Augustin Bea: Scholar, teacher, cardinal Oliver P. Rafferty SJ The Jesuit 2014 calendar focuses on Augustin Cardinal Bea (1881-1968) for the month of May. Oliver Rafferty SJ takes an extended look at the life and achievements of this great biblical scholar and ecumenist, about whom Pope John XXIII said: ‘Imagine what a grace the Lord has given in making me discover Cardinal Bea’. Augustin Bea was one of the Cardinal Bea and Pope John XXIII desire to become a Jesuit. His most impressive and influential father was, however, against the Jesuits that the Society has pro- idea, perhaps for two reasons. duced in the 200 year history of Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, the order since its restoration by had expelled the Jesuits from Ger- Pope Pius VII in 1814. Bea was many in 1872; they would not a biblical scholar of internation- officially return until 1917. This al repute, who had been Rector would mean that the young Aug- and religious superior of the Po- ustin would have to leave the cou- ntifical Biblical Institute in Ro- ntry to join the order. Further- me (1930-49), and who was also more, to become a religious wou- a towering figure at the Second ld imply that Bea would not be in Vatican Council (1962-65). Su- a position to give financial ch was his impact at the Coun- support to his parents in their old cil that the renowned Domini- age. Under his father’s influence, can theologian Yves Congar could write: ‘The Council he joined the diocesan seminary at Freiburg-im- is Cardinal Bea’s Council’. One German Lutheran Breisgau, his parish priest having to give him a observer at Vatican II said of him that after Pope John ‘certificate of poverty’ so that he could study for free. XXIII , Bea ‘will live on in the memory of many as the He attended the Catholic faculty of theology at most impressive figure’ at the Council. He is perhaps Freiburg University, but by 1902 his parents relented best remembered for the fact that he was the first and let him enter the Jesuits at the German novitiate of President of the Secretariat (now the Pontifical Blyenbeek in the Netherlands. He was ordained a Council) for Promoting Christian Unity, from its priest within ten years of joining the order. foundation in 1960 until his death, aged 87, in 1968. His scholarly output was quite simply enormous. In a Given his outstanding intellectual gifts, Augustin had fifty year period from 1918 he wrote 430 articles been sent, while still a scholastic, to take a doctorate in covering areas such as biblical archaeology, Old classical philology at Innsbruck. However, the Jesuit Testament exegesis, Mariology, Christian Unity and General, Fr Franz Xavier Wernz, decided that such anti-sectarianism. Nor did his energies dissipate with specialised studies should only be undertaken after ord- age: 260 of his publications appeared in the years from ination, and so Bea was diverted instead to the theolog- 1960 to 1968, eight of which were full length books. ical studies necessary in order to be ordained. By the time he was a priest, his superiors had decided that he Born in Riedböhringen in South Baden, a small Ger- should be a biblical scholar rather than a classicist and man village of some 600 inhabitants, Augustin was the he was sent to the University of Berlin to study oriental only child of Karl and Maria Bea (née Merk). His father languages and history. These studies were interrupted was a carpenter and despite his skill the Beas lived in by the outbreak of World War I, although he had alre- relative poverty, with Augustin’s education obtained on ady studied at the Biblical Institute founded in Rome in the basis of scholarships. An early interest in the 1909. In 1914 he was sent to take charge of the Jesuit Benedictine and Capuchin orders soon gave way to a house at Aachen and from 1917 he taught Old Testa- ment studies in the German Province theologate at dan valley, near the Dead Sea. These excavations gave Valkenburg in Holland. By then, with the legal restor- rise to the finding of a lost culture that had flourished ation of the order in Germany, the German province around 3800 – 3350 BC and which is today referred to had grown to over 1,200 members with a further 350 as Ghassulian. Bea was also instrumental in setting up working in overseas missions. The Jesuit authorities in the Oriental Institute (not to be confused with the Rome decided to create a second German Province, Orientale) at the Biblicum, which studies the langua- Upper Germany, in 1921 and Bea was named as its first ges, archaeology and cultures of the ancient near east. provincial superior. Another important phase of Bea’s life coincided with His time as provincial was cut short when he was the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-58). He