What Is Scripture for Thomas Aquinas?

Abstract

St. Thomas Aquinas defines theology (sacra doctrina) as the communication of wisdom that comes from God and leads to Him. What is important here, according to Thomas, is to read the Bible as a whole and not as a cluster of random books. Revelation, and the testimony of it which is the Bible, cannot be reduced to a mere literal communication of divine truth. More fundamental than the biblical words (verba) themselves is the reality (res) to which they refer: the salvific truth communicated by God. The Thomistic approach to Scripture in theology is shaped by four complementary dimensions: auctoritas (power of authority), sensus (meaning), finis (purpose), and documentum (testimony). In this light, Scripture functions as the “alphabet” of theology—the foundational semantic structure through which revealed truth is expressed and transmitted.

1. Introduction

A proper understanding of Thomas Aquinas’ thought hinges on his conception of theology as sacra doctrina, which he defines as the transmission of wisdom that both originates from and leads to God (Davies 1990; Martin 2001; Case 2017; Zatwardnicki 2024). This transmission is mediated by Christ, the true Teacher (Klimczak 2013), and, in subordination to His mediation, transmission is also mediated by the Apostles and prophets as bearers of divine truth (Boyle 2023). Consequently, theological practice in this framework entails placing Scripture at the heart of the discipline as the primary testimony to Revelation. It also involves adherence to interpretative principles that reflect the intrinsic relationship between Scripture and theology. This perspective underlies Aquinas’ identification of Sacred Scripture with sacra doctrina (ST I, q. 1 a. 2 ad 2), highlighting that Scripture is not merely the written text, but the divine reality to which it bears witness—an understanding that determines the proper method of theological inquiry (Manresa Lamarca 2025; Vijgen 2025; Jaworski 2023). Given this understanding of Scripture as both pagina and doctrina, any attempt to “de-biblicise” theology—by reducing it to purely rational discourse with no substantial reference to Bible—would have been alien to Aquinas.

For St. Thomas, the Bible is not merely a collection of disparate writings from various times and authors. It is a coherent and divinely ordered Revelation of the truth of salvation, shaped by God’s providential will. Because of this fundamental unity of Scripture, it is possible to interpret it through the lens of individual passages, since the story it tells is providentially directed by God and is not a series of random events. It is therefore possible to speak of the veritas Sacrae Scripturae and not merely of the particular truths of an individual biblical author at a given stage of history, remaining solely within the scope of their human consciousness. Under the category of ‘truth of Scripture’ is the manifestation of truth intended by God, which has the quality of wisdom and thus touches the deepest, ultimate causes, not only the last (human) executors of the works of Providence. For a full understanding of Aquinas on this point, it is crucial to grasp the idea of dual causality, where God is considered the first cause and human authors as secondary but instrumental (Bellamah 2016).

At the same time, Scripture, by virtue of being a testimony and not Revelation itself, is characterized by a certain tension with the events transmitted by it. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the very reality of Revelation taking place in history (res) and the manner of its transmission (verbum). Biblical writings direct readers to the res, the underlying reality to which the text points. This aligns with the theory of inspiration as a prophetic charism, where the key element is the perception of truth rather than the external mode of transmission, such as specific visions. In other words, it is not the visions that are inspired, but the truth communicated by them. In this sense, the status of Scripture seems to be different from, for example, the status of the Qur’an in Islam (Galadari 2021).

At the same time, the expression of this approach to Scripture in Aquinas’s theology is the conviction of extracting the truth of Scripture in analogy with the human process of abstracting truth from matter. The truth of Scripture, then, does not consist in the repetition of the ‘letter’, but in extracting meaning from the text (Torrijos 2019).

In order to show how Aquinas understands Scripture, this article will focus on the four Latin terms that can be attributed to Scripture in Aquinas’ writings: auctoritas (1), sensus (2), finis (3), and documentum (4). These serve, so to speak, as coordinates for navigating the Thomistic approach to Scripture, providing a framework for understanding subsequent developments in scholastic thought.

