OF THE BIBLE"?
	Rev. Charles Moeller
	Professor at the University of Louvain

Chapter Nine
"BLESSED ARE THEY WHO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD AND PUT 
IT INTO PRACTICE"
	Rev. Joseph Lecuyer, C. S. Sp.
	Professor at the Regina Mundi Institute, Rome

Chapter Ten
THE LITURGY AND THE WORD OF GOD IN PARISH LIFE IN THE 
GERMAN DIASPORA
	Most Rev. Otto Spuelbeck
	Bishop of Meissen



INTRODUCTION


Canon A. G. Martimort

This book, as its title indicates, is a result of the meeting of two 
movements characteristic of Catholicism today: the liturgical and 
the Biblical. To begin with, then, let us briefly trace the paths 
taken by these two movements up to this point of confluence.

The liturgical movement came to realize in the course of its own 
interior development that it must become Biblical, that it could 
be neither authentic nor profound unless it were accompanied by 
a discovery of the Scriptures. Pope Pius XII, in his discourse 
closing the Assisi Congress, dated the beginning of the liturgical 
activity of the papacy in our times from the year 1913 and the 
publication of the Motu Proprio "Abhinc duos annos." And this, of 
course, was, following the Bull "Divino Afflatu," a return to the 
psalms in the Divine Office and some restoration of primacy to 
the Sunday and the economy of salvation.

At the time when these pontifical documents were appearing in 
Rome, Dom Lambert Beauduin in Belgium had just inaugurated 
the memorable and fruitful campaign of which we are the 
fortunate beneficiaries and heirs. Putting aside the grandiloquent 
prayer-formulas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 
educated Catholics began to nourish their piety on the texts of 
the Missal, its prayers, its psalm verses set to Gregorian 
melodies, in the spirit of the various liturgical seasons. And such 
Catholics were numerous indeed, if one can judge from the 
success enjoyed by the Missal of Dom Lefebvre between the two 
wars.

But this first discovery of the liturgy immediately led to others, 
the first being that of the popular character of the liturgical 
celebration. Far from being meant to be savored in solitude, the 
liturgy is communal by nature, and the liturgical community is 
not composed of a restricted elite but of uneducated and simple 
people also: the poor have had the Gospel preached to them.

From 1943 on, therefore, when Abbe Godin posed the question: 
"Is France a mission country?", the liturgical movement has been 
striving to distribute to the little ones this bread that they crave; 
we have been in anguish at the sight of the sheep of Christ going 
hungry, to use the words of the Council of Trent.

It was at the very moment when the effort began to gain 
momentum towards the popular diffusion of the liturgical 
message that we abruptly encountered the problem of its Biblical 
form. In translating the texts of the Ordinary of the Mass, the 
nuptial blessing, baptism, the Easter Vigil, certain members of the 
apostolate to the people balked at the idea of evoking all these 
ancient patriarchs, these primitive images, these prayer-formulas 
taken from the Pentateuch or the Psalter. But just when these 
well-intentioned apostles had begun to yield to the temptation to 
do away with this Biblical language which they declared to be out 
of the reach of the ordinary man, the yearly studies of the Centre 
de Pastorale Liturgique, founded in 1943, began to reveal, and 
with continually greater force, the importance of the Bible in the 
liturgy.

Far from being an external ornament, the Bible was found to be 
the very speech of the liturgy; the sacramental signs are 
Scriptural signs; the sacred realities presented in Christian 
worship are those of the economy of salvation revealed by sacred 
history and continuing it. As in 1946 we studied the Mass, in 
1947 the Lord's Day, in 1948 the liturgy of the sick, and in 1949 
that of the dead, in 1951 solemn Communion and confirmation, 
in 1952 baptism, and holy Orders and marriage in recent years, 
the decisive study in each case clearly was that of the Scriptural 
data, clarified by the rites themselves and set out by the Fathers 
in their catecheses.

But why should I call this work of ours a "study"? It was rather the 
joyful contemplation of the Mystery, of the perfect unity of the 
economy of salvation, of the Christian sense of history, of the 
struggles of man on this earth, of the divine pedagogy of the 
faith. It was the awareness that meditation begun under the 
impulse of the Biblical message contains indefinable harmonies. 
This door, seemingly closed, from which the people were turning 
away, actually opens on a kingdom. In the liturgy God speaks by 
the Bible.

We have come to realize, therefore, that no liturgical progress is 
possible without the Biblical education of Christians, since 
without the Bible there is no liturgy.

Now, in God's Providence, the liturgical movement can benefit 
from the Biblical studies carried out during the same period. It 
seemed at first, it is true, that Scripture scholars and liturgists 
were following parallel paths destined never to meet. At about 
the time when Dom Beauduin was launching the liturgical 
movement in the French language, Father Lagrange, who in 1890 
had founded the School of Biblical

Studies in Jerusalem, wrote the first of his commentaries on the 
Gospel commentaries which are still not outmoded after fifty 
years.

Against the modernist and liberal offensive, and in the face of the 
discoveries of historical criticism, Catholic scholars, following 
the lead of Father Lagrange, studied the composition and the pre-
history of the sacred Books, the archeology and comparative 
literature of the Orient they devoted themselves to textual 
criticism, apparently an austere and arid task. This work seemed 
calculated to discourage the reading of the holy Books for 
spiritual nourishment and refreshment, yet it has, on the 
contrary, finally served to develop it.

Abruptly, in 1943, the encyclical "Divino afflante spiritu" gave 
public support to these scholars, who up to that time had 
appeared suspect. After so much research of a seemingly 
negative trend, the Bible now appeared as being essentially the 
history, slow and progressive, of revelation and salvation. After 
the aridities of philology, literary history could at last begin to 
flourish.

A new era of Biblical study opened out: that of research into the 
Biblical themes traced out, defined, purified, interwoven, 
spiritualized from the beginning of revelation to the end. To the 
surprise of the exegetes themselves, the analysis of these themes 
rehabilitated, to a great extent, the use made of the Bible by the 
liturgy and the Fathers. It is true that discrimination has to be 
exercised in this regard; nevertheless, the continuity between 
piety and scholarship has been rediscovered; and thus the last 
obstacles to the Christian reading of Scripture have been 
removed.

The difference between the style of the notes given in Bibles 
published in France before the war and those of recent years is 
significant here; the success of the latter is a proof of the interest 
of the faithful in the sacred Books. Above all, we have been 
shown in recent years the fact of the universal appeal of the 
psalms--they are prayed by lay people in books of Hours or 
Breviaries, they are sung to popular melodies in Christian 
gatherings. The Bible has ceased to be the private possession of 
the few and has once more become the book of every Christian. 
And thus the way has been prepared for this present confluence 
of the Biblical and liturgical movements, a confluence which, we 
pray. will still further extend and strengthen their effectiveness.



CHAPTER 1: THE BIBLE IN THE LITURGY


Rev. Pierrre Jounet

MY TASK IS, at the outset of our studies, to make an inventory of 
the Biblical riches contained in the liturgical books--the Missal, 
the Ritual, the Pontifical, and the Breviary of the Divine Office--
texts that become life, the Word of God and the Word of the 
Church of Christ, in their actual sacramental celebration.

One cannot celebrate the liturgy without encountering the Bible 
at every step. This fact is obvious, both on the plane of the 
official texts which the Church places in our hands for the 
celebration and on the plane of the celebration itself. We shall, 
therefore, first present the place of the Bible, the inspired Book, 
in the liturgical formularies; and secondly, the place of the Word 
of God in the liturgical action, the celebration.


THE BIBLE IN THE LITURGICAL FORMULARIES

At first sight there would appear to be a great difference between 
the psalmody of the Hours, the celebration of the Mass, and the 
administration of a sacrament. But, as we know, a comparative 
study--and especially one made in the converging lights given by 
the different rites of the East and the West--reveals a fundamental 
identity of structure, a design in three parts: reading, chant, and 
prayer. The Church inherited this pattern from the Morning 
Office of the synagogue,[1] and, as Jungmann has shown, it is 
"neither arbitrary nor fortuitous, but corresponds to the very 
nature of the economy of salvation. Salvation comes from God, 
whose revelation we receive when we read His Word. This Word 
touches our hearts and awakens in them the echo of the chant. 
And, finally, the prayers of the assembled faithful are gathered 
together and offered to God by the priest."[2]

Now, we meet the Bible in each of the three parts of this 
fundamental liturgical pattern, equally in the liturgy of the Mass, 
in the celebration of the other sacraments, and in the Divine 
Office.


IN THE MASS

The whole liturgy of the Mass is filled with holy Scripture, both in 
the celebration of the Lord's Supper and in that of the Word of 
God.

The readings of the Mass are almost exclusively taken from 
Scripture.[3] But the arrangement of these readings differs 
considerably from one rite to another, and within each rite the 
method of reading is not necessarily uniform.

The arrangement of the readings in the various rites has only one 
common characteristic: the fact that the liturgy of the Word 
always culminates in the proclamation of the Gospel.


Arrangement of the Readings in the Western Rites

Rome ordinarily has only two readings: the Gospel is always 
preceded by a preliminary reading. But while this first reading is 
in the majority of cases taken from St. Paul, any other reading 
from the New Testament or the Old may be substituted. The ferial 
Masses of Lent have no reading of an Epistle in the strict sense of 
the word, a pericope from the Old Testament always takes its 
place. Even though certain Masses, those of the Ember 
Wednesdays and of the Wednesday of the Great Scrutiny, have 
three readings, they still have no Epistle, since the first two 
readings are taken from the Old Testament.

The Masses of the Ember Saturdays have, by way of exception 
five readings from the Old Testament before the Epistle; but this 
distribution is not a primitive one--the old Roman lectionaries 
have either four or six readings;[4] the reading from Daniel and the 
Canticle of the Three Young Men is a Gallican addition. In 
reducing the number of the readings from twelve to four, the new 
Ordo of the Easter Vigil has re-established the practice of the time 
of Gregory the Great,[5] causing us to read, according to the best 
tradition, first the Law and the Prophets, and then the Apostle 
and the Gospel.

In the rites of Milan and Toledo there are usually three readings, 
as in the ancient Gallican liturgy. St. Ambrose indicates the 
traditional order: "First the Prophet is read, and the Apostle, and 
then the Gospel."[6] Various indications, in particular the number 
of Collects given in the early substrate of the Gelasian 
Sacramentary, allow us to presume that this was also the practice 
of the Roman Church before St. Gregory the Great. If this is the 
case, then the liturgies of Milan and Toledo are the guardians of 
the universal tradition of the West.[7] Any liturgical reform should 
be aware of the weight of this testimony.


In the Oriental Rites

The Oriental rites are divided into two great families, that of 
Antioch and that of Alexandria.

The Syrian tradition has been maintained in all its purity by the 
Syrians of the Oriental rite, who always have four readings, taken 
from the Law, the Prophets, the Apostle and the Gospel, 
according to the ordinance given in the fourth century by the 
Apostolic Constitutions.[8] Here we are in contact with a tradition 
which may go back to the apostolic age, since the twofold reading 
of the Law and the Prophets formed part of the meetings in the 
synagogue on Sabbath mornings (Luke 4:16-31; Acts 13 15; 
15:21). The Western Syrians and the Maronites, having once had 
the four readings of the primitive arrangement, have now fixed 
the number at six (Law, Prophets, Wisdom, Acts, Apostles, 
Gospel), although in practice they ordinarily hold only to the last 
two. The Armenians read a passage from the Old Testament, then 
from the Apostle and the Gospel. The Byzantines read only the 
Apostle, followed by the Gospel.

The Egyptian tradition (the Coptic and Ethiopian rites) has 
remained faithful to the four readings, but it takes them all from 
the New Testament, each one having its own name: Apostolos (St. 
Paul), Catholicon (Catholic Epistle), Praxis (Acts), Evangelion 
(Gospel).

Whatever the number of readings retained in the various rites 
may be, we should note the predominance given to the New 
Testament and the special place accorded St. Paul. But for our 
purposes here, the method in accordance with which the Bible is 
proclaimed in the assembly of the faithful is of equal importance 
with the arrangement of the readings.


The Method Followed in the Readings

In the liturgy of the Mass, the Bible is read either continuously or 
in selected pericopes.

Continuous reading was the method used in the ancient Church. 
The most obvious proof of this fact is to be found in the 
voluminous commentaries on the Old and New Testaments left us 
by the Fathers, for these are simply transcriptions of their 
homilies on the Scripture readings given in the liturgy. From the 
fourth century on, we see from the letters and the sermons of St. 
Ambrose and St. Augustine that certain Books were reserved to 
certain liturgical seasons: at Milan, as at Constantinople, the 
Books of Job and Jonas were read during Lent; in Africa, Genesis 
took up part of this season, and the Acts of the Apostles were 
read during Easter time.[9] But, even though the various Books of 
the Bible were attached by preference to a special period of the 
year, the president of the assembly was still free to determine the 
length of each reading.

