CHAPTERS OF BIBLE STUDY. (continued 2)

In other words, there are certain essential conditions required upon which depends the acquisition of that excellent knowledge which the Scriptures contain for every sphere of life. They are conditions which affect us in our entirety as men—I should say as the images of God, in whose likeness we were created. Sin has tarnished this image, and we are to restore it to its original beauty by correcting it. Our model is God Himself. The Bible is the text-book containing the image of this Model, drawn by Himself, and He has provided the preceptor to explain the various meanings of lines, lights, and shadows, and the use of the instruments which must be employed in completing the process. It is a little tedious, as all art training is in its beginning. Sometimes we copy with tracing-paper, and of late the kodak has done much to help us by the aid of photography.

XV.

USING THE KODAK.

You know that through the art of photography a perfect picture of an object may be produced by the action of light upon a smooth and sensitive surface. The light reflected from the object which is to be photographed enters through a lens into the dark chamber of the camera, and makes an impression upon the plate which is rendered sensitive by a film of chloride (or nitrate) of silver. To produce a good picture, therefore, three things are principally required:

1. A faultless sensitized plate on which the reflection of the object is to be made;

2. A concentrated light; that is, the rays must enter the camera through a lens, but be excluded from every other part;

3. The right focus; that is to say, you must get the proper distance of your object in order to preserve the just proportions between it and its surroundings.

The same requisites may be applied to ourselves when we wish to image in our souls the object of divine truth, which is identical with God.

1. The sensitive plate of our hearts and minds must be clean, without flaw, so as to admit the ray of heavenly light, and let it take hold upon its surface. A tarnished mirror gives but a blurred and imperfect reflection. Just so the mind occupied with the follies and vanities of worldliness, the heart filled with the changing idols of unworthy attachments, is no fit surface for the delicate impressions of those chaste delineations of truth which are nothing else but the image of God in the human soul. To His likeness we were created, and to His likeness we must again conform ourselves by a right study of truth.

2. Next, in order to obtain a correct impression of the sublime truth contained in the sacred volumes, we must concentrate our lights. That is to say, we must read with assiduity, must study with earnestness, and also with prayer, to obtain the light of the Divine Spirit who caused these pages of the Bible to be traced for our instruction—for, as one of our greatest English writers, though not a Catholic, has beautifully said:

This implies that all side-lights which may distract the mind from this concentrated attention and reverend attitude should be excluded. To read the Sacred Scriptures in a flippant mood, or even in an irreverent posture, and without having previously reflected on the fact that it is God's word, is to lessen immeasurably one's chance of profiting by the reading. The Mahometan or Jew in the East reverently lifts each piece of paper or parchment which he finds upon the road, for fear that it might contain the name of Allah or Jehovah, and be profaned by being trodden under foot. We owe no less to the inspired word of God, above all if we would gain the key to its intelligence.

The concentration into a focus is obtained through a perfectly-shaped, convex lens. Now this lens, which is capable not only of bringing into one strong point all the scattered rays of light, but under circumstances gathers the particles to intensity of heat producing a flame, is that centre of the affections commonly termed the heart. There is a tendency among those who seek intellectual culture to undervalue this quality of the heart, which nevertheless contains the secret power of generating supreme wisdom. We are considering true wisdom, not superficial, exclusively human wisdom, which is the very opposite, and which debases man to a mere repository of facts and impressions, like an illustrated encyclopedia, or makes of him a shrewd egotist, whose cleverness we may admire as we admire the antics of a dancing serpent without wishing to come in contact with its slimy body or its poisonous fangs.

"As in human things," says Pascal, "we must first know an object before we can love it, so in divine things, which constitute the only real truth at which man can worthily aim, we must love them before we can know them, for we cannot attain to truth except through charity." "In all our studies and pursuits of knowledge," says Watts, "let us remember that the conformation of our hearts to true religion and morality are things of far more consequence than all the furniture of our understanding and the richest treasures of mere speculative knowledge."

If it be true that "nothing is so powerful to form truly grand characters as meditation on the word of God and on Christian truths," then we must suppose an inclination, a love for the lofty ideals which Christianity sets before us. "To whom has the root of wisdom been revealed?" asks that wise and noble old rabbi, son of Sirach; and he answers: "God has given her to them that love Him." If the wise man in the sacred book tells us that "wisdom walketh with chosen women," may we not assume that it is because woman enjoys the prerogative of those qualities of heart which make her counsels so often far surer than the carefully pondered reasons of men?

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, is not charity or love its consummation? "Blessed is the man that shall continue in wisdom. With the bread of life and understanding God's fear shall feed him, and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink, and ... shall heap upon him a treasure of joy and gladness, and shall cause him to inherit an everlasting name. But ... foolish men shall not see her: for she is far from pride and deceit.... Say not: It is through God that she is not with me, for do not thou the things that He hateth" (Eccles., ch. xiv. and xv.).

But there is no need of multiplying these sayings of God. The knowledge we seek here is the knowledge which comes from the Divine Spirit, source of all science as of all goodness and beauty. What the fruits of that spirit are we are told by St. Paul: Charity, joy, peace, patience, etc.; and we know how the Apostle of the Gentiles, who had learnt much in many schools, at the feet of Gamaliel and in the halls of the Greek philosophers, valued these fruits of wisdom above all the doctrines of men.

Catholics are fortunate in this, that they may gain from the study of the Bible that purest light of wisdom which is only partially communicated to those who find no way, through the sacraments, of cleansing their souls,—that mirror in which God's image can show clearly only when it is polished and purified from the dust-stains of our earthly fall. Whatever opportunities for thorough study of the Bible we may have, there can be no doubt that this is one of the most important conditions for its proper and fruitful appreciation, because the intelligence is always warped by sin.

A correct knowledge of our faith, as the primary rule of our conduct, is, of course, supposed. We cannot understand the written word of God unless we have become accustomed to the language He speaks to the heart, and that language is taught in our catechisms and textbooks of religion. Some need less of this knowledge than others, so far as the difficulties and controversies of religion are concerned. The Bible is a book of instruction for all, and hence the preparatory knowledge required varies with the mental range and ability, and the consequent danger of doubts and false views of each individual. A child knows the precepts and wishes of its parent often by a look or gesture, without receiving any explicit instruction, because love and the habit of faith supply intelligence. Others require a certain amount of reasoning to move their hearts to the ready acceptance of divine precepts. This reasoning is supplied by the study of popular theologies, of which we have a good number in English.

3. Lastly, we must not only get a right glass, a good lens, but we must likewise get the right focus for our picture. We must know the distance of our objects and their surroundings, the lights and shades, the coloring, natural and artificial. In other words, we must become familiar with the circumstances of history, the dates, the places, the customs and laws, national and social, which throw light upon the meaning of the incidents related in the Sacred Scriptures, and which often aid us in the interpretation of passages mysterious and prophetic. Hence we have to give some attention to, and study what we can, of the ancient records and monuments brought to light by the archæologist and the historian. We must likewise inquire into the origin, history, authority, purpose, and general argument of each of the inspired books. All this is the object of what is called Introduction to the Study of the Sacred Scriptures, and is nothing else but a becoming and essential preparation for the right use of the Bible.

XVI.

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE IMAGE.

The Bible is not only a text-book which leads us to the acquisition of the highest of arts—that of fulfilling the true purpose of life—but it is itself, as has already been suggested, a work of fairest art inasmuch as it contains a perfect delineation of the divine Beauty drawn by the sovereign Artist Himself.

Now true art needs, as a rule, an interpretation; for the outward form which appeals to the senses may have its deeper and real meaning disguised beneath the figure, so as to be understood only by the finer perceptions of the intellect and heart. Take, for example, a canvas such as Millet's popular picture entitled "The Angelus." It is a small, unpretentious-looking work, representing a youth and a maid in a fallow field, a village church in the distance, all wrapt in the gloom of eventide. Ask a child looking at the picture what is the meaning of it, and it will probably answer: "Two poor people tired of work." Ask a countryman, without much education, and he will say: "Two poor lovers thinking of home." But to the poet who has perchance dwelt in some village of fair Southern France, and knows the simple habits of devotion among the peasant folk, the picture will awaken memories of the sound of the Angelus:

And the reflecting, devout Catholic will see in that picture even more than the thoughts it suggests to the poet. It will speak to him of the angelic salute to a Virgin fair at Nazareth; it will touch a chord of tender confidence and hope in the Madonna's help and sympathy; it will arouse a feeling of gratitude for the mystery of the Redemption. And all this difference of judgment arises from the varying degrees of intelligence and knowledge with which we approach the image.

