That which is signified by the words or persons and things in the Bible

The "sense" of Scripture is that which is signified by the words or persons and things with which Scripture is concerned. The Literal sense is that of the words; the Spiritual or Mystical sense is that conveyed by the persons or things as being typical or figurative of some thing or some person other than themselves. The literal sense is twofold: the properly or strictly literal, e.g. the historical sense; and the improperly literal sense, i.e. the Metaphorical or Parabolical sense. The Spiritual or Mystical sense is twofold according as (a) the persons or things indicate to us what we are to do, or in other words, convey to us Moral teaching, this is sometimes called the "Tropological" sense; (b) according as these persons or things tell us by their lives or actions what we are to believe; and this again may be subdivided according as the Old Testament points us to Christ and the Church, i.e. to the New. Testament, this is termed the "Allegorical" sense; or according as either the Old or the New Testament points out to us the rewards of faith, i.e. the Kingdom bf Heaven whither we are bound to tend, this is termed the "Anagogical" sense.

These various senses are summed up in the old doggerel verses:

Littera gesta docet; quid credas allegoria.
Moralis quid agas; quo tendis anagogia.

A rough rendering would be:

The Letter tells of the deeds; the Allegory what we are to believe.
The Moral what we are to do; the Anagogical whither we are to tend.

The above are not four "senses" but two, the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into three as we have said above. The accommodated sense is not really a sense of Scripture since it is not intended by the Divine Author; it consists in the application of certairl passages of Holy Scripture, regardless of the context in which they are found, to particular doctrines which find fitting expression in that form of words, e.g., the words: "Man shall come to a deep heart and God shall be exalted," Ps. 63:7-8, may be taken as expressing certain aspects of devotion to the Sacred Heart, but we have no right to say that this meaning was ever intended by the Holy Spirit. At the same time many of these accommodations receive a certain Ecclesiastical sanction from their use in the Liturgy, e.g. in the Divine Office; none the less they remain accommodations and no more. We must not, however, confuse the accommodated sense with the strictly typical sense, for since this latter is that signified by the persons or things in Holy Scripture it will follow that all that is said of them has a typical signification, thus, for example, the Spouse in the Canticle is typical of Our Blessed Lady, hence also the words, "Et macula non est in te," are not merely accommodated to her, they belong to the real typical sense.

It will be clear that all the senses given above are not to be found in every passage of the Bible, we cannot even say that every passage has a spiritual sense at all, though it probably has. As a good example of all four senses, we may take the word Jerusalem : literally it means the City, spiritually it means (a] allegorically, the militant Church, (b) morally, the just soul, (c) anagogically, the Church triumphant.

The Literal sense:
(a) the spiritual sense is founded upon it, and always proceeds from it.

(b) St. Augustine divides the literal sense into the Historical, Aetiological, and Analogical; but these are not three distinct kinds of literal senses so much as three different ways in which the literal sense is expressed; thus History means the mere expression of facts, Aetiology, or the science of causes, the expression of the causes which motive certain facts, e.g., St. Matthew xix. 8, the hardness of their hearts was the reason for permitting divorce to the Jews of old; Analogy consists in supporting one passage of Scripture by another.

(c) St. Augustine and St. Thomas hold that it is possible to have a manifold literal sense, i.e. that one and the same passage can, even literally, have several distinct meanings: The literal sense, says St. Thomas, is that which the author intends; since, then, the Author of the Bible is God Who simultaneously understands all things, there is nothing repugnant in the supposition, as St. Augustine says, Confess, xii. 31, that the Scripture may have many literal meanings in one phrase. Sutrima Theol. I. qu. 1. art. 10. We have an example of this in Is. liii. 8, who shall declare His generation? a passage which is understood both of the Eternal generation of Christ and of His birth of the Blessed Virgin.

(d) Under the literal sense in its wider or improper signification we must group metaphors, symbols, and parables; thus the Lion of Juda hath conquered, is a metaphor but belongs of course to the literal sense; as significative of Christ it belongs to the typical or figurative, or mystical sense. Similarly, symbolical things whose whole meaning is prefigurative, e.g. the goat, the ram 1, the leopard, etc., in the Book of Daniel, come under the literal sense, though prefigurative of Christ. The same must be said of Our Lord's Parables.

The Spiritual sense:
(a) It is essentially founded on the literal sense.

(b) Just as men can adapt certain things to signify other things the letters of the alphabet, for example, are adopted to signify certain sounds -- so also can God, since all things are subject to His Providence, make a certain series of things significative of other things. And when we consider the matter more closely, it becomes evident that the persons and events which figure in the Bible are really of no interest to us except as significative of Divine truths, see the use which St. Paul makes of the story of Abraham, Sara, and Agar, in Gal. iv.

(c) That such a Spiritual sense is to be found in Scripture is clear from the use which St. John, for instance, in xix. 36, makes of Exod. 12:46, and Nb 9:12. Various terms are used by Holy Scripture for things or persons thus Divinely significative; St. Paul calls them types, examples, shadows, allegories, parables, cf. Rom. 5:14, 1 Cor. 10:6, Gal. 4:24, Heb. 8:5, 9:9; the things thus prefigured are termed antitypes, 1 Peter 3:21.

(d) The use of this Scriptural sense has to be carefully safe-guarded; since it is the meaning which God, and not man, has attached to things or persons, we can only be certain that particular passages have a spiritual signification from the fact that this signification is presented to us elsewhere in the literal sense of a passage, or because it is directly taught us by the Infallible Church. Thus, the Church supplanted the Synagogue, as is declared throughout the New Testament; it is legitimate, then, to see this supplanting prefigured in Jacob's supplanting of Esau, and in Jacob's preference of Ephraim over Manasses.

The spiritual sense of Sacred Scripture is too much neglected nowadays, yet in it lies the real power and efficacy of the Bible; thus note St. Bonaventure's beautiful words:

"Beneath the rind of the open letter lies hidden a mystical and profound meaning; and this for the confounding of our pride, so that by these supreme depths lying: hidden beneath the lowliness of the letter both the proud may be humbled, the unclean repelled, the unjust turned away, and the negligent aroused to an understanding of the mysteries. And since they that listen to this teaching are not of one class but of every class -- for indeed all who would be saved must know something of this teaching, it therefore hath a manifold understanding that so it may take captive every understanding and at the same time adapt itself to every understanding, may exceed all understanding, and yet may enlighten and alike enkindle by its varied ray every understanding that diligently applys itself to it." (Breviloquium Proem. 5).

This scheme below will, perhaps, render the divisions given above easier to grasp:



By Very Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., S.T.M.
Doctor in Sacred Scripture
Member, Society of Biblical Archaeology
late Professor of New Testament Exegesis
Collegio Angelico, Rome