It was in the middle of the fifth century, in Gaul, according to the 
twofold testimony of Sidonius Apollinarius and Gennadius of 
Marseilles, that the first efforts were made to determine the 
pericopes proper to given seasons. But the continuous reading 
was, naturally, interrupted by great feasts, for which were chosen 
the passages most appropriate to the mystery being celebrated.

In our own times, although the reading of selected passages has 
become the general rule, nevertheless the ancient practice of 
continuous reading has left more than a few traces in the various 
rites: among the Syrians, both Eastern and Western, the 
continuous and complete reading of each Book of holy Scripture 
has remained the normal form. In the Byzantine liturgy, the 
reading of the Gospel is distributed throughout the year among 
the Sundays of St. John (Easter time), of St. Matthew and of St. 
Luke, the Gospel of St. Mark being used on ferias from the twelfth 
week of Matthew on.[10]

In the Roman liturgy we still find important traces of the "lectio 
continua," and many of us take pleasure in discovering them. For 
the Gospels, we can see that St. John was read from the fourth 
Sunday of Lent[11] to Pentecost; then St. Luke until the sixteenth 
Sunday after Pentecost (eleven pericopes for sixteen Sundays); 
and St. Matthew up to Septuagesima (eleven pericopes for 
thirteen Sundays per annum). The plan for reading the Epistles of 
St. Paul is still clearer, not only in the Sundays after Epiphany 
(continuous reading of the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of 
Romans), but also from the sixteenth to the twenty-fourth Sunday 
after Pentecost, where the Epistles follow the exact order of the 
New Testament.

Both methods followed by the Church in the liturgical reading of 
the Bible imply a theology of Scripture. The "lectio continua" 
proclaims the fact that all Scripture is for our instruction, that it 
is the Word of God addressed, in a continual present, to the 
community of believers; while the selection of pericopes implies 
a meaningfulness in Scripture, at once a significance in relation 
to some present event and an internal progression of revelation 
itself.

Such a selection means bringing out the typology of Scripture: the 
account of creation and of the Exodus read during the Easter 
Vigil, the great images of salvation recalled during Lent (Daniel, 
Suzanna, the Three Young Men, Jonas) nourished the paschal 
faith of the primitive Christian community. These images were 
reproduced on the walls of the catacombs and of the houses that 
served as churches,[12] and later on in mosaic on the cupolas of 
baptistries,[13] because the Christians of early times had a living 
awareness of the continuity of the mystery of salvation. They 
knew that by baptism they themselves had set out on a new 
Exodus under the leadership of the new Moses, the Good 
Shepherd, Jesus.

The selection of pericopes also brings out the fact of a 
progression in revelation, and the fact that the believer must go 
through successive stages to arrive at the final goal. So, for 
example, in the Milanese rite for the Mass of the second Sunday 
after Pentecost the continuity of the divine plan shines out 
clearly: the first reading (Num. 20:2-13) shows us Moses drawing 
the living water from the rock; then in the Gospel (John 2:1-11) 
we see the water changed into wine, thus preparing us for the 
consecration in which this wine is transformed into the Blood of 
the risen Lord.


The Chants

The Bible furnishes not only the readings of the Mass; the 
Christian community looks to it also in most instances for the 
texts of the chants by which to respond in some way to God's 
Word. We are thinking particularly of the Gradual response and 
the processional chants for the Entrance, the Offertory, and the 
Communion--and with these we must also include the Alleluia 
chant, which, in all rites without exception, accompanies the 
Gospel procession.

Among the chants of the Mass, a special place must be given to 
the Gradual, not only because of its antiquity--which has given to 
the collection of all the chants of the Mass the name of 
"Graduale"--but because of the exceptional place that it holds in 
the liturgy of the Word. It is above all by this chant that the 
Church responds to the Word of God with the Word of God. 
"Legenti respondentes cantavimus," as St. Augustine says in one of 
his sermons.[14] This is, as a recently published French Missal well 
names it, the "chant of meditation."

To understand its complete religious value, we should not think 
of it as sung with the lengthy neums by which monastic piety 
adorned it, but rather in its primitive form of psalm verses sung 
by a deacon or a lector,[15] with the people singing a refrain at 
regular intervals, often the acclamation Alleluia. We find 
Hippolytus--in the setting of the agape, it is true--already 
suggesting that psalms containing the alleluia should be used.[16] 
And the Irish Missal of Stowe (seventh to eighth century) contains 
as Communion chants a whole series of psalms in which the 
alleluia is repeated again and again.[17]

It may be that the Gradual had even an earlier form than this 
responsorial one: the simple reading of the psalm, of which we 
have the last vestige in the Tract of the Lenten Masses.

We have been speaking of psalmody; it is from the Psalter that, 
from the beginning, the Gradual was traditionally taken, and later 
on the processional chants as well: "Davidicum psalmum consona 
voce cantavimus," St. Leo said to his assembled people.[18] The 
processional chants, at least the Introit and the Communion, 
follow one another in the Roman rite for the Sundays after 
Pentecost according to a kind of continuous psalmody (Ps. 12, 17, 
24, 26, 27...for the Introit; Ps. 9, 12, 16, 17...for the Communion). 
But the Gradual psalm is always selected for its own sake, as Dom 
Hesbert has shown in his "Antiphonale Missarum."[19] We find the 
Bible in the chants of the Mass, then, both in the form of "lectio 
continua" and in that of selected pericopes. We have already 
shown the significance of each method in speaking about the 
readings.

We should also note here the fact that, while the majority of Mass 
rites use varying formulas in the Communion chants, the ancient 
Church had only one Communion psalm, Psalm 33: "Benedicam 
Dominum" with the verse "Gustate et videte." This is the testimony 
of the "Apostolic Constitutions" (fourth century) and of the Liturgy 
of St. James for Syria, of St. Augustine for Africa[20] and St. Cyril 
for Jerusalem. This same theme is developed today in the 
Armenian Communion chant: "Come to the Lord and be filled with 
His light, alleluia: taste and see how good is the Lord, alleluia.[21]

As to the Alleluia chant preceding the Gospel, this is not a kind of 
second Gradual, as some liturgists have thought, but an 
acclamation accompanying the Gospel procession. Here the 
witness of all the Oriental liturgies is conclusive.[22] When, in 
Rome, it seemed desirable to add a psalm verse to the Alleluia, 
this was always chosen by preference from among the royal 
psalms, especially from Psalm 92, "Dominus regnavit." This was 
for a long time sung in Greek in remembrance of the Byzantine 
origin of the ceremony: it acclaimed the Christ-Basileus who, 
under the image of the book of the Gospels, appears, surrounded 
with lights and incense, in the midst of the assembled 
community. But however moving the rite which accompanies it 
may be, the Alleluia verse should never be considered equal in 
liturgical importance to the Gradual psalm. And still less should 
it be allowed to supplant it in the celebration.


The Prayers

In the prayers of the liturgy of the Mass, the place of the Bible is 
less immediately evident but it is no less important. It is true that 
the prayers of assembly or those over the offerings, the great 
Eucharistic prayer (the Oriental anaphoras, the Roman canon, the 
Spanish illatio, the Gallican immolatio), which are the free 
creations of the religious genius of a people or of a period, could 
have been nourished from sources other than the Bible only.

But it was the Bible that gave them their typology; it is frequently 
from meditation on the Scriptural event, on the conjunction 
between the Scriptural event of the past and its accomplishment 
in the New Covenant, that the prayer is spontaneously born. We 
need only remember the "Exsultet," the twelve prayers of the old 
Easter Vigil and those of the old Pentecost Vigil, the ancient 
Ambrosian Prefaces--which had a place for several centuries in 
our Roman-French sacramentaries and which are still the glory of 
the Milanese Missal[23]--in order to grasp the full expressiveness 
of liturgical prayer nourished by Biblical typology.

But the Eucharistic prayer takes far more than its typology from 
the Bible. It places itself in the stream of the history of salvation, 
the stages of which are described for us in the Bible.

Having sung the greatness and holiness of God the Father, the 
Son and the Spirit, uniting the voice of the Church with that of 
the angels whom Isaias heard crying the Sanctus; having 
celebrated the divine economy of the Old Covenant, God's choice 
of a people as His own, the epic of the Exodus and the entrance 
into the Promised Land, the Oriental anaphoras--and our own 
Roman canon in its succession of proper Prefaces and 
Communicantes--sing the mystery of the redemptive incarnation. 
Then they use the very words of the Gospels and St. Paul to 
consecrate the bread and wine and to recall the command of the 
Lord to celebrate His memorial until He returns.[24]

And, finally, the prex eucharistica places the Sacrifice of the New 
Covenant in the great sacrificial history of redeemed humanity, in 
a mighty synthesis that goes from Genesis to the Apocalypse, 
from the sacrifice of Abel the Just to the offering made by the 
hands of the angel on the golden altar of heaven.

And all this is carried out in a Biblical way, in a long prayer of 
blessing and thanksgiving borrowed from the Jewish ritual of the 
Berakha of the Table.[25] Here appear successively the song of 
Moses at the Exodus (Ex. 15:1-8), Nehemias' prayer of 
supplication (9:5-37), and the ardent thanksgiving of St. Paul at 
the beginning of the Epistle to the Ephesians. If the Roman canon 
has channeled its prayer in the stylistic forms of the ancient 
pagan cult of Rome, the sap that goes through them is 
nonetheless new. It antedates the unknown master of the fourth 
century who fixed its rhythms; it comes from the people of the 
Bible. It was when he opened the Missal at the prayer "Supra quae 
propitio" that Pius XI spoke that phrase which illuminates our 
whole liturgy and our whole religious history: "Spiritually, we are 
Semites."[26]

Everywhere in our Missal--in its readings, chants, prayers--we 
find the Bible. And the Mass, the climax of the liturgy, is not an 
exceptional example of the coming together of Scripture and 
liturgy. This is true of the celebration of the other sacraments as 
well.


IN THE LITURGY OF THE SACRAMENTS

To limit the scope of our report, we shall be content to indicate 
(1) how the prayers accompanying the sacramental rites have 
been built up from the Bible, taking baptism, Orders, and 
marriage as examples; and (2) the place given to Biblical readings 
by the Oriental liturgies in the celebration of the sacraments.


The Biblical Typology of the Sacramental Rites in the Roman 
liturgy

The liturgy of baptism reveals all its riches only to the man who 
studies it from the viewpoint of the ordo for the baptism of 
adults, placing himself in the context of the Lenten liturgy and 
the Easter Vigil.[27] When, during the exorcisms, the priest 
addresses those whom he calls "children of the promise," it is in 
order to pray on their behalf to the God of Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob, recalling the deliverance from Egypt, Mount Sinai, and the 
angel protecting the people on their march across the desert.[28]

But it is especially during the holy night, in the prayer 
consecrating the water, that the continuity of the two Covenants 
is clearly shown. To the primordial waters on which rested the 
Spirit, to the four rivers of the earthly paradise, to the waters of 
the flood and the water springing from the rock to quench the 
people's thirst, the Lord Jesus communicated a life-giving power 
by receiving baptism from John, by changing water into wine at 
Cana, by walking on the waves of the lake, by causing water and 
blood to flow forth from His side opened on the Cross, by 
sending His apostles to baptize all nations and thus to prepare 
the manifestation of the holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem, which 
will be watered, like a new paradise, by the rushing rivers of life.

What a magnificent synthesis of Biblical theology, the realism of 
which should not escape our notice: in baptism these are the 
wonderful works of God which are renewed for him who enters 
the ranks of the redeemed.[29]

The meaning of the sacrament of Orders, by which the three 
degrees of the sacred hierarchy are established, is revealed in the 
consecratory prayers for a bishop, for priests, and for deacons by 
a continual reference to Biblical typology: high priest of the New 
Covenant, leader of the new people of God, the bishop is a new 
Aaron and a new Moses; the fullness of the Spirit is conferred 
upon him by a spiritual anointing, of which the anointing of 
Aaron was the image, and the sumptuous vestments of the 
Hebrew high priest were but the symbol of the holiness of the 
episcopate. The image that hovers over the elect of the Lord is 
that of the glory of Yahweh (consecratory prayer of the bishop).

Again, as Aaron associated his two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, in 
his priestly office (Num. 3:4); as Moses set apart seventy-two 
elders of Israel to whom God communicated His spirit to govern 
the people (Num. 11:16-25); as the apostles chose men to 
collaborate with them--so the bishop can associate with himself a 
college of priests of the second order, preachers of the second 
rank, who will be his co-workers in the divine service and in the 
government of the Church (consecratory prayer of priests). And 
finally, as in former times the Lord chose the sons of Levi to 
watch faithfully over the mysterious works of His house, so today 
the pontiff lays his hands on the men who are to be his ministers 
at the altar and the administrators of his own house (prayer 
consecrating deacons).

