SCRIBA (Heb. sôphêr, plur. sôphêrîm, Gk. γραμματεός). — I. In the sense of “writer, copyist, secretary,” there were “scribes” in Israel from the time of David and throughout the royal period (II Sam. 8:17; etc.); there was also a military official of this name (II Reg. 25, 79; Ier. 52, 25). But the “scribes” par excellence in the Bible are the members of one of the ruling classes of Judaism who, alongside and partly in place of the priesthood and prophecy, arose in exile in response to the new circumstances and subsequently became ever more widely represented and authoritative. Related to them were the “deciders,” literally “those who understand” (mêbhînîm): the scribes were the copyists who supervised the transcription of the law, and thus its learned experts and custodians; the mêbhînîm were the jurists who decided doubtful cases. Both offices could be held by a priest and a prophet, as in the case of Esdra (Esd. 7, 11) and, earlier, of Ezechiele.
The scribes were responsible for the activity which, during the exile, led to the collection and arrangement of Israel’s religious-literary heritage, from which the Bible emerged as a canonized whole: this secured for them an eminent place in the esteem of the people, and “scribe” became an authoritative name on a par with priest and prophet, and later even more so, when the prophet disappeared and the priest declined into a government official.
The case mentioned of Esdra, “a scribe skilled in the law of Moses, which Jahweh, the God of Israel, had given” (Esd. 7, 6), officially known as such to the Persian authorities (ibid. 7, 12, 21, Aram.), is the most suitable expression of the new function from which the new authority in Israel arose: Esdra comes to Jerusalem for the first time, invited by Neemia, bringing the “law,” a copy of the sacred book which he had prepared with the other scribes and which was solemnly promulgated, so that it might be the foundation of the reborn nation (ibid. 7, 1-26; Neh. 8, 1-8).
A sign of the ever greater esteem and authority in which the scribes were held appears in the growing number of them who entered the sanhedrin, until they became its predominant element as early as the time of the Hasmoneans. They thus acquired political importance, but they never abandoned their proper function as students of the law; indeed, this is precisely the characteristic with which they appear in the New Testament, where they are called “scribes” (γραμματαίς), “experts in the law” (νομικοί), and “teachers of the law” (νομοδιδάσκαλοι). By this time they were no longer merely to give opinions and make decisions about how the law was to be observed, but also to know and make known, with generally recognized authority (“from Moses’ seat,” etc., Mt. 23, 2), the opinions and decisions previously given, “the traditions of the elders” (ibid. 15, 2; Mc. 7, 3), which they valued highly and by observance of which they burdened consciences.
The New Testament sketches a vivid picture of their activities under the porticoes of the Temple (Lc. 2, 46), in the synagogues (cf. Act. 18, 4) and schools (ibid. 22, 3). They are mentioned especially in connection with controversies with Jesus or the reproaches Jesus addresses to them: with the mass of their minute prescriptions, impossible burdens to bear, they caused the faithful to lose sight of what is essential in the law itself (Mt. 15, 1; Lc. 11, 46): justice and charity (Mt. 23, 25; Lc. 11, 42). Forgetful of the primary and essential duties of religion, they lived under the illusion of a purely external righteousness, which they made appear to be true righteousness; they were therefore hypocritical and wicked, vain, avaricious, rapacious and unclean, deceivers who strained out the gnat and swallowed the camel (Mt. 23, 13-39).
Their hostility toward Jesus, at first taking the form of “scandal” at his familiarity with publicans and sinners (Lc. 5, 31; 15, 2), blind envy of his miracles and jealousy of his popularity (Mt. 22, 15), became increasingly determined hatred: the scribes accused him, incited the crowd against him, and prepared the individual stages of his Passion. Yet they were not all wicked, as Jesus acknowledges when instructing the one who asked to follow him (Mt. 8, 19 ff.) and telling another that he was not far from the kingdom of God (Mc. 12, 28-34). Giovanni Rinaldi
II. The same name was used among the Romans for professional writers, free men divided into various categories according to their duties.
They were mostly secretaries of magistrates and officials in Rome and the provinces; some were assigned to administering the State treasury (aerarium) and preparing copies of documents, while others were responsible for keeping civil-status registers. The same name was also given to the emperors’ private secretaries, likewise called amanuenses (a manu) to distinguish them from the official secretaries called ab epistulis; and, in the medieval period, to notaries in certain territories (Amalfi, Gaeta, etc.). In common usage the term also generically denotes the copyist of manuscripts, who in the classical period was instead called librarius and differed from the scribe in being of servile condition and performing purely private duties (an Egyptian scribe is reproduced in plate VII of this volume).