Now the Sacred Scriptures present just such a picture, only larger, more comprehensive, truer, deeper, containing all the fair delineation of God's own image, the pattern according to which we are to correct the same divine likeness in our souls, spoiled somewhat and blurred by sin.

Let us look at the outline. There are words and a fact. In the words truth is enunciated, in the fact those words are exhibited as being a divine utterance. In their literal meaning the word affects us just as a picture would at first sight. In the one case we have a precept or an incident or a scene in the life of our Lord; in the other case we have an act of prayer or a scene from the daily life of French peasants. But just as in the picture we may, by reason of artistic and spiritual culture, recognize not simply an ordinary scene of peasant life, but a poetic thought, or a practical moral lesson calling for imitation, or, finally, a mystery of religion, so in the Sacred Scriptures we may see below the literal sense one that is internal, hidden, and in its character either simply figurative, or moral, or mystically spiritual. An old ecclesiastical writer has given us a Latin hexameter which suggests these various senses in which the sacred text may at times be understood:

An example of the four different senses (namely, the literal, the allegorical, which appeals to our faith, the moral, and the mystic) in which a word or passage of Holy Writ may be interpreted is offered in the term "Jerusalem." If we read that "they went up to Jerusalem every year," we understand the word Jerusalem to represent the chief city of the Hebrews, situated on the confines of Judah and Benjamin. If we happen upon the passage of St. John where he says: "I, John, saw a holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God; ... behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them," we know that this new Jerusalem on earth can be no other than the Church, where God has His tabernacle, dwelling with men. The word is used allegorically, that is to say, it appeals to our faith; to the internal, not to our external sense. Again, the word "Jerusalem" may be used in the sense which its etymology suggests without reference to any city. Etymologically it consists of two words, signifying foundation and peace. A rabbi might, therefore, bid his disciples to strive to build up "Jerusalem," meaning that they should seek to lay solid foundations of peace by conforming their lives to the law of Jehovah. This would give the word Jerusalem simply a moral signification. Finally, the word is used as a synonyme for "heaven," as in Apoc. xxi. 10: "And He took me up in spirit, ... and He showed me the holy city Jerusalem, ... having the glory of God." Here we have the term in its anagogical sense, that is, referring to the future life.

Without entering into the various figures of speech with which the language of the Hebrews abounds, let me suggest some points which must be observed in order that the true sense of the Sacred Scriptures may not escape us so as to mislead the mind.

For the discovery of the literal sense we must, of course, be guided by the rules of ordinary grammatical construction. Where this proves insufficient we must have recourse to the idiomatic use of language, the habits of speech, which prevailed among the Hebrews or those with whose utterances or history we are concerned. This is very important in order that we may get a right understanding of the expressions employed. As an instance of misconception in this respect may be cited the words of our Lord to His holy Mother at the nuptials of Cana, which literally sound like a reproof, yet are far from conveying such a sense in their original signification. The like is true of the use of certain comparisons which to our sense seem rude and cruel, yet which were not so understood in the language in which they were originally spoken or written. Thus when our Lord said to the Canaanitish woman who followed Him in the regions of Tyre and Sidon that it is not right to give the bread of the children to "dogs," He seemed to spurn the poor mother, who prayed Him for the recovery of her child, as a man spurns a cur. Yet such is not the sense of the expression, which hardly means anything more than what we would convey by "outside of the pale of faith."

Besides the usage of speech peculiar to a people or district or period of time, we must have regard to the individuality of the writer. His subjective state, his temperament, education, personal associations, and habits of thought and feeling necessarily influence the style of his writing. Thus in the letters of St. Paul we recognize a spirit which the forms of speech seem wholly inadequate to contain or express. He writes as he might speak, impatient of words. His thoughts seem often disconnected; he omits things which he had evidently meant to say, and which the hearers might have supplied from the vividness of the image presented, but which become obscure to the reader who only sees the cold form of the written page. There is no end of parenthetical clauses in his discourses; often he begins a period and leaves it unfinished. Sometimes there appears a total absence of logical connection in what he intends for proofs and arguments; then, again, there is a wealth of imagery, which suggests the quick sense and power of comparison peculiar to the Oriental mind, but slow to impress itself on the Western nations. All this makes it necessary to study St. Paul rather than to read him, if one would understand the Apostle. Of this St. Peter shows himself conscious when he writes that certain things in the Epistles of St. Paul are "hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (II. Pet. iii. 16).

Another element which contributes to the right interpretation of the Sacred Text is the knowledge of what may be called the historical background of a passage or book. This includes the various relations of time, place, persons addressed, and other circumstances which exercise an influence upon the material, intellectual, and moral surroundings of the writer. Accordingly, different parts of the Sacred Scriptures require different treatment and different preparation on the part of the reader. Thus to comprehend the full significance of the Book of Exodus we must study the geographical and ethnographical condition of Egypt. For a right understanding of the Book of Daniel we should first have to become acquainted with the history of Chaldea and Assyria, especially as lit up by the recent discoveries of monuments in the East. The Canticle of Canticles presupposes for its just interpretation a certain familiarity with the details of Solomon's life during the golden period of his reign. The Letters of St. Paul, in the New Testament, reveal their true bearing only after we have read the life of the Apostle as it is described in the Acts; and so on for other parts of the Sacred History.

Finally, a proper understanding and appreciation of the inspired books depend largely on our realization of the proximate scope and purpose, the character and quality, of the subject treated by the sacred writer. The Bible is a wondrous combination of historic, didactic, and prophetic elements. Each of these goes to support or emphasize the other, but each of them has its predominant functions in different parts of the grand structure. Hence we may not judge a prophecy as we judge the historical narrative which introduces and supports it; we may not interpret in its literal sense the metaphor which is simply to convey a moral lesson to the mind.

XVII.

"DEUS ILLUMINATIO MEA."

The subject-matter of the Bible obliges us, however, to apply not only the various cautions and methods of interpretation which are required for the understanding of the classics generally, but it exacts more. The Sacred Scriptures, as a grand work of art, have not only a human, but primarily a divine conception for their basis. Hence it does not suffice to have mastered the meaning of the words and the outline of the subject, or the individual genius and human ideal of the writer who acted merely as the instrument executing a higher inspiration. We must enter into the conception of the divine mind. If the principal and all-pervading motive of the great Scriptural composition is a religious one, it stands to reason that it can be comprehended only when judged from a religious point of view.

Now the divine mind is so far above us that we can reach it only if God Himself brings it down to us. He has to descend, to lift the veil from His immensity, not by opening to us, before the time, those sacred precincts which "eye hath never seen," but by emitting a ray of light to clear up our darkness, to give us a glimpse of the awful splendor which vibrates in those celestial realms where light and sound and warmth of eternal charity mingle in the sweet harmony of the divine Beauty whose tones speak now to our senses in separate forms. God descends to our humility to interpret His own image. First He came in human form, and told us all the things we were to believe and do. Then He sent the Paraclete, and under His direction men of God taught the same things. Then they wrote them, or, as St. John tells us, some of them. The Paraclete veils Himself, as our Lord had announced to His Apostles, in the Church, whose divinely constituted earthly chief was to be Peter—to the end of time. The Church, therefore, founded by Christ, and an ever-living emanation of the incessant activity of the Holy Spirit, although necessarily speaking to men through men, is the first and surest interpreter of the purpose and meaning of each and every part of Holy Writ.

And because God cannot contradict Himself it follows that every truth of the written word must correspond with every truth of the spoken word. In doubtful cases, therefore, as to the meaning of a word or text in the Sacred Writings, we have recourse to the supreme, divinely-guided judgment of the Church. Her doctrines, defined, are the first and most important criterion of Scriptural truth.

But the Church has not defined every expression of truth, though she holds the key to all truth. She points to the light which illumines our night; she declares the stars whence that light issues directly or by reflection; but she does not always indicate where the rays of the one body begin to mingle with those of the other, or what precise elements determine the motion or stability of each. Only when there are conflicts or threatened disturbances of the centres of attraction and repulsion she reaches out her anointed hand, informed with the magic power of her Creator and founder, and directs the courses of bodies that otherwise would clash unto mutual destruction. Hence the freedom of investigation allowed the Catholic student of the Scriptures is limited only by the rules of faith taught by the same divine Teacher who watches over the spoken and written revelation alike. And as, in cases where we have not the express command of a superior, we interpret his will by his known desires and views in other respects, so in the interpretation of those parts of Holy Writ regarding the meaning of which we have no definite expression in the doctrinal code of the Church, we follow the analogy of faith; which is manifest from the general consent of the Christian Fathers and Doctors, and from the teaching of learned and holy commentators. These we may safely follow in all doubtful cases, that is to say, where there is no evidence to show that they were mistaken, either through want of certain sources of information or proofs which we have at our command presently, or because they accepted the views of their time and people, feeling that any departure from the received tradition would make disturbance, and fail of its intended good effect.