Thus, the hierarchy of the Church, in its three sacred Orders, is 
seen to arise from the depths of Exodus. The assembly in which it 
carries out its ministry here and now is no longer the assembly of 
the desert, gathered around the Tabernacle; it is the assembly of 
the new people of God, united around the altar to take part in the 
Banquet of the Lord.

Yet the Church never forgets the whole continuity in which her 
own history is included. To assure ourselves of this fact, we need 
only reread in the Roman "Pontificale" the beginning of the 
famous synodal admonition which may be the work of St. 
Caesarius of Arles: "Beloved brothers and priests of the Lord," the 
bishop says to those with whom he has just celebrated the 
Eucharist, "you are the co-workers of our Order.[30] We ourselves, 
in spite of our unworthiness, hold the place of Aaron; you, that of 
Eleazar and Ithamar. We carry on the mission of the twelve 
apostles; you continue that of the seventy-two disciples. We are 
your shepherds, and you are the shepherds of the souls that have 
been entrusted to you."[31]

Christian marriage also is placed in the context of the history of 
salvation, which began with the first human couple and will be 
completed in the wedding-feast of the Lamb. We find again in the 
liturgy of marriage the recalling of the Old Covenant, with Adam 
and Eve established in the indissoluble unity of those who are 
"two in one single flesh,"[32] receiving the blessing of fruitfulness 
which the Lord would never revoke, neither after the fall nor in 
the flood. And the Old Covenant is here also with the holy women 
of the patriarchal period, Sara, Rebecca, Rachel--types of woman 
as both wife and mother;[33] with Tobias and the second Sara;[34] 
with the great images of the nuptial love of God for His people, 
and of human happiness pictured in the concrete images of 
abundance and fruitfulness in family life.[35]

But beyond the Old Covenant, the New gives to the union of man 
and wife its highest dignity by making it the sign of the union 
between Christ and His Church.[36] Although it has less of a lyric 
quality than the liturgy of Antioch, that of Rome makes its velatio 
nuptualis a kind of Canticle of Canticles, the themes of which 
should echo indefinitely in Christian family life.

From baptism to holy Orders and marriage, then, the liturgy of 
the sacraments opens out to us their true nature: their source is 
the death and resurrection of Christ, and at the same time they 
realize a stage in the plan of God's love, which began in paradise 
with the creation and the fall and is being carried out all through 
the ages until the Lord's return.


The Biblical Readings in the Sacramental Rites of the Orient

The East has retained more than we the communal character of 
the liturgical celebration. This fact is obvious in the case of the 
Divine Office, the obligation of which is still attached to a parish 
or monastic community and not to individuals. It is true also of 
the administration of the sacraments, including that of the 
anointing of the sick. Many of us were deeply moved in recent 
years by the accounts of the death of Mar Ivanios (1953) and of 
Mar Severios (1955), the two great bishops of the Syro-Malabar 
rite, who each passed from this world to God in the midst of a 
true liturgical celebration in which each was the principal actor 
since he was still the pontiff, as in the old accounts of saintly 
deaths. And this communal celebration of the sacraments always 
takes place in the context of a true liturgy of the Word. We shall 
content ourselves with giving a few examples.

Christian initiation.[37] The East has remained faithful, in its 
liturgical texts if not always in actual practice, to the continuous 
rite of Christian initiation: all the rites, with the exception of the 
Chaldean, assume that after baptism by immersion and 
confirmation, the neophyte will receive the Eucharist. "If the 
candidate is a very little child," states the Byzantine Ordo, "he 
should be communicated under the species of wine only." And so 
it is not astonishing to find that the baptismal rites still take the 
place of the Mass of the Catechumens, as they did in the times of 
St. Justin and Hippolytus.

After the rites of the catechumenate (signation, exorcisms, 
renunciation of Satan, and profession of faith), everyone goes 
into the baptistry. There, in all the rites except the Byzantine, 
readings are given before the priest blesses the water.[38] In the 
Byzantine rite the readings take place after confirmation, in the 
sanctuary, immediately before the celebration of the divine 
Liturgy. The pericopes are taken especially from the teaching of 
St. Paul on baptism (Rom. 6:1-8), from the conversation of Jesus 
with Nicodemus (John 3:1-8), and from the commission given to 
the apostles to baptize all nations (Matt. 28:16-20).

Marriage.[39] Only the Armenians and the Ethiopians give the 
nuptial blessing during the Mass, but all the rites accompany the 
celebration of the espousals and of the crowning with a certain 
number of Biblical readings. The Byzantines content themselves 
with two (Eph. 5:20-23 and John 2:1-11). The Copts have a double 
series for Sunday and for weekdays. And the Armenians have no 
less than seventeen readings, the mere naming of which 
(although certain pericopes are repeated) could furnish the 
outlines of a solid Biblical theology of marriage. Here is the list:

For the espousals: Prov. 9: 12-17; Cant. 8; 14; Osee 14:6-10; Is. 
27:11-13; Gal. 4:2-7, 4:13; Luke 1:26-28.

For the blessing of the bride's robe: Is. 61:10--62:3; 1 Pet. 3:1-9; 
John 2:1-11.

For the crowning (the marriage properly so called): Gen. 1:26-27; 
Gen. 2:21-24; Is. 61:9--62: 6; Eph. 5:11-23; Matt. 19:2-9.

For the laying aside of the crown: Osee 14:6-8; 1 Tim. 2:9-15; John 
2:1-11.

The Anointing of the Sick.[40] The rite of anointing is very long. 
With the Syrians it lasts about two hours. In all the rites, the 
participation of several priests is required if possible, according 
to the text of St. James: "Is anyone sick among you? Let him call 
in the priests of the Church" (James 5:14). In the Byzantine rite 
the Office of the Holy Oil is entrusted to seven priests, each of 
whom gives an anointing. And each of these is accompanied by 
two readings, an Epistle and a Gospel. Here again the choice is 
interesting as giving a Biblical light on the theology of the 
anointing of the sick.

1st anointing: James 5:10-16; Luke 10:25-37 (the Good Samaritan).

2nd anointing: Rom. 16:1-7; Luke 19:1-10 (the meal with 
Zaccheus).

3rd anointing: 1 Cor. 12:27--13:8; Matt. 10:1, 5-9 (power of 
healing).

4th anointing: 2 Cor. 6:16--7:1; Matt. 8:14-23 (healing of Peter's 
mother-in-law).

5th anointing: 2 Cor. 1:8-11; Matt. 25:1-13 (parable of the ten 
virgins).

6th anointing: Gal. 5:22--6:2; Matt. 15:21-28 (the daughter of the 
Canaanite woman).

7th anointing: 1 Thess. 5:14-23; Matt. 9:9-13 (the meal with Levi).

Our own ritual of the visiting of the sick, which is so beautiful 
and so little used, would be still further enriched if all these texts 
were included, bringing their message of hope and peace.


IN THE DIVINE OFFICE

Everyone knows, of course, that in all the rites the Bible furnishes 
the very texture of the Divine Office with its psalmody, the 
singing of the canticles of the Old and New Testaments, and the 
continuous reading of the holy Books. We shall, therefore, make 
only two observations here on the subject of the relationship 
between the Bible and the Office.


The Place of the Biblical Readings in the Office

The Roman Office is typically monastic. This is why, following 
the ordinance of the Rule of St. Benedict, all the readings of any 
length are included in the Office for the end of the night, in the 
nocturns of the vigil. The day Hours, including Lauds and 
Vespers, have only "Little Chapters" that are mere reminders.

By contrast, the Oriental Office, retaining a far more clearly 
marked popular structure, gives its Scripture readings at the 
Hours in which the people are invited to participate: Lauds in the 
morning; Vespers in the evening; and on the vigils of the great 
feasts, vigils which are days of fasting and more intense prayer, 
there are readings at the Hours of Prime, Terce, Sext and None, 
which are called on these days the "Great Hours." This, at least, is 
the Byzantine tradition, which is echoed to a certain extent by the 
liturgies of Milan and Toledo. Thus the Spanish Breviary indicates 
four readings for Terce and None, and one reading for Sext on 
each of the three days of the fast preceding Epiphany.[41]

Let us take, for example, the feast of Epiphany itself. In the 
Byzantine rite, the holy theophanies of our Lord are preceded by 
a vigil with obligatory fasting. Each of the Great Hours of the day 
has three readings (Prophecy, New Testament, Gospel); then in 
the evening come the Vespers of the feast. This includes, 
together with the usual psalmody and the "lucernarium," fifteen 
readings (thirteen from the Old Testament, followed by St. Paul 
and the Gospel) and is completed by the solemn celebration of 
the Liturgy of St. Basil. The Liturgy itself is followed by the 
blessing of the water, which includes five readings.[42]

Although the Milanese liturgy does not display such profusion, 
somewhat overwhelming for Latins, it does possess for the 
evening of January 5 a Vesper Office of similar structure: the 
Office of the "lucernarium" followed by four readings with their 
responsorial psalms, and by the Mass of the vigil, after which the 
psalmody of Vespers is continued.[43]

We might note that, although the Church always gives a large 
place in the Divine Office to the reading of the Bible, the place for 
this reading is not the same in all rites, and it is not self-evident 
that the one accorded to it in the Roman rite is the best. We could 
quite well conceive of its insertion at the end of the psalmody of 
Vespers; here it would afford the best form of evening prayer for 
the Christian community and could serve as the prelude to 
evening Mass.


The Biblical Inspiration of the Prayers

Unfortunately, the Roman rite has chosen a facile solution to the 
question of prayers in the Office, ending all the Hours except 
Prime and Compline with the Collect of the Mass. We are far from 
the wealth of the Milanese Office, which introduces up to five 
proper prayers into the psalmody of Vespers and has for each of 
the Hours of the day a prayer asking for the special grace 
connected with that Hour: "...as at the third hour Thou didst 
strengthen the apostles of Thy Son by the visitation of the Holy 
Spirit..."; "...who didst will that Thy Son should ascend the cross 
at the sixth hour..."; "...who didst command that the thief who 
professed his faith on the gibbet of the cross should at the ninth 
hour pass over to paradise...."[44]

Our Office, however, had an earlier state in which flowered a 
prayer made up entirely of psalmody and the Biblical background 
of the Hour being celebrated. We have two important witnesses to 
this. First, the Psalter Collects. In accordance with the tradition of 
the Egyptian monks, which was accepted from the fourth century 
on into the practice of the Churches of the West, after each psalm 
came a brief pause for prayer (the Gloria Patri was born of this 
custom). Then at the end of this silent prayer the president of the 
assembly gathered the whole Christian substance of the psalm 
that had just been heard and made it into a Collect.

We still possess three series of these psalm-prayers, which have 
an incomparable value in giving a Christian understanding of the 
Psalter. For example, consider the prayer in the Roman series 
concluding Psalm 112, "Laudate pueri":[45] "Laudantes benedictum 
nomen tuum omnipotens Deus, rogamus ut nos in sinum matris 
ecclesiae collocatos, caritatis tuae facias stabilitate connecti. 
Per...." "Praising Thy blessed Name, almighty God, we pray that 
we who are gathered together in the bosom of our mother, the 
Church, may be bound together in the firm bond of Thy love. 
Through Christ...."

With the psalm-prayers of the sixth century, we might also recall 
the morning and evening prayers of the sacramentaries which 
may date from the same period. These are the prayers with which 
the president of the assembly concluded the morning and 
evening gatherings of the faithful. Such, for example, after those 
of the Leonine Sacramentary, are the orationes ad Matutinas (3, 
94), the orationes ad Vesperum (3, 85), and the twenty-five 
orationes paschales vespertinales (1, 56) of the Gelasian 
Sacramentary.

All are filled with echoes of the Bible: "Efface, we pray Thee, O 
Lord, the notice of our guilt inscribed by the law of sin, which 
Thou hast made void for us in the paschal mystery by the 
resurrection of Thy Son...." "O Lord, true Light and Author of light, 
we pray Thee that Thou wouldst dispel the darkness of our vices 
and enlighten us with the light of virtues...." "Give light, we pray 
Thee, O Lord, to our darkness, and in Thy kindness drive away all 
attacks of the night."[46]

The Gregorian Sacramentary also has an analogous series of 
orationes matutinales, orationes vespertinales, and orationes 
cotidianae,[47] which have disappeared in its successors of the 
ninth and tenth centuries. The abandonment of these prayers at 
the time when the first abridgments of the Office, the first 
"Breviaries," were being developed has meant an impoverishment 
of the Roman liturgy. Here again, may we express the desire that 
these documents, born of the piety of the contemporaries of St. 
Benedict, of St. Caesarius of Arles, or of St. Isidore of Seville, may 
emerge from the domain of specialists and once more be used to 
enrich the official prayer of the Church.

