education is in a new direction. So also a consensus of teaching, patristic and conciliar, relative to the use and misuse of Holy Scripture can be drawn from the Christian writings of different periods, but while such an exposition of Catholic thought on an important subject would prove a desideratum for the laity, it would require more space than the introduction to a brief essay. A few facts of undoubted authenticity may be serviceable not only to the readers of this tractate on "The Study of the Sacred Books," but to those also desiring to follow the earnest suggestions of Mr. Snell in enlarging their knowledge of cognate subjects involved in the investigations urged upon their attention, and for which he has supplied suitable aids in the list of valuable Catholic books in English appended to his pamphlet. The principles with which the well-instructed Catholic may enter upon the study of the Bible devotionally or exegetically, are of supreme moment if he desire to keep within the domain of faith and morals—a position taken for granted by the author of this brochure and by the writer of this preface. I will enumerate some of these principles in the order in which they occur to my own mind, but they may be enlarged so as to include others of a character so special that I hardly consider the latter to be necessary for the class of readers for whom Mr. Snell writes.

It is of prime importance that the Catholic student should never lose sight of the facts—(1) That the Catholic Church settled the Canon of the Scripture as early as the fourth and fifth centuries by the Councils of Carthage and Rome, and by the authority of Pope Innocent and Pope Gelasius. (2) That the inspiration of Holy Scripture, like the canon determining its canonical books, cannot be consistently accepted or defended except by the tradition of the Catholic Church, the custodian of the full revelation of God to man, written and unwritten. (3) That belief in inspiration pre-supposes belief in an infallible interpreter, that it is a dogma de fide that the Catholic Church is the infallible interpreter, and that the decrees of the Council of Trent and the Council of the Vatican clearly define this dogma as follows: "Nemo sua prudentia innixus, in rebus fidei et morum ad aedificationem doctrinae Christianae pertinentium, Sacram Scripturam ad suos sensus contorquens, contra eum sensum quem tenuit et tenet Sancta Mater Ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero et interpretatione Scripturarum Sanctarum, aut etiam contra unanimem consensum Patrum, ipsam Scripturam Sacram interpretari audeat."

"Let no one, relying on his own wisdom, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the inculcation of Christian doctrine, wresting the Sacred Scripture to his own meaning, dare to interpret that Sacred Scripture against that sense which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, to whom it belongs to judge of truth and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, nor yet against the unanimous consent of the Fathers."

"Nos, idem Decretum renovantes, hanc illius mentem esse declaramus, ut in rebus fidei et morum ad aedificationem doctrinae Christianae pertinentium, is pro vero sensum Sacrae Scripturae habendus sit, quem tenuit et

tenet Sancta Mater Ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scriptuarum Sanctarum.”

"We, reviving that same decree (of Trent) declare this to be its intent: that in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the inculcation of Christian doctrine, that sense of the Sacred Scripture is to be held as the true one which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures."

(4) That in the reading of the Bible, whether the layman be learned or unlearned, the rule which a great Doctor of the Church laid down for his own guidance ought to suggest the spirit which should animate the modern student and ought to be to him the subject of frequent meditation. St. Augustine says:-"Ego fateor caritati tuae, solis eis Scripturaram libris qui jam Canonici appellantur didici hunc timorem honoremque deferre, ut nullum eorum auctorem scribendo aliquid errasse firmissime credam. Ac si aliquid in eis offendero litteris, quod videtur contrarium veritatis nihil aliud, quam vel mendosum esse codicem, vel interpretem non assecutum esse quod dictum est, vel me minime intellexisse, non ambigam." "To your charity I submit the confession, that only to those books of the Scriptures which are already entitled Canonical do I pay this tribute of reverence and honor, as to believe undoubtingly that no author of these books ever erred in any of his writing. And if I ever find anything in these documents, which may seem contrary to truth, I shall assume unhesitatingly that either it is a faulty copy, or that the translator has not attained the sense of what was spoken, or that I have not understood it."