2. Sacred Page as Auctoritas

In medieval theology, auctoritas has a technical meaning, and its use is intended to settle disputes and initiate debate. However, in the disputed question format, it can be invoked in both sed contra and obiectiones, but its use also indicates that it is intended to settle disputes and initiate debate. Aquinas was convinced that theological thinking must be based on (though not limited to) biblical truth, just as the intellect is subordinate to divine Revelation. Therefore, because quotations from Scripture involve a specific relationship with Revelation, they are more frequently cited than other authorities, such as quotes from the Church Fathers (ST I, q.1, a.8c). For this reason, some scholars see in St Thomas the seeds of a way of thinking in accordance with traditio in Scripturis, that is, a tracing of Scripture as tradition and what follows from a participatory perception of salvation history (Izquierdo 2006).

2.1. Scripture Versus Revelation: Participatory Biblical Exegesis

The status of Scripture in Aquinas’ theology, as Mathew Levering notes in the context of his dialog with contemporary historical-critical exegesis, stems from a specific approach to history itself in his theology and more broadly in the patristic-medieval model that deteriorates at the end of the Middle Ages. The American theologian distinguishes between a ‘linear’ understanding of history, characterized by a sequence of events, stemming from the metaphysical assumptions of late nominalism (which separates God and creation), and a ‘participatory’ one, which emphasizes the metaphysical participation of creation in the perfection of the Creator, but also the action of the Trinity in individual historical events, which means that past, present, and future are linked, and this allows for the interrelationality of the Bible (Levering 2008, p. 2). The events are therefore not just externally linked but internally linked. In order to discover them, it is not enough merely to know the specific historical context corresponding to linear history (archeology, philology, etc.), but there is a need to take into account the doctrine of the Church. This participatory view is intrinsically linked to the interplay between the order of creation and the order of grace (Platovnjak 2019). Aquinas’ biblical exegesis is therefore oriented towards the past, but also to the future.

An adequate understanding of the status of Scripture in Aquinas’ thought presupposes a conception of history that is not detached from theology. Rather, it is precisely through the historical and human mediation of the Word that Scripture discloses deeper theological truths (Roszak 2022). History must not only be handed down but also understood, and this is made possible by the faith of the Church developed, among other things, in later generations, which makes it possible to flesh out the truth handed down earlier—chronologically. We must add to this perspective the essential vision of the relationship between divine and human authorship (within the framework of the theory of dual causality), which rejects theocentricity and anthropocentricity but proposes their integration in the spirit of the non-competitiveness of the two authorships. From this, however, it follows that, if a participatory approach is key, then Scripture is primarily about God, not man. The Bible thus conveys the teaching of God and not merely a record of the historical conditions of the human author.

Matthew Levering boils down such a pneumatological–Christological practice of exegesis to three steps: seeing history participatively rather than linearly; seeing biblical exegesis as an ecclesial participation in God’s teachings; and seeing it as a conviction of how ecclesiastical authority (the practice of wisdom) allows multidimensional exegesis to be distinguished from its idolatrous distortions (Levering 2008, p. 138).

2.2. Auctoritas Sacra Scripturae in the Practice of Theology

In terms of appropriateness to medieval theology, St Thomas points to Scripture as auctoritas, being the rationale for which certain truths can be proclaimed. Scripture is not a confirmation of one’s own intuitions or explorations, but a source from which one draws inspiration. Auctoritas means a resource, an inescapable point of view, a recognized certificate of the origin of truth, which cannot be ignored. This is why, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, St Thomas notes that one cannot preach anything other than what is contained in the Gospels’ and the Apostles’ writings and what is implicitly or explicitly present in Scripture. And contained in the Scriptures is the exhortation to believe directly in Christ and his teaching (Super Gal., cap. 1 l. 2.). For this reason, one cannot detach oneself from Scripture in preaching: for St Thomas, it would be strange to cultivate a theology in which there is not a single reference to Scripture (Boyle 2012).

The role of Scripture in channeling theological reflection is well illustrated by the question of the motives for the Incarnation, which, from St Anselm’s Cur Deus homo onwards, inspired the minds of medieval theologians. In the tertia pars, i.e., the Christological part of the Summa theologiae, when St Thomas seeks reasons for the Word’s coming into the world, he identifies Scripture as the only source of knowledge of God’s will in this regard, and it conveys that the Incarnation became necessary because of the sin of the first man. It was therefore appropriate—ex convenientia—that the work of the Incarnation should be attributed to the remedy of sin, since the authority of Scripture indicates this (ST III, q. 1 a. 3 co). The same is true of many Trinitarian truths, the recognition of which is linked to a biblical origin (SCG IV cap. 15 n. 1).