We have now carried out an investigation of the liturgical books 
of the East and West, sufficiently extensive in both time and 
space: quod semper, quod ubique. And this has served amply to 
justify our initial statement: the formularies of the Catholic 
liturgy are taken from Biblical texts. It remains now to show, 
more briefly, how this sacred text, gathered from the Bible in the 
liturgical formularies, is welcomed as a living Word in the very 
act of celebration.


THE WORD OF GOD IN THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATION

The liturgical celebration manifests the mystery of the Word of 
God and gives it its highest degree of effectiveness. The mystery 
of the Word is essentially that of a living presence: the Word of 
God received in the Bible is not presented to us as a document 
taken from the archives, as would be, for instance, the testament 
of Richelieu or the record of the trial of St. Joan, but as a Word 
transmitted to us here and now by the messenger of the living 
God. And it is precisely in the liturgical proclamation of the Word 
of God that this twofold actualization takes place, of the 
messenger and of the message.


The Messenger as Present in our Midst

God speaks to me here and now through His messenger. This 
living messenger is, above all, the Apostle. In the oldest 
description that we possess of the liturgical assembly, that of St. 
Justin (about the year 150), the author says that "the recollections 
of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read," thus 
giving the first place to the apostolic message.

When we examined the organization of the readings in the 
different rites, we were able to establish the fact of the 
universality of the Gospel reading and also of the exceptional 
place given to the reading of the New Testament, especially of St. 
Paul. When the Old Testament is included in the readings, it is 
not read for itself or as one more sacred text; it has its place in 
virtue of its prophetic character and the light shed on it by the 
New Testament. In the non-Roman liturgies, the Old Testament 
readings are nearly always explicitly commented on by the 
apostolic reading that follows.

And all this leads us to take cognizance of the living presence of 
the apostle in the midst of the Christian community. "In the 
organization of the Church, we are connected with Christ by the 
apostles; and the Church, founded on them, causes us to hear 
their voice when she instructs us, when she repeats to us the 
good news they proclaimed."[48] "The apostles were, in fact, the 
first to break the Eucharistic bread in Christian gatherings, and 
their presence was replaced, when they were no longer on earth, 
by the reading of their writings, which were to 'bring them back,' 
to render them present, so to say, in the midst of the community 
gathered round the altar."[49]

This living presence of the apostle in the midst of the assembled 
community gives an increased importance to the appeal to their 
intercession: "May the prayer of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John be 
a wall of defense to our souls," sings the choir in the Chaldean 
liturgy;[50] after the reading of the "Catholicon," the Copts have the 
following prayer "O Lord our God who has revealed to us by Thy 
holy apostles the mystery of Thy Gospel, which is the glory of 
Thy Christ, and who has entrusted to them, according to the 
infinite riches of Thy grace, the work of preaching to all nations 
the incomprehensible treasures of Thy mercy: we pray Thee, 
make us worthy to share in their lot and in their inheritance. 
Grant that we may always walk in their footsteps, imitate their 
struggles, and share in the tribulations that they underwent for 
the cause of justice."[51]

The living presence of the apostle--but, above all, through his 
mediation, the living presence of Him who sent the apostle, 
Christ Himself.... To realize this we need only consider the 
honors paid to the Gospel.

In the Roman Rite. In the entrance procession of a pontifical Mass, 
the book of the Gospels is carried by the subdeacon; then the 
bishop places it on the altar, after he has kissed the altar itself.[52] 
But this is only a vestige of the ancient liturgy; then the book of 
Gospels was carried to the altar in a solemn entrance procession, 
preceding that of the bishop, by one or more acolytes wearing 
chasubles; when they had come into the sanctuary, a subdeacon 
who had accompanied them received the book and placed it on 
the altar: "eum desuper planeta illius suscipiens, manibus suis 
honorifice super altare ponat."[53] And the book thus remained on 
the altar until the moment when the deacon took it up in order to 
sing the Gospel.

The procession to the ambo has great majesty in the description 
given in the Ordo of the seventh century:[54] two acolytes carry 
torches and three subdeacons in charge of the incensorium walk 
ahead of the deacon who has kissed the book before taking it 
from the altar. All, of course are standing, while the choir sings 
the Alleluia and a psalm verse taken from the royal psalms. Here 
we have, in fact, a theophany, an appearance of Christ the King, 
the Son of God, of one substance with the Father, in the midst of 
the assembly. The honors paid to Him are those that were 
rendered to the imperial majesty.

Catholic faith has always thus treated the book of the Gospels as 
the equivalent of the living Person of the Lord. This is the reason 
why, from the Council of Ephesus to that of the Vatican the book 
of Gospels has presided over the council meetings. St. Cyril of 
Alexandria gives witness to this: "The holy Synod assembled 
together in the church gave Christ, as it were, membership in and 
the presidency of the Council. For the venerable Gospel was 
placed upon a holy throne."[55] At the end of the seventh century 
Pseudo-Germain of Paris wrote: "The procession of the holy 
Gospel comes forth like the power of Christ triumphant over 
death, with the aforesaid chanting and with seven lighted 
candles...going up into the opposite ambo...while the clergy cry 
out: Glory to Thee, O Lord."[56]

When the deacon has placed the book of Gospels on the desk of 
the ambo, the announcement that he makes of God's Word is 
hailed, not only by the clergy present, but by all the people: 
"Gloria tibi, Domine!" Nowadays, after the singing of the pericope, 
the book is reverently carried by the subdeacon to the celebrant 
for him to kiss; but in former times it was presented to all: 
"tenens ante pectus suum super planetum porrigit osculandum 
omnibus." And the book is finally replaced carefully in its case 
("deinde ponitur in capsa"), for now the liturgy of the Word is to 
be followed by that of the Banquet of the Lord.

In the Oriental Rites. These yield nothing to the Roman liturgy in 
the homage they give to the Gospel. In his day, St. Jerome 
admired the practice, in all the Eastern Churches, of lighting 
candles at the reading of the Gospel, even though the sun had 
already risen.[57] As we all know, in the Byzantine rites the book is 
carried solemnly to the altar in a real procession, the Byzantine 
"Little Entrance," which corresponds to the Great Entrance or 
procession with the offerings. The Syrian rite of Antioch is 
content to have a procession with the book around the altar, an 
obvious vestige of the ancient entrance procession. The 
procession to the ambo--or, at least, the presentation of the 
Gospel when it is sung directly on the threshold of the sanctuary-
-is, in all the rites, similar to that of the Roman: lights, incense, 
singing of the Alleluia.

In the majority of the rites (Coptic, Eastern and Western Syrian, 
Armenian) the singing of the Gospel is reserved to the celebrant 
priest or bishop. The role of the deacon is to invite the people to 
welcome the Word of the Lord: "Silence!" says the Syrian deacon, 
"with fear and purity let us hear the message of the living words 
of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which is read in our 
presence."[58] In the Armenian rite, to the invitation of the deacon: 
Proschume (Be attentive), the people answer: "It is God who 
speaks."[59]


The Message as Given Here and Now

It is God who speaks, and it is today that He speaks to His people 
gathered together in response to His call. Here we are at the very 
heart of the mystery of the Word proclaimed in the liturgy. 
Theologians still have much to tell us concerning the mode of 
this today which is realized in the mystery of Christian worship 
and concerning the sacramental efficacy of the liturgical 
celebration affirmed so explicitly in the decree "Maxima 
Redemptoris"; but the fact dominating all the controversies of the 
various schools is the calm use that the Church has always made, 
throughout the entire liturgical year, in the proclamation of the 
Word of God and in the celebration of her mysteries, of the word 
today.

It is quite certain that in hearing the call of the Apostle on the 
first Sunday of Lent: "Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, 
now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2), we have no temptation to 
transport ourselves back nineteen hundred years; it is today that 
we are invited to begin our paschal ascent to Jerusalem, to enter 
into the combat with Satan, as St. Leo the Great explains to his 
flock gathered in the Lateran.[60] In the same way, then, when on 
Palm Sunday we take part in the procession after the singing of 
the Gospel which announces the triumphal entry of Jesus into 
Jerusalem, or when, at the evening Mass on Holy Thursday, the 
celebrant reproduces the Gospel scene by washing the feet of 
twelve of his brethren, this is not an evocation of the past, it is 
not a play--it is today.

Intimately connected with the proclamation of the Word of God, 
making but one reality with it, the priestly homily has, moreover, 
as its purpose to introduce us into this today by opening our 
souls to the Word we have listened to, by planting that Word in 
the very heart of our spiritual needs, and, frequently, by bringing 
to light the matrix of meaning that otherwise would seem strange 
to many by reason of its different cultural context. The problem 
of the proclamation of the Word of God in a living language has 
become today a most acute one in the Latin Church. But let us not 
forget that the problem is twofold: the problem of translation, but 
also the problem of preaching. The two problems are indissolubly 
bound up with one another in the proclamation of the Word if we 
desire that it be received today as a fruitful seed.

The efficacy and the actuality of the living Word reach their 
maximum degree of realization on the further side of the 
proclamation itself, in the sacramental action. And this is true not 
only because "the Word of God is the proclamation in the Church 
of the mystery of salvation realized in the Eucharist,"[61] but 
because the words of Jesus gathered up in the Gospel, announced 
to the people in the Epistle of Holy Thursday, are assumed anew 
by the Lord as His personal action when the priest pronounces 
over the bread and wine the words of consecration. Here the 
Word of God is actio Christi, as Pope Pius XII reminded us in his 
address closing the Assisi Congress.[62]

Without wishing to anticipate the chapters to come, which will 
bring out this fundamental relationship of the sacrament to the 
Word, it is, nevertheless, indispensable for us to discover the 
twofold climax of the evangelical liturgy and the Eucharistic 
liturgy in this twofold presence of Christ manifested in the 
proclamation of the Gospel and in the consecration of the 
offerings, in order to understand the internal progress of the 
celebration of the Mass, and the permanence of the Word of God 
at the very moment when it is by its means that a new mode of 
the presence of the risen Lord in the assembly of the faithful is to 
be realized.

For it is precisely here, in the sacramental actualization of the 
living Word of God, that the liturgy opens out to us the mystery 
of the Scriptures, as did the Lord to the two disciples at Emmaus 
at the moment when He was about to sit down with them at table 
and break the bread for them. As it is in the liturgy of the Word 
that the progressive revelation of the Old Testament receives its 
definitive clarification in the light cast on it by the teaching of 
the apostles and by that of the Lord, the celebration of baptism or 
the Eucharist causes us to enter into a sacred history which 
continues through the ages until the Lord shall return in the 
manifestation of His glory.

In this perspective we can easily understand the indestructible 
bond that the will of the Lord and the profound life of the Church 
have woven between Bible and liturgy, and how it is that the 
Biblical renewal and the liturgical renewal can make progress 
only if they proceed together, each referring to the other so as to 
bring out all its own potentialities. What kind of a liturgical 
celebration would that be in which the Biblical readings remained 
incomprehensible to the understanding of the congregation, in 
which the Psalter was a sealed book and could no longer give to 
the prayer of the people its richest expression, in which the 
Exodus meant no more than a vague memory, in which the sacred 
names of Jerusalem and Sion awakened no echoes in our hearts 
with their wealth of hope and love? There can be no authentic 
liturgical life without the exultant discovery of the message 
carried by the Book which God has put into our hands.

But, if Christian specialists in Biblical studies search the caves at 
Qumran, if they devote themselves to discovering the literary 
genre of each inspired Book, bringing out its structure, from 
Genesis to Apocalypse, they are well aware that they are far more 
than mere historians of the past, that the whole reason for the 
existence of the Books, which these scholars are now restoring to 
the Church in the freshness of their first flowering, is to be 
received in a community of the faithful, to be welcomed with the 
fervor with which the Jews heard the scribe Esdras read them the 
Law, to be accepted with the same Amen (Neh. 8:6).



ENDNOTES

1. A. Baumstark, "Comparative Liturgy" (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1955).

2. J. A. Jungmann, "Des lois de la celebration liturgique" (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1956).

3. The Gallican and Spanish liturgies often reserved the first reading of the Mass for the 
"Passiones" of the martyrs. The lectionary of Luxeuil witnesses to this usage for the feast of the 
apostles Peter and Paul (edition by Dom Salmon, Rome, 1944, p. 181.) See the article by de 
Gaiffier, "La lecture des Actes des Martyrs dans la priers liturgique en Occident," "Analecta 
Bollandiana," 1954, pp. 134-166.

4. According to the witness of the "Comes" of Wurzburg (end of the sixth century), published by 
G. Morin, "Le plus ancien Comes ou le lectionaire de l'Eglise romaine," in "Revue benedictine," 
1910, pp. 41-74, reproduced with some errors in the DACL, 8, col. 2284-2302.

