Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/284



Â»Itad 1, 2.

THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

./pfe and sacred learning have given their deep and constant ('attention to Holy Scripture. If we consider the im- mediate disciples of the apostles, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp â€” or the apologists, such as St. Justin and St. Irenseus, we find that in their letters and books, whether in defence of the Catholic faith or in its commendation, they drew faith, strength, and unction from the Word of God. When there arose, in various sees, catechetical and theological schools, of which the most celebrated were those of Alexandria and of Antioch, there was little taught in those schools but what was contained in the reading, the interpretaticjn, and the defence of the divine written word. From them came forth numbers of Fathers and writers whose labori- ous studies and admirable writings have justly merited for the three following centuries the appellation of the golden age of biblical exegesis. In the Eastern Church the greatest name of all is Origen â€” a man remarkable alike for penetration of genius and persevering labor; from whose numerous works and his great Hexapla almost all have drawn who came after him. Others who have widened the field of this science may also be named, as especially eminent; thus, Alexandria could boast of St. Clement and St. Cyril; Palestine, of Eusebius and the other St. Cyril; Cappadocia, of St. Basil the Great and the two Gregories, of Nazianzus and Nyssa; Antioch, of St. John Chrysostom, in whom the science of Scripture was rivalled by the splendor of his eloquence. In the Western Church there are as many names as great: Ter- tullian, St. Cyprian, St. Hilary, St. Ambrose, St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Great; most famous of all, St. Augustine and St. Jerome, of whom the former was so marvellously acute in penetrating the sense of God's Word and so fertile in the use that he made of it for the promotion of the Catholic truth, and the latter has re- ceived from the Church, by reason of his pre-eminent knowledge of Scripture and his labors in promoting its