assisted in summoned to Rome by Fr General Wlodimir Ledócho- drafting the papal encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu wski in 1924 to become Rector of the recently-estab- (1943), which allowed Catholic scholars to make use of lished Bellarmino, a residence for Jesuit priests doing critical techniques in the study of scripture and encour- doctorates in Rome. He was also appointed to teach at aged the study of ancient biblical languages. He was the Gregorian University and at the Biblical Institute. also appointed to a Vatican committee examining furt- Among the most important of his activities in these her reforms of the liturgy following Pius XII’s encyc- years was his assignment to Japan, where he was sent lical Mediator Dei (1947), although it must be said he by Fr Ledóchowski as the official Visitor to the Jesuit was not an innovator in this field. He also served as an mission for six months in 1929. There he helped to adviser to the Holy Office which, a few months after rescue the fortunes of the flagging Sophia University, his appointment, formally gave permission for Catholic which had been set up by the Jesuits in Tokyo in 1910 scholars to attend theological conferences with non- at the specific command of Pope Pius X. It was in Catholic scholars. He was an adviser to the commiss- severe financial difficulties, but Bea helped to give a ion which worked on the Declaration of the Assump- new focus to the Jesuit community and assisted in the tion of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1950, the same year negotiation of a bank loan from London, for which the in which he was appointed as a consultor to the Congr- English Province of the Society acted as guarantor. egation of Rites. From 1945 he was also the confessor to the pope and his largely German household. Bea’s appointment as Rector of the Biblical Institute (Biblicum) in Rome was accompanied by other duties. Bea was not an unreconstructed ‘liberal’. When Cardin- From 1931, the year in which he became a consultor to al Emmanuel Suhard, Archbishop of Paris, asked Pope the Biblical Commission, he took over the editorship of Pius XII to set aside the 1911 judgment of the Biblical the journal Biblica a task which he executed with Commission on the chronology and historicity of the distinction for 20 years. He drafted Pope Pius XI’s first eleven chapters of Genesis, Bea advised the pope constitution Deus scientiarum Dominus (1931), which merely to elaborate on the judgment rather than aban- reformed higher ecclesiastical studies for the clergy. He don it, so as not to relativise the value of previous Vati- persuaded the pope to allow himself and several other can pronouncements. He also wrote in defence of Hum- Jesuits to attend a meeting of Old Testament exegetes – ani generis (1950), although that encyclical was aimed, in mostly Protestant, Jewish and secular scholars – at part, against the ‘new theology’ which was then eman- Göttingen in 1935. Bea’s powers of persuasion were ating from France and Germany. Bea had, however, quite a coup in those pre-ecumenical days, especially following the Second World War, kept in close contact given that the Holy Office had issued an edict a few with the developing ecumenism in Germany between years earlier specifically forbidding Catholics to take Catholics and Protestants, and with similar movements part in such meetings. Such was the impression Bea in Switzerland and France, but in particular with Mgr made on the scholars at that conference that he was Johannes Willebrands in the Netherlands and his asked to chair the final session. Catholic Conference for Ecumenical Questions. Bea involved himself in all aspects of the Biblical Instit- Bea’s work for the Holy See in the 1940s became so ute’s work. He visited the Institute’s branch in Jerusal- demanding that he asked to be relieved of the Rector- em on several occasions and in 1936-37 he took part in ship of the Biblicum. In recognition of his labours, Pius an archaeological dig at Tulaylāt al-Ghassûl in the Jor- XII had decided to make Bea a cardinal in 1953. How- Augustin Bea: Scholar, teacher, cardinal 2 Oliver P. Rafferty SJ www.thinkingfaith.org Copyright © Jesuit Media Initiatives 09 May 2014 ever, the intervention of Fr General Jean-Baptiste Janss- remit, however, went well beyond this. It was he who ens, arguing that such a move was contrary to Jesuit was charged with drawing up the declaration on the vows and would also provoke hostility to the Society - Jews, which eventually evolved into the Decree Nostra which, Janssens rightly thought, already had too much aetate on the relationship between Catholicism and influence with the Holy See - brought the proposal to a non-Christian religions as a whole.