CITAZIONI IMPLICITE, TEORIA delle. — They consist in reporting the thoughts or words of others without naming the source. In this sense there are many c. i. in the Bible, as appears from a comparison between the parallel passages of the Gospels, or those of Kings and Paralipomena. The question has been raised whether the Bible also contains c. i. not approved by the hagiographer and which, therefore, may contain errors. The theory of c. i. understands them precisely in this sense.
The principles already applied in particular cases by Eusebius, s. Girolamo, and several ancient and modern exegetes were presented systematically by the Jesuit F. Prat in La Bible et histoire (v. BIBLICA). Among other things, he writes: «All the historical books of the Old Testament seem to have been composed using earlier documents, but explicit citations become increasingly rare the further one goes back through the ages». According to Prat, the principal signs for recognizing c. i. would be, above all, differences in style and points of view. He nevertheless wished the individual cases to be examined. On the whole, he left the impression that the Bible contained many unapproved c. i.
Some authors (Billot, Schiffini, Delattre) vigorously opposed the theory. Others, such as A. Durand, accepted it fully.
On 13 February 1905, the Pontifical Biblical Commission clarified the question of c. i. with the following decision. Question: «Is it permissible for a Catholic exegete, in order to resolve the difficulties that arise in certain texts of Sacred Scripture, to assert that these involve a tacit or implicit citation of a document written by an uninspired author, all of whose statements the inspired author does not intend to approve or make his own, so that they cannot be considered free from error?». Answer: «No, except in the case where, without prejudice to the sense and judgment of the Church, it is proved by solid arguments: 1) that the hagiographer is truly citing the said documents of others and 2) that he neither approves them nor makes them his own, so that it may rightly be held that he is not speaking in his own name».
This response clearly establishes the principles. Their application to concrete cases always remains delicate. The theory obviously cannot be accepted as a means of resolving all exegetical difficulties. In practice, c. i. may be admitted when the very nature of the text requires it, e.g., when one is faced with genealogies which by their nature are transcribed from documents for whose accuracy all responsibility rests on them, or when one actually finds the profane source that may have served the inspired author.
The presence of contradictions within the same work is not a legitimate criterion for recognizing c. i., since—as A. Lemonyer rightly notes—«it is not so simple to discover the presence of a formal contradiction in a given text»; moreover, it would be a childish yet convenient expedient for evading the difficulties. In order to reconcile biblical inerrancy with the presence of inaccurate or er-
roneous accounts, several exegetes prefer to have recourse to the theory of historical appearances or of literary genres. In this field too, the Biblical Commission established directives.