Next: Universal Priesthood of the Up: The Charisms of the Previous: Difficulties and Obstacles Contents
“May the sun on rising find you with a Bible in your hand.”23.1 This exclamation of Evagrius well expresses the patristic tradition. Canon 19 of the Council of Trullo enjoined priests to initiate the faithful into the greatest intimacy with the Bible. St. John Chrysostom vigorously insists: “I am not a monk, some of you say... But your mistake is in believing that the reading of the Scriptures concerns only monks, because for you it is still more necessary since you are in the midst of the world. There is something worse than not reading the Scriptures, and that is to believe that this reading is useless... a satanic practice.”23.2
“Having returned from church, the husband should repeat what has been read; one will thus prepare a spiritual repast, as well as a material one.”23.3 The saint counsels studying at home the passage that is to be read in church so that the children will be accustomed to a daily and attentive reading of Holy Scripture.23.4
For Origen,23.5 such reading is not simply an exercise added to one's daily life, it is an organic part of one's spiritual life, transforming the day into a living reading of the Word, where the Word himself speaks unceasingly. It directs the struggle and the progress of the soul; by this reading the soul becomes an anima ecclesiastica, and man, according to Clement of Alexandria,23.6becomes a “theodidact” (taught by God).
In the Rule of St. Pachomius, Scripture is to nourish the mind of the monks all day long. During the hours of work, they sing and recite the sacred writings; in the evening, all are together in order to listen to the commentaries. The recitation of the Scriptures by heart was a common practice. For St. Nil, hunger for the Scriptures was the measure of our spiritual being.23.7 For St. Isaac: “The constant meditation on the Word is the light of the soul.”23.8
All spiritual writers sound a warning--never profane the Word by making it an object of speculation or of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, for “to understand what we read is a grace from God”.23.9 Hermas teaches that ascesis and prayer are like a question to which the Lord answers by a revelation of the meaning of the Scriptures.23.10Likewise a troparion (hymn) of None says: “Between the two thieves, thy cross appeared as a balance of justice, one of the scales sinking toward hell with the weight of blasphemy, the other becoming lighter with the loss of sins through knowing the divine Word.”
Reading presupposes then “the state of prayer” that brings words to maturity. “Prayer causes God to illumine man's mind in order that it can grasp what he reads.” God became man “in order to be closer to us than our own soul”, and to give us “the same mind which was in Christ Jesus”.23.11 That is why for Nicolas Cabasilas, “the Gospel figures Christ”23.12 which means that it lets Christ speak by himself, inviting us to fill our eyes and hearts with “the one who attracts to himself alone and unites to himself alone”.23.13 For St. Justin, the Scriptures effect a decisive encounter,23.14 and every martyr by his death testifies that he has read them correctly.
The essential method of reading the Scriptures, according to Nicodemus the Hagiorite, is to go “from the written word to the substantial Word”, and it is in this passage, decisive for the spiritual life, that the patristic commentaries appear to be sure guides.
The Fathers of the Church lived the Bible; they thought and spoke by the Bible, with that admirable penetration which went even to the identification of their being with the biblical substance itself. If one tries to learn from them, one understands that the word read and heard leads always to the living person of the Word. St. John Chrysostom prayed before the Holy Book: “Lord Jesus Christ, open the eyes of my heart so that I may understand and fulfill thy will... illumine my eyes by thy light.” Likewise St. Ephrem advised: “Before every reading, pray and supplicate God that he may reveal himself to you.” St. Athanasius declared: “In the words of Scripture the Lord is found, whose presence the demons cannot stand.”23.15
We can say that for the Fathers, the Bible is Christ, for each of its words puts us in his presence: “Him whom I seek in books,” confessed St. Augustine.23.16
Clement of Alexandria shows that we must nourish ourselves on the seeds of life contained in the Bible as we do in the eucharist.23.17 It is Origen who fixed the meaning of the “eating” of the Scriptures,23.18 and tradition has followed him. We consume “eucharistically” the “Word mysteriously broken”.23.19 St. Jerome says: “We eat his flesh and drink his blood in the divine eucharist, but also in the reading of Scripture.”23.20 St. Gregory of Nazianzen compares the reading of the Bible to the consummation of the paschal lamb.
This eucharistic manner of consuming the Word presupposes the epiklesis of every reading. The Word is living by the Spirit that rests in it, as he placed himself over the Son in his epiphany. We must read it then in the dimension of the Paraclete, which is that of the body of Christ, of the Church and of tradition in which the Word speaks. God willed that Christ form the body where his words resound as words of life; it is then in Christ, within him, in the Church that we must read and listen. The Church alone keeps the Word, for as Origen teaches,23.21 she possesses the Spirit that has dictated it.
At the time of the liturgy, the people are convoked first to hear and then to consume the Word. This hearing builds up the People of God, forms the eucharistic preparation for consuming the Word incarnate, and for entering into substantial communion with the Word.
St. Luke's Gospel tells us23.22 that Christ opened the minds of his disciples, in showing them how one must read the Bible in order to discover there all that was written concerning him, and how, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was written of him in all the Scriptures. It was thus that the Lord opened the meaning of the Scriptures and revealed that the entire Bible is the verbal icon of Christ.
In reading the Scriptures we can discern the prefigurative and the typological meaning, and the accomplishment of the prophecies in the messianic period of the coming of Christ. We can grasp also the historic and eschatological meaning and the accomplishment of history in leading to the kingdom. However, it is the liturgy that offers the method of ecclesial meditation in which the Word is proclaimed, sung, prayed and experienced. The liturgy is prolonged in the life of the faithful and is found again in the daily lectio divina, which continues to be a form of prayer and of communion. Here God speaks, intervenes in the life of every man, and invites him to take to the road in company with the angels and saints. Such reading is at the source of its being and is its end. According to St. John Chrysostom, the reading of Scripture is the priesthood of the laity that leads them to sanctity.
That is why in every reading and meditation we must avoid the fearful dryness of reasoning and suppress also emotional dreaming. We can easily make a cadaver out of a text; we cannot give it life, for this comes from the presence of God.
We can read the Bible in a continuous manner, extended over a year; we can choose one book or follow a theme through all the books; we can meditate on a verse or a single word. Each method is good, if it nourishes our spiritual life. Contemplation is added to the understanding. A description evokes historical realities, contemplation grasps their silent depths. Starting from history, every true reading contemplates the icon of the kingdom.
Thus, reading opens the way to God,23.23 but it imposes also the duty of communicating to others the revealed message.23.24 The lectio divina leads to the apostolate, for “the Word”, according to St. Paul, consists “in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power”.23.25