It is safe to say that the conditions of one age and the modes of thought and feeling of one generation are not a just standard by which to judge the conditions and views of another age or generation. This is an important fact to remember for those who are inclined to look in every part of the Sacred Scriptures for a verification of the sentiments which they feel, and of the views and opinions of things which they hold.

XVIII.

RUSH-LIGHTS.

There is a method of interpreting the Bible which, although it affords a temporary satisfaction to the heart, is misleading to the mind. I mean private interpretation in the sense in which it is generally practised and defended by our Protestant brethren. To take a good photograph you must have sunlight; candles, gas, even electric lights, unless they be flash-lights, which don't suit all purposes of accurate reproduction, will not accomplish it. For vegetable growth you need sunlight; artificial light will give neither healthy fruit nor even color to the plant. So it is with the divine image traced in the Sacred Scriptures. We cannot reproduce it in our souls by any earthly light. Now human judgment is an earthly light, because it is constantly influenced by feelings, prejudices, attachments, and partial views of things. Some of us accept an opinion because it suits our conditions of life, is agreeable to our sense of ease or vanity, relieves us from certain responsibilities to God and our neighbor which a severer statement of the case would exact. Others endorse a view because it is held by a person whom they love or respect. Others, again, maintain an opinion because it is contrary to the one held by a person whom they dislike. And there is a vast number of people who take a view simply because it is the first that presents itself to them, and they are as well pleased with it as with others which they don't know. It must be remembered, moreover, that man is not naturally inclined toward the right. The world loves darkness since its eyes were hurt by the wanton effort to see God and to be like Him in a way which was against His law. Amid this darkness, intellectual and moral, which surrounds man, and which for the moment pleases him because it relieves him of a strain, we need a guide. We must follow a leader who knows all the ways and enjoys the full light of heaven.

The defence in favor of private interpretation of the Bible usually rests in the assumption of God's goodness, who must needs furnish an inward light to man lest he go wrong in his search after truth. But God's goodness gives you a guide, well accredited with testimonials from Himself, against whose efficiency the inward light compares like a rush-light against the sun.

The red cross of the Alpine Club marks the safe passage down the rocky mountain paths of Switzerland. We recognize the stones which are landmarks because they bear the conventional sign of an authorized body of mountaineers. They lead our way, and we follow without hesitation. But if the mark of the red cross of the Alpine Club were not visible, if we had to trust to the inward light or to our instinct to guide us, we should run the risk of losing our way and lives, though the stones which marked the path of former travellers are still there.

Nor does it seem according to the divine wisdom to give man a written law and then to leave him to Himself for its interpretation. No other written law was ever given under such conditions by or to man. It would frustrate the fundamental purpose of any written law to allow the individual to interpret it, because it would lead to contradictions and confusion, which it is the very object of laws to prevent. That the divine Law, in its written form, is no exception to this rule is proved from the effects of the theory of private interpretation, which have grown into a history of many sects, conscientiously protesting one against the other because of the inferences which each draws from the one sacred code of Christian law and doctrine. Thus the written word of God would frustrate its own manifest purpose, nay, give occasion to a thousand justifications of separation and hostility, which its fundamental canon, charity in the union of Christ, expressly forbids.

What other conclusion, therefore, remains than to accept the warning of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, who, speaking of the reading of the Sacred Scriptures, wishes the converts to understand "this, first, that no prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation,"[1] because "the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost" (II. Pet. i. 20, 21).

And this disposes, in the mind of the sincere Christian, of all the theories of interpretation advanced by rationalist and naturalist philosophers, who render their arguments a trifle more consistent than Protestants by denying from the outset the divine inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures.

XIX.

THE USE AND THE ABUSE OF THE BIBLE.

"Revelation and a Church are practically identical. Revelation and Scripture are not."[1] Though revelation is necessary to guide the human mind, prone to error, and to sustain the human will, weak by reason of an hereditary fall, we have seen that the Bible is but one channel of that revelation, and that a complementary, secondary one. It neither contains all revealed truth, nor can the truth which it contains be clearly and completely understood without the guidance of an intelligent interpretation. A teacher of any science or art may give a book into the hands of his pupils to serve as a text, as a reminder of his precepts, as a compend of his methods and practice; but no book, no matter how perfectly written, will make us dispense with the teacher. The education, in any direction, which rests upon the sole use of books is essentially defective and misleading.

This is eminently true of the Bible as a text or guide in the acquisition of the highest of arts, the profoundest of sciences, which leads us to the recognition of absolute truth, with an ever-increasing apprehension, because its scope is immeasurable, eternal.

The teacher of revelation, in its first and most important signification, is Christ. He is the central historical figure, announced to man immediately after his fall in Paradise foreshadowed by the prophets in the Jewish Church, and completing His mission in the Christian Church. As the Holy Ghost animated the prophets to foretell Him, and the priests of the synagogue to announce Him in the Old Law, so the Holy Ghost animates the Church to continue His work in the New Law. As books were written by the prophets of old to perpetuate the remembrance of what Jehovah had spoken through them to His people regarding the coming of the Messias, so books were written by the Apostles and disciples of the New Law to perpetuate the remembrance of what that Messias had said and done, and of what He wished us to do. But as the old written Law was not to be a substitute for the commission of teaching and guiding the people through the Jewish Synagogue, so neither was the new written Law intended to be a substitute for the commission of teaching and guiding those who seek salvation through Christ. The Bible alone, as we have already seen, cannot satisfy us in such a way as to supply the full reason for our faith in Christ's teaching. For this we have a Church to whom Christ, as God, gave a direct commission, without adding a book, or an express command to write a book.

But a book was written, written under the guidance of the divine Spirit, who had been promised to the Church whenever it would speak, whether by word of mouth or by epistle and written gospel. And that book, though not containing all truth, contains truth only. Therefore it is useful, as St. Paul says, II. Tim. iii. 16: "All Scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work." The use, then, of the Bible is to teach, to instruct in justice, primarily; to make man perfect, furnished to every good work. Mark the twofold term: to teach and to instruct; both teaching and instruction to serve the one end—to make a perfect man, "furnished to every good work."

That the principal purpose and scope of Scripture is to teach the truths of religion has been demonstrated in a former chapter. I have here only to add that, as an instrument of Apologetics, and in discussion with Protestants who admit the divinity of Christ and the inspired character of the Sacred Scriptures, reference to the teachings of the Bible plays a very important part. Whether we are defending our faith against misrepresentation, or desirous of convincing other sincere and open minds of the justness of the claims which the Catholic Church makes as the only true representative of Christ's divine mission to teach the nations, the Bible is a safe and commonly recognized meeting-ground for a fair discussion of the subject.

Even when we have to speak of religion with practical infidels, who read the Bible, or have some knowledge of its contents, that book will serve us as a powerful weapon of defence and persuasion. Few intelligent men or women of to-day, especially if they are earnest, and have a real regard for virtue and truth, though they may consider them as mere gifts of the natural order, fail to recognize that Christianity is a power for good, and that Christ, its Author, is and ever will be the great teacher of mankind, in whose true following man becomes better, nobler, and happier. To illustrate this fact, we may be permitted to quote at some length from an article by Baron Von Hügel in a recent number of the Dublin Review (April, 1895). Speaking of Christ, he cites from various writers, as follows:

