The recourse to parallel texts that can shed light on the meaning of a particular passage is one of the ways by which certain biblical difficulties have been resolved (Augustine). At the same time, parallel texts, understood as resonances of a given text have been regarded as by products of a fruitful dialogue between the "ruminant" soul and the Word of God in Scriptures (Guy the Carthusian). The first approach sounds scholarly and more akin to what serious students do now when they use Bible Concordances, or Dictionaries and Encyclopedias of the Bible. And it is in a way "scholarly"; the passage from Augustine that we used to exemplify such an approach comes after all from the De doctrina christiana, the saint's manual on the proper explanation of the Scriptures.
The latter sounds less scholarly, and, considering the way it is described, would seem to be more spiritually satisfying than the other one. In this approach, the reader lovingly grasps the bible passage with the mind and turns it over and over in his heart, allowing it to call forth from the hidden corners of the memory other passages akin to itself, drawing them out into the light of the mind's gaze by sheer force of similarity -- whether by words or by theme -- in order to present to the heart and the mind a rich banquet to feast on.
We have mentioned in a previous article that this method is quite natural to the mind. There are still some who call it the "free association of ideas" except that in the case of Guy (and even Augustine in his less scholarly meditations) the "ideas" are drawn from the Scriptures itself. We have also mentioned that textual resonances deriving from the lectio divina itself are derived from some sort of similarity that is objectively based on the text that is being considered. Does a particular word echo other places in the Scriptures that give it a particular nuance (The word "Blessed" in the beatitudes of Matthew, and the same word as it is used in a psalm like Ps. 128, for example.)? Is a passage or its theme taken up in another part of Scriptures and developed more fully there (E.g., the way some verses from the Servant Songs of Isaiah is used in Matthew.)? Or does a passage reply to the concerns raised by an earlier passage (Cf. James 2:23 compared with Rom. 4:3 and Gal. 3:6)? Textual parallels, even when they are seen as "textual resonances" must be understood as instances where the one Word of God is echoed forth in the many human words of Scriptures. Their Ultimate ground is God's Revelation unfolded in history, captured in the memory of a people and "canonized" in writing. In other words, the search for parallel texts and textual resonances must begin with Scriptures itself, and not with any preconceived idea, no matter how noble it may be. This brings us to another point...
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