SCRIBE (Heb. Sôphêr, pl. Sôphêrîm; Gr. Γραμματεύς). - I. In the sense of "scribe, copyist, secretary" there were "scribes" in Israel from the age of David and throughout the royal period (II Sam. 8:17; etc.); there was also a military official of this name (II Kings 25:79; Jer. 52:25). But the "scribes" par excellence in the Bible are the members of one of the ruling classes of Judaism, which, alongside and in partial replacement of the priesthood and the prophetic office, arose in the new circumstances of the Exile and was thereafter ever more widely represented and authoritative. Closely akin to them were the "deciders," literally "those who understand" (mêbhînîm): the scribes were the copyists who attended to the transcription of the Law, and hence its learned connoisseurs and guardians; the mêbhînîm were the jurists who decided doubtful cases. Both offices could be found in a single priest and prophet, as is the case with Ezra (Ezra 7:11) and, earlier, with Ezekiel.
To the scribes is due the activity which, during the Exile, led to the collection and arrangement of the Israelite religious and literary heritage, from which the Bible emerged canonized as a whole: this procured for them an eminent place in the esteem of the people, and "scribe" became a title as authoritative as priest and prophet, and even more so later, when the prophet disappeared and the priest declined into a functionary of the government.
The aforementioned case of Ezra, "a scribe learned in the law of Moses, which Yahweh God of Israel had given" (Ezra 7:6), as such officially known to the Persian authorities (ibid. 7:12, 21, in Aramaic), is the most apt to express the new function from which the new authority in Israel was born: Ezra comes a first time to Jerusalem, invited by Nehemiah, bringing the "law," a copy of the sacred book that he had prepared with the other scribes and that is solemnly promulgated, so that it may be the foundation of the reborn nation (ibid. 7:1-26; Neh. 8:1-8).
A sign of the ever greater credit and authority in which the scribes were held appears in the growing number of those among them who entered the Sanhedrin, until they became its preponderant part already from the time of the Hasmoneans. They thus acquired political importance, but without ever failing in their proper function as students of the Law, in which indeed is found the characteristic with which they present themselves in the New Testament, where they are called "scribes" (γραμματεῖς), "experts in the law" (νομικοί), "teachers of the law" (νομοδιδάσκαλοι). By now they had not only to give rulings and take decisions on how to observe the Law, but also to know and to make known with a generally recognized authority ("from the chair of Moses," etc., Mt. 23:2) the rulings and decisions previously given, "the traditions of the ancients" (ibid. 15:2; Mk. 7:3), of which they made great account and with whose observance they burdened consciences.
The New Testament draws a most vivid picture of their activities under the porticoes of the Temple (Lk. 2:46), in the synagogues (cf. Acts 18:4) and schools (ibid. 22:3). Their mention recurs especially in connection with the polemics with Jesus or the reproaches that Jesus addresses to them: with the mass of their minute prescriptions, burdens impossible to bear, they made the faithful lose sight of what is essential in the Law itself (Mt. 15:1; Lk. 11:46): justice and charity (Mt. 23:25; Lk. 11:42). Forgetful of the primordial and essential duties of religion, they lived in the deception of a purely exterior righteousness, which they made appear as true righteousness; they were therefore hypocrites and iniquitous, vain, avaricious, robbers and unclean, deceivers, who strained out the gnat and swallowed the camel (Mt. 23:13-39).
Their hostility toward Jesus, at first as "scandal" at his familiarity with publicans and sinners (Lk. 5:31; 15:2), blind envy at his miracles and jealousy of his popularity (Mt. 22:15), becomes ever more determined hatred: the scribes accuse him, stir the crowd against him, prepare the individual moments of his Passion. Among them, however, there were not only perverse men, as Jesus acknowledges, instructing the one who asked to follow him (Mt. 8:19 ff.) and telling another that he is not far from the kingdom of God (Mk. 12:28-34). Giovanni Rinaldi
II. Under the same name were designated among the Romans the professional writers, free men divided into various categories according to their duties.
They were for the most part secretaries of magistrates and officials of Rome and the provinces, some assigned to the administration of the state treasury (aerarium) and to the drafting of copies of documents, others charged with keeping the registers of civil status. The same name was also given to the private secretaries of the emperors, also called amanuenses (a manu) to distinguish them from the official secretaries called ab epistulis, and, in the medieval age, to the notaries of certain territories (Amalfi, Gaeta, etc.). In common usage the term also indicates generically the copyist of manuscripts, who in the classical age was instead called librarius, and differed from the scriba in being of servile condition and with purely private duties (an Egyptian scribe is reproduced at plate VII of this volume).
Bibliography
Renzo Frattarolo