Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/303



THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 297

Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, as enu- merated by the decree of the same Council (Trent) and_^ in the ancient Latin "\^ulgate, are to be received as sacred and canonical. And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority, nor only because they contain revelation without error, but because, ha\dng been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their Author." ^ Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot, therefore, say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primar}^ author. For, by supernatural power. He so moved and impelled them to wTite â€” He was so present to them â€” that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to vrnte down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. "Therefore," says St. Augustine, "since they wrote the things which He showed and uttered to them, it cannot be pretended that He is not the writer; for His mem bers executed what their head dictated." ^ And St. Gregory the Great thus pronounces: "Most superfluous it is to inquire who wTote these things â€” we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the author of the Book. He wrote it who dictated it for writing; He WTote it who inspired its execution." ^

It follows th at those who maintain that pn pr rn^ ^'^ p^*^"

sible in any ge nuine passage of the sao r<^fl wrifing<; ^ithf^*

jefvertr the uathoiic notion of inspiration or make God

^lie^anihui' uf suL'li yiruf. â€” Xncl so emphatically were all

re FaLlifel's and- Dot LiXRT agreed that the divine writings,

as left by the hagiographers, are free from all error, that

Sess. iii. c. ii. de Rev. ' De consensu Evangel 1. 1, c. 35. ^ Praef. in Job, n. 2.