The authority of Scripture has a wide scope of content, in the logic of the scholastic auctoritates, which does not conclude the theological discussion but constitutes its principium, the principle of theological thinking, as is well seen in the form of the credo, which is the fruit of contemplation of Scripture. In addition, Scripture resolves the issues posed (hence the presence of Scripture in sed contra), but it is not a demonstrative argument. Many interpretations of particular passages are put forward because of the richness of biblical meaning, which is perfectly reflected in the language of Thomas’ theology, where we find alternative explanations of biblical passages (potest aliter exponi). Thus, Scripture cannot be ignored because, as a testimony to Revelation, it sets the rules for reading God’s wisdom. This can be seen, for example, in the case of the Book of Job, where the rationale emerges that it is not simply a mere parable but a real story—from which timeless truths emerge—and this is indicated by the authority of Scripture in other books treating Job as a historical figure (Levering et al. 2020).

The considerations so far have shown that Scripture, for Aquinas, is not an isolated auctoritas, but linked to the Church for which Scripture was written and which established its canon, and this also has to do with the question of translations. This means that it is not the atomization of Scripture in the form of a letter but the transmission of wisdom that takes place in and through the Church through the power of the Spirit in successive generations reading Scripture. Auctoritas thus retains its original meaning, being synonymous with potestas and a way of participating in the power of God, while respecting the integrity of instrumental causes.

Aquinas’ postulates on the position of Scripture in theology are exemplified in the context of later debates in the Reformation era. The aforementioned debates taking place in the sixteenth century between so-called ‘positive’ (biblical) and ‘scholastic’ theology concerned the place of the Bible in reflection: the issue was whether Scripture is a confirmation of theological truths, which may translate into treating it as theological documentation (in the form of, for example, quotations), or whether it is more a source from which theological thought begins. It is worth noting that the dispute was not about the position or value of Scripture itself in theology (here the Reformers and Catholics agreed!), but about its interpretation, the multiplicity of meanings, and the criterion for their correctness.

2.3. Hic Est Liber: The Authority of Scripture as ‘Effective’, ‘True’, and ‘Useful’

The importance of Scripture is evident in yet another work by St Thomas, Rigans montes, which is one of the programmatic sermones that the new master theologian had to make when presenting his vision of theology to the university. In the medieval reality, the principium (Reinhardt 2015), on the basis of which a medieval theologian received a licentia docendi (in the case of Thomas at the hands of Aymeric de Veire), consisted of two parts, the inceptio (Rigans montes) and the resumptio (Hic est liber). The latter, which has attracted less attention from scholars, consists of two parts: the praise of Scripture (commendatio) and the division of the canon of Scripture (partitio) (Smith 2021, p. 80).

In this work, it is interesting to note the emphasis that falls on the thema that Thomas chooses, that is, the biblical quotation that is the guiding thought or criterion of the whole exposition. In the case of the work in question, it is Baruch 4:1, which emphasizes that the Bible is a book of commandments and that it lasts forever. This translates into three features of Scripture that Thomas praises, namely for its efficacy (1), its truth (2), and its benefit for the life of the faithful (3).

In Hic est liber, this efficacy is linked to the origin of Scripture from God himself, who is willing to move the heart of the hearer and is himself the truth that cannot lie. With this is connected the unity of the source, since the Father, the Son, and the Spirit teach the same thing. The loss of the efficacy of the word of Scripture can only be per accidens, when the preachers become divided among themselves and err. Secondly, since it is a law from God and therefore binding, it is true. Thirdly, Scripture disposes one to a life of grace and therefore to participation in divine nature, without which there is no true life. Therefore, Scripture promises and leads to glory, in which the happiness of man consists (Ruiz 2024).

In addition to these three motives—efficacy, truth, and benefit—the authority of Scripture is also linked to the form of ‘praeceptum’ (as indicated by the quotation from the book of Baruch), in which it is communicated to the people that praeceptum does not imply voluntariness or a source of inspiration but a certain appeal to intelligence and will to accept the message of Scripture.

