For whatever was written in former
days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the
encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. (Rom 15:4 NRSV)
In his Prologue to his On the Temple, Bede (d. 735), using
Rom 15:4, wrote the following:
Prol. 1 The vessel of election and
teacher of the gentiles exhorts us to read the word of God, affirming
truthfully that whatever was written in former days was written for us instruction
so that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have
hope. In this passage he quite rightly declares that to secure the hope of
heavenly goods we must have patience, and contemplate the consolation of the
scriptures; patience, that is, to bear with an attitude of humble submission the
adversities that befall us as punishments imposed by a just judge and
compassionate father whether for the enhancement of our virtue and increase of
merit, should we be punished, even though upright and innocent, or for the
correction and our conduct should we be enmeshed in vice; on the other hand, we
need the consolation of the scriptures to that by frequent meditation on them
we may call to mind how much dark affliction those eminent Fathers of the Church
and the bright luminaries of the Church have often borne even during this life,
how much glory they have enjoyed with their master in the life to come through
the merits of their fidelity and patience, and how much unfailing praise and fame
they have left behind among the faithful even in this life; as scripture says, the
memory of the righteous is a blessing, and again, Their bodies were
buried in peace and their name lives to all generations, and the apostle
James, Behold, we call those happy who were steadfast. You have heard of the
steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord. Now it is
not for nothing that, after mentioning the afflictions of the just, he added: and
you have seen the purpose of the Lord, because even he who lived his life
here below without fault, did not depart from this life without chastisement,
and he who appeared in the world to heal the sick and raise the dead, chose to
return from the world in the weakness of death to set us an example of
patience. Hence after saying, Our God is a God of salvation, the
psalmist directly added in wonder or rather in astonishment, and the Lord
belongs escape from death. (Bede: On the Temple [trans. Seán Connolly;
Translated Texts for Historians; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995], 1-2)
In the words of the translator, Seán Connolly, for Bede, in light
of Bede’s interpretation of Rom 15:4,
Although the Temple had long since
been superseded by the Church and indeed physically destroyed, like the earlier
Tabernacle its original construction had been divinely ordered and planned . .
. Even circumstantial details are therefore of importance. (Ibid., xxxi).
This is further explicated in 5.2:
Now we have said that the Synagogue
could be denoted by the tabernacle which Moses and the children of Israel built
in the desert, but the Church of the gentiles by the temple which Solomon and
the children of Israel erected with the help of the proselytes and gentiles.
The worship and religion of the tabernacle lasted four hundred and eighty years
and then work began on the building of the temple because the writing of the
Old Testament overflows with such perfection that, if one understands it
properly, it contains in itself all the mysteries of the New Testament.
Besides, a great many of the patriarchs of the Old Testament attained such a
peak of perfection by the way they lived that they are not in any way to be
considered inferior to the apostles or apostolic men. The tabernacle remained
among the people of God for four hundred and eighty years, until the
construction of the temple, i.e. for a hundred and twenty years multiplied by
four, because from the time the Law was given until the Lord’s incarnation and
the time of the revelation of grace there was no lack of people who were
grounded in the Law and observed evangelical perfection in all things in
outlook and action; and there was no lack of scripture to intimate by its
prophetic words the grace of the New Testament in the Old. But the fact that it
was in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign that work began on the house of the
Lord can be applied mystically to the fact that after the completion of the
dispensation of the Lord’s incarnation which was treated in the four books of
the Gospel, the construction of the holy Church began when the Holy Spirit was
sent from heaven. And the fact that it was begun in the second month can be
applied to the election of the gentiles that undertook the creator’s building in
the second place after Israel. Hence also the second month was granted for
celebrating the Pasch to those who, because they were unclean in soul or lived
at a distance, was unable to attend the Pasch in the first month. This obviously
refers to us who, because we are unclean on account of the death of our soul
and still live far from the people of God, cannot hold the first Pasch which
was celebrated with the flesh and blood of a lamb. But we celebrate today the
second Pasch which is enacted with the body and blood of our redeemer by whom
we were sought and have been cleansed. (Ibid., 18-19)
So, for Bede, Rom 15:4 is not, as some Protestants understand it,
an affirmation of Sola Scriptura; instead, it means that the Old Testament
contains lessons, via typology, for the Church age.
On Rom 15:4 and whether it does teach Sola Scriptura (spoiler: it
doesn’t), see:
Not
By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura
