Introduction to Dei Verbum at 60

Dei Verbum, one of the four Constitutions produced at the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), is a document of exceptional innovation and importance for the Catholic Church. Building upon its predecessor, Pope Pius XII’s 1943 Divino Afflante Spiritu, Dei Verbum is often recognized as one of the foundational documents for the opening up of the ‘scientific’ discipline of biblical scholarship to Catholic scholars. Yet beyond biblical interpretation alone, the document is concerned with the broader concept of divine revelation itself—how exactly God communicates with us. As such, Dei Verbum is inherently interdisciplinary and dialectical, affirming the inseparability and mutuality of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, as well as preempting the synodal hermeneutic of dialogue between bishops, theologians, and the lay faithful—complete with all the scientific, philosophical, experiential, and pastoral gifts they bring to the discernment of God’s ongoing revelation. This makes Dei Verbum’s 60th anniversary a logical occasion to celebrate within the pages of Nexus, given the journal’s aim of fostering a wide scope of interdisciplinary scholarship, reflection, and public engagement in accordance with the Jesuit principle of finding God in all things.

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In this issue, ten contributors from a range of disciplinary angles—biblical studies, theology, liturgy, literary theory, art history, natural sciences, and pedagogy—pick up the call of the late and much beloved Pope Francis to rediscover and appropriate Dei Verbum ever anew. 

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The structure of this issue itself reflects this dual invitation by Francis to rediscover and to appropriate the document. Some pieces guide the reader in this first charge of (re)rediscovery: Harold Attridge provides an introduction and overview to the document and its production, and Thomas Bolin illuminates the key tensions surrounding biblical authorship before and during the council. The contributions of Rita Ferrone, Mara Brecht, and Michael Peppard each provide nuanced discussions of the legacy of Dei Verbum as it pertains to liturgy, Catholic higher education, and art, respectively. These pieces focus the reader’s attention on what Dei Verbum does and does not say, and how this has shaped the Church of the past six decades. 

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Other articles begin with Francis’ second charge of appropriating the document ever anew, asking how Dei Verbum might provide wisdom for the present moment and the future of the Church. Miguel Díaz offers a liberating reading of Dei Verbum, queering conceptions of divine revelation as static and propositional, while Charles Hughes-Huff reads Dei Verbum with mystics such as Gregory of Nyssa and Hildegard of Bingen so as to articulate a postconciliar framework for the mystical reading of Scripture. Ilia Delio, OSF then expands the scope of the conversation from the narrower text-focused confines of Dei Verbum to consider the ways scientific understandings of the universe, its origins, and its mysteries are indispensable means of God’s revelatory self-communication with and through Creation.

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In some ways this is an artificial division, as all of these pieces speak to both the discovery and appropriation of Dei Verbum. I invite the reader to examine the ways in which certain themes run through these articles, especially the Jesuit scriptural imagination, the binary of Scripture/Tradition, the role of creation in revelation, and the question of how to handle ethically problematic biblical passages.

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I would like to express my profound appreciation for all who made this issue of Nexus possible. The idea for an issue dedicated to the text, legacy, and future of Dei Verbum emerged from the conversations at the “Pleasures of Pseudepigraphy” conference at Loyola University Chicago in March of this year. The conference was organized by Olivia Stewart Lester and sponsored by the Hank Center, with the additional support of the Department of Theology and the Department of Classical Studies at Loyola. This journal is just one of the witnesses to the success and intellectual generativity of the event (and it explains why two of the articles herein focus on the criminally underdiscussed issue of pseudepigraphy in the Bible). I am most grateful to Dr. Stewart Lester, the Hank Center, and all who participated in the conference.

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Thanks are also due to those at the Hank Center for the time, collaboration, and resources required to produce his volume: Michael Murphy as Editor-in-Chief and Director of the Hank Center, Assistant Director Joe Vukov, Office Manager Katie Arnold, and the entire Hank Center team. Vincent Singleton expertly directed and filmed the video interview with Harold Attridge, even after the interviewer foolishly locked everyone out of the building and held up the shoot. And to the contributors, each of whom offered their time, expertise, and thoughtful perspective on Dei Verbum, my sincere thanks. I have enjoyed reading and learning from each piece, and I am equal parts delighted and humbled to present them together in this volume.

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As a way to begin our dive into the world of Dei Verbum, consider the artwork on this journal’s cover—an Annunciation scene believed to be the work of the Netherlandish Jean Hey (the ‘Master of Moulin’). Many of the details are as familiar as they are richly symbolic: the angel Gabriel’s hand pointing upwards, the renaissant archways and pillars, the raised hands and averted gaze of Mary, the hint of garden encroaching at the scene’s edge. As a historically accurate attempt to depict Mary’s encounter with Gabriel within the setting of first-century Galilee, of course, the piece fails miserably. Those interested in the historical context may find especially egregious, in addition to virtually every other detail, Mary’s items of standard Christian devotion: the unspecified book opened before her (the Bible? A Book of Hours? A Psalter?), and the small painting of Christ tucked away in the dim recess of her bedchamber. To be sure, such a narrowly historical critique captures neither the aim nor beauty of the piece; like all biblical artwork, the painting imagines and incarnates the scene, translating it into the familiar and tangible elements and symbols of the artist’s world.

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All I wish to highlight here, in no small part because Michael Peppard’s piece in this journal affords the dynamics of art and Scripture a far more eloquent treatment, is that the presence of Scripture in the form of codex, an exceptionally ubiquitous feature in Annunciation scenes beginning in the 14th century, is a reminder of the deep interplay between Scripture and Tradition in the Catholic imagination and intellectual tradition. And the presence of the anachronistic book highlights the increasing role of the textuality of the Bible as a sacred object of private devotion throughout Christian history, even if this general trajectory has taken significantly different forms, competing yet interconnected, among the diversities of modern Christian experience. As the following articles demonstrate, the exploration of these very theological, biblical, and historical interplays and trajectories brings us to the very heart of the remarkable document that is Dei Verbum.