Because of its present use and importance, something should be said of the origin of the phrase, God, the author of Scripture. Its roots seem to go back to Clement of Alexandria, who speaks of God as the immediate and primary cause (aitios) of such things as the Old and New Testaments. Clement’s thought, however, is concerned with the two Testaments as two economies of salvation rather than as two collections of sacred books. Ambrose expressly translates aitios used by Clement with the Latin auctor (author) and applies it to God. But the reference is to God as the author or cause of all created things rather than to him specifically as the author or cause of Scripture – this even though Ambrose makes his remarks in connection with an inquiry into the meaning of Matthew 7:7. Jerome speaks of the “one author” of the many epistles of Paul. From the context it would appear that “author” is taken here precisely in the sense of literary author, but it is not clear whether the author referred to is God or Paul himself. The Statuta Ecclesiae antique, composed in the latter part of the 5th century, refers to God as the author of the New and the Old Testaments. Since the historical context of that designation is the Manichaean doctrine of the economies of the NT and of the OT as coming from two different “Gods,” the reference in the Statuta points to God as the author of the books of the NT and of the OT, but as the cause of the economies of the two Testaments.

The first clear reference to God as the literary author of Scripture is to be found in Gregory the Great where God is called the author of Sacred Scripture, while the human factor in the production of the sacred books is called the writer. The same distinction is made by Isidore of Sevelle. It then became an accepted part of Christian theological terminology when used by Rabanus Maurus in his early and influential textbook for the training of clergy – valuable more for its collection of texts about God as author than for its interpretation of them. In later theological writing, the phraseology, God the author of Scripture, becomes universal. Thus Thomas Aquinas refers to God as the author or the principal author of Scripture. At the end of the Middle Ages, Henry of Ghent, in a remarkable passage, emphasizes that only God can be called the author of the books of Scripture in the fullest sense. (More to come on this important topic)