5. The fourth reading is not that indicated in the Gregorian Sacramentary (Wilson edition, p. 
55), but that given in the appendix to Ordo XXVIII (M. Andrieu, "Les ordines romani," 3, p. 412), 
which is equally Roman.

6. Ambrose of Milan, "In psalmum" CXVIII, 17, 10, PL 15, col. 1443: "Prius propheta legitur, et 
apostolus, et sic evanglium." For the system of readings in use in Toledo, see G. Morin, "Liber 
comicus quo Toletana Ecclesia ante annos mille et ducentos utebatur" (Maredsous, 1893).

7. Africa seems to be an exception. When St. Augustine speaks of tres lectiones, he includes the 
psalm as one of them: "Hoc de apostolica lectione percepimus, deinde cantavimus psalmum, post 
haec evangelica lection, has tres lectiones pertractavimus" (Sermon 176).

8. The best edition is to be found in Funk, "Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum" 
(Paderborn, 1905), Vol. I.

9.  References in the DACL, 5, col. 248-249. See also Baumstark, op. cit.

10. N. Nilles, "Kalendarium manuale utriusque Ecclesiae" (Ratisbonne, 1897), 2, pp. 445-459.

11. The day on which the Roman Lent probably began before the year 380. See A. Chavasse, "La 
preparation de la Paque a Rome avant le Ve. Siecle," Melanges Chaine, pp. 67-76.

12. At Doura-Europos, in the third-century baptistry, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, the 
Good Shepherd can be seen; cf. Jean de Lassus, "Sanctuaires chretiens en Syrie" (Paris, 1944), p. 
11. This study is summarized by the author in DACL, 15, col. 1864.

13. L. de Bruyne, "La decoration des baptisteres paleochretiens," in "Miscellanea liturgica in 
honoren L. Cuniberti Mohlberg" ( Rome, 1948), IV, pp. 189-220.

14. St. Augustine, "Enarrationes super psalmos," in Psalm. 40, 1.

15. "Cantor cum cantatorio ascendit et dicit responsum" ("Ordo Primus," n. 57, ed. Andrieu, IX, p. 
86). During the paschal night it was the same lector who read in Latin both the Lesson and the 
Canticle before giving place to a lector in Greek. (Appendix to Ordo 28, ed. Andrieu, III, p. 412.

16. Hippolytus of Rome, "La tradition apostolique," n. 26, ed. Botte, "Sources chretiennes," II 
(Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1946), p. 61.

17. G. H. Warner, The Stowe Missal (London, 1915), p. 18.

18. Leo the Great, "Sermo 3 de Natali ipsius," PL 54, col. 45.

19. R. J. Hesbert, "Antiphonale Missarum sextuplex" (Brussels-Paris, 1935), p. 88.

20. "Communion" (Rite and antiphon of), in DACL, 3, col. 2428-2429.

21. "Liturgie de la Messe armenienne" (Venice, 1939), p. 68.

22. The whole picture is given in A. Raes, "Introductio in liturgiam orientalem" (Rome, 1947), 
pp. 78-79.

23. For example, in Alcuin's supplement to the Gregorian Sacramentary, the prefaces of the 
forty-day fast, of the woman of Samaria, of the man born blind, of Lazarus, in H. A. Wilson, 
"The Gregorian Sacramentary" (London, 1915), pp. 265-267; or in the "Liber Sacramentorum" 
edited by Dom Menard, PL 78, col. 68-72.

24. An excellent selection of Oriental anaphoras translated into French can be found in the two 
works of Adalbert Hamman, "Prieres des premiers chretiens" (Paris, 1952) and "Prieres 
eucharistiques des premiers siecles" (Paris, 1957).

25. See O. Casel, "Le Memorial du Seigneur" (Paris, 1945), pp. 23-50, and L. Bouyer, "Liturgical 
Piety" (Notre Dame University Press, 1955), pp. 118-126.

26. Discourse addressed to pilgrims of the "Radio catholique belge," Sept. 6, 1938. The text is 
given in "Documentation catholique," Dec. 5, 1938, col. 1460, and is reprinted in A. Croegaert, 
"Les rites et prieres du saint sacrifice de la Messe" (Malines, 1949), 3, pp. 217-218.

27. It is the Gelasian Sacramentary (Vat. Reg. 316) that present the ancient context most 
faithfully, with its three Sunday scrutinies so perfectly adapted to the needs of an adult 
catechumenate.

28. "Rituale Romanum," ed. 1952, Tit. II, cap. 4, nos. 11, 17.

29. In this whole picture of the typology of water we should not fail to include the prayer: 
"Sanctifare per verbum Dei unda caelestis" of the Roman "Pontificale" (Gregorian preparation of 
the water in the rite for the Dedication), which is common to the three Western rites and comes 
directly from St. Ambrose, DACL, 2, col. 693-694.

30. Referring to the "Ordo episcoporum," which Dom Botte presents in "Etudes sur le sacrament 
de l'Ordre" (Paris, 1957), pp. 107-118.

31. "Pontificale Romanum, Ordo ad Synodum." G. Morin has identified the author of the synodal 
admonition in the "Revue benedictine," 1892, pp. 99-108, a study partially reproduced in DACL, 
6, col. 576-579.

32. Gospel of the Mass pro sponsis.

33. Prayer of the nuptial blessing.

34. Introit of the Mass pro sponsis.

35. Gradual, Tract, Communion antiphon of the Mass pro sponsis.

36. Epistle of the Mass and prayer of the nuptial blessing.

37. Two Oriental rituals of Christian initiation are available to the reader of French: the 
Byzantine ritual in "La Priere des Eglises de rite byzantin" (Chevetogne, 1937), 1, pp. 323-356; 
the Syrian ritual of Antioch in "L'Orient syrien," 1956, pp. 156-185.

38. For each baptism the Oriental priest blessed the oil of catechumens and the water, as he 
also blesses oil of the sick each time this sacrament is to be administered. Only the holy chrism, 
blessed by the patriarch, is conserved like the Eucharist.

39. The complete French text of all the Oriental rituals for marriage can be found in A. Raes, "Le 
Mariage dans les Eglises d'Orient" (Chevetogne, 1958).

40. The French text of the Byzantine Ordo is given in "La Priere des Eglises de rite byzantin," 1, 
pp. 417-447.

41. "Breviarium gothicum," PL, 86, col. 150-174.

42. The French text is given in "La Priere des Eglises de rite byzantin," 2, pp. 143-178.

43. "Liber vesperalis juxta ritum santae Ecclesiae Mediolanensis" (Rome, 1939), pp. 141-147, and 
"Missale ambrosianum" (Milan, 1902).

44. "Diurnale ambrosianum" (Milan, 1862): "ut, sicut hora tertia Apostolos Filii tui visitatione 
Sancti Spiritus confirmasti...ut qui, hor diei sexta, Filium tuum crucem ascendere voluisti...qui, 
hora nona, in crucis patibulo latronem confitentem paradisi transire jussisti...."

45. L. Brou, "The Psalter Collects" (London, 1949).

46. The ancient Gelasian Sacramentary (Vat. Reg. 316): "Dele, quaesumus, Domine, conscriptum 
peccati lege chirographum: quod in nobis Paschali mysterio per Resurrectionem tui Filii 
vauasti.... Te lucem veram et lucis Auctroem, Domine, deprecamur: ut digneris a nobis tenebras 
epellere vitiorum et clarificare nos luce virtutum.... Illumina, quaesumus, Domine, tenebras 
nostras; et totius noctis insidias repelle propitius." For the morning and evening prayers of the 
Leonine Sacramentary, see the edition of Mohlberg, "Sacramentarium Veronese," nos. 587-593.

47. Ed. Wilson, "The Gregorian Sacramentary," Ic., pp. 126-136.

48. O. Rousseau, "Pastoral Liturgy and the Eastern Liturgies," "The Assis Papers" (Collegeville, 
Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1957), p. 117.

49. Ibid.

50. "Liturgie de la sainte Messe selon le rite chaldeen" (Paris, 1937), p. 52.

51. "Liturgie copte de saint Basil," in "Petit Paroissien des Liturgies orientales" (Harissa: Lebanon, 
1941), p. 454.

52. "Caeremoniale Episcoporum," lib. 2., cap. 8, nos. 25, 33.

53. "Ordo Primus," nos. 30-31, ed. Andrieu, I.c., p. 77.

54. Ibid., nos. 59-60.

55. Cyril of Alexandria, "Apology to the Emperor Theodosius," PG 76, 471. Many other 
references may be found in A. Croegaert, op. cit., 1, p. 560.

56. PL 72, col. 91.

57. Per totas Orientis ecclesias, quando legendum est evangelium, accenduntur luminaria, jam 
sole rutilante (Adversus Vigilantium).

58. "La liturgie syrienne, Anaphora des Douze Apotres" (Paris, 1950), p. 35.

59. "Liturgie de la messe armenienne" (Venice, 1939), p. 37.

60. Leo the Great, "Sermons," 2, Serm. 27 (Paris, 1957), p. 33.

61. "Directoire pour la pastorale de las Messe," n. 1.

62. "The Assisi Papers" (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1957), p. 229ff.



CHAPTER 2: THE SACRAMENTS AND THE HISTORY OF 
SALVATION


Rev. Jean Danielou, S.J.

THERE ARE, of course, many aspects under which we may 
consider the relations between the Bible and the liturgy. First of 
all, as we saw in the previous chapter, there is the fact of the 
importance given to Biblical texts in the ceremonies of the 
liturgy; in particular, the first part of the Mass is a liturgy of the 
Word, the essential content of which is the reading of texts from 
the Old and New Testaments. But the liturgy is at once word and 
action, logos kai ergon; and the Bible is at once a book and a 
history. It is this second aspect that we are now going to 
consider--the relationship of the actions that make up sacred 
history in the Old and New Testaments to the actions that are the 
sacraments of the Church.

We should, first of all, recall the fact that liturgical tradition 
continually establishes analogies between sacramental actions 
and the works of God in the Old and New Testaments. Let us take 
some examples from baptism and the Eucharist, sacraments 
which the Fathers continually relate to the essential events of the 
Bible. In the space available here, it is, of course, impossible to 
go into the details of this teaching which fills the sacramental 
catecheses and the liturgical texts; I can only indicate the great 
themes.[1]

In connection with baptism, let us take the blessing of the water 
given in our present ritual:

O God, as Thy Spirit hovered over the waters at the very 
beginning of the world, so that even then by their very nature 
they might have the power of sanctification....

O God, as Thou didst wash away by water the crimes of the guilty 
world, and so by the flood didst give us an image of the new 
birth; for it was the same element that signified the destruction 
of sin and the beginning of virtue....

I bless you, O water, creature of God, by the living God, who 
caused you to flow from the fountain of paradise and 
commanded you to flow out in four rivers and water the whole 
earth; who changed you in the desert to a water fit to drink and 
caused you to flow from the rock to quench the people's thirst....

I bless you through Jesus Christ, who in the wonderful miracle at 
Cana changed you by His power into wine...; who was baptized in 
you by John at the Jordan; who caused you to flow from His side 
together with His blood....

Let us go over these analogies. The first is that of the primordial 
waters sanctified by the Spirit. As the Spirit of God, hovering over 
these waters, raised up the first creation, so the same Spirit, 
hovering over the baptismal waters, raises up the new creation, 
effects our rebirth. The Spirit of God is the creative Spirit. Christ's 
word refers to this aspect: "Unless a man be born again of water 
and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom (John 3:5). "Why are 
you immersed in water?" St. Ambrose asks the neophyte. "We 
read: "Let the waters bring forth living things" (Gen. 1:20). And 
things were born. This took place at the beginning of creation. 
But it was reserved to our own times that water should give you a 
new birth by grace."[2]

Here we can begin to see the dimension that is given to baptism 
by this analogy. Baptism is of the same order as the creation of 
the world, and this because to create is an action properly divine. 
It is the same Spirit who raised up the first creation and who will 
raise up the new creation. The Spirit descended on the waters of 
the Jordan, thence to bring forth the new creation which is that of 
the Man-God. And baptism is the continuation of this creative 
work in the era of the Church. The very context of springtime, in 
which baptism is administered, expresses this analogy. Spring is 
the yearly anniversary of the first creation and of the new 
creation as well.

Immediately after speaking of creation, the prayer of 
consecration alludes to the flood--a new act of God's power and a 
new symbol of water. The relationship between the flood and 
baptism goes back to the first Epistle of Peter, in which baptism 
is called the antitype of the flood. Optatus of Milan writes in the 
fifth century: "The flood was a figure of baptism because the 
whole universe, soiled by the tide of sin, by the intervention of 
water was restored to its pristine purity."[3] Water is the 
instrument of God's judgment; it is water that destroys the sinful 
world. Baptism is a mystery of death. It means the destruction of 
the ancient man, as the flood meant the destruction of the 
ancient world so that a new creature may appear, washed clean 
and renewed by the baptismal water.

