The story of the Bible


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The Story of the Bible
by

Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan,

Professor of Sacred Scripture,

St. John’s Ecclesiastical Seminary,

Brighton, Mass.

Five addresses delivered in the Catholic Hour
sponsored by the

National Council of Catholic Men
with the cooperation of the

National Broadcasting Company and its Associated
Stations

I. The Storehouse of Religion

II. The Title Guaranteed

III. God’s Written Message

IV. Unfolding the Secret

V. The Fostering Mother of Holy
Scripture

National Council of Catholic Men
Sponsor of the Catholic Hour
1314 Massachusetts Avenue

Washington, D. C.





The Story of the Bible
by

Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan,

Professor of Sacred Scripture,

St. John’s Ecclesiastical Seminary,

Brighton, Mass.

Five addresses delivered in the Catholic Hour
sponsored by the

National Council of Catholic Men
with the cooperation of the

National Broadcasting Company and its Associated
Stations

I. The Storehouse of Religion

II. The Title Guaranteed

III. God’s Written Message

IV. Unfolding the Secret

V. The Fostering Mother of Holy
Scripture

National Council of Catholic Men
Sponsor of the Catholic Hour
1314 Massachusetts Avenue

Washington, D. C.

Printed and distributed by Our Sunday Visitor
Huntington, Indiana



Imprimatur:

* JOHN FRANCIS NOLL, D. D.,
Bishop of Fort Wayne

Feast of St. John the Baptist, June, 1932

Mdid



AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION.

When the Apostles went forth to preach to all nations
in loyal obedience to Our Blessed Lord’s parting injunction,
they found pulpits in diverse places. They heralded the Word
in market-place, assembly hall, areopagus, and the domestic

hearth. Travel-weary, they wandered from city to town in
search of hearers.

Today, by the awe-inspiring provision of God’s Provi-
dence, their successors can span these arduous journeys in a

single Hour. The voice cries out from a desert place, and
the millions of our country are gathered to hear it. The
message of Christ gives to the radio its consecration.

The series on The Holy Bible profited by this oppor-
tunity of grace and presented to the American public the
historic relationship between the Catholic Church and the
Written Word. The addresses now printed portray in pro-
gressive sequence what the Bible means to us, why we ac-
cept and believe It, and how we understand and use It. The
preparation has been influenced and the presentation deter-
mined by the attacks of unbelievers and by the fears and
misapprehensions of believers.

The response throughout the country to the broadcast
was most kindly, and is convincing evidence that sincere
religious belief in the fundamentals of Christianity holds a
healthy place in our national life. It is with ardent hope that
true faith may increase that this pamphlet comes to you.



THIS EFFORT IS HUMBLY DEDICATED.

TO THE SACRED HEART OF LOYE



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 5

THE STOREHOUSE OF RELIGION
(Address delivered by Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan in the

Catholic Hour, June 29, 1930)

The Bible is the most familiar book in the world.
Its title is most readily recognized and its name
most deeply revered. Hardly a home now receiving
this message is without its sacred presence; no lib-
rary is complete without it

; no school is stranger to
its inspiring story. By a hallowed practice of our
forefathers, it has become a common medium for
family records

;
there our names were written on the

day of Baptism, and within its folds the sacred union

in marriage is inscribed. High executives of govern-
ment and proponents of Justice take their oath of
fealty on its outspread pages. Leaders of thought
in political science, literary excellence, or moral ad-

vancement vie with one another to quote its words
that they may give strength to their own message.
Historians cannot disregard it. Students of religion

of all varieties of belief must count themselves in-
adequately prepared to preach and teach the true
union between God and man unless first they have
made themselves conversant with its inspired com-
mandments. Other books are widely known among
single nations or in passing generations; the Bible

is supreme in every age and for all classes, and its

widespread popularity cannot be stemmed until the
consummation of the world.

Yet the Bible is unfamiliar to many of you who
listen and agree. Although it enjoys a wider cir-

culation than any other book printed, to many it is
chiefly a name. It has been more diligently studied
by friend and foe alike than any other work on



6 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

earth and has been placed at the disposal of more
people in public and private places than any other
reading we can mention; none the less I ask, how
many of you who have seen it often, have held it in
your hands, have talked about it, can tell me actually
what it is? Knowing well that most answers given
to this question are vague, confused, and even inac-
curate, I have chosen to explain, at the outset of
this series, the wondrous story of the Bible ; to ans-
wer for you the simple question, What is the Bible?

The very name “Bible” suggests the answer.
Taken from the Greek into the Latin and from the
Latin into modern languages, it means “The Book”,
the supreme, unique book of all that have ever been
circulated among men. Sometimes it is called the
“Holy Scripture”; it is thus “The Writings”, or
“The Letters”; “The Literature”, as we more com-
monly express it. So the Bible is the holy literature,
and although composed of many books, it is called
The Book. Another name is “The Word of God”.
This supreme and unique book is the hallowed lib-
rary of God, for it contains as the substance of its

consecrated pages God's written message to man.