(5) The reading of the Scriptures by the laity in their own vernacular is not a recent practice among Catholics as some Protestant writers would fain make their co-religionists believe. Sir Thomas More, whom the Church calls Blessed, says that "the Holy Bible was long before Wickliffe's days, by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people, with devotion and soberness, well and reverently read." And this pious custom had the approbation of Pius the Sixth, expressed in a letter written in 1778 by his Secretary and addressed to a prelate, afterwards Archbishop of Florence, the Most Rev. Anthony Martini, who had made an Italian translation of the Bible. This letter is usually prefixed to the Douai Bible, and I quote the following passage:-"At a time that a vast number of bad books, which most grossly attack the Catholic religion, are circulated, even among the unlearned, to the great destruction of souls, you judge exceedingly well, that the faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures: for these are the most abundant sources which ought to be left open to every one, to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrine, to eradicate the errors which are so widely disseminated in these corrupt times."

A. J. FAUST.

WASHINGTON, D. C., All Saints, 1887.

NOTE.-A considerable portion of this little treatise consists of a series of articles published originally in the New Orleans Morning Star, in June and July, 1885. Sections I, II, and V have since been added and now appear for the first time; and the same is true of the appended list of works on Biblical subjects. In the other sections only a few slight alterations have been made.

THE STUDY OF THE SACRED BOOKS.

I.-DEFINITION OF THE TERM.

Nearly every people whose civilization has been derived from prehistoric times has inherited from its remote progenitors a body of literature which is the object of its deepest reverence. Of this class are the Vedas of the Hindoos, the Zend Avesta of the Persians, the five Kings and the four Shoos of the Chinese, and the Popul Vuh of the Quiché Indians. These books were rightly given a sacred character, for, whatever their errors and shortcomings, they preserved more of the divine traditions of the primitive age than could be gathered from any other source.1

But when, as Catholics, we speak of the Sacred Books, we refer to those records which the very Deity who first revealed to man the truths of which all Gentile traditions are but the obscure and imperfect vehicles, made a means of perpetuating the same divine truths in an uncorrupted form and of preparing the way for the Universal Church of whose perfect and all-embracing teachings they were to be the profoundest embodiment and the unifying center. Knowing, through the analogies of nature, the unanswerable evidence of history, the deductions of pure reason, and the testimony of our spirits' deepest intuitions, that the Church is the guardian and infallible teacher of the divine revelation, we have the certain assurance of supernatural faith that she speaks the truth in asserting the divine inspiration and indubitable correctness of certain books; and the most searching investigations of modern science have served to again and again triumphantly vindicate this conclusion. It is true that it is impossible to establish

1Compare Gentilism, by Rev. Aug. J. Thébaud, S. J., 1876.

the character of most of the books from internal evidence; but in no case are their contents inconsistent with the claim which is made for them.

The writings which take this prominent place in the literature of the world, and are, therefore, collectively known as the Bible, i. e., The Book, are divided into two classes, the Scriptures of the New Covenant, for which the Catholic Church is the only authority, and the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, most of which were acknowledged as divine in the local and preparatory era of the Church, and consequently are still found in the Jewish sect, which is the empty chrysalis-case discarded by the society of the faithful on emerging into a broader and higher life.

II. THE DISPUTED BOOKS.

The books which the modern Jews agree in rejecting are those of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and I and II Machabees, and a part of Daniel, which are called by Catholics deutero-canonical, and by most sectarians apocryphal. Some assert, on the authority of the Talmud,' which was compiled several centuries A. D., that the Old Testament canon, or list of inspired writings, was closed by Esdras; but the facts of history do not bear out this statement. At the time of the Messiah there were two canons in general use; the Alexandrian, with which that of the Catholic Church coincides, and the Palestinian, which agreed nearly with that held by most Jews and Protestants at the present day. The Palestinian canon was even yet unsettled; for the school of Shammai differed with the school of Hillel by rejecting the book of Esther and the Canticle of Canticles, which the latter accepted, and the dispute was only ended by a rabbinical

2 Mishna, treatise Pirke Avoth.

3 Many exceptions to this statement are to be noted. The adherents of the large and growing Reformed branch of Judaism, together with a large proportion of the Protestants of different shades, reject a much greater part or even the whole of the Bible. The Oriental schismatics, on the other hand, and an influential division of the Lutherans, including no less an authority than the eminent Biblical scholar Prof. Ernst Henzstenberg, acknowledge the Alexandrian and Catholic canon. See American Cyclopedia, article Apocrypha.