3. Sacra Pagina as Manifestatio Veritatis

As Hic est liber has shown, in Aquinas’ theology, Scripture is approached from the perspective of the knowledge of truth, to which, in its own proper way—through history and sensory reality—Scripture leads man. This approach has to fit into a scheme for the transmission of truth and wisdom in which the human mind needs two principles in order to comprehend something. These principles are the First Truth and the will of the one who understands (voluntas intelligentis). Thus, truth is the light of the intellect, and the rule (measure) of all truth is God; therefore, the concept of truth means both ‘illumination’ (illuminatio) and ‘speech’ (locutio). Thus, God, who wishes to reveal truth through Scripture, both ‘illuminates’ and ‘speaks’. From this, it follows for Thomas, in terms close to the Dionysian tradition, that ‘since Scripture, revealed and handed down by God who is Truth and knows all things, is supremely wise and utterly true, it is to be believed above all else’ (In De divinis nominibus cap. 1 l. 1). By reaching for Scripture and reading its meanings, man comes to know the truth in a specific way.

3.1. Res Et Verbum—Sacramental Ontology in the Reading of Scripture

Aquinas’ biblical hermeneutics is based on the conviction that Scripture conveys truth not only through words but essentially through the realities that are signified by words. Thus, by way of example, it is not so much the mere description of the Exodus from Egypt in the Bible but also—or above all—the very event of the Exodus from Pharaoh’s bondage that constitutes the communication of truth. This is how St Thomas formulated it in Quodlibet VI:

‘The Scriptures were intended by God to show us through them the truth necessary for salvation. And the showing or expressing of some truth about something can be done by means of things or words, since words signify things and one thing can be a figure of another. And the author of Scripture, namely, the Holy Spirit, is not only the author of words but also of things, and can therefore not only adapt words to signify something, but can also make of one thing a figure of another’.

(Quodlibet VII, q. 6 a. 1 co.)

For Thomas, this is the basis for distinguishing between the literal and spiritual sense in Scripture, but, above all, a warning against what Matthew Levering called the idolatry of Scripture, meaning such a focus on the littera of the text that cuts it off from the res. Just as the wording of the creed can be analyzed, what ultimately matters is the reality it expresses. Belief does not stop at the words or formulas themselves, but reaches toward what they signify: we believe not in the formulas of the creed, but in the res they convey.

This sacramental logic finds its expression in the conviction of the appropriateness of such a communication of the mysteries of faith, which in Scripture are presented by means of or in the form of common rather than noble things (ST I, q. 1 a. 9 ad 3.). Among the reasons for this situation indicated in the first issue of the Summa Theologiae (a.9) is to precisely guard against too much adherence to the words in the Bible: for if they were lofty words, far removed from everyday life, they might create the impression that they pronounce on God in a univocal rather than analogical way. At the same time, sensible forms appear in Scripture as a means of communicating wisdom, because they are, as it were, images of the things of God, and at the same time, in this way, we have the opportunity to participate in the things of God, however imperfectly (Platovnjak and Mutanen 2023). Once again, one can see what role analogy plays in the biblical exegesis practiced by Aquinas: by seeking to harmonize different dimensions and readings, it leads to the discovery of transcendent truth. This is how Aquinas explains it in De potentia:

‘the things of God in Scripture, among other reasons, are communicated to us under a form cognisable by the senses, so that the whole man, as far as possible, is perfected by participation in the things of God, not only by knowing intellectually comprehensible truth, but also by knowing sensory nature through forms cognisable by the senses’.

(De potentia, q. 6 a. 7 co.)

This is another manifestation of the profound conviction that God respects human nature in communicating even what transcends it, which is expressed in the custom of Scripture, which conveys the divine in a human way (Contra Gentiles, lib. 4 cap. 23 n. 3). At the same time, it safeguards Scripture from being reduced to a single meaning, preserving the tension between littera and sensus. And this is not a sign of weakness, for ‘it belongs to the dignity of Scripture that in one and the same text there are many meanings, so that Scripture corresponds to different human understandings and everyone is amazed to find in Scripture the truth which he has grasped with his mind’ (De potentia, q. 4 a. 1 co).

