THE CHURCH AND THE SCRIPTURES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5, 1 February 1900, Page 10

THE CHURCH AND THE SCRIPTURES

DISCOURSE BY CARDINAL MORAX.

His Eminence Cardinal Moran, in the cour.->f of his second sermon on 'The Church and the Sacred S riptures,' delivered in St. Mary'b Cathedral, Sydney, said :—: —

It was asserted that up to the period of the co-called Reformation the Bible had been hidden away from the people. Such statements were made in oppo-itinn to f^cts and with the objpot of Btirring up prejudice. Holy Church loves, and has always loved, the Sacred. Scriptures, and had ever commended them to her children. Had she not preserved the Scriptures, as the sacred deposit of truth, for lit centuries / The charge was made against the Church because sbe aid not regard the witten word of the Sacred Scriptures as our sole guide to truth and knowledge. Holy Church held that there should be the livin-r voice of authority in the interpretation of the umpired writings, ju-t as Our Lord Himself and His Apostles taught by the living voice. Fiom the earliest times the Fathers and Pontiffs of the Church had exhorted the faithful to read the Scriptures, and to peek them at* a pur^ fitream of blessing and consolation, fit Augustine advocated this love of the Sacred Scriptures, and St. John Chrysostcui, in his advice, said : ' Let the Divine Scriptures be ever in your hands ; their lessons ever in your minds and yuur hearts.' Perhaps no great Pontiff of those early days bo strongly in«i*ted on the reading of the Scriptures as St. Gregory the Great, ' I be»ee?h you,' he said, ' to meditate constantly on the Sacred Scriptures.' So from acre to age to our own time the successors of St. Peter had kept the knowledge of the Scriptures before the faithful. At the beginning of the present century they found the great Pontiff Pins the Seventh writing in terms of highest admiration and warmest approval to one of the Italian bishops who had translated the Scriptures into the Italian language. Pope I'ius the Seventh d'oL.rc<l that do better service could be rendered to religion th p m to enable The peoplo of a country to read in their own language the Go-p^ls and other portions of the sacred writings. Then, again, they had the Encyclical of the present illustrious Holy Father, Leo the Thirteenth, on the Study of the Scriptures. There was no more boautiful tr.bute to the Scriptures than this encyclical, and in it tho true position of the Church as the guardian and expounder of the Scriptures was clearly set forth. The present illustrious Pontiff a few mouths ago

crowned his labours in the cause of truth and knowledge by granting a special indulgence to each one who reads every day some part of the Sacred Books.

EARLY TRANSLATIONS OP THE SACRED SCRIPTURES.

Some enemies of the Church have been bold enough to state that there were no translations of the Sacred Scriptures till modern times. This was untrue. As early as the fourth century St. Jerome was ordered by the reigning Pope to present an accurate version of the Bible. This Doctor of the Church, most learned in Greek and Hebrew, produced what is known as the Latin Vulgate. At the present day the mo.^t learned and most painstaking investigators. non-Catholic as well as Catholic, recognise as authentic the text of the Latin Vulgate, which was the woik of St. Jerome. The last edition of the Bible published in England had no less than four thousand corrections to bring it in conformity with the Latin Vulgate. Every discovery of ancient monuments and ancient manuscripts served to support the accuracy of the Latin Vulgate. Then, as to the Bible not having been known till the Reformation, there was the fact that in HoO the Sacred Book was printed, and there were no fewer than 100 editions within o0 years, and this at a time when there was no whisper of the Reformation. History tella us that one of the first uses of the printing press was to supply copies of the Sacred Scriptures. Not only was the Bible printed in the Latin language, but in Germany, in the year 1483 (the year Luther was born), several editions, beautifully illustrated, were issued in Germany. Between that time and the close of the century, no fewer than 2\ editions were published. There was no hiding away of the Bible. The reading of the Sacred Scriptures was commended by the Catholic pastors, and besides the German publications, there were six other translations in the Low-Dutch and other dialects. There was no prohibition. The one anxiety of the Church at the time was to prevent corrupt translations, which could not fail to become poisoned sources to the ignorant and the unwary. Holy Church never ceased to incite her learned sons to illustrate the Sacred Scriptures and to get them before the world in the most noble and most attractive foim. Many of those who had assailed Holy Churoh in connection with the Scriptures claimed that the Bible is the one source frori which we derive knowledge of the Divine power and love — our sole source of light, and strength, and grace, and spiritual happiness. As he had said on the previous Sunday, the Catholic Church, the Church of Christ, relies not upon the written word alone, but upon the living voice of Divine authority which Oar Lord gave to His Church as a blessed heritage for all time. The ' Reformers ' of the sixteenth century followed in the footsteps of preceding heretics in declaring that, from the Scriptures, and the Scriptures alone, do we derive knowledge of Divine Truth. The Reformers, who used the Scriptures to suit their own ends, added that the Bible should be interpreted by individual reason. In other words, those who had cast off their allegiance to the Catholic Churoh held that no teaching or exposition was needed. Each individual was free to interpret as he thought fit. This theory of private judgment had led to the establishment of some 700 Protestant sects, each of which appealed to the Bible to justify its exittence. Luther himself deplored the number of false teachers the Reformation had brought forth — the number of men who distorted the Scriptures and profaned the word of God. He called them ' the cohorts of Satan,' and described their presence as a curse on the earth. Yet it was Luther and the Reformers in England who led on the horde of false teachers. One of the distinctive features of the pource of Divine Truth was that it should be accessible to all. As the Gospel tolls us, ' the poor have tho G os-pel prtached to them.'

THERE JIUST BE A LIVING- VOICE.

The written word would not be accessible to all. There must be the living voice — the voice of the teacher, the voice of the preacher. In the time of our Lord and for years afterwards the new Gospel was taught The sacred text was written only as necessity arose. For centuries afte wards it was not possible to have more tha-i a few written copies of the Scriptures. But the pastors of the Church never failed to impart the lessons of truth and wisdom wh'cn haii been bequeathed to the Church by our Saviour Himself. The cecond lcature of the source of Divine Truth and Knowledge was that it mast he intelligible to all. With the principle of private judgment in force this was impossible. Many things in the Scriptures were difficult to understand. Take, for instance, the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles, in which we are told that our Lord, before ascending to Heaven, explained to the Apostles prophecies they had not understood. St. Luke tells us how our Lord, conversing with the Apostles before His ascension, taid : 'These are the words which I spoke to you, while I was yes with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning Me. Then He opened their unc'ets.tandicg that they might understand the Scriptures.' And in the second epistle of St Peter, referring to the life of our Saviour, he speaks of ' certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. You, therefore, brethren, knowing these things before take heed, lest being set aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness." In the same epistle St. Peter tells us that 'no prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation. For prophecy came not by the will of man at any tune ; but the holy men of God spoke inspired by the Holy Ghost.' Here wo find it set forth that the Scriptures to be inteiligib'e to all need the authorised interpretation of those appointed by our Lord to teach and explain the Scriptures. The authority of Huly Church had settled such points as the observance of the Sabbath on Sunday instead of Saturday, and the manner of Baptism. This was the living voice of authority, tor nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures was it laid down that the Sabbath day should be Sunday. The spirit which inspired the Sacred Scriptures gives us through Holy Church the genuine interprets it j n.