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The word revelation signifies an unveiling or manifestation of something hidden by a veil. As the Council of the Vatican teaches, God, the beginning and end of all things, may be certainly known by the natural light of human reason, by means of created things. But it pleased His wisdom and bounty to reveal Himself and the eternal decrees of His will to mankind by another and supernatural way, by speaking, in times past, through His prophets, and last of all by His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We owe it to this divine teaching that among things divine such truths as of themselves are not beyond human reason can, even in the present condition of mankind, be known by every one with ease, with certainty, and with no admixture of error.

Besides, God has revealed truths which regard the supernatural end to which He has destined man.

This divine revelation is " contained in the written books and unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles themselves, from the dictation of the Holy Spirit, transmitted as it were, from hand to hand, have come down even to us." (Counc. of the Vatican. — Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, II.)

The books containing this revelation are called the Bible. The Bible consists of two parts, the Old and the