Thus "Ernest Rénan, sceptical even to his own scepticism, addresses him and says: 'A thousand times more living, a thousand times more loved, since thy death than during thy passage upon earth, thou wilt become the corner-stone of humanity, to such a point, that to blot out thy name out of the world would be in very truth to shake its very foundations.'[2] John Stuart Mill, who tells us of himself: 'I never lost faith, for I never had it,' proclaims at the end of his long life's labors: 'Whatever else may be taken from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left; a unique figure, not more unlike all his predecessors than all his followers, even those who had the direct benefit of his personal teaching. It is no use to say that Christ in the Gospels is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been superadded by the tradition of his followers. For who among his disciples or their proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee, as certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasy were of a totally different sort; still less the early Christian writers, in whom nothing is more evident than that the good which was in them was all derived, as they always professed that it was derived, from the higher source.'[3] Even so purely Deistic a critic as Abraham Kuenen declares: 'The international religion which we call Christianity was founded, not by the Apostle Paul, but by Jesus of Nazareth, that Jesus whose person and whose teaching are sketched in the Synoptic Gospels with the closest approximation of truth.' 'The need of Christianity is as keen as ever. It is not for less but for more Christianity that the age cries out. Even those many who do not identify Christianity with the ecclesiastical form in which they themselves profess it, and who have no confidence that the world will necessarily conform to them—even these may be at peace. The universalism of Christianity is the sheet-anchor of their hope. A history of eighteen centuries bears mighty witness to it; and the contents of its evidence and the high significance they possess are brought into the clearest light by the comparison with other religions. We have good courage then.'[4] So advanced a critic and sensitively loyal a Jew as Mr. Claud Montefiore tells us: 'Some of the sayings ascribed to Jesus have sunk too deep into the human heart, or shall I say into the spiritual consciousness of civilized mankind, to make it probable that any religion which ignores or omits them will exercise a considerable influence outside its own borders. It may be that those who dream of a prophetic Judaism, which shall be as spiritual as the religion of Jesus, and even more universal than the religion of Paul, are the victims of a delusion.'[5] So largely naturalistic a critic as Julius Wellhausen writes of our Lord's teaching and person: 'The miraculous is impossible with man, but with God it is possible. Jesus has not only assured us of this, but he has proved it in his own person. He had indeed lost his life and saved it, he could do as he would. He had escaped the bonds of human kind and the sufferings of self-seeking nature. There is in him no trace of that eagerness for action which seeks for peace in the restlessness of its own activity. The completely super-worldly standpoint in which Jesus finds strength and love to devote himself to the world has nothing extravagant about it. He is the first to know himself, not simply in moments of emotion, but in completest restfulness, the child of God; before him no one so felt or so described himself.' 'Jesus not only prophesies the kingdom of God, but brings it out of its transcendence on to earth; he plants at least its germ. The new times already begin with him: the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead arise. Everywhere he found spaciousness for his soul, nowhere was he cramped by the little, much as he put forward the value of the great; this we should do, and not leave that undone. He was more than a prophet; in him the word had become flesh. The historic overweightedness, to which the Jews were succumbing, does not even touch him. A unit arises in the dreary mass, a man from among the rubbish which the dwarfs, the rabbis, had heaped up. He upsets the accidental, the caricature, the dead, and collects the eternally valid, the human divine, in the focus of His individuality. "Ecce homo," a divine wonder in this time and this environment.'"

Such being the view of religiously disposed persons outside of the Catholic Church regarding the New Testament teaching of Christ, it would seem easy at first sight to convince them of the Catholic doctrine by reference to the words of Christ and the Gospels, which contain explicit, if not complete testimony in behalf of the Catholic teaching. There is one difficulty in the way of this, and that is that Protestants themselves distrust the meaning of the New Testament words except in so far as it expresses their own feelings. The principle of private interpretation necessarily leads to this one-sided view. A hundred persons appeal to the one Book as an infallible expression of God's will and truth. Now, some of these infallible expressions manifestly contradict one another as Protestants interpret them. Yet the consequences of such contradictions are vital, and involve eternal life or death. Take the doctrine of baptism by water as essential to salvation, according to the reading of some Protestants; yet the Quaker, no less sincere than his Baptist neighbor, and claiming a special inward light, consciously neglects baptism, holding that the teaching of the New Testament is only meant in a spiritual sense. Equally awful in their consequences are the two contrary doctrines regarding the Eucharistic presence of Christ as declared in the New Testament, one believer drawing the conclusion that he must adore God under the veil of bread, the other equally convinced from the same Scriptures that such a view is sheer idolatry, and that there is nothing divine under the appearance of bread. This appeal to private judgment makes most Protestants sceptical if you attempt to prove to them Catholic doctrine from the New Testament; and unless you can first convince them that the Church has a greater claim to declare the sense of the Bible than any private individual, they will consider their opinion of its meaning and purpose just as good as yours.

But it is different if you appeal to the Old Testament for a confirmation of Catholic doctrine. And I would strongly urge this method for various reasons. Every Protestant will admit that the Old Testament is not only inspired and divine in its origin, but that in its historic expression, even the deutero-canonical portion, contains the application of its meaning and purpose. In other words, that God not merely gave the Israelites a law, but also shows us how He meant them to interpret that law in their lives—domestic, social, and religious. Here, therefore, we have little need, or even opportunity, for private interpretation as to God's meaning. That meaning becomes clear from the action of His people.

At the same time it is also clear and generally admitted that the Old Testament is a foreshadowing of the New Law, hence that the doctrines and practices of the Christian Church have their counterpart in the Old Law. Protestants readily agree to this, in proof of which fact I may be allowed to quote Prof. Robertson Smith:

"Christianity can never separate itself from its historical basis, or the religion of Israel; the revelation of God in Christ cannot be divorced from the earlier revelation on which our Lord built. Indeed, the history of Israel, when rightly studied, is the most real and vivid of all histories; and the proofs of God's working among His people of old may still be made, what they were in time past, one of the strongest evidences of Christianity."[6]

Dr. A. B. Bruce in his Apologetics, 1892, p. 325, says: "The Bible, instead of being a dead rule, to be used mechanically, with equal value set on all its parts, is rather a living organism, which, like the butterfly, passes through various transformations before arriving at its highest and final form. We should find Christ in the Old Testament as we find the butterfly in the caterpillar."[7]

Hence if you can show to the average intelligent Protestant that a doctrine or practice distinctively of the Catholic Church prevailed in the Jewish Church, you have established an a priori argument for its reasonableness. This applies particularly to such doctrines and practices as Protestants condemn or censure in the Catholic Church from a mere habit of not finding them in their own churches, or from some prejudice nourished by bigotry of early teachers, or by the popular literature of the anti-Catholic type. I only mention such topics as Indulgences, Confession, the Infallibility of the Pope, Celibacy of the clergy and religious, and such like. Now all these things existed in the Old Law, not so completely developed as in the Christian Church, but sufficiently pronounced to establish a motive of credibility for their existence in the Church of Christ. Thus we have the reasonableness of the practice of Confession plainly indicated in the Mosaic times: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Say to the children of Israel, when a man or woman shall have committed any of all the sins that men are wont to commit, and by negligence shall have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and offended, they shall confess their sin, and shall restore the principal itself, and the fifth part over and above, to him against whom they have sinned" (Num. v. 6-7; also 13-14). The Infallibility of the Pope finds its perfect counterpart in the oracular responses given by the Jewish high-priest when he wore the Urim and Thummim in his breastplate, which covers the precise ground of Papal decisions regarding faith and morals, the breastplate being called "the rational of judgment, doctrine, and truth" (See Exod. xxviii. 30; Levit. viii. 8; Num. xxvii. 21; Deut. xxxiii. 8, etc.).

As to the practice of virginity, we know that it existed among the Jews, as an exceptional condition; but as such it had the sanction of God. Thus the Prophet Jeremias receives the command of virginity from Jehovah directly: "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Thou shalt not take thee a wife; neither shalt thou have sons and daughters in this place" (Jer. xvi. 2).

Thus practical arguments, of which I can here only indicate a few, may be found for each and all of the usages of the Catholic Church. And any censure of the latter will cast its reflection upon the Jewish dispensation, of which God was Himself the Author and Guardian. For if God sanctioned ceremonies in worship, and infallibility in the high-priest, and virginity in the Prophet whom He selects for a special mission, and confession, with penance and the obligation of restitution, why should Protestants think it so strange to find us practise the same things which have the seal of divine approbation!

Thus they may be inclined more readily to accept the more explicit arguments in favor of Catholic doctrine and discipline as given in the New Testament, which is but the fulfilment of the types suggested in the Old Law.

It is hardly necessary for me to point out in this connection the advantages of being able to disabuse Protestants of the impression that Catholics do not honor the Bible as the word of God. Those who, as Protestants, do not recognize any other source of divine revelation than the written word are, of course, obliged to occupy themselves wholly and entirely with its study, whilst Catholics look upon that same written word, not with less reverence, but with less consciousness of having to rely upon it as the only symbol and exponent of their faith. If we refuse on general principles to have the Bible read to our Catholic children in a public school from a Protestant translation, it is simply because the admission of such a practice implies an admission of a Protestant principle, and might leave a wrong impression upon our children as to the value of the true version of their religion. The Protestant translation of the Bible contains a great deal of truth, but some errors which we cannot admit in our teaching. To give it to our children in the schools is something like planting a Southern flag upon some public institution of the United States. Some may say it is better than none, because it begets patriotism, and as there is no difference in the two flags except the slight one of a few stars and stripes, most people might never notice it. But we know that if they did notice it, it would create considerable disturbance, because it implies something of disloyalty to "Old Glory."

For a like reason Catholics often refuse to kiss the Protestant Bible in court. They prefer simply to affirm. And in this they are perfectly right, although to attest one's willingness to tell the truth on such occasions is not supposed to be a trial of one's faith, and hence it does not involve anything of a denial of Catholic truth.

