Rino Fisichella

The Constitution on the divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, represents one of the more qualifying documents of the Vatican Council II and, without doubt, can also be considered one of the better ones. It is not by chance that this text was presented right after the beginning of the Council and saw light only at the end of it. Dei Verbum covers the entire season of the Council. Its drafting was long and, sometimes, difficult; but it could not have been otherwise. The existing truth had to be mediated through a more accessible language and had to correspond to the modifying situation of the Church in the world. The letter of the Sacred Scripture, which for decades was possessed only by privileged few, was again put in the hands of the people of God, so that it would nourish the faith and the witness. Studying the drafts of that text it is possible to verify up close the progressive development which it underwent and the richness of its contents which allows it to keep unaltered its actuality for the life of the entire Christian community. A rapid glance at Proemio, allows us to quickly comprehend the entire contents of Dei Verbum:«In religious listening to the word of God and proclaiming it with firm faith, the sacrosanct synod heeds the words of Saint John, who says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." (1 John 1, 2-3). Therefore, following the footprints of the Councils of Trent and Vatican I, it intends to bring forth the genuine doctrine on the divine revelation and on the transmission, so that for the announcement of salvation the entire listening world will believe, believing hope, hoping love».

The first note that strikes this text is right at the beginning: Dei Verbum. The Council Fathers put in the first instance the Word of God. Dei Verbum precedes the "religiose audiens" and it could not have been otherwise. The primacy is given to the Word of God which constitutes the content and object of the Revelation. All that is Revealed is the mystery hidden for centuries and now fully manifested to humanity: Jesus Christ. In Dei Verbum, revelation, World of God, Jesus Christ become almost synonyms and tend to bring faith as the central focus.

The Proemio, immediately adds a second connotation: the Word of God is transmitted. We all become "ambassadors of Christ" (2 Corinthians 5, 20) and we are invited to "the extreme confines of the earth" and to "the end of the world": no spatial boundary, nor temporal ones can stop the anxiety of the faithful to announce the good news of the Gospel. Only when this enthusiasm weakens, unfortunately, the birth of different "fine distinctions" must be verified with regards to the coherent commitment of the mission, always and in every situation, without knowing the rest of Saturday! The responsibility of the intact transmission of all the deposit of faith commits those baptized to the faith for all that was revealed, so that its transmitted completely to all those who follow.

The last note which emerges from the Proemio is the suggestion of the aim of the last Revelation. The Communion of life with the Lord. Only those who are familiar with the Word of God, in fact, can become his announcer and only those who live it with a concrete commitment of growth can understand what Paul writes to the Ephesians: «you are no longer strangers, nor guests, compatriots of saints and the family of God» (Ephesians 2, 19). This communion cannot only be thought on the level of the relationship with God; it in fact, commits in the first person the Church to live in unity and involve every believer to live that communion as a perennial law of community life (cf. Phil 2, 5). In this context it us understandable, when in Lumen Gentium it affirms: «He has however, willed to make men holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people who might acknowledge him and serve him in holiness» (LG 9).

One of the fundamental statistics that result from the teaching of Dei Verbum and that which constitutes its own originality, especially if it is compared to the Councils of Trent and Vatican I, is having surpassed the division regarding the "sources" of revelation. The preceding theology was voluntarily late in the division between Scripture and Tradition and put forth an unhealable fracture in the horizon of the relative event. Dei Verbum takes a step forward, and recuperating the patristic and medieval tradition, teaches the uniqueness of the source of the Revelation, which is transmitted through the Scripture and the Tradition: «Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal. Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit. and Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlighten by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching. Thus it comes about that the Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Hence, both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal feelings of devotion and reverence» (DV 9).