One of the ways in which Aquinas leads to the discovery of multiple meanings is by introducing references to other biblical texts into the exegesis, opening up interpretations in new directions, especially in relation to the literal and spiritual senses (Dahan 2009). Just as it is inappropriate to reflect the nature–grace relationship in terms of layers or levels, as if they were a superstructure, it is likewise inappropriate to reflect the relationship of the literal and spiritual sense in this way (Van Wart 2025).

3.2. Veritas Sacrae Scripturae and the Unity of Scripture

In Aquinas’ texts, we also find the expression veritas Sacrae Scripturae, which indicates a theological reading of the truth conveyed in Scripture that transcends the framework of linear history and is treated as the totality of God’s intention. Salvation history is not simply the ‘sum’ of events that occurred at a given moment, purely horizontally, but, because of the work of the Holy Spirit, demands a transcendent view. In the same way, the causality of God as the first cause is not in competition with and part of a sequence of secondary causes. Otherwise, following the linear history advocated by the classical version of historical-critical exegesis, one then exposes what each author said as if it were a separate source, e.g., a separate voice or instrument in the orchestra, yet only from the perspective of the whole can one understand the meaning of the intervention of the individual instrument. This gives rise to the practice of supporting the interpretation of one passage of Scripture that is more difficult to understand with another that is more clearly communicated through the pages of the Bible. This is explained by Thomas in the Summa contra Gentiles:

‘Although the similes of things sometimes take the names of things in an ambiguous manner, yet it is not befitting for Scripture to present the whole narrative of an event under such ambiguity, in such a way that no clear truth could be obtained from other places in Scripture; for from this it would not result in the instruction of men, but rather in their deception. Yet the Apostle says in Rom 15:4: ‘For whatever was written was written for our instruction’, and in 2 Tim 3:16: ‘All Scripture inspired by God is useful for teaching and instruction’. Moreover, the whole Gospel narrative would be poetic and fable-like if it told the appearances of things as things themselves, since, however, it is said in 2 Peter 1:16: ‘Not following imaginary fables have we made known to you the power of our Lord Jesus Christ’.

(Contra Gentiles, lib. 4 cap. 29 n. 4)

Moreover, the unity of Scripture makes it possible to read the issues regarding the relationship between Old Testament figures and Christ, including the necessity of believing in the Messiah even before his Incarnation: for the realities of the Old Testament participate in what they foreshadow, if one follows the holistic perspective of salvation history (Ang 2024). With this understanding of Scripture, Thomas can speak of the implicit faith of Old Testament figures in the realities fulfilled in the New Testament (e.g., salvation, resurrection, etc.), distinguishing it from the explicit faith of those who believed after the coming of Christ or experienced the special grace of Revelation (e.g., the so-called maiores in the Old Testament).

This conviction is also an attempt to integrate the teachings of Scripture in the form of uniformitas dictorum and, at the same time, the principle of not going beyond Scripture in the practice of theology. According to a certain image recorded by Aquinas in his commentary on one of the works of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, the truth of Scripture is like a ray of light flowing from the First Truth, which, however, does not reveal everything but only things within a certain measure, taking care not to mix this truth with error. In the same commentary On the Divine Names, St. Thomas states the following:

“Since it is from Holy Scripture that we receive the Revelation of God, we should hold what is contained in it as the best rule of truth. We are not allowed to multiply by adding something of our own, nor to diminish by omitting something, nor to distort by misinterpreting”

(In De divinis nominibus, cap. 2 l. 1)

The truth of Scripture is not a matter of human invention but of adhering to the rule of truth. However, it is not a matter of limiting the words of Scripture to a single meaning, but the truth of Scripture can be interpreted in many ways (this issue is well expressed by the issue of “waters above the firmament” and their understanding and the resulting authority of Scripture in the case of changes in the scientific cosmovision (Quodlibet IV, q. 2 a. 2 co.). Scripture is necessary so that in considering divine matters, we do not rely on the power of human reason alone but conduct considerations of truth in such a way that this truth known by reason agrees with the truth of Scripture (In De divinis nominibus, cap. 2 l. 4.).