But I must pass on to one or two illustrations to show in what fields the Bible is not to be used. For though it furnishes most apt means for imparting a knowledge and inciting to the further study of history, languages, the principles of government and ethics, together with the development of a graceful and withal vigorous style of English writing, yet there are limits to its use in some directions. Thus the Bible cannot be considered as replacing the exact sciences. We are quite safe always in affirming that the Bible never contradicts science; that where it does not incidentally confirm the results of scientific research it abstracts from the teaching of science. Its language relating to physical facts is popular, not scientific. There is no reason to think that the inspired writers received any communication from heaven as to the inward workings of nature. They had simply the knowledge of their age, and described things accordingly. Leo XIII. in his recent Encyclical on the study of the Sacred Scriptures strongly reiterates this doctrine, advanced by many Doctors of the Church, namely, that the sacred writers had no intention of initiating us into the secrets of nature or to teach us the inward constitution of the visible world. Hence their language about "the firmament," and how "the sun stood still," as we still say "the sun rises."[8]

If, then, we are confronted with some statement by scientists affirming that there is a scientific inaccuracy in the Bible, we have no remark to make but that the Bible was not meant to be a text-book of exact science. If it is urged that there are contradictions between the Bible and science, then the case demands attention. We know that truth cannot contradict itself; but we know that we may err in apprehending it, and that science may err in its assumptions of fact. Hence in the matter of Biblical Apology, when dealing with science, it is of the first importance that we render an exact account to ourselves of what science affirms and of what the Sacred Scripture affirms. It is important to note here the distinction which P. Brucker points out; namely, what science affirms, not what scientists affirm. "The latter often mingle conjecture, more or less probable, with the definitely ascertained results of scientific experiment; they often accept as facts certain observations and plausible conclusions which are not always deduced from legitimate premises nor in a strictly logical method." The human mind is always prone to accept the plausible for the true, the appearance of things for their substance, the general for the universal, the part for the whole, or the probable for the proved. This is demonstrated by the history of scientific hypotheses in nearly every department of human knowledge.

In the next place, we must be quite sure to ascertain what the Sacred Scriptures affirm. Apologists place themselves in a needlessly responsible position when, in the difficult task of determining a doubtful reading of the Sacred Text, they assume an interpretation which may be gainsaid by scientific proof. The teaching of St. Augustine and St. Thomas on this subject is that we are not to interpret in any particular sense any part of Sacred Scripture which admits of a different interpretation. And here Leo XIII. in his Encyclical gives us an important point to consider when he says that the defenders of the Sacred Scriptures must not consider that they are obliged to defend each single opinion of isolated Fathers of the Church.[9] There is a difference between a prudent conservatism and a timid and slavish repetition of time-honored views. Also between an intelligent advance of well-founded, though new views, and an excessive temerity, which rashly replaces the tradition of ages by the suggestions of new science.

"Hence any attempt to prove that the statements of the Bible imply in every case exact conformity with the latest results of scientific research is a needless and, under circumstances, a dangerous experiment; for although there are instances where (as in chap. i. of Genesis) the Bible statements anticipate the exactest results of scientific investigation by many centuries, yet it is not and need not be so in all instances.

"Yet whilst we may not consider Moses as anticipating the investigations of a Newton, a Laplace, or a Cuvier, there are cases where the natural purpose and context of the sacred writers develop an exact harmony with the facts of science of which former ages had no right conception. Such are the creation by successive stages, the unity of species, and origin of the human race, etc. But these facts are not proposed as scientific revelations."

In all important questions as to the agreement of the Bible with the results of scientific research we may have recourse with perfect confidence to the living teaching of the Church; where she gives no decision there we are at liberty to speculate, provided the results of our speculation do not conflict with explicit and implied doctrines of truth, that is to say, they must be in harmony with the general analogy of faith.

There is one other topic which I would touch upon in speaking of the use and abuse of the Bible; it is a view which the late Oliver Wendell Holmes is supposed to have advocated. The author of "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" believed that it would be advantageous if the Bible were, as he terms it, depolarized, that is to say, if the translations or versions made from the originals were put in such form as to appeal to the imagination and feelings of the present generation by substituting modern terminology and figures of speech for the old time-honored words of Scriptural comparisons. The aim would be, as I understand it, to do for the written word of God what the Salvation Army leaders are attempting to do for nineteenth century Christianity in general.

In answer to this suggestion it may be said that the attempt has been made in various ways, and seemingly always without result for the better. As we have versions of St. Paul's Epistles in Ciceronian Latin, so we have had travesties of the Gospels intended to popularize the moral maxims they contain. If it is question of making the Bible accessible to the people for the purpose of getting them to read it, devices of this kind may succeed to a degree with those who look for novelty. As to its essential form, the Bible is popular,—appeals to all minds and conditions. This is proved by the experience of centuries, in every clime and among all races.

Those parts which do not directly appeal to a popular sentiment are of a nature to forbid depolarization as above suggested, since in changing them they would necessarily lose their identity, the inherent proofs of their origin, and their underlying mystic and spiritual meaning. So far as they were written, the truths contained in the Bible were to serve all time. To change their form is to tamper with the spirit of a divine language, which, although it comes to us in human sounds, variable according to nationality and time and place, still has an unction, a breath of heaven accompanying it which would vanish as the perfume vanishes from the transplanted flower. There are some truths, some ideas and feelings, which cannot be expressed in popular fashion without losing their essential qualities. One might urge the same reasons in behalf of painting the old Greek statues, because the common people would find it possible to admire them if gaudy coloring helped their imagination to interpret the action of the figures in marble. Some things in the Bible were not written for all, and appeal only to refined and spiritual minds. Others can be easily understood and assimilated, and there are preachers commissioned to make attractive and intelligible that which of itself does not appeal to the rude. There is such a thing as accommodating the words of the Sacred Scripture for the purpose of impressing a truth by analogy, and of the use of this method we have beautiful illustrations in the writings of the Fathers and in the Offices of the Breviary. But the sense by accommodation, as it is called by writers on hermeneutics, does not take liberties with the Sacred Text itself in the manner suggested by the advocates of depolarization. For the rest there is a difference, there always will be a difference, between the qualities that call upon the senses and attract, perhaps, the larger circle of admirers, and that choicer spirit which reaches the soul. You cannot substitute one for the other; their domain is widely apart, though they may use the same instrument.

You cannot depolarize, without destroying, Dante, or Milton, or any of our great poets; no more can you depolarize the great masterpiece of the Bible. Let us take it as we receive it under the guardianship of the Church. Its apparent imperfections are like the surroundings and exterior of its Founder: a scandal to the Greek, a stumbling-block to the Jew, because they could not realize that a God was hidden in the imperfect guise of poor flesh.

What we consider imperfections to be remedied in the Bible were recognized by the Apostles, and by the chief of them, St. Peter, who writes, II. Pet. iii. 16: "Our dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, has written to you; as also in all his Epistles; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." Here was room for depolarization, yet St. Peter did not take it in hand, neither should we desire scholars of perhaps greater knowledge but less wisdom to do so.

XX.

THE VULGATE AND THE REVISED PROTESTANT VERSION OF THE BIBLE.

In instituting here a comparison between the two approved and typical English Versions of the Bible as in use among Catholics and Protestants respectively, I have no intention to be aggressive or polemic. As from the first we have taken what may be called the common-sense point of view in judging the Bible as an historical work, which verifies its claims to be regarded as an organ communicating to us divine knowledge, so we proceed to make a brief suggestive examination of two English Bibles: one found in the homes of Catholics, the other in those of our Protestant friends and neighbors, many of whom believe with all sincerity that among the various doubts and difficulties of life they can consult no truer guide than that sacred volume.

Taking the two volumes as a whole, and considering only their general contents, there is but little difference between them. I compared them in a former chapter to the two American flags of North and South: viewed in themselves, these are both of the same origin, copied from the same pattern, and emblems, both, of American independence. Though they differ only in some detail that might escape the superficial observer, they nevertheless represent very widely different principles, for which the men of the South as of the North were willing to stake their lives. They might meet in friendly intercourse in all the walks of daily life, but if you ask a Union soldier to carry the Southern flag, he will say: No; for though it looks very much like my own, there is a difference, and that difference constitutes a vital principle with me.

Catholics have to make much the same answer when told that they might accept the Protestant Bible in their public relations with those who do not recognize the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has the old Bible, as it came down the ages, complete and without changes. She has no reason to discard it, and she has good reason not to accept another Bible, though its English be sweeter and its periods fall upon the ear like the soft cadences of Southern army songs. We cannot sing from its tuneful pages, because it represents the principle of opposition to its original source and parent-stock, and no union can be effected except by the elimination of that principle.

