Page:AManualOfCatholicTheology.djvu/122

 part, should not believe the Gospel except on the authority of the Catholic Church.”

The position and functions of Holy Scripture in the Catholic System may be briefly expressed in this proposition: Scripture is an Apostolic Deposit entrusted to the Church; in other words, the Apostles published Holy Scripture as a document of Divine Revelation, and handed it over as such to their successors. It is on this ground that the Teaching Body claims the right of preserving and expounding the sacred writings. Protestants, on the other hand, have no right to call the Bible the, or even an, Apostolic Deposit. They reject the authoritative promulgation by the Apostles, and the necessity of entrusting the Deposit of Revelation to a living Apostolate; and consequently the word “deposit” is in their mouth devoid of meaning. To them the Bible is a windfall, coming they know not whence.

I. Catholics maintain, and they can prove their doctrine by evidence drawn from the earliest centuries, that the Apostles promulgated by God’s order both the Old and New Testaments, as a document received from God, and thus gave it the dignity and efficacy of a legitimate source and rule of Faith. This promulgation might have been expected from the nature of Holy Scripture and the functions of the Apostles. God would not have cast His Word upon the world to be the sport of conflicting opinions. Rather He would have committed the publication of it 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. This fact of promulgation by the Apostles is generally treated of by the Fathers in connection with the transmission of Holy Scripture. The mere writing and publishing, even by an Apostle, were not deemed a sufficient promulgation of inspiration. It was necessary that the