4. Sacra Pagina as Finis

The status of Holy Scripture in Thomas’ theology must also be viewed from the perspective of the purpose for which it was written, which is to lead man to salvation. In this sense, finis Scripturae is associated not only with the intellect (truth) but also with their will (good). When St. Thomas in Quodlibet XII indicates that “the purpose of Scripture, which comes from the Holy Spirit, is to instruct men”, he means a specific type of instruction, which is associated with the Latin eruditio. It concerns the foundations on which one can build actions that are essential for man (“to know what is essential”) and not erudition as a broad scope of knowledge in the modern sense (“to know a lot”).

4.1. Sacred Scripture and Salvation

St. Thomas often reminds us that in order to achieve a goal, it is necessary to first know it so that someone is able to choose the appropriate means to achieve the goal they have set. In the case of Holy Scripture and its role, Aquinas indicates as this goal the effort, expressed in the individual books of the Bible, to lead a person to eternal life. Therefore, setting obstacles to this kind of teaching, for example, in the form of teaching the Bible without the aim of leading someone to salvation, could be, from Aquinas’ perspective, simply a sin (Super Sent., lib. 4 d. 19 q. 2 a. 2 qc. 2 ad 4.). The purpose of Scripture, as the prolog to the exposition of the Book of Jeremiah formulates, is to teach “about the good life and how to reach the glory of immortality” (In Jeremiam, prol). Therefore, many other books also indicate the glory that Christ earned and which awaits those who, thanks to the grace of Christ, have an imperfect share in it already here on earth.

This perspective of seeing Scripture in the light of the expected glory is well conveyed by another prolog, this time to the Book of Psalms: this is the last, unfinished biblical commentary dictated by Aquinas (Vijgen 2021; Weinandy et al. 2005). There, he emphasizes that Scripture—in this case, the Psalms, but he applies this to the entire Bible—can be called a ‘word of glory’ in four ways because of its relationship to glory (Super Psalmos, prol.). Scripture can be first the ‘cause’ of glory because it comes from the glorious Word of God and secondly due to its ‘content’, because the texts of Holy Scripture, especially the Psalms, contain a description of what glory is and what it consists of. Aquinas notes that not only do the words of Scripture praise God but they also bring and realize this glory. Finally, the similarity with glory lies in the way in which this glory is revealed in Scripture (modus emanationis), and this is connected with the nature of prophecy, which sometimes reveals truth by means of sensual things, imaginations, or directly by means of a manifestation of truth.

For this reason, through the words of Scripture, Christ invites us to glory. Scripture participates in the realization of this path to glory in several ways, which St. Thomas describes in his commentary on the Second Letter to Timothy, when he speaks of the four effects of Holy Scripture, which he connects with the division into theoretical and practical reason: teaching truth, combating falsehood (both theoretical), and detaching man from evil and leading him to goodness (both practical) (Super II Tim., cap. 3 l. 3). Aquinas spoke similarly in his commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews, when he emphasized that Scripture cannot be reduced to a list of theoretical truths, as if it were about the rules of geometry, but that reading the Bible is about affective acceptance (Super Hebr cap. 5 l. 2).

4.2. Causal Perspective—God and Creation

Indicating the purpose of Holy Scripture as salvation and a foretaste of glory, and thus as inchoatio, requires defining the way in which it is realized and thus what causes influence the achievement of this effect. In other words, it is about the cause of glory to which Scripture leads and thus also about the issue of the authorship of Holy Scripture, since it precisely concerns the way of achieving glory. As in many situations, it seems that here too it is worth applying the metaphysical framework of Thomas’s thought, in which the issue of double causality—primary and secondary or God and creation—plays a key role. Once again, we are convinced of the compatibility of metaphysics and Scripture, to which Matthew Levering and Jörgen Vijgen drew attention. In the context of Aquinas’ theology, the key belief remains the dual authorship of Scripture, divine and human, which can be presented not in terms of the model of competing causes (either one or the other) but of principal and instrumental causality. The principal author of Scripture, as Thomas emphasizes in De Potentia (q. 4 a. 1 co), is the Holy Spirit, but this principal causality is not realized at the expense of the causality of the human author, who is, in this case, the instrumental cause: not in spite of him, but through him. In Aquinas’ metaphysics, there are two types of such instrumental causality: on the one hand, we have the variant of the direct connection of the instrumental cause with the principal one (like a hand connected to a body) or the variant of a separated instrumental causality (like a hammer in a human hand is a ‘separated’ tool). The biblical author, with their own history and way of perceiving truth, acting under divine inspiration and in their prophetic charism and thus focused on grasping truth, transmits divine truth by means of images proper to them. Scripture is therefore a reflection of times and contexts (the famous cirumstantia litterae in Aquinas’ writings), without remaining limited to them. This is well expressed by Aquinas’ suggestion in De Potentia about the concordant sense: it concerns a situation in which the meaning of Scripture may be received in a way that is adapted to the reader’s specific historical context, yet without compromising the integrity of divine authorship (Zatwardnicki 2025).