Catholics claim that their Bible, in point of fidelity to the original—and this is the essential point when we speak of a translation of such a book—Catholics claim that their Bible, in point of fidelity to the original, is as superior to the Protestant English Bible of King James as it is, we admit, inferior in its English. "The translators of the Catholic Version considered it a lesser offence to violate some rules of grammar than to risk the sense of God's word for the sake of a fine period."[1]

What proof have we for such a claim? I answer that we have the strongest proof in the world which we could have on such a subject outside of a divine revelation, namely, the admission on the part of the guardians and translators themselves of the Protestant Bible. Now, when I say guardians and translators of the Protestant Bible, I do not mean merely the testimony of a few great authorities in the past or present who may have expressed their opinion as to the faults and defects of the latest English Protestant translation. That would not be fair. But I mean that the history itself of Protestant translations made since the days of King James, not to go back any farther, is a standing argument of the severest kind:

First, against the correctness of the Protestant English Versions; and,

Secondly, for the correctness of the Catholic English Version.

For if we compare the first Protestant English Version (which departed considerably from the received Catholic text of the Vulgate) with all the succeeding revisions made at various times by the English Protestants, we find that they have steadily returned towards the old Catholic Version. This is not only an improvement as an approach to the Catholic teaching, but it is also a confession, however reluctantly made, of past errors on the part of former Protestant translators.

At the time of their separation from the Catholic Church the reformers, so-called, had to give reasons for their defection. They found fault with one doctrine or another in the old Catholic Church, such as the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, the jurisdiction of bishops, the Holy Sacrifice, celibacy, confession, etc. To justify the rejection of these doctrines they must appeal to some authority: if not to the Pontiff, then to the king, or to the Bible, or to both simultaneously. But though the king might favor their novelties of doctrine inasmuch as they relieved his conscience of the reproach of disobedience to the Pontiff, who knew but one law of morals for the prince and the peasant, the Bible as hitherto read was against them. Now, Luther had given distracted Germany an example of what might be done in the way of whittling down the supernatural, and eliminating some of the irksome duties imposed by the old Church. He had made a new translation of the Bible, threw out passages, nay, whole books,[2] which did not meet his views, and added here and there a little word which did admirable service by setting him right with a world that for the most part could neither read Hebrew nor Latin nor Greek, and trusted him for a learned translator.

In similar fashion an English translation had already been attempted by Wiclif about 1380, and almost simultaneously by Nicolas of Hereford. There existed in England at the time of Luther an edition of the Scriptures called the "great Bible." It was Catholic up to its fourth edition, that of 1541. Then, as is generally supposed, it was revised by the Elizabethan bishops in 1508, and in 1611, after a more lengthened revision, it appeared as a King James "Authorized Version." Since then various revisions and corrections of this Bible have been printed, each succeeding one eliminating some of the previous errors. Mr. Thomas Ward has made up an interesting book called "Errata—the truth of the English translations of the Bible examined," or "a treatise showing some of the errors that are found in the English translation of the Sacred Scriptures used by Protestants against such points of religious doctrine as are the subject of controversy between them and the members of the Catholic Church." Dr. Ward's book embraces a comparison between the Catholic English translation and the various Protestant versions up to the year 1683, for since then no changes were made in the English Protestant Bible called the authorized version until 1871, when the work of a new revision, published between 1881-85, was undertaken, which is not included in Dr. Ward's "Errata."

Why was this last revision made? Was not the King James version of 1611, for the most part, beautiful English? As to the rest, was it not for every Protestant an absolute, infallible rule of faith? The language was good, the truth still better; what need, then, was there to revise?

The revisers of 1881 tell us that the language of the old English version could be improved, and that they meant to improve it. The older translators, they say, "seem to have been guided by the feeling that their version would secure for the words they used a lasting place in the language; ... but it cannot be doubted that the studied avoidance of uniformity in the rendering of the same words, even when occurring in the same context, is one of the blemishes in their work."

But are the changes of language or expression all that the reviewers of this infallible text-book aim at? No. Listen to what Dr. Ellicott in the Preface to the Pastoral Epistles says:

"It is vain to cheat our souls with the thought that these errors are either insignificant or imaginary. There are errors, there are inaccuracies, there are misconceptions, there are obscurities, not, indeed, so many in number or so grave in character as some of the forward spirits of our day would persuade us; but there are misrepresentations of the language of the Holy Ghost; and that man who, after being in any degree satisfied of this, permits himself to bow to the counsels of a timid or popular obstructiveness, or who, intellectually unable to test the truth of these allegations, nevertheless permits himself to denounce or deny them, will, if they be true, most surely at the dread day of final account have to sustain the tremendous charge of having dealt deceitfully with the inviolable Word of God."[3]

So this book, the infallible voice of God revealing His ways, this sole rule of faith for millions of Englishmen, and by which millions had lived and sworn and died during more than two centuries, had to be revised, not only as to the form, but in the matter also. Two committees were formed, about fifty of the members being from England, thirty from America—Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, etc. Cardinal Newman and Dr. Pusey were invited, but declined to attend. Mr. Vance Smith, a Unitarian, a distinguished scholar, but certainly no Christian, received a place in the New Testament committee. These gentlemen set to work in earnest to revise the Word of God and settle the Bible of the future. They had to consider the advance made in textual criticism represented by Lachmann, Scholz, Tregelles, Tischendorf, and Drs. Westcott and Hort.

They labored ten years and a half, as Dr. Ellicott assures us, "with thoroughness, loyalty to the authorized versions, and due recognition of the best judgment of antiquity. One of their rules, expressly laid down for their common guidance, was to introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the authorized version."

How many corrections, think you, were made in the New Testament alone? About 20,000, of which fifty per cent. are textual, that is "9 to every five verses of the Gospels, and 15 to every five in the Epistles." Besides these changes, which must be a shock to many an English Protestant who has accustomed himself by long reading of the Bible to believe in verbal inspiration, there are a number of omissions in the New Revised Text which in all amount to about 40 entire verses. It appears, then, that the King James Bible of some years ago has not been as most Protestants of necessity claimed for it—the pure, authentic, unadulterated Word of God. And if not, what guarantee have we that the promiscuous body of recent translators, however learned, withal not inspired, have given us that pure, authentic, unadulterated Word of God?

Let us glance over a few pages of the New Testament to see of what nature and of what importance, from a doctrinal point of view, are the changes made by the late revisers of the "Authorized (Protestant) Version."

In the first place, they have acknowledged the reading of I. Cor. xi. 27, regarding communion under one kind, by translating the Greek [Greek: gamma] by or, and not by and, an error which had been repeated in all the Protestant translations since 1525, and which gave rise to endless abuse of the Catholic practice of giving the Blessed Sacrament to the laity under only one species. "Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup" is the reading in the Greek as well as in the Latin Vulgate, and nothing but "theological fear or partiality," as Dean Stanley expressed it, could have warranted this mistranslation, which may be found in all the editions of 1520, 1538, 1562, 1508, 1577, 1579, 1611, etc.

But this is only one of many acts of justice which the learned revisers have done to Catholics by restoring the true reading; they have given us back the altar which, together with the Holy Sacrifice and confession and celibacy, had become obnoxious to the "reformers." We now read, I. Cor. x. 18, that "those that eat the hosts" are in "communion with the altar," where formerly they were only "partakers of the temple."

Having restored the Catholic practice of Holy Communion under one kind, and likewise the altar, we are not surprised that the "overseers" of the King James version should have become bishops, as in Acts xx. 28, although a good many of the overseers have been left in their places, possibly because the "elders" (Acts xv. 2; Tit. i. 5; I. Tim. v. 17 and 19, etc.) have not yet become priests, as they are in the Rhemish (Catholic) translation. However, the "elders" are likely to turn out priests at the next revision, because they are not only "ordained," but also "appointed," whereas in the old English revisions of 1562 and 1579 they were ordained elders "by election in every congregation," which is still done in Protestant churches where there are no bishops, and even in some which have "overseers" with the honorary title of "bishop."

As to the celibacy question, the revisers have not thought fit to endorse it by translating [Greek: àdelphên gynaicha] a "woman," a sister; but they adhere to the old "wife," as Beza, in his translation, makes the Apostles go about with their "wives" (Acts i. 14).

In the matter of "confession" we have got a degree nearer to the old Catholic version and practice likewise. The Protestant reformers had no "sins" to confess; they had only "faults." Hence they translate St. James v. 16 by "confess your faults." But the revisers of 1881 found out that these "faults" were downright sins, and so they put it. Accordingly we find that the Apostles have power literally "to forgive" sins, whereas formerly, the sins being only faults, it was enough to have them "remitted," which means a sort of passive yielding or condoning on the part of the overseers in favor of repentant sinners, but did not convey the idea of a sacramental power "binding and loosening" in heaven as on earth.

