The present article and the one that will follow it is intended to explain how the parallel texts supplied in our modern translations of the Bible can be used to aid in understanding a passage one is reading. For our purpose, I understand "parallel text" to be "a scriptural passage similar in words or in theme to the bible passage being read." The parallel texts supplied in our modern translations should be understood as minimal helps in the understanding of a given passage. These can still be enriched by the reader's own contact with the sacred page : attentively reading, assiduously remembering the lesson learned, and constantly reflecting on its meaning for his/her life. Following is a discussion of how parallel texts were used by men in the past whose experiences with the Scriptures form the bedrock of the tradition of the lectio divina.
In his De doctrina christiana (On Teaching Christianity), St. Augustine recommends the use of parallel texts in clarifying the meaning of an obscure passage. He writes: "(W)hen we wish to examine passages rendered obscure with words used metaphorically, either let something emerge from our scrutiny which is not controversial, or else if it is so, let the matter be settled from the same scripture by finding and applying testimonies from anywhere else in the sacred books." (Edmund Hill OP (trans) St. Augustine's On Teaching Christianity in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/11), p. 186
During his time, and for centuries after that, this meant understanding the meaning of a given passage by comparing it with texts found either within the same biblical book or one different from it. The practice required that the reader had great familiarity with the Bible; it was a familiarity acquired through years of assiduous study of the sacred page. And familiarization with the Bible meant the memorization of texts. Augustine speaks about this when he talks about the "rumination" of Scriptures:
By rumination, ... this means that everyone should put in his heart whatever he hears (from Scriptures) so that afterwards he would not be lazy in thinking about them; when he listens, let him be like one who chews. When he memorizes (in memoriam revocat) what has been heard and by meditation he recalls their sweetness, he becomes like a ruminant.
The memorization of a passage, therefore was not a mechanical act similar to what some students do when they "memorize" formulae and definitions. Rather, memorization is more of a vital act, comparable to the act of rumination, whereby a passage "enters" one's memory, so to speak, by one's thinking and rethinking it. It is to the memory's store of texts and passages that the mind turns - at least according to the practice of Augustine and those who followed him -- whenever it is confronted by a text or passage that needed closer examination.
Guy the Carthusian illustrates how a well-stocked memory aids in the "mastication" of the divine word of Scriptures. In describing how one passes from lectio (reading) to meditatio (meditation), Guy explains:
In reading, I hear these words: Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God." Behold a brief sentence but full of multiple resonances and sweetness offered like a bunch of grapes for the nourishment of the soul. After having considered it and observed it, the soul says to itself: "There may be something good in here; I shall enter into my heart and I shall try to see whether I will be able to understand and discover this purity (munditia). Truly, it is something precious and desirable, praised in many passages of the Scriptures; whoever possesses it is considered blessed and to him is offered the promise of the vision of God, i.e. eternal life." �
One passes therefore to attentive meditation which does not remain on externals, does not stop on the superficial, but directs its steps towards the heights, penetrates within, and scrutinizes things one by one. One attentively considers that it is not said: Blessed are the pure of body, but of heart, since it is not enough that the hands are not stained with bad actions if our spirit is not purified from crooked thoughts. This is confirmed by the prophet with his authority when he says: "Who can go up the mountain of the Lord? Who can stand in his holy place? He who has innocent hands and a pure heart. (Ps. 24 [23]: 3-4a)" And again (the soul) considers how much the prophet regards this purity of heart when he prays thus: "Create in me, O God, a pure heart; (Ps. 51 [50]: 12)" and again "Let the Lord not hear me if I see iniquity in my heart (Ps. 66[65]:18)". Reflect how Job was attentive to the custody of the heart when he said: "I have made a pact with my eyes that I shall not look at a young girl (Job 31:1)." Behold what violence this holy man did to himself when he would close his eyes so as not to see vanity so that he would not imprudently lay his sight on that which, while not willing it, he would have desired.
After having considered this and other similar things about the purity of heart, meditation begins to think about about the prize, that is, how much glory and how much joy is given to those who see the much longed for face of the Lord (Ps. 24:6), the most beautiful among the sons of men (Ps. 45:2), no longer rejected and scorned, and without that appearance which his mother has clothed it, but already reclothed with that mantle of immortality and crowned with the diadem with which the Father has crowned him on the day (Ps. 2:7) -- - on that day which the Lord made (Ps. 118:24) -- the day of the resurrection and glory. Think that in this vision, that satiety of which the prophet speaks shall be realized: "I shall be satisfied when your glory shall become manifest! (Ps. 17[16]: 15b)"
Guy is here giving an illustration of how "meditatio" is done. The passage "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God (Mt. 5:
" he writes, gives a lot of food for the soul as it "yields" to the mind other passages that clarify its meaning. Those versed in psychology would recognize in this example how the free association of ideas works. "Pure heart" (cor mundum) , in the case of Guy, spontaneously makes him recall other similar passages . (The passage from Job 31:1 was triggered not by "cor mundum" in Ps. 24:3-4a, but by Ps. 24:4b: "�who does not raise his soul towards vain things"). Again in the case of "�for they shall see God", the second half of Matthew 5:9, Guy recalls passages with a similar theme: eschatological joy. The whole point of this illustration is that a well-stocked memory helps the reader of the Scriptures to understand a given passage by using other passages with similar words or themes.
Note 1. The recourse to parallel texts for the proper understanding of a given passage is justified by the fact that there is only one Revelation. From Genesis to the Apocalypse there is just one Primary Author "making use" of historically and culturally diverse "instruments"; there is but One Word of which all the books of the Bible are human echoes. This theological conviction is expressed in the well-known rule for Biblical interpretation: Interpret the Bible with the Bible.
Note 2. The quotation is my translation of the Latin text to be found at Chartreux.ORG
Note 3. This article is archived at Suite101.Com
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