5. Sacred Scripture as Documentum

In Aquinas’ terminology, the term documenta divinae Scripturae also appears, which denotes the doctrine contained in Holy Scripture, treated as a common transmission of the truths of faith. Moreover, documenta fidei appear in this very sense in his writings, denoting the Christological teaching of the Church. In the context of the considerations in his commentary on the Politics, Thomas understands by documenta the consolidated transmission of truth based on Scripture, contrasting it with exempla. It is compared to the green pastures of Ps 23(22), abundant in herbs, which are a symbol of the abundance of spiritual teachings.

The expression also admits a second meaning, denoting a kind of ‘proof’ that can be applied to specific theological claims, serving either to confirm or to call into question the authority of Scripture. This is how Aquinas evaluates certain theses of theologians, as is the case, for example, in Summa contra Gentiles, when he states the following:

“Now to this truth Holy Scripture bears witness, for it is said in the Epistle of St. James (1:17) that with God ‘there is no change or shadow of turning’” (SCG, I cap. 55 n. 10). He approaches similarly the comparison of truth confirmed by reason with the statements of Scripture—“Now to this truth, proved by reason, Holy Scripture bears witness. For it is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews (4:13): ‘All things are naked and laid bare before his eyes.’”). Yet another example of this juxtaposition strategy is seen in the sentence: “They also oppose the authority of Holy Scripture, which contains unshakable and clearly expressed truth. For it is said in the Book of Numbers (23:19): “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change.”

(SCG III cap. 95 n. 19.)

5.1. Scripture as Testimonium Domini

In his commentary on the Psalms, Aquinas points out that these testimonies of God (“Your testimonies are very trustworthy”), which are revealed in Scripture, are necessary to test the correct faith of men. By these testimonies, we mean truths that have the power of ‘authority’, that is, that there is one God, that he created heaven and earth, etc. These ‘testimonies’ are simply teachings (doctrina), and they are faithful because they contain truth and there is no falsehood in them. The reference in this Psalm to testimony seems to indicate the purpose of Holy Scripture, which is to direct us to the future life.

The category of ‘testimonies’ is also associated with the conviction about the character of Holy Scripture as ‘testimonies’ of Revelation. Although such a term, the value of which was indicated by Joseph Ratzinger (Soler Ferrán 2024; Blanco Sarto 2024), does not appear directly, Thomas nevertheless thinks in these categories. Scripture transmits to subsequent generations the testimony of the presence and action of the Lord in history.

At the same time, in the understanding of Scripture, due to its author, there appears a conviction about the connection between the Book of Scripture and the Book of Creation. God writes not only through secondary causes, biblical authors, but in the alphabet of creation, hence Aquinas’ conviction that it is worthwhile and necessary to connect Scripture to science.

As Ignacio Manresa notes, the status of Scripture can be compared with Aquinas’s conviction that the New Law is inscribed in the interior of man (indita) and is not—as many of his contemporaries thought—simply equivalent to the text of the Gospel. Hence, he notes, “Consequently, we must say that the New Law is in the first place a law that is inscribed on our hearts, but that secondarily it is a written law” (ST I.II, q. 106, a. 1.). On this basis, Manresa indicates that the Holy Scripture through which God instructs us is grace, not an external text. Therefore, the status of Scripture from the perspective of the New Law is read in the tension between littera and spiritus, when Aquinas comments on the words “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” from 2 Cor 3:6. St. Paul considers this sentence in from two perspectives: what the New Testament consists of and the reason for which it was given. In contrast to the Old Testament (testamentum litterae), the New Testament is the work of the Spirit, who goes beyond the letter:

“The New Testament is the covenant of the Holy Spirit, through which the love of God is poured out in our hearts, as it is said in Rom 5:5. And so, when the Holy Spirit awakens in us the love which is the fullness of the Law, it is a New Testament—not according to the letter, that is, not written by the letter, but according to the Spirit, that is, by the Spirit who gives life”.