The Holy Father, in Tertio Millennio Adveniente, asks explicitly to undergo an examination of conscience regarding the reception of the Council and, asks the question directly even for our text: «To what extent has the word of God become more fully the soul of theology and the inspiration of the whole of Christian living, as Dei Verbum sought?» (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 36). This question obligates one to see, first of all, in what way the believing community keeps "alive" the Word of God and in what measure it understood the indissoluble unity that ties this Word to the sacred Scripture and Tradition.

Certainly, in a particular way the theologians and the biblists should verify more closely how much their research and interpretations is guided by this indissoluble unity which allows the Revelation to open itself in all its richness and express the fullness of its intelligence. Together with them, however, the entire population of God is called to carry the responsibility so that the truth of this Word is offered and proposed to everyone in its fullness. It is interesting to see how for the entire patristic period, up to the Middle Ages, there existed the knowledge of a perennial osmosis between the Scripture and Tradition; the Church contained, gave and transmitted the Scripture and this, by its turn, gathered the community around the fullness of the Word. Among other things, it must be verified that only the Revelation, in this period, is called "source" to which even the Scripture draws from; if this however, is separated from the life of the Church and from the "ecclesial" which maintains it in life, then it is separated from its natural content and losses its effectiveness.

The ecclesial context permits the writing to be understood as the Book of the people of God and obligates the grasping of its content as a norm and rule for the life of the Church. This requires the deprivitization of the Scripture from an subjective or experiential interpretation, or limited to just one analysis which would not be able to accommodate the global sense, which in the course of centuries guided the entire populations of the people of God. In this view, the responsibility of the ministry of the Magisterium is born, called to be the authentic interpreter of the same Word and to its perennial service in the faithful actualization of its content to the various needs of ecclesial life (DV 10).

This brings us to turn our glance to the essential reality which constitutes the Word of God: Jesus Christ. Without the reference to number 4 of this Constitution its impossible to enter into the richness of its teaching and understand the epochal changing which it underwent: «God, who had already spoken several times and in various ways through the prophets, "finally, in these days, spike to us through his Son" (Eb 1, 1-2). In fact, he sent his Son, that is the eternal Word, who illuminates all men, until he dwelled amongst men, and explained to them the secrets of God (cf. John 1, 1-18). Jesus Christ, therefore, Word made into man, sent as "man among men," prefers the words of God" (John 3, 34) and brings to fulfillment the saving work bestowed upon him by his Father (cf. John 5, 36; 17, 4). Therefore, seeing him, we also see the Father (cf. John 14,9), with the fact that the presence and the manifestation of him, with words and with work, with signs and with miracles and especially with his death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and finally, with the sending of the Spirit of truth, brings to perfect fulfillment the revelation and confirms it with divine testimony, that is manifesting that God is with us to liberate us from the temptation of sin and from death and to resurrect us to eternal life» (DV 4).

In a few lines, the Council offers the key to enter the mystery of the revelation: the storico-salvifico view.

At first glance, the thing could seem like an obvious reference; on the contrary, it created the new model of Christology and allowed the flourishing of an abundant theological literature, which is more coherent with the needs and questions of our contemporary.

This texts recalls one of the fundamental points of the biblical teaching: God talks and acts in history; his revelation is not made up of just words, but of "actions and words intimately connected" so that in the putting off of one for the other there can emerge the full truth addressed to man and the ultimate sense offered for his meaningful existence. The recovery, even on the linguistic level, from the term "economy" expresses well the objective towards which the Council Fathers oriented themselves in the presentation of the mystery of the incarnation. The story, therefore becomes an important category for the interpretation of Christ. It, therefore, is not presented in a neutral way, but in reference to the salvation as the ultimate destiny to which an is called.

Dei Verbum, as we can see from these short suggestions can become the most coherent place to fulfill an examination of conscience which reaches the believing community in all that which is most precious. Around this Word, the Church welcomes; this Word comes and announces as the source of salvation. Here we do not find just motives to examine how much our witness is coherent; it is also indicated with clarity the ulterior walk which we must accomplish so that the Word of God is the source of new life.