Our dear Blessed Lady also receives some justice at the hands of the new translators. She is not simply "highly favored" as in the times of King James and ever since, but now is "endued with grace," though only in a footnote.

"It was expected," says an anonymous writer in the above cited article of the Dublin Review,[4] "that the revisers, in deference to modern refinement, would get rid of 'hell' and 'damnation,' like the judge who was said to have dismissed hell with costs. 'Damnation' and kindred words have gone.... A new word, 'Hades,' Pluto's Greek name, has been brought into our language to save the old word 'hell' from overwork. The Rich Man is no longer in 'hell,' he is now 'in Hades;' but he is still 'in torment.' So Hades must be Purgatory, and the revisers have thus moved Dives into Purgatory, and Purgatory into the Gospel. Dives will not object; but what will Protestants say?"

An important change has been introduced in their treatment of the Lord's Prayer. Protestants, for over three hundred years, have concluded that prayer with the words: "for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." These words were to be found in St. Matt. vi. 13 according to the Protestant text. They were certainly wanting in St. Luke xi. 2, who also gives us the words of the "Our Father" with a very slight change of form. Catholics were reproached for not adding the 'doxology,' which proved to be a custom in the Greek Catholic Church, very much like our use of the "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son," etc., at the end of each psalm recited or sung at Vespers. Examination showed that the phrase "for Thine is the kingdom," etc., was to be found principally in versions made by and for the Catholics of the Greek Church, and this explained how the same had crept into the copyists' Greek version. This fact is recognized at length in the late revision where the words are omitted from the text of St. Matthew, whilst a footnote states that "many authorities, some ancient, but with variations, add: 'for Thine is the kingdom and the glory forever.'"

The American revisers had made a number of very sensible suggestions, which would have brought the new Protestant version of the Bible still nearer to the old Catholic translation of Rheims and Douay; but their voice was not considered weighty enough, and Mr. Vance Smith openly blames the English committee on this score, saying that "they have not shown that judicial freedom from theological bias which was certainly expected from them." On the other hand, the American revisers showed their national spirit and liberality to a degree which must have horrified the orthodox members of the Anglican Community. The Americans "suggested the removal of all mention of the sin of heresy—heresies in their eyes being only 'factions.' They desired also that the Apostles and Evangelists should drop their title of Saint, and be content to be called plain John, and Paul, and Thomas. This resulted, no doubt, from their democratic taste for strict equality, and their hatred of titles even in the kingdom of heaven."[5]

After all this the principle of faith in the Bible alone became somewhat insecure, and we find the revisers making a silent concession on this point by allowing something to the Catholic principle of a living, perpetually transmitted tradition. St. Paul, who speaks of the altar and of bishops, and who allows Communion under one kind, and who had no wife, and wanted none (I. Cor. vii.), praises the Corinthians, not simply for keeping his "ordinances," as in the time of King James, but for keeping the traditions as he had delivered them to the Greek churches before he found opportunity to write to the Corinthians.

There is one other point of difference between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles to which it is instructive to call attention. It is in regard to the writing of proper names, especially in the Old Testament. Thus where we in the Catholic Bibles have Nabuchodonosor for the king of Babylon, son of Nabopollassar, the Protestant version has Nebuchadnezzar; where we have Elias and Eliseus, the Protestant version has Elijah and Elisha, and so forth regarding many Hebrew names of persons and places. You will ask whence the difference, and which is right?

The difference arises from the fact that the Protestant Version follows the present Hebrew text of the Bible, whilst the Catholic Version follows the Greek. Which is the safer to follow on such points as the pronunciation of proper names—the Hebrew or the Greek? You will say the Hebrew, but it is not so. The old Hebrew writing had, as I mentioned before, no vowels. Hence it could not be read by any one who had not heard it read in the schools of the rabbis. Some six centuries after our Lord, certain Jewish doctors who were called Masorets, anxious to preserve the traditional sounds of the Hebrew language, supplied vowels in the shape of points, which they placed under the square consonants, without disturbing the latter. Hence the present vowel system in Hebrew, or, in other words, the present pronunciation of Hebrew according to the reading of the Bible, is the work of men who relied for the pronunciation of words on a tradition which carried them back over many centuries, that is, from the time when Hebrew was a living language to about six hundred years after Christ. It is not difficult to imagine how in such a length of time the true pronunciation may have been lost or certainly modified in some cases; for though the Hebrew words were there on the paper, written in consonants of the old form, the pronunciation of the vowels must have been doubtful if resting on tradition alone, since the Hebrew had already ceased to be a living language for many centuries.

In the meantime, the true pronunciation of the Hebrew proper names could have been preserved in some of the translations made long before the Masoretic doctors supplied their vowel points. One of these translations from the Hebrew is the Greek Septuagint. It was made, as we have seen, in the time of Ptolemy, i.e., some two and a half centuries before Christ. The learned Jews who made this translation knew perfectly well how the Hebrew of their day was pronounced, and we cannot suppose that they would mutilate the proper names of their mother tongue in the translation into Greek which, possessing written vowels, obliged them to express the full pronunciation of the persons and places which they transcribed.

Accordingly, we have two sources for our pronunciation of Hebrew proper names: one which dates from about the sixth or seventh century of the present era, when the Hebrew had become a dead language; and another, made about nine hundred years earlier by Jewish rabbis, who spoke the language perfectly well, and who could express the pronunciation of proper names accurately because they wrote in a language which had written vowels, and with which they were as conversant as with their own, the Hebrew.

Furthermore, we have other versions, made long before the Masoretic Doctors invented their vowel-points in order to fix the Hebrew pronunciation as they conceived it. Among these is the Latin Vulgate which, like the Greek of the Septuagint, should give us the correct pronunciation—because it was made by St. Jerome, who had studied the Hebrew and Chaldee in Palestine under a Jewish rabbi. He knew, therefore, the pronunciation of the Jews in his day (331-420), and there was no reason why he should not give it to us in his several different translations, whilst there might have been some cause why the Masoretic Jews who lived two or three centuries later should dislike to accept either the Greek or the Latin versions for an authority, because both versions were used and constantly cited by the Christians as proof that the Messiah had come.

Incidentally, the late archeological finds confirm this. Thus the name of Nabuchodonosor (IV. Kings xxiv. 1) (Protestant, Nebuchadnezzar), mentioned above as an example, reads in the cuneiform inscription of the Assyrian monument Nebukudursur, which is evidently the same form of vowel pronunciation as that employed in the Catholic version.

In comparing the two versions thus far little has been said as to the peculiar character or merits of the English Catholic version commonly called the Vulgate English or Douay Bible. But the main purpose of the present chapter has been attained by the necessary inference which the reader must have drawn, namely, that the old Catholic version is the more faithful, and that, after all, the Bible is not a safe guide without a Church to guard its integrity and to interpret its meaning.

But let me say just a word about the Vulgate. The Catholic Vulgate is practically the work of St. Jerome, and our English Catholic edition is made as literally as may be from this Latin Vulgate, "diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other editions in divers languages." The copies, most in use now, were made from an edition published by the English College at Rheims in 1582, and at Douay in 1609, revised by Dr. Challoner.

The need of a new revision has been recognized, and an effort to supply the want was made by the late Archbishop Kenrick, whose translation was recommended by the Council of Baltimore in 1858, although it has not been generally adopted. However, the changes to be made in the translation of the Catholic Bible in English cannot be very numerous nor affecting doctrines defined by the Church; nor is any accidental change of words or expressions so vital a matter to the Catholic mind as it must be with those who have but the Bible as their one primary rule of faith. So far Protestant revisions have done Catholics a service in removing by successive corrections one error after another from the "reformed" Bible, thus demonstrating the correctness of the old Vulgate; but they have also led Protestants to reflect seriously, and to realize that the "Bible only" principle is proved to be false and dangerous. They must see that the Scripture is powerless without the Church as the witness to its inspiration, the safeguard of its integrity, and the exponent of its meaning.

XXI.

THE POSITION OF THE CHURCH IN THE PRESENT STATE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY REGARDING THE BIBLE.

In one of the old churches of Wales you may see the Ten Commandments written upon the wall, and beneath them the following inscription, the meaning of which, it is said, had for a long time remained a mystery to the people:

Some one supplied the key to the interpretation by suggesting the letter E. Then everybody read the lines, and the old folks told their children, who inform the casual visitor that the strange letters plainly mean: Persevere ye perfect men, ever keep these precepts ten.

The inscription in the old Welsh church is a good illustration of the old text of the Bible, which had no vowels, no division of words and sentences. God gave the key to its meaning through an intelligent interpreter, and the men of learning supply the divisions—even in this sense that they sometimes dispute the place where to insert and where to omit the E.

