SCRIPTURE
639
SCRIPTURE
Concordances) began to be constructed. About this
time, Card. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Can-
terbury, who died 1228, divided all the books of
Scripture uniformly into chapters, a division which
found its way almost immediately into the codices of
the Vulgate version and even into some codices of the
original texts, and passed into all the printed editions
after the invention of printing. As the chapters were
too long for ready reference, Cardinal Hugh of St.
Cher divided them into smaller sections which he in-
dicated by the capital letters A, B, etc. Robert Ste-
phens, probably imitating R. Nathan (1437)divided
the chapters into verses, and published his complete
division into chapters and verses first in the Vulgate
text (1548), and later on also in the Greek original of
the New Testament (1551).
V. Scripture and the Church. — Since Scripture is the written word of God, its contents are Divinely guaranteed truths, revealed either in the strict or the wider sense of the word. Again, since the inspiration of a writing cannot be known without Divine testi- mony, God must have revealed which are the books that constitute Sacred Scripture. Moreover, theolo- gians teach that Christian Revelation was complete in the Apostles, and that its deposit was entrusted to the Apostles to guard and to promulgate. Hence the apostolic deposit of Revelation contained not merely Sacred Scripture in the abstract, but also the knowl- edge as to its constituent books. Scripture, then, ia an Apostolic deposit entrusted to the Church, and to the Church belongs its lawful administration. This position of Sacred Scripture in the Church impUes the following consequences: —
(1) The Apostles promulgated both the Old and New Testament as a document received from God. It is antecedently probable that God should not cast his written Word upon men as a mere windfall, com- ing from no known authority, but that he should en- trust its publication to the care of those whom he was sending to preach the Gospel to all nations, and with whom he had promised to be for all days, even to the consummation of the world. In conformity with this principle, St. Jerome (De script, eccl.) says of the Gospel of St. Mark: "When Peter had heard it, he both approved of it and ordered it to be read in the churches". The Fathers testify to the promulgation of Scripture by the Apostles where they treat of the transmission of the inspired writings.
(2) The transmission of the inspired writings con- sists in the delivery of Scripture by the Apostles to their successors with the right, the duty, and the power to continue its promulgation, to preserve its in- tegrity and identity, to explain its meaning, to use it in proving and illustrating Catholic teaching, to op- pose and condemn any attack upon its doctrine, or any abuse of its meaning. We may infer all this from the character of the inspired wTitings and the nature of the Apostolate; but it is also attested by some of the weightiest writers of the early Church. St. Irenseus in- sists upon these points against the Gnostics, who ap- pealed to Scripture as to private historical documents. He excludes this Gnostic view, first by insisting on the mission of the Apostles and upon the succession in the Apostolate, especially as seen in the Church of Rome (Haer., HI, 3-4); secondly, by showing that the preaching of the Apostles continued by their suc- cessors contains a supernatural guarantee of infalli- bility through the indweUing of the Holy Ghost (Hter., Ill, 24) ; thirdly, by combining the Apostolic succes- sion and the supernatural guarantee of the Holy Ghost (Haer., IV, 26). It seems plain that, if Scrip- ture cannot be regarded as a private historical docu- ment on account of the official mission of the Apostles, on account of the official succession in the Apostolate of their successors, on account of the assistance of the Holy Ghost promised to the Ai)ostle8 and their suc- cessors, the promulgation of Scripture, the preserva-
tion of its integrity and identity, and the explanation
of its meaning must belong to the Apostles and their
legitimate successors. The same principles are advo-
cated by the great Alexandrian doctor, Origen (De
princ, Praef.). "That alone", he says, "is to be be-
lieved to be the truth which in nothing differs from the
ecclesiastical and Apostolical tradition". In another
passage (in Matth. tr. XXIX, n. 46-47), he rejects the
contention urged by the heretics "as often as they
bring forward canonical Scriptures in which every
Christian agrees and beheves", that "in the houses is
the word of truth"; "for from it (the Church) alone
the sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their
words unto the ends of the world ". That the African
Church agrees with the Alexandrian, is clear from the
words of TertuUian (De praescript., nn. 15, 19). He
protests against the admission of heretics "to any dis-
cussion whatever touching the Scriptures". "This
question should be first proposed, which is now the
only one to be discussed, 'To whom belongs the faith
itself: whose are the Scriptures'? . . . For the true
Scriptures and the true expositions and all the true
Christian traditions will be wherever both the true
Christian rule and faith shall be shown to be". St.
Augustine endorses the same position when he says:
"I should not believe the Gospel except on the au-
thority of the CathoUc Churcla" (Con. epist. Mani-
chaei, fundam., n. 6).
(3) By virtue of its official and permanent promul- gation, Scripture is a public document, the Divine au- thority of which is evident to all the members of the Church.
(4) The Church necessarily possesses a text of Scripture, which is internally authentic, or substan- tially identical with the original. Any form or ver- sion of the text, the internal authenticity of which the Church has approved either by its universal and constant use, or by a formal declaration, enjoys the character of external or pubHc authenticity, i. e., its conformity with the original must not merely be presumed juridically, but must be admitted as certain on account of the infallibility of the Church.
(5) The authentic text, legitimately promulgated, is a source and rule of faith, though it remains only a means or instrument in the hands of the teaching body of the Church, which alone has the right of au- thoritatively interpreting Scripture.
(6) The achniiiisl ration and custody of Scripture is not entrusted directly to the whole Church, but to its teaching body, though Scripture itself is the common property of the ineinhers of t he whole Church. While the private liandling of Scripture is opposed to the fact that it is common property, its administrators are bound to communicate its contents to all the members of the Church.
(7) Though Scripture is the property of the Church alone, those outside her pale may use it as a means of discovering or entering the Church. But TertuUian shows that they have no right to apply Scripture to their own purposes or to turn it against the Church. He also teaches Catholics how to contest the right of heretics to appeal to Scripture at all (by a kind of de- murrer), before arguing with them on single points of Scriptural doctrine.
(8) The rights of the teaching body of the Church mclude also that of issuing and enforcing decrees for promoting the right use, or preventing the abuse of Scripture. Not to mention the definition of the Canon (see Canon), the Council of Trent issued two decrees concerning the Vulgate (see Vulgate), and a decree concerning the interpretation of Scripture (see Exegesis; Hermeneutics), and this last enactment was repeated in a more stringent form by the Vatican Council (sess. Ill, Cone. Trid., sess. IV). The vari- ous decisions of the Biblical Commission derive their binding force from this same right of the teaching body of the Church. (Cf. Stapleton, Princ. Fid.