The essential point here is the symbolism of water. Lactantius 
writes: "Water is the figure of death";[4] and Ambrose: "In the water 
is the image of death."[5] Per Lundberg has brought out the 
importance of this theme of the waters of death, which seems 
strange to us until we remember the text of St. Paul showing us 
that baptism is at once death with Christ and resurrection with 
Him. The prayer of consecration brings out the contrast between 
water as creative and destructive, between the creation and the 
flood: "It was the same element that signified the destruction of 
sin and the beginning of virtue." Thus the text of St. Paul refers to 
the baptismal rite; this is seen to be a putting to death by 
immersion in water and a new birth by arising from water. We 
rediscover the true symbolism of the rite by referring to the 
realities of the Old Testament.

But we have by no means exhausted the Biblical analogies of 
baptism. The prayer of consecration goes on to speak of the 
rivers of paradise. Here we enter a whole new field. In the 
commentaries of the Fathers no theme recurs more frequently 
than that of the analogy between Adam and the catechumen. 
Adam, after he had sinned, was driven out of paradise. Christ 
promised the good thief that he would be with Him in paradise. 
Baptism is the return to paradise, which is the Church.

From the beginning, preparation for baptism was seen as the 
antitype of the temptation in the garden of Eden. St. Cyril of 
Jerusalem calls the baptismal renunciation of Satan the breaking 
of the pact which, since the fall, binds man to the devil. Baptism, 
as we all know, is the destruction of original sin. But the image is 
not that of the stain that the water washes away, it is the 
dramatic contrast between our exclusion from paradise and our 
return to paradise.

This theme of baptism as a return to paradise[6] is as essential to 
the liturgy as is the paschal theme. Christ is the new Adam, the 
first to re-enter paradise; and by baptism the catechumen enters 
also, for the Church is paradise. De Bruyne and other scholars 
have shown how the symbolism of the ancient baptistries is 
concerned with paradise, its tree of life, its four rivers Cyprian 
writes: "The Church, like paradise, contains within its walls trees 
loaded with fruit. These trees are watered by four rivers, by 
which she dispenses the grace of baptism."[7] And Ephraem adds: 
"It is here that each day the fruit is gathered that gives life to 
all."[8] No theme is more ancient in the Church than this; it is to be 
found in the Odes of Solomon, in the Epistle to Diognetus; Papias 
got it from apostolic centers.

The prayer of consecration then alludes to the rock in the desert. 
We have come now to the cycle of Exodus; and first we have to 
consider a theme not mentioned in the prayer of consecration, 
but in the "Exsultet." This is one of the most important of all: that 
of the crossing of the Red Sea. The first Epistle to the Corinthians 
sees here a figure of baptism. This figure has recently been the 
subject of a lengthy study by Martelet.[9] I shall do no more than 
quote one of the most ancient patristic witnesses, Tertullian: 
"When the people, leaving Egypt without hindrance, escaped from 
the power of Pharaoh by passing across the water, the water 
destroyed the king and all his army. What clearer figure of 
baptism could we give? The nations are freed from the world; 
they are freed by water; they leave the devil, who once 
tyrannized over them, annihilated in the water."[10]

Here again we must be careful not to stop at the images but to 
discover the theological analogy. Tertullian points it out to us. 
What is the essence of the great work that God accomplished at 
the crossing of the Red Sea? The people were in a desperate 
situation, in imminent danger of destruction. By the power of God 
alone, a path was opened up through the sea, the people passed 
through and came to the further shore, there to sing the hymn of 
the redeemed. This was not a work of creation, nor a work of 
judgment, nor a work of sanctification; it was a work of 
redemption, in the etymological sense of the word. It was God 
who delivered the people, and He alone.

Now the catechumen is in an analogous situation just before he is 
baptized. He is still under the domination of the prince of this 
world and so given up to death. Then, by an act of the power of 
God alone, the water of the baptismal pool opens and he passes 
through. And when he has arrived at the other side, he also sings 
the canticle of the redeemed. In both cases we are in the presence 
of a divine act of salvation. And between the deliverance of the 
Red Sea and the deliverance of baptism, here again intervenes the 
deliverance of Christ, who made Himself the prisoner of death 
and who, on this same paschal night, by the power of God, broke 
the iron bolts and the bronze locks of death's prison and arose to 
become the firstborn from the dead.

The figure of the rock from which living water gushed forth 
introduces us to a new and equally essential perspective. St. Paul 
makes this also a figure of baptism: "Our fathers...all drank the 
same spiritual drink (for they drank from the spiritual rock which 
followed them, but the rock was Christ)."[11] In the Old Testament 
the outpouring of living water, united with the effusion of the 
Spirit, is a promise for the end of time, and the texts of Ezechiel 
and Isaias referring to this are part of our present liturgy of 
baptism. Now it is very probable, as Lampe has shown,[12] that the 
baptism of St. John referred to this prophecy, for he also 
connected water and the Spirit. His baptism signified the fact that 
the eschatological times of the outpouring of the Spirit had now 
come. (And we know how clear was this theme to the community 
at Qumran.) But John baptized only in water. It is Christ who 
gives water and the Spirit.

Christ said this same thing of Himself: "If anyone thirst, let him 
come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture 
says, 'From within him shall flow rivers of living water.' He said 
this, however, of the Spirit whom they who believed in Him were 
to receive; for the Spirit had not yet been given" (John 7:37-39). 
We may, with Cullmann, discover an announcement of baptism in 
the texts of John concerning living water, that of the Samaritan 
woman in particular.[13] And certainly we must, with him and with 
the whole of tradition, recognize in the water and blood flowing 
from the side of Christ the image of water united with the Spirit, 
for the blood is the figure of the Spirit. And so Christ crucified is 
the eschatological Rock from whose pure side flows the water 
that refreshes us for everlasting life, the baptism that gives the 
Spirit.

We should notice in this connection that the gift of the Spirit is 
essentially connected with the outpouring of water. In the third 
century we find a tendency to distinguish the rite of water, which 
purifies, from another rite, the anointing or imposition of hands, 
which gives the Spirit. Gregory Dix makes use of these texts to 
distinguish within Christian initiation a sacrament of the Spirit, 
distinct from baptism, which would be confirmation. But this is 
contrary to primitive tradition and to tradition as a whole. It is 
the water, and it alone, that gives the Holy Spirit. The 
accompanying rites are illustrative only. Confirmation is a 
different sacrament, connected with spiritual growth and with 
participation in the ministry.

The Biblical themes that we have been considering up to this 
point have been concerned with water. But, once again, this is not 
the essence of their relationship with baptism. In a theme such as 
that of the return to paradise the mention of water is secondary; 
the emphasis is much more on the restoration of Adam to the 
realm of grace for which God had destined him from the 
beginning and to which baptism restores him. Moreover, in this 
theme of paradise the Eucharist appears as well as baptism, and 
both are closely associated. In the same way, the rock of living 
water is related to the Eucharist and to baptism as well.

It is the theological analogy that is essential in every case. This 
appears also in the other Biblical themes which tradition relates 
to baptism and the Eucharist. For example, let us take that of the 
covenant. Gregory Nazianzen writes plainly: "We must call the 
grace of baptism a covenant, diatheke."[14] The covenant is the act 
by which God promises, in an irrevocable way, to establish 
communion of life between man and Himself. Christ realizes the 
new and eternal covenant by uniting in Himself for ever the 
divine nature and a human nature in such a way that they will 
never be separated. We should not forget the fact that "the 
Covenant" was one of our Lord's names in primitive Christianity, 
following the text of Isaias: "I have made you: Covenant of the 
peoples."

Baptism is our introduction into this covenant. Baptism 
establishes it by the pledge of God and that of man. When 
baptism was given in an interrogative form, this pledging formed 
part of the very form of baptism, which was given in faith and in 
water, as Justin says.

Later on this aspect was connected with the pre-baptismal 
profession of faith: "You also, you catechumens," writes John 
Chrysostom, "should learn to know the meaning of this word: I 
renounce Satan. For this word in fact is the covenant (syntheke) 
with the Lord."[15] This pledge is called symbalon, "pact," and it is 
from here that the term came to be applied to the profession of 
faith preceding baptism. John Chrysostom emphasizes the 
unconditional and irrevocable character of this engagement of 
God's: "God does not say: If this, or, If otherwise. Such were the 
words of Moses when he poured out the blood of the covenant. 
And God promises eternal life."[16]

We should take note of the allusion to the blood of the covenant 
poured out by Moses. The Old Covenant was sanctioned by a 
sacrament, by the sprinkling of the same blood on the people and 
on the altar, signifying and bringing about a communion of life. It 
is certainly in reference to this gesture of Moses' that Christ, 
when He took the wine and blessed it, declared: "This is My 
Blood, the Blood of the New Covenant," before giving it to His 
disciples, a sign of the communion of life brought about between 
them and Himself. The Eucharist is truly the new rite which 
succeeds the Old Covenant and which at once witnesses to and 
brings about the covenant made by Christ with mankind in His 
incarnation and His passion.

Here again we can see the irreplaceable value of the Biblical 
analogy. It enables us to see the full significance of Eucharistic 
communion as participation in the life of God, the participation 
that mankind has irrevocably gained in Christ Himself and that is 
now offered to each man. It connects the Eucharist with Scripture 
by showing us that the Eucharist continues, in the era of the 
Church the divine actions which took place in both Testaments. It 
illuminates the symbolism of the sacramental rites by showing us 
the partaking of the Blood as being the supreme expression of 
communion of life, for blood is the expression of life itself.

And again, as the covenant is our bond with God, it is also our 
incorporation into the people of God. In the Old Covenant, this 
incorporation was expressed by circumcision. Cullmann, Sahlin, 
and many others have shown the connection of circumcision with 
baptism and the valuable elements which this connection brings 
to the theology of baptism.[17]

"The baptism of the Christian was expressed in the circumcision 
of the Hebrews," writes Optatus of Milevis.[18] But the Epistle to 
the Ephesians had already brought out the parallelism:

Wherefore bear in mind that once you, the Gentiles in flesh, who 
are called 'uncircumcision' by the so-called 'circumcision' in flesh 
made by human hand--bear in mind that you were at that time 
without Christ, excluded as aliens from the community of Israel 
and strangers to the covenants of the promise...But now in Christ 
Jesus you, who were once afar off, have been brought near 
through the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:11-13).

It is baptism itself that is the new rite of incorporation into the 
people of God in the Church. But, as other aspects of the 
sacrament are expressed by particular ceremonies, such as the 
clothing with a white garment and the anointing, so with this one. 
The expression of our incorporation into the people of God by 
baptism is the ceremony of the sphragis, the sign of the Cross 
marked on the forehead of the candidate.

Ezechiel had prophesied that the members of the eschatological 
community would wear on their foreheads the mark of the taw, 
the sign signifying Yahweh, the Name of Yahweh. It seems 
probable that the Sadocites of Damas actually bore this mark. 
And the Apocalypse of St. John shows us the elect as marked with 
the Name of Yahweh, that is, with the taw. It is very likely that 
this was the sign with which Christians were marked originally as 
the sign of their incorporation into the eschatological community. 
Now this sign is in the form of a cross. This is why, in the Greek 
communities which no longer understood the meaning of the 
Hebrew letter, it was interpreted as being the sign of the Cross of 
Christ. But Hermas still says: "Those who are marked with the 
Name."[19]

This leads us to another theme akin to that of the covenant, that 
of the dwelling, the Shekinah. Yahweh had caused His Name to 
dwell among His own. This is the mystery of the Tabernacle. This 
Presence abandoned the people of the Old Covenant when the 
veil of the temple was rent. Henceforth its dwelling-place is the 
humanity of Christ, in whom the Name has set up its tabernacle. 
And this dwelling-place is in our midst in the Eucharist. We have 
already seen the Eucharist as communion, covenant. Now we see 
it as presence, Shekinah. As the Eucharistic prayer of the Didache 
expresses it: "We give Thee thanks, O Father, for Thy holy Name 
which Thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts" (X, 2). Here the 
Name is the Word, as Peterson has pointed out. But the 
expression "the Name" is the older and the more fitting. For in the 
Old Testament it is the Name and not the Word which is 
connected with the dwelling.

As for the last great aspect of the Eucharist, sacrifice, which is at 
once adoration, thanksgiving and expiation, the liturgy of the 
Mass itself invites us to seek its prefiguring in the sacrifice of 
Abel, in that of Abraham, and in that of Melchisedech. Here again, 
the prophets had proclaimed that at the end of time the perfect 
sacrifice would be offered by the obedient Servant, the new Isaac, 
and the true Lamb. It is this priestly act, by which all glory is 
forever rendered to the Blessed Trinity, which the Eucharistic 
sacrifice makes perpetually present in all times and all places.

