Fr Levente Balazs Martos is a Hungarian biblical scholar and member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. He was invited to England to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu. Fr Levente spoke at Heythrop College on 24th May 2018 and gave a presentation of the teaching of Pope Pius at a study day at Gidea Park on 26th May 2018.
The publication of Pope Pius’ letter comes amid the mayhem of war. 1943 saw the first bombardment of Rome and the invasion of the city by German forces.
The encyclical stresses the role of the sacred writer who works ‘under the inspiration of the holy Spirit’. Pius insists that biblical scholars should be familiar with the biblical languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, in order to appreciate the beauty and the difficulties inherent in the biblical writings. The scholar should investigate the text with great care, paying particular attention to the literary genres, or ‘modes or writing’ they employed.
Fr Levente stressed the paternal love of God who, according to the teaching of the letter, comes down to us in the sacred Scriptures in what is known as the ‘divine condescension’.
The afternoon of the study day was dedicated to a question and answer session with Fr Levente, Fr Adrian, and Fleur Dorrell, Scripture Coordinator at the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. The moderator was Margaret Holden.