Jesuit and Dominican Collaboration and Rivalry in Biblical Studies

Abstract

In the twentieth century, the Dominicans and the Jesuits have gone from being adversaries to rivals to collaborators in the contentious field of modern biblical studies. In 1890, the Dominican Marie-Joseph Lagrange founded the École Biblique in Jerusalem, which quickly became the premier school in the Catholic Church for the growing field of modern biblical studies. Opposition to this project grew among the Jesuits, led by Leopold Fonck, who in 1910 founded a rival school in Rome, the Pontifical Biblical Institute, which garnered papal favor and exclusive rights to confer pontifical degrees. Tensions in biblical studies between the two groups persisted until 1943 when they collaborated on ghost-writing the papal encyclical Divino afflante spiritu. Their relationship continued to improve, so that by the time of the Second Vatican Council, they collaborated strongly on its constitution on divine revelation, Dei verbum.