The Instructio (the relevant parts of which are to be found in an Appendix to this article) was therefore made available to the Council Fathers in time for the debate on the text of Dei Verbum. Professor Beda Rigaux notes in his Commentary on this document (cf. *Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, * Vol. III [CDV III], Burns & Oates, Herder & Herder, Eng. tr. 1968, p. 259) that in fact, and rather surprisingly, “whole sentences of it passed into the text of Dei Verbum.”
There was, however, one significant difference: the Council, while basically adopting the Commission’s “three stage” idea, prefaced it in two places (see Ch. 2, S.7; Ch. 5, S.18-19) with a clear declaration on the apostolic authorship of the Gospels as well as on their historicity. Furthermore, in Ch. 5 (*The New Testament *), after declaring that the four Gospels are “our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Saviour,” it continues as follows:
"(S. 18). The Church has always and everywhere maintained, and continues to maintain, the apostolic origin of the four Gospels. The apostles preached, as Christ had charged them to do, and then, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, **they and **others of the apostolic age *ipsi et apostolici viri] * handed on to us in writing the same message they had preached, the foundations of our faith: the fourfold Gospel, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
“(S. 19). Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy maintained and continues to maintain, that the four Gospels just named, whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up (cf. Acts 1:1-2). After the Ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with the fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed” (*Vatican Council II, Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents *, edited by Austin Flannery, O.P., 1988 revised edition, Dominican Publications, Dublin).
In the above-mentioned text we have the official affirmation of the historicity, i.e., the historical character, of the Four Gospels, and likewise of their apostolic authorship. There is also the additional affirmation that not only were apostles involved in the composition of the Gospels but also “apostolic men,” which is an acknowledgement of the tradition that, while two of the Gospels are ascribed to the apostles Matthew and John, the other two, Mark and Luke, are ascribed to “apostolic men,” i.e., associates of the apostles. It is obvious that the Council Fathers had no intention of either weakening or changing the existing teaching that Matthew and John had personally composed their respective Gospels, but they felt that, without yielding any ground, and because Vatican II had a pastoral objective, they had to make room for the discussion of views which, if proved correct, would have enormous implications for ecumenism as well as for future scholarship.
), then during the Last Supper, the penny would have dropped. Somethine like: So this is what He meant when He said my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed, He was not really talking about cannibalistic ritual.