It does not contain all of God’s Word, for there are
many things which God spoke that are not written
in this book

; we do not call it the Revelation of God.
What it does contain is God’s Word, and in recogni-
tion of this we call it “The Word of God”. This is
the source of its supremacy, the well-spring from
which the Bible derives its surpassing excellence

and significance over all other literature, that it has

God for its Author.
This is not yet the complete answer to our ques-

tion. What is the Bible? This supreme and unique
book is the Biography of Our Lord and Saviour



THE STORY OP THE BIBLE 1

Jesus Christ. In the words of the sacred author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, “God, Who at sundry-
times and in divers manners, spoke in times past
by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken
to us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed Heir of
all things, by Whom also He made the world.” The
story of Christ is so intimately bound up in the his-
tory of mankind that its recital commences in the
chaotic abyss from which this world was made, and
concludes with the unfolded heavens in which this
world will end. It recounts for us the first intimate

union between God and man in the Garden of Crea-
tion and the abrupt fall by sin; the aching search
for a Deliverer through the Old Testament, the joy-

ful conquest in the Son of God. It is the brilliant
sunrise, the the clouded noonday, the glorious sun-

set of man’s pilgrimage.

The story is recorded in seventy-three books
which constitute the Sacred Library of the Bible.
The number is easily kept in mind if we recall that
it is the number of Our Lord plus the seventy-two
disciples. These books were written over a period
of sixteen hundred years from Moses to John; they
are the work of some fifty different authors; they
vary in purpose, style and contents as widely as
legislation differs from poetry and historical narra-
tive from preaching. Yet they compose one book, a
unique book, because in it many books become one

;

all having one primary Author, God Himself; all
having one common theme, Jesus Christ, the Sav-
iour. The Authorship of God is of such essential
importance to the understanding of the Bible that

ti will be the subject of a special address; today we
examine reverently the message which He wrote.

In order that we may understand that these



8 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

books were written at sundry times and in divers
manners, we may take a comparison from the his-
tory of our own country. Let us represent to our-
selves the kind of volume we should have if we col-
lected together in one book the original documents
of America's development. We should have first the
story of our beginnings, or our Genesis; the hardy
but rudimentary life of the Indians with their pecu-
liar customs and notions, their abiding faith in the
Great Spirit and their code of honor. Next we
would read the diary of the Santa Maria to record
the discovery of our land by the intrepid Columbus,
who braved the uncharted seas to plant the Cross.
We would comprise in this volume also the annals
of the heroes of God, the first missionaries who fol-
lowed at once: Joliet, Marquette, Junipero Serra,

Jogues and Brebeuf, martyr-missionaries now hon-
ored by the highest dignity of the Church in tender
recognition of their saintly sacrifice; they all came
here, these and others less remembered, heroic

priests of the Church, to claim our land for God as
if by a new covenant, erecting altars wherever they
went in testimony thereof, as did Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob. We should have the story of early mig-
rations and abandoned settlements and quarrels and

dissensions, and even treachery, not unlike the

selling of Joseph to the Egyptian traders.

We must incorporate then a Declaration of Na-
tionality and a Constitutional Legislation like Levi-

ticus to complete the story of the liberator who freed
us from the bondage of foreign tyranny and gave
us the beginnings of national life, as did Moses and

Josue to the Jews when they divided Palestine into
thirteen original settlements. To complete our story
we must include the crude but admirable recital of



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 9

the frontier warfare as the newly born nation fought
for the further possession of the coveted land in the

days of the Covered Wagon, as the Judges of old
rose in Israel.

As the blessings of organized life in the Jewish
commonwealth came in the reigns of David and Solo-
mon, so in our settled period of the last century, in
place of warriors, we developed men of letters. We
include, then, in the same volume poems of Bryant
and Whittier and Longfellow and Holmes and Poe,
essays of Emerson and Hawthorne, the mighty
warnings of Webster or Calhoun, to find some weak
parallel for the Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom, and the
Prophets. We might even examine our own Civil
War in the light of the division between Juda and
Israel. We might continue the comparison further
and list the complaints of those who protest that
we are departing from the sacred traditions of our
forefathers, and discover the danger of nationalism
that develops such narrowness of outlook as pro-

duced Pharisaism from the Machabean days.
Enough has been said for our present purpose.

Were we to group all these separate accounts, just
as they appeared from the pens of their respective
writers, the diary of Columbus and the annals of
the missionaries beside the Declaration of Inde-

pendence and the History of the Revolution and the

literature of our nation, we should have indeed an
invaluable library of original documents, a cyclo-

pedic source-book of American History and Ameri-

can life. Would we have a book? No! The pages
would be in juxtaposition, but they would not be

linked together. No Pilgrim Father foresaw the
Tercentenary at Boston ; no Calvert foretold the re-

ligious liberty of the Constitution.