Thus we have brought out the traditional teaching. The 
sacraments are conceived in relation to the acts of God in the Old 
Testament and the New. God acts in the world; His actions are the 
mirabilia, the deeds that are His alone. God creates, judges, 
makes a covenant, is present, makes holy, delivers. These same 
acts are carried out in the different phases of the history of 
salvation. There is, then, a fundamental analogy between these 
actions. The sacraments are simply the continuation in the era of 
the Church of God's acts in the Old Testament and the New. This 
is the proper significance of the relationship between the Bible 
and the liturgy. The Bible is a sacred history; the liturgy is a 
sacred history.

The Bible is a witness given to real events; it is a sacred history. 
There is a profane history, which is that of civilizations, 
witnessing to the great deeds done by men. But the Bible is the 
history of divine actions; it witnesses to the great deeds carried 
out by God. It is all for the glory of God. And so it is the proper 
object of faith. For "to believe" does not mean only to believe that 
God exists, but also that He intervenes in human life. Faith is 
wholly concerned with these interventions of God: the covenant, 
the incarnation, the resurrection, the diffusion of the Spirit. And 
the Old Testament in particular is already essentially a sacred 
history.

This point needs to be emphasized today. For in Bultmann and 
his disciples we find a tendency to see in the Old Testament, and 
in Scripture in general, only a word that God addresses to us here 
and now. Under the pretext that the divine events are presented 
in a stylized form, their very historicity is questioned. 
Demythization has become dehistorization. But Cullmann and 
Eichrodt[20]--the latter precisely in connection with the problem 
that concerns us here, that of typology--have brought out the 
primacy of the event over the word, of the ergon over the logos. 
The object of faith is the existence of a divine plan. It is the 
objective reality of the divine interventions which modifies 
ontologically the human situation, and to the reality of which 
faith causes us to adhere.

This history is properly the history of the works of God which are 
grasped only by faith. It does not consist in reconstituting the 
historical and archeological context of the people of Israel or of 
the primitive Church. This is a part of the history of civilizations 
and is of a different order. Sacred history reaches, beyond the 
order of bodies and minds, what Pascal calls the "order of 
charity"--which term meant to him, good Augustinian that he was, 
the supernatural order. It is concerned, therefore, with the 
supernatural history of mankind, the most important history 
ultimately, since it is concerned with the final questions of the 
destiny of man and of mankind, the very depths of human nature.

Thus the Old Testament has as its purpose to recall to us the 
great deeds that God did for His people. But this represents only 
one aspect. It includes the Law, but it includes also the prophets. 
Prophecy is part of its very substance. We must give this word its 
true meaning; it is not merely prediction, not merely 
proclamation. Prophecy is the announcement of the fact that at 
the end of time God will accomplish works still greater than in 
the past. Here the movement of the Old Testament is quite 
different from that of natural religions. These are essentially, as 
Eliade and van den Leeuw have shown, the effort to defend 
primordial energies against the destructive action of time.

It is with the Bible that time acquires a positive content as being 
the setting in which the design of God is being carried out. But 
this orientation toward the future is an act of faith, founded on 
the promises of God. The great Biblical figure Abraham is quite 
different from the Greek hero Ulysses. The title of Homer's poem 
is Nostoi, "the returns." The outstanding characteristic of Ulysses 
is nostalgia, and finally after his long journeying, he returns to 
the place from which he set out. Time destroys itself. But 
Abraham leaves Ur of the Chaldees for ever and sets out on a 
journey to the land that God is to give him. For the man of the 
Bible, paradise, the state of innocence are not the point of 
departure; they are the end of the journey. Such a man cannot 
help having an eschatological attitude.

But, wonderful to say, these hoped-for future events are not 
unrelated to the events of the past. The promises of God remain 
unchanged. God said to Isaias (43:16-29): "Remember no more 
what is past; behold, I will make a new wonder. I will make a path 
through the sea."

One of the deeds of the past was the crossing of the Red Sea, the 
act of deliverance by which Yahweh delivered His people from 
their hopeless condition. The eschatological event will be a new 
Exodus, a new deliverance, a new redemption. And so we begin to 
see what is the real basis of typology--as Goppelt and Eichrodt 
have pointed out--the analogy between the divine deeds carried 
out in the different epochs of the history of salvation.

Prophecy announces to us eschatological events. The New 
Testament is the paradoxical affirmation that these events have 
taken place in Jesus Christ. We have lost sight of the importance 
of the expression that continually recurs in the New Testament: 
"so that the prophecies might be fulfilled," and this is because we 
have lost the understanding of what prophecy really is. It is 
because prophecy announces the end of time--and not some one 
event to come--and because Christ Is the end of time that Christ 
fulfills prophecy. What is essential, then, is the fact that Christ is 
proclaimed to us as being the end of time. This is the meaning of 
John's gesture: Ecce Agnus Dei. Not: There is a Lamb of God. But: 
The Lamb of God is here.

We should remember here that the phrase, "the end of time," is to 
be taken in its full meaning: not only the end in the sense of the 
conclusion of time, but also in the sense of the goal of time, the 
definite and decisive event, that beyond which there is nothing 
more because there can be nothing beyond it. The paradoxical 
Christian affirmation is, as Cullmann has well shown, that the 
decisive event is already accomplished. No discovery, no 
revolution can ever bring about anything as important to 
mankind as is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, in fact, in the 
resurrection of Christ two things were accomplished beyond 
which nothing further is possible: God is perfectly glorified; man 
is perfectly united to God. We can never go beyond Jesus Christ. 
He is the final goal of God's design.

But did sacred history stop with Jesus Christ? This is, indeed, 
what we usually seem to say. And this is because we do not place 
the sacraments in the perspective of sacred history. We forget 
that, although Jesus Christ is the goal of sacred history, His 
coming into the world is only the inauguration of His mysteries. 
In the Apostles' Creed, after the mysteries of the past, we speak 
of a mystery still to come: "unde venturus est," but between the 
two there is a mystery of the present: "sedet ad dexteram Patris."

For Christ's enthronement at the right hand of the Father is only 
the definitive installation of the incarnate Word, who at His 
ascension entered into the heavenly Tabernacle, in His functions 
as King and Priest. The glorious humanity of Christ, during the 
whole era of the Church, causes every grace, every illumination, 
every sanctification, every blessing. And these divine works 
carried out by Christ in glory are, above all, the works of the 
sacraments. These constitute the deeds properly divine being 
carried out in the heart of our world, the deeds by which God 
accomplishes our sanctification and builds up the Body of Christ. 
It is in their radiance that all holiness, all virtue, all ministry is 
developed.

Thus the nature of the sacraments is made clear to us in the 
perspective of the history of salvation. They are the divine acts 
corresponding to this particular era in the history of salvation, 
the era of the Church. These divine acts are the continuation of 
the acts of God in the Old and New Testaments, as Cullmann has 
already shown.[21] For the ways in which God acts are always the 
same: He creates, judges, saves, makes a covenant, is present. But 
these acts have a different modality in each era of the history of 
salvation.

What characterizes the era of the Church is, on the one hand, the 
fact that it comes after the essential event of sacred history, the 
event by which creation has attained its purpose in such a way 
that nothing can be added to it. The sacramental acts are, 
therefore, only saving actualizations of the passion and 
resurrection of Christ. Baptism plunges us into His death and 
resurrection. The Mass is not another sacrifice, but the unique 
sacrifice made present in the sacrament; in this sense it is true 
that the sacraments add nothing to Christ and that they are only 
the sacramental imitation of what has already been effectively 
accomplished in Him.

On the other hand, the era of the Church is that in which what 
has already been accomplished in Christ, the Head, is 
communicated to all men, who form the Body. The era of the 
Church is the time of the mission, the growth of the Church, and 
the sacraments are the instruments of this growth, incorporating 
into Christ His new members. As Gregory of Nyssa says: "Christ 
builds Himself up by means of those who continually join 
themselves to the faith" by baptism.[22] And Methodius of Olympia 
shows us how the sacramental life is the continual espousal of 
Christ and the Church.[23] We can understand why Cyril of 
Jerusalem made the Canticle of Canticles the sacramental text par 
excellence.[24]

But the last characteristic of the era of the Church is that the 
transformation carried out by Christ actually reaches mankind, 
but it is not yet made manifest: "You are now the sons of God, but 
it has not yet appeared what you shall be" (1 John 3:2). Thus the 
sacraments have a hidden aspect. They are a veil as well as a 
reality. "Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio...ut te revelata cernens 
facie...."

And this shows us one more aspect of the sacraments in the 
history of salvation. They are not the final stage. After the 
mysteries of the past, there are the mysteries of the future. 
Prefigured by the realities of the Old Testament and the New, the 
sacraments are themselves prefigurations of eternal life. Baptism 
anticipates the Judgment; the Eucharist is the eschatological 
banquet already made present in mystery. And so the sacraments 
recapitulate the whole history of salvation: "Recolitur memoria 
passionis, mens impletur gratia, et futurae gloriae nobis pignus 
datur."

Thus, we see the sacraments as being the acts of God in the era of 
the Church. As we have said, God's ways of acting are always the 
same. This is what finally defines the right of the Church to bring 
out the analogies between the sacraments and the divine events 
recorded in Scripture. It is here that we find the ultimate basis of 
what we explained in the first section of this chapter. The 
universe of the liturgy is a marvelous symphony in which appear 
the harmonies between the different eras of the history of 
salvation, in which we pass from the Old Testament to the 
sacraments, from eschatology to spirituality, from the New 
Testament to eschatology, in virtue of these fundamental 
analogies. Knowledge of these correspondences is the Christian 
wisdom as the Fathers understood it, the spiritual understanding 
of Scripture. And this is where the liturgy is the mistress of 
exegesis.

To conclude. One of the greatest difficulties for many minds is to 
understand the connection between Scripture and the Church. 
They hold to Scripture, but they do not see the need for the 
Church. It is of the utmost importance that such people be shown 
the strict continuity between Scripture and the Church. And it is 
precisely this continuity that appears at the climax of the history 
of salvation. It is here that the realities spoken of by Scripture 
and the realities that constitute the Church appear as being 
various stages of one work. And, furthermore, by employing a 
unique language, which is that used by the Word of God, and by 
causing us to discover the Scriptural categories in the 
sacraments, the continual reference to Scripture found in the 
explanation of the sacraments manifests the fact that they belong 
to the same universe.

Thus Bible and liturgy illuminate one another. The Bible both 
authorizes and clarifies the liturgy. It authorizes it by the 
authority of the prophets and the figures of which it is the 
fulfillment, and by thus placing it in the whole pattern of God's 
plan. It illuminates it by giving us the forms of expression by 
which we can understand the authentic meaning of the rites. In 
its turn, the liturgy illuminates the Bible. It gives us its authentic 
interpretation by showing us how it is a witness to the mirabilia 
Dei. And, much more, as these acts are continued in the 
sacraments, they actualize the Word of God by authorizing us to 
apply it to the present acts of God in the Church in virtue of the 
analogy between these acts in the different phases of history.



ENDNOTES

1. I have given a survey of this teaching in my book, "Bible and 
Liturgy" (Notre Dame University Press, 1956).

2. De Sacramentis, III, 3.

3. "Donat. V," 1; PL, 11, 1041.

4. "Div. Inst." 11, 10, PL, 6, 311a.

5. "Sp, Sanct. I," 6, 76, PL, 16, 722d.

6. See "Catechese pascale et retour au Paradis," "La Maison-Dieu," 
45 (1956), pp. 99-120.

7. "Epist. LXIII," 10.

8. "Hymn. Par. VI," 9.

9. "Sacrements, figures et exhortation en 1 Cor. 10:1-11," R.S.R., 
44 (1956), pp. 323-359, 515-S60.

10. "Bapt. 9."

11. 1 Cor. 10:4

12. "The Seal of the Spirit," pp. 27-28. 

13. "Les sacrements dans l'Evangile johannique," pp. 51-55.

14. "Or. Bapt.," 8.

15. "Cat.," 2; PG 49, 239.

16. "Co. Col.," 2, 6; PG 62, 342.

17. See "Circoncision et bapteme," "Theologie in Gelchichte und 
Gegenwart" (Mel. Schmaus), pp. 755-777.

18. "Donat.," V, 1; PG 11, 1045a.

19. See "La Theologie du Judeo-christianisme" (Desclee et Cie., 
1958), pp. 384-386.

20. W. Eichrodt, "Ist die typologische Exegese sachgemasse 
Exegese?," "Theol. Literarturzeitung," 81 (1956), pp. 641-653.

