Page:Catholic Thoughts on the Bible and Theology.djvu/18



plete elements of which we cannot number, and the whole boundaries of which we cannot measure. Scriptural Revelation is only that part of Revelation of himself which is Written—it is by no means the whole. All the constitution of the realms of matter and of spirit with which we are conversant or of which we are conscious, are Divine adaptations and aids to human culture, and the Bible, as it has already been said, is but as a Supplement to these, or rather perhaps their Complement.

And also, the Bible is not the Revelation itself, but only the Record of the Revelation: and many modifications of its value, and of our views of it, are introduced by this consideration. There may be a large element that is purely Human thus connected with it. The Bible cannot therefore necessarily be considered as an utterance of pure truth, as if it were a Divine Dictation registered as supernaturally as it was revealed: for however pure the Revelation may have been when first made, yet the recording of that Revelation may have been subject to all the infirmities which are characteristic of ordinary human Scriptures.

And when we examine, however superficially, the contents of this composite Volume which we so justly term Holy Scripture, we see further that it is naturally divisible, as it is commonly divided, into two distinct parts—the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures—parts separated from each other by an interval of more than four hundred years in the dates of their composition, and by their being written in different languages. We see also that the Divine utterances which the older Scriptures contain are more frequently than otherwise addressed to special hearers and accommodated to their peculiar circumstances. And not only this: but by far the larger part of this earlier Division is occupied with History rather than with Revelation—a history doubtless which has a certain supernaturally didactic character connected with it, but yet one which is largely human and nowhere exemplary, and in which the better and the worse are not always supernaturally distinguished. And this History is not that