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 inspired by the Holy Ghost, ὑπὸ Πνεύματος ἁγίου φερόμενοι (2 Pet. 1:20, 21). This last text, it is true, applies primarily to prophecies strictly so called (foretelling events to come), but it refers also to the whole of the teaching of a Prophet, because he speaks in the name and under the influence of God (cf. 1 Kings 10:6; Mich. 3:8).

3. The Fathers from the very earliest days taught the Divine authorship of Scripture.

(a) “The Divine Scriptures,” “the Divine Oracles,” “the Scriptures of God,” “the Scriptures of the Lord” are the usual phrases by which they expressed their belief in Inspiration. “The Apostle moved by that Spirit by Whom the whole of Scripture was composed” (Tertull., De Or., 22). Gelasius (or, according to Thiel, Damasus) says that the Scriptures were composed “by the action of God.” And St. Augustine: “God having first spoken by the Prophets, then by Himself and afterwards by the Apostles, composed also the Scripture which is styled canonical” (De Civit. Dei, xi. 3). Origen, too, says that “the Scriptures were written by the Holy Ghost” (Præf. De Princ., nn. 4, 8). Theodoret (Præf. in Ps.) says that it does not matter who was the human writer of the Psalms, seeing that we know that they were written under the active influence of the Holy Ghost (ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Πνεύματος ἁγίου ἐνεργείας). Hence the Fifth General Council (the second of Constantinople) calls the Holy Ghost purely and simply the author of Holy Writ, and says of Theodore of Mopsuestia that he rejects the book of Job, “in his rage against its author, the Holy Ghost.” The Fathers frequently call the Bible “an epistle from God.” “What is Scripture but a sort of letter from Almighty God to His creature?” … “The Lord of Heaven hath sent thee His letters for thy life’s sake.… Study therefore, I pray thee, and meditate daily upon the words of thy Creator” (Greg. M., lib. iv., ep. 31). Further, the Scriptures are words spoken by God: “Study the Scriptures, the true words of the Holy Ghost” τὰς ἀληθεῖς ῥήσεις Πνεύματος το͂υ ἁγίου (Clem. Rom. ad Cor. i., n. 45). “The Scriptures were spoken by the Word and His Spirit” (Iren., Adv. Hæres, lib. ii., cap. 28, n. 2). Hence the manner of quoting them: “The Holy Ghost saith in the Psalms”