21. "Les sacrements dans l'Evangile johannique," p. 85.

22. PG, 1397c.

23. "Conv.," III, 8.

24. See "Bible and Liturgy" (Notre Dame University Press, 1956).



CHAPTER 3: GOD HAS SPOKEN IN HUMAN LANGUAGE


Rev. Hans Urs von Balthasar

BY THE LITURGY the priest reaches Catholics only, and, among 
them, only the practicing believers; the liturgy has become a 
domain seemingly reserved to an elite. Since the purpose of this 
book is to show the close bonds between the liturgy and the Word 
of God, the liturgy and preaching, the liturgy and meditation on 
the Bible, it might seem as if the Word, to be truly understood, 
must be confined within the same closed, almost esoteric limits. 
Since, in spite of ourselves, we adopt with regard to the liturgy 
something like the discipline of the arcana practiced by the 
Fathers,[1] should we not make people feel that the Word of God 
also creates a sacred domain, accessible only to the believer in 
the act of adoration?

In this conclusion, which is not entirely chimerical but 
corresponds to a real tendency today, there is an element of 
resignation which in the Christian context is quite unsound. 
Christianity has no tendency to limit itself, but rather to expand, 
to become universal. Psychologically, an esoteric attitude often 
contains an element of fear.

If we are to combat this fear--which easily disguises itself as a 
proper reverence for the sacred--we must not be afraid to submit 
the data of the Christian religion, supernaturally revealed, to the 
examination of the anthropological sciences, such as philology, 
sociology, psychology. If, in Christ, God made Himself man, if He 
assumed a human nature into His personal and trinitarian life, He 
did not do so by violating human nature. If He founded a 
community around His incarnation, still less did He do so by 
violating the laws of sociology, particularly of religious 
sociology. From this point of view, it cannot be denied that the 
religion which we consider to be the only true one has an aspect 
which puts it sociologically on the same level as the "other" 
religions.

The Bible is the sacred Book par excellence, but it is also one 
sacred book among others, and each religion has its own.[2] And 
not only does each religion have its own liturgy, but it is a known 
fact--which corresponds to an easily understandable 
anthropological tendency--that the liturgy of each religion loves 
to justify the most minute positive prescriptions of its worship 
by attributing them to the revealed, formal will of the divinity. 
The priestly code of the Old Testament, which attributed the 
temple worship in all its details to an explicit institution of 
Moses, thanks to his supernatural vision of all the details of the 
sanctuary on the holy mountain (Ex. 25--31; 35-40), confirms this 
common law of anthropology.[3] And, in the same way, each 
religion has a tendency to become esoteric.

We should not be disturbed by these parallelisms, which are not 
vague resemblances, but are founded on a certain identity: that of 
the nature of man. We should rather rejoice in them, because they 
are a proof of the real incarnation, that is to say, the 
"inhumanization" of God.[4]

If God has made Himself man, then it is man as man who has 
become the expression, the valid and authentic translation of the 
divine mystery. True, man will have need of supernatural faith in 
order to grasp what God, supremely free in His spontaneous 
revelation of Himself, wills to make known to him. But, on the 
other hand, the divine meaning will not remain exterior and 
foreign to the man who is chosen to express it. God is love; but it 
is as man that He has demonstrated this fact; and this is why it is 
uniquely in Christ that the two precepts of love can be fused into 
one single precept.

This is equivalent to saying that God, in revealing His face to 
man, has also revealed to man his own proper human likeness. 
There was no need for God to make use of man in order to reveal 
Himself; but if He determined to do so, and did so by an in-
humanization, then all the dimensions of human nature, known 
and unknown, are to be assumed and utilized to serve as means 
of expression for the absolute Person. And so the Christian 
religion, while remaining sociologically only "one" religion among 
others, should necessarily also coincide with total humanism, 
and it is only by this title that it can be recognized as fully 
catholic.[5]

Humanism in Christianity: here indeed is the central theme of our 
era. It preoccupies us all; it is of passionate concern to our lay 
people because of their need to communicate with their non-
Christian or non-practicing brothers; it calls for a solution at once 
vast and courageous in the face of world unity in the making. And 
it is brought out also, in a striking paradox, by those very 
discoveries of modern Biblical studies that hold us in suspense. 
Let us consider for a moment this last aspect. On the one hand, 
our age is discovering continually clearer analogies between the 
religion of revelation and the cultures that surrounded it, 
continually clearer evidence of the influences of these cultures 
on that religion; many an aspect which to our ancestors seemed 
purely supernatural now appears to us as being part of the 
religious patrimony of mankind.

But it is precisely these discoveries which, in an entirely 
unforeseen manner, have brought us nearer to the mystery of 
revelation. Possibly we can understand the mystery of Israel 
better than could any Christian age in the past, better even than 
the apostolic age itself in its context of Judaism and Hellenism. 
The more the concrete and historical human element is precisely 
defined, the more the revealed truth is seen to be profound, the 
more it stands out clearly; this is one of the great laws opposed 
to gnosticism, a law of the incarnation. The more Christ is seen to 
be one with mankind in word and thought and action, the more 
He is also seen to be the Unique who comes from on high, 
authorized to utter (without insanity or blasphemy) those 
unheard-of phrases that no mere man would dare to utter: "Which 
of you will accuse Me of sin?"; "My words shall not pass"; "I will 
come on the clouds of heaven."

Let us choose the simplest way. If we are to understand how God 
has spoken to man in human language, we need to consider, at 
least briefly, the structure of human speech. To understand 
human speech we need to consider what it expresses, that is, 
human experience.

We shall, therefore, first consider human experience; next, human 
speech; and finally, the eternal Word incarnating Himself in man 
and in his speech in order to transform it into God's language.

What is the specific form of human experience?[6] Man is 
essentially an historic being: his spirit perfects itself in time,[7] in 
the course of a unique and irreversible journey that leads him 
through successive stages--childhood, adolescence, maturity, old 
age--in such a way that the achievement of each one of these 
stages in no way assures the realization of the one that follows. 
There is an existential logic in this series of stages, even though, 
for St. Paul, it is bound up with an illogical element--death. Time 
seen as a descent toward a final catastrophe implies an element 
of futility and nothingness, but this element is inserted in a 
superior logic of grace, since God has abased Himself to this 
abyss made by the creature, not the Creator.

This fact only accentuates the devouring stress of our existence: 
each age of life, each situation requires that we abandon it and 
that we go beyond it; yet each means for us a gift never to be 
given again, a mirror of the absolute and of the duration of 
eternity.

Maturity can never replace or even preserve that first vision of a 
world fundamentally new, innocent, like paradise, filled with 
marvels of nature and supernature; everything is possible, 
everything is close to God. The incurable nostalgia of childhood 
is not mere romanticism; it can have, as with Peguy and 
Bernanos, profoundly Christian causes. It is true that the 
Christian miracle consists in a renewal of the whole time-
sequence; the entrance into the Church by the door of baptism is 
a new admittance into paradise, accessible only to children, by 
the "little way" that allows us once again to climb the slope of 
bygone time.

But this Christian miracle does not destroy the historic nature of 
man, "non tollit naturam." The losses caused by time and futility 
are not done away with, and it is only in living both these 
aspects--apparently contradictory as they are--that Christian 
existence, with its experience of childhood redeemed in growing 
old, is to be achieved.[8]

But man is not only the child. He is also the adolescent, with his 
enthusiasms, his fears and depressions, his discoveries of the 
depths of human nature, with the pathetic moment of the call 
heard and understood, the decisive hour in which the man, 
seemingly still too young, chooses his lot in life, his work, his 
state--a moment which will never return. What gain, what loss! To 
choose presupposes freedom, but it also presupposes 
confidence, hope, the unreserved gift of self.[9] It is human to 
believe, to hope, to love. And it is human also for the mature man 
to give himself wholly, to sacrifice himself to a task, to find the 
whole in the part that is given him. It is human for him to know 
the joy and danger of responsibility, and even the bitter 
consolation of defeats which prove to him that he has not really 
gone astray, that he is still a man among his fellowmen.

And in each human state there is the same looking forward and 
the attempt to retain, at least in memory, everything that has 
irretrievably fled away and to incorporate it into our onward 
flight. Thus the present becomes a kind of qualitative synthesis 
of time as a whole, modified by the continually changing 
relationship of the past and the future.

Time is, therefore, in no way a uniform stream; it knows 
mysterious moments of concentration, climaxes in which man 
frees himself and chooses himself. At the appointed hour of his 
existence he meets his own true image, his vocation and the 
grace destined for him. If he adheres to it, this decisive moment 
fills his whole life with a companioning presence which gathers it 
all up in a meaningful form, if he refuses, his whole temporal 
existence degenerates into time lost. Faith, hope, and love 
together make up the form of time-bound man. This is the 
starting-point he must use in each effort to understand his 
existence; we have nothing to work with beyond hope that seems 
so tiny, faith that is self-abandonment, love that gives itself and 
loses itself. Any attempt to go beyond the glory and misery of 
these three, tria haec--and every non-Christian religion would like 
to go beyond them--leads us astray into gnosis.

The life of whole peoples follows a similar pattern. They only can 
grasp what they are by projecting it into the future, aided by the 
mirror of memory. The measurable part of their existence, their 
history already lived through, in some way justifies their hope; in 
it they recognize certain landmarks, certain promises realized in 
part. It is because this fragment of being offers something like a 
meaning (however fleeting) that the hope that all the generations 
making up one people form a hidden continuity through time 
cannot be entirely a vain one.

This law of peoples as such is also a law of all history, the past 
and the future of a man or of a people cannot be cut off from the 
universal destiny of mankind. And this is necessarily true also of 
that sacred history which summarizes the dialogue between God 
and His chosen people.

What Gregory of Nyssa calls the diastema of our existence, the 
fundamental separateness and non-identity of our experiences, 
the transition from one point of view to another--why should we 
not find it also in the Bible?

Since God Himself has sought out the glory and the humiliation 
of existing in time, it is impossible to take away from revealed 
truth its temporal form so as to keep only a system of supra-
temporal truths.

Let us recall some notable examples. "The days when Israel was a 
child" (Osee); what nostalgia throughout the sacred Word for the 
memory of that childhood--not only for the paradise before 
history began but for those days in which everything was young, 
pure and perfect between Israel and its God!

If mankind did not remember its lost origin, how could it search 
for it throughout all the disasters of history? If Abraham had not 
possessed at least that tomb in the Holy Land, how would his 
descendants have allowed God to persuade them to leave 
prosperous Egypt and bury themselves in the desert of Sinai? 
Certain psalms preserve so vivid a memory of the primitive grace 
of those times that even the events of the Covenant are not 
mentioned: everything is pure gift, the Law does not yet exist. Or 
else, when they do sing of that prodigious event, the conclusion 
of the Covenant made in the face of the flaming mountain, by the 
blood sprinkled on the people and altar and by the absolute 
decision of primordial faith, how clearly this Law appears as 
itself a grace, as a Law that is absolutely true, priceless, 
necessary, and possible for man to obey!

We must measure the distance that separates this experience of 
the beginning (which is no dream or myth) from the later theology 
of Deuteronomy, of Judaism, and finally, of St. Paul, to experience 
in this difference the inevitable aging of the idea and of the ideal. 
A thousand years' experience of sin has intervened; the virgin of 
Sion has gone astray, not only into single acts from which she 
could be raised up, but into a condition that is permanent and 
insurmountable. Is it ever possible to observe such a Law? Does it 
truly come from God and not rather from various mediators? 
Good "in itself," is it still really good "for me"? The center of 
experience is displaced, even in the times of the kings and 
prophets, still more during the Exile, in the age of the sapiential 
books and the apocalypses.

We must have the patience to leave their value at once "absolute" 
and "relative" to all these experiences to which sacred history 
bears witness. We must do so because these experiences 
presuppose one another in their very difference. Change from 
one condition to another is indispensable if each one is to be 
understood; but this change is itself ambiguous: on the one hand, 
temporal existence is understood in reference to the future, like a 
book whose pages are turned as we read it. And so the final 
synthesis, that of Christ, made explicit by Paul and John, will be 
more complete, more extensive, more limitless than, for example, 
that of the Pentateuch.

But, on the other hand, every temporal gain infallibly implies 
certain losses. There are texts in the Old Testament that are 
greater, more fully experienced in themselves than they are in the 
use made of them by the New Testament and in the way in which 
it understands them. And Christ was careful to send believers 
back to the greatest and most unconstraining origins.

We see, therefore, how this human law applies to sacred history 
and to its witness, the Biblical Word: a present experience is true 
and valuable only insofar as it is bound up with a certain vision 
and interpretation of the past and the future, with a projection of 
our ruling ideal in the memory that guides us. The Bible is filled 
with such projections toward its own histo