(Super II Cor., cap. 3 l. 2)

The reason why it does not consist in the ‘writing of the letter’ is the power of the Spirit, who gives life (Jn 6:64 or Rom 5:5) and does not merely make sin known. He also removes the cause, because the letter itself, by making sin known, indirectly contributed to death, strengthening lust and teaching to bypass the law. This gives rise to the triple advantage of the New Testament over the Old Testament: the level of its effect (it gives life, not only promises it), the way of transmission (in the heart, not on the tablets of the letter), and perfection (it allows for the real achievement of glory). According to Aquinas, the Old Testament only promised what the New Testament fulfilled by granting grace. Therefore, the New Testament consisted in grace itself and therefore transcended the boundaries of epochs: although one lived in the time of the Old Testament, one belonged to the New Testament.

5.2. How Does the Sacra Pagina Differ from Other Texts?

This question is justified in the context of the status of Scripture and the methodology applied to it because is there no difference between the interpretation of the Bible and other texts. However, there are differences and they result from the difference between the ordinary ‘pagina’ and the ‘sacra pagina’, as Aquinas briefly notes, due to the nature of his commentary on the Book of Isaiah, that sacra pagina dicitur liber primo grandis quantum ad grande contentum (Super Isaiam, cap. 8 l. 1). Thomas also discussed the privilege of Scripture over other texts in his commentary on the Second Epistle to Timothy, in which he pointed to its origin, that is, that it is not based on human thought, but Holy Scripture is divine and consequently inspired by God (Super II Tim., cap. 3 l. 3.)

The difference, however, lies in the scope of interpretation, because the Sacra Pagina not only concerns the text and its historical and cultural circumstances, and thus only the word written in the Bible as littera or verbum, but refers to the res itself, reality, which may have a different meaning than that written in the text. In the case of the Holy Scriptures, the events themselves have meaning, and it is from this that spiritual meaning is born. Therefore, it is difficult to accept one methodology for the interpretation of the biblical text and extra-biblical texts, because it is not only about the text itself and the rules of its interpretation but about the reality signified by the text, which is connected with the action of grace. Reducing the Bible to an ordinary text, omitting its res, would be, for Aquinas, reducing everything to secondary causes and thus losing the richness of the mystery of faith.

6. Summary

The development of theology detached from its biblical foundations, often pursued in the name of universal truths, was already a concern in the time of Thomas Aquinas and continues to be so today. Aquinas, however, followed a different path. He endeavored to integrate the conceptual categories and vocabulary of Sacred Scripture into the framework of metaphysical inquiry, always beginning his theological work with a close reading of the biblical text (Roszak 2023). In this way, Scripture becomes the alphabet of theology—its original and primary language—because of its intrinsic connection to Revelation and its essential role in mediating the truth that leads to salvation.

Many scholars have observed the reemergence of neo-modernist tendencies in contemporary theology, particularly in the form of a purely subjective act of faith devoid of concrete content or in interpretive approaches to Scripture that favor individual preference while disregarding the question of historical background. Such methodologies, by diverging from the reality of the events narrated and failing to respect the proper nature of the biblical text, ultimately constrict the theological reading of the truth conveyed in Sacred Scripture.

The status of Scripture according to Thomas requires taking into account several elements: understanding Revelation as developing in history and Scripture as a testimony of that, which is associated with the primacy of ‘meaning’ over the letter and the conviction that Scripture is not the written verses of the text but the grace itself given to the People of God. It is not a doctrine or teaching, but the very act of instruction that God expresses through Scripture. Consequently, in reading Scripture, it is necessary to use analogy as a tool that allows for the theandric character of a book to be conveyed. Analogia Scripturae means treating the Bible as a whole, not a collection of random books. This way of reading Scripture, in turn, is not reduced solely to the perspective of the human author and the history of the text’s creation. Unlike later forms of scholastic theology, Aquinas’ sacra doctrina remains rooted in the Bible, on the basis of which it builds a theological synthesis.