Back to the sources, humanists and Reformers

At the turn of the sixteenth century, a watchword circulates among scholars: ad fontes, back to the sources. It would transform the reading of the Bible.

The humanists and the original texts

The Western Church read the Bible in the Vulgate, the Latin translation that came from the work of Jerome. Yet several scholars show that this translation sometimes departs from the originals:

• Lorenzo Valla, in his Annotationes, compares the Vulgate with the Greek New Testament and points out differences.
• Johannes Reuchlin, a great Hebraist, shows that the Latin Old Testament diverges from the Hebrew on several points.
• Erasmus publishes the Greek New Testament in 1516. He writes: “Whoever wants to be truly a theologian must go back to the sources.” In his preface he wishes that even simple people would read Scripture in their own language.

Erasmus never joined the Reformation, because he refused schism. But his work gave the Reformers their tools.

Luther and the literal sense

Until about 1519, Luther too looks for the spiritual meaning beyond the letter. Then he changes: the literal sense, rightly understood, becomes for him the path to the meaning God intended. This is not about reading naively, but about taking grammar, context and the author’s intention seriously.

Other Reformers qualify this. Zwingli and Bucer stress that the Spirit is still needed for understanding, and speak of a double sense of Scripture. Luther himself appeals to the Spirit to validate and interpret the text. Zwingli adds philology, Calvin plain common sense.

The risk of everyone reading

If everyone can read the Bible, everyone can also misread it. The historian Euan Cameron notes that the Reformers knew the risk of poorly trained readers “flying off into the realms of fantasy”. Some humanists thought ordinary people would draw only simple moral lessons from it. The reality was more complex.

So the Reformers put filters in place: catechisms, preaching, confessions of faith. Above all, they founded schools and academies to train pastors able to read Hebrew and Greek and to know history. Interpreting becomes a skill that is learned.

What this history teaches us

Over four lessons we have seen that Scripture has always been interpreted: by Ezra’s Levites, by the rabbis, by Jesus and Paul, by the Fathers, by the monks, by the Reformers. No one reads “without glasses”. Our culture, our Church and our history shape our reading.

This does not make every interpretation equal. But it invites humility, training and reading in community. The Reformers understood this: training readers better remains the best defence against error.