The original obscurity has induced many to study the Bible, and the grand result of this study in our day has been to lead the great majority of scientific men, whether they are believers in the divine origin of the Book or not, to the conclusion that it is, to say the least, an historical monument of the highest antiquity, the contents of which have come down to us in that genuine and authentic form which is claimed for it; that is to say, that it has not been tampered with or falsified to such an extent as would render its statements materially other than they were from the beginning.

Tischendorf, one of the leading Biblical text critics in recent times, allows indeed some 30,000 variations for the New Testament alone in the different manuscripts of which we possess any trace. Although these variations are on the whole very slight, so as not to affect the genuineness of the Scripture documents, they establish the fact that we do not possess the text of the Bible in the literal form in which the inspired writers originally wrote it down.

Whatever changes have crept into the text of the Bible, through inadvertence of copyists or defective translations into other languages, it is a settled fact among Catholic divines that they do not affect the moral and dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church. They regard either purely historical incidents or scientific facts, neither of which are the object of the doctrinal definitions or moral teachings of the Church. They are the proper subject for the study of human reason and investigation. Hence philological science may very becomingly occupy itself with the verbal criticism of the language and thought of the Bible. But the Catholic Church, as a teacher of religious truth, has an interest in these studies of verbal criticism in so far only as they may become a help or a hindrance to her legitimate activity of preaching and preserving the truth of Christianity. As a rule, the Church anticipates the dangerous issues arising from the misuse of such studies by deliberately defining not only the right use of the instruments employed for the purpose of criticism, but also what she herself deems the subject-matter lying outside of the domain of such criticism. Thus, in a negative way, she points out the field for the exercise of theories, or rather she defines the lines beyond which speculation may not safely go. The Church would have no end of tasks if she undertook to defend her position against the continuously proposed hypotheses by which any chance comer might venture to challenge her veracity or authority. Most theories are ephemeral; two, succeeding each other, are often mutually destructive. Prof. H. L. Hastings in his "Higher Criticism" tells us that since 1850 there have been published 747 theories, known to him, about the origin and authenticity of the Bible. Of these 747 theories he counts 608 as now defunct, and as the Professor wrote several years ago, we may assume that nearly all of the remaining 139 are dead by this time, although a few new ones have come in to take their place for a day.[1]

What, then, is the position of the Catholic Church, as limited by positive definition, with regard to the text of the Bible, by which she limits the aggressiveness of Biblical criticism?

The Catholic Church gives us a very ancient and well-attested text of the entire Bible in the Latin tongue, and in virtue of her commission to teach, which includes the right and duty to appoint the text-book for that teaching, she says: The sacred Council of Trent, believing that it would be of great advantage to the Church of God to have it known which of the various Latin editions of the Bible is to be held authentic, hereby declares that the ancient edition commonly known as the Vulgate, which has been approved by the long-standing use of ages in the Church, is to be considered as the authentic Bible for official uses of teaching (Trent, vi. 12).

You notice that the Council of Trent does not say that the Vulgate corresponds exactly to the literal original text, nor that it is the best of all known translations. The Council states only, but states explicitly, that the Vulgate edition of the Bible is a reliable source of the written revelation in matters of faith and morals. And the reason which the Council alleges for this preference of the Vulgate over other editions is its constant use for centuries in the Church; in other words, that it represents the best tradition of the received text-form of the Sacred Scriptures. But the definition of the Council implies not only that the contents of the Vulgate in their entirety are reliable and authentic, but that each of its statements is authentic in its dogmatic contents, since the whole Vulgate, i.e., in all its parts, is said to constitute a medium or instrument of official teaching in the Church. The declaration of the Council is regarding the Latin Vulgate; hence all translations must conform to its text, that is to say, the corrected text of 1592, called the Clementine recension.

It is noteworthy that, whilst the Church points out a text which is to be the official pattern in her liturgy and in the defence of Catholic teaching regarding faith and morals, she does not define anything regarding other texts or versions of the Bible. Neither the Hebrew nor the Greek texts are mentioned, although the Church gives to them, and the Coptic, Syrian, and Armenian versions, an implied approbation by tolerating their liturgical use in the Oriental churches.

What the Church has defined, therefore, regarding the Vulgate is this: It has declared its dogmatic integrity. This implies that the contents of the Vulgate give in their entirety and in their details a reliable version of the inspired text as an instrument of teaching Catholic truth and morals.

From a scientific point of view the Vulgate enjoys the advantage of being the oldest of all the Scriptural versions. In the Old Testament it represents a text more ancient than the Hebrew of the Masoretic doctors. The New Testament is likewise older than the oldest Greek text extant, as Lachmann in his critical edition has demonstrated. Moreover, its composition is the result of the best scientific apparatus of early Christian times, which St. Jerome possessed in a phenomenal degree, both as to his person and also as to the circumstances in which he was placed. Finally, it has an historical support of unequalled superiority, inasmuch as it has been from the beginning the means of Christianizing the nations of Europe.

All this is being verified, not only by textual critics, but by the more recent discoveries in the study of Christian paleography.

Such is the position in which scientific research finds the Church. The multiform theories about the Bible, and the various possible senses of its words and passages, only affect her in a limited degree. Catholic apologists are obliged to deal with these theories so far only as they affect the positive teaching of the Church in faith and morals, although the analogy of faith demands that the Catholic scientist test his opinions by weighty tradition and approved practice. Whilst the dogmatic integrity of the Sacred Scriptures is thus secured, the examination of the critical integrity of individual parts leaves a wide field open to Catholic Biblical students. The work done by non-Catholic scholars who have examined the Bible, either to bring out the verbal meaning of its text, or to verify some historical or philological hypothesis, is astounding. Catholic students owe a great debt to the first gleaners in this field; for though we have neither felt impelled to look for the rule of our faith in the Bible exclusively, nor always been inclined to accept the dicta regarding the literal sense of so sacred a document from the professors of philological discipline, we have incidentally profited by all these searchings. They have illustrated the excellence of our faith, both as a system and as a moral principle. They have thrown light upon problems of exegesis. All the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church have found their confirmation in the analysis of Biblical terms as the result of textual criticism. The words of the Bible have been thrown into the crucible, and the gold of Catholic doctrine has been the outcome—purer, brighter, more refined, and still weighty. Each verified theory regarding the sense of old forgotten Hebrew terms has received the impress of Catholic approbation, and served to give the doctrine of the Church a more ready currency. Scientists, often reluctantly, are pointing out golden opportunities for Catholic students.

It does not come within our present scope to speak of the various methods employed by the science and art of Biblical criticism, nor to retail the separate results to which the inquiry into the authenticity (Higher Criticism) and the integrity and purity of the text (Lower Criticism) has led. The history of the New Testament, which is the best witness to the authenticity and integrity of the Old Testament books, provided we admit the divinity of Christ, which in its turn rests upon the strongest historic evidence, has received an immense amount of confirmatory argument in numerous discoveries of ancient documents. Within the last forty years have been found, among other valuable writings, the famous Codex Sinaiticus by Tischendorf (1859), one of the oldest Greek texts of the Bible. In 1875 Archbishop Briennios found in Constantinople the MS. Epistles of Clement of Rome, which not only confirm the apostolical writings and evangels as being received in the Church of his day, but furnish the oldest liturgical prayer and sermon of post-apostolic times. Another document of the same character, in Latin, was discovered by Morin in 1893. Next we have the celebrated Diatessaron of Tatian, the oldest gospel harmony in existence, which, known to Eusebius, but lost in the meantime, was recovered lately, with a parallel manuscript found in Egypt, and published last year in English. This takes us back to the time of St. Justin. Another most important find is the MS. of the so-called "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." The document was discovered by Briennios, and published in 1883. It throws much light on the ecclesiastical discipline of the early Christian Church (about A.D. 120), speaks of the written Gospels, etc. Another valuable MS. (Syriac) was found in 1889 by Professor Harris. It is the "Apology of Aristides," brought from the convent of St. Catharine on Mt. Sinai, and dates about the year 140, as it is addressed to the Emperor Hadrian, and offers him the Christian Scriptures to read.

I pass over a host of other important finds of the same nature, of unquestioned authenticity, which carry us back to the apostolic age.

XXII.

MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS.

Whilst Biblical criticism and constantly increasing discoveries of new treasures, such as we mentioned in the last chapter, are adding their approving light to the ancient and unchanged traditions of the Catholic Church regarding the Bible and its exegesis, the finds of archeology are confirming the statements of the Bible, especially the Old Testament history, with an accuracy which forces even the infidel scientist to bear witness to the historical truth of the inspired records.