THEORY OF IMPLICIT CITATIONS. - They consist in reporting the thoughts or words of others without naming the source. In this sense there are many implicit quotations in the Bible, as appears from a comparison between parallel passages of the Gospels, or those of Kings and Chronicles. The question has been raised whether in the Bible there are also implicit quotations not approved by the hagiographer and which, therefore, may contain errors. The theory of implicit quotations understands them precisely in this sense.
The principles already applied in a few cases by Eusebius, by St. Jerome and by several ancient and recent exegetes were presented in systematic form by the Jesuit F. Prat, in La Bible et histoire (v. bibl.). Among other things he writes: «All the historical books of the Old Testament seem to have been composed with the use of earlier documents, but explicit quotations are ever rarer the further back one goes in the course of the ages». The principal signs for recognizing implicit quotations, according to Prat, would be especially differences of style and of points of view. He wished, however, that individual cases be examined. On the whole he left the impression that in the Bible there were many implicit quotations not approved.
Some authors (Billot, Schiffini, Delattre) vigorously attacked the theory. Others, such as A. Durand, accepted it fully.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission, on 13 February 1905, settled the question of implicit quotations with the following decision. Question: «Is it lawful for the Catholic exegete, in order to resolve the difficulties that occur in certain texts of Sacred Scripture, to assert that in these there is a tacit or implicit quotation of a document written by a non-inspired author, all the assertions of which the inspired author does not intend to approve or make his own, so that these cannot be considered immune from error?». Answer: «No, except in the case in which, saving the sense and the judgment of the Church, it is proved with solid arguments: 1) that the hagiographer really quotes the said documents of others and 2) that he does not approve them nor make them his own, so that one may rightly hold that he does not speak in his own name».
This answer clearly fixes the principles. The application to concrete cases always remains delicate. Evidently the theory cannot be accepted in order to resolve all exegetical difficulties. In practice implicit quotations may be admitted when the very nature of the text requires it, for example, when one is faced with genealogies which by their very nature are transcribed from documents upon which all responsibility for accuracy falls, or when the profane source that may have served the inspired author is actually found.
The presence of contradictions in the same work is not a legitimate criterion for recognizing an implicit quotation, since - as A. Lemonyer well notes - «it is not so simple to discover in a given text the presence of a formal contradiction»; moreover it would be a puerile as well as convenient escape to evade the difficulties. Several exegetes, in order to reconcile biblical inerrancy with the presence of inaccurate or erroneous accounts, prefer to have recourse to the theory of historical appearances or of literary genres. In this field too the Biblical Commission laid down directives.