10 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

In the Bible we have a book, because in the Bible
we have the golden thread which links together
every incident, which makes diversity unity. The
New Testament in the Old is latent; the Old Testa-
ment in the New is patent

;
that golden thread which

intertwines the two until they form one book is the
inspiring hope and expectation of Patriarch and
Prophet and the joy and triumph of Apostle and
Disciple—the Divine Life on earth of Jesus Christ.

This unity of the Bible is the gorgeous cyclorama

of man’s Redemption. In the center we behold Em-
manuel, God Living with us, Messiah of the Jews
and High-Priest of the Christians.

In a distant corner Adam and Eve raise their
down-cast eyes to await the Conqueror of the Ser-
pent, while St. John, at the opposite extreme, is

wrapt in seraphic ecstasy at the victory over the
dragon. Abraham rejoicingly foresees the day of
Christ, the Seal of the Everlasting Covenant; Sim-

eon suppliantly asks God to take him to heaven, for
he has seen the Light of Gentiles and the Glory of

Israel in the Child of Mary. Jacob raises his feeble

arms from his death-bed in Egypt to salute the Lion
of the Tribe of Juda, the Expectation of Nations;

the Wise Men from the Orient kneel before Him
with regal gifts to honor the King of Kings. David
from his throne in Jerusalem humbly attends the
Lord who would make footstools of his enemies;
Paul, a fiery persecutor, falls violently to the ground

before Him, beseeching: “Lord, what wilt Thou
have me to do?” Isaias pierces with unerring
vision the vistas of ages to point out the Child Em-
manuel, born of the Virgin as a sign to Israel; the

shepherds follow the good tidings of great joy from



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 11

heaven and adore the Child wrapt in swaddling
clothes and laid in a manger.

Nearer to the Central Figure, the characters
point more clearly and more directly—Daniel,
Micheas, Zacharias, and Malachias—until the circle
is completed in St. John the Baptist, who stands
before Christ with both arms outstretched to Old
and New Testaments alike, pointing to the Lamb of
God Who taketh away the sins of men, and saying
to all : This is He. An immense halo of glory bursts
from the heavens to surround the servants of God
with the brilliance of light, and the voice of the
Father speaks to confirm it all: “This is My Beloved
Son, in Whom I am well pleased

;
hear ye Him.”

What is the Bible? From Genesis to Kings, from
Job to Ecclesiasticus, from Isaias to Malachias, from
Matthew to Apocalypse, it is Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, and forever. Written in the desert
of Arabia, the wilderness of Chanaan, the fortress

of Jerusalem, the exile of Babylon, the metropolis

of pagan Rome, the cities of Asia Minor, and the
solitude of Patmos; diversified in its writers and

scenes and style and construction as no other book,

yet it is one in Christ Jesus. The moving spirit of
God is in its every page ; its writers are raised above
the plane of ordinary human authorship ; the revela-
tion of Christ is its message; therefore it is unique.

In the painting of the Transfiguration by Rap-

hael we see the unity of the Bible. Moses, repre-
senting the Law, and Elias, as the soul of Prophecy,

are transfused in glory with Christ, the Central

Figure. Peter, James and John, still on earth, pros-
trate themselves before the vision for terror at the

revelation of glory. Legislator and Prophet of old,



12 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

Pope and Bishop of the New Law thus meet in
Christ; the one from the realms beyond, the other
in the flesh.

One of the most inspiring journeys for the pil-
grim to Palestine is the walk from Jerusalem to
Emmaus. It is over the same road that Our Lord
walked on Easter Day toward evening, the unrecog-
nized companion of two sorrowing disciples. The
scene is particularly holy to students of the Bible

because here one of the most profound explanations
of the Sacred Volume was made by the Master Him-
self. It is recorded for us by St. Luke in the 24th
chapter of the Gospel. To the disheartened and per-
plexed friends, the Saviour gave the explanation of
Calvary. Starting with Moses, He expounded for
them His Own Story through the Books of the Old
Testament, the while they pursued their journey

together. Coming then to the same story that they
had witnessed it in life, He lifted the veil as He sat
at table with them, and showed Himself the end of
the long preparation: the Star that rose out of

Jacob, the Sceptre sprung for Israel, the Root of

David, the Priest according to the order of Melchise-

dech, the Minister of the True Tabernacle, the Faith-

ful Witness, Advocate with the Father; the Man of
Sorrows, the Oblation and Sacrifice to God, the

Stone which the builders rejected, the Sheep led to

the Slaughter. As He neared the end of the recital,
and they felt their hearts burning within them. He
showed Himself the First-Begotten of the Dead, the

Resurrection and the Life, the Head of the Body,
the Church, the Author and Finisher of Faith, Lord

of Lords and King of Kings, the Light of the World
and the Prince of