Pontifical Gregorian University

Collegio Bellarmino, Via del Seminario 120, 00186 Roma, Italy

bisceglia@unigre.urbe.it

The Second Vatican Council sees humanity as standing at the beginning of a new age in its history: "the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one". The council focuses its attention on the whole human family, that world which is the theater of human history, and its inheritance of energies, tragedies and triumphs. Obtaining information from such data is of great interest to theologians.

New Testament usage of the names of Jesus reflects the earliest theological thought on Christ: several titles of Jesus offer summaries of ancient christological conceptions. Some of them gained early popularity, others soon fell into obscurity.

Fr. Sabourin suggests five categories, and the occurrences of these titles in Second Vatican Council Documents are shown:

Some data about the "titles" "God" and "Christ" are reported below; results and interpretations about other titles and repeated strings will be given at the meeting.

The diagram of the specificity rates reveal different usages of the term in the various documents. "Dio" is much more "under-expected" (the specificity rate is negative) in Christus Dominus, the document dealing with the episcopal role in the church, and is used in a very particular way in the Dogmatic Constitutions Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum.

The string "di Dio" [of God] in Lumen Gentium shows the same behavior, in terms of specificity rate, of "Dio" and is used in a specific way in Dei Verbum. In Christus Dominus, besides "Dio", the strings "di Dio" [of God] and "a Dio" [to God] are much more "under-expected", in other words surprisingly absent. Similar characteristics of such strings are remarkable in Gaudium et Spes, in this document "con Dio" [with God] is used in specific way. "da Dio" [from God] is "under-expected" at the same level of "God" in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.

The occurrences of some christological titles that involve the string "di Dio" are shown in the following table; the specificity rates are given in parenthesis. It is not surprising that "Parola di Dio" [Word of God] is used frequently in the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, Dei Verbum, but the positive value of the specificity rate in Dignitatis Humanae (the declaration dealing with religious freedom) is remarkable. "Parola di Dio" is much more "under-expected" in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, where the use of "Disegno di Dio" [Plan of God] is notable for its positive specificity rate. The significant use of "Grazia di Dio" [Grace of God], "Regno di Dio" [Kingdom of God], "Figlio di Dio" [Son of God] all make sense in the context of Lumen Gentium . Also emphasizable is the presence of "Carità di Dio" [Charity of God] in Ad Gentes, the decree of the church’s missionary activity.

The results about "Corpo di Cristo" [Body of Christ], a typical "title" involving the string "di Cristo", are synthesized in the following table.

"Corpo di Cristo" is "under-expected" in Gaudium et Spes, in agreement with the results about "Dio", "Cristo" and some related strings. The title "Corpo di Cristo" is used very much in Presbyterorum Ordinis the decree dealing with the ministry and life of priests. This is one clear example of the fruitfulness of this implemented method of investigation.

The textual analysis, in particular the statistical analysis of a text, cannot take the place of the reading of the text. When a text or a corpus is an object of study it is not possible to be independent from presuppositions. The documents of the Second Vatican Council have been studied, analyzed, commented by many authoritative people. The theological literature is rich in papers about the conciliar documents and the doctrine of the Council.

The results here show that the "christological titles" are repeated strings which in theology have a significant semantic role. This is not something new, but the results also outline the opportunity of the integration between theological methodology and criteria of statistical analysis of textual data. The specificity rates (positive or negative) give a sharper level of insight into the presence of the titles in the documents: some titles are used in a very particular way in a single document, other titles are much more expected or absent. It is possible to obtain by statistical analysis of the documents conclusions or questions even about "Christology" in Second Vatican Council or to raise fresh questions about the texts.

Statistical investigation of texts is de facto an ancient application in theological speculation. The exegetes have been accustomed to compute occurrences and relative frequencies in a text or a collection of texts. Concordances study is a typical exegetic application. A more mature statistical approach, i.e. mathematically founded, for theological research gives an improvement to the validity of the speculation, especially for the understanding of the contents of a text.

This work is intended to increase the sensitivity and accuracy on information obtaining by statistical analysis of textual data which is both stimulating and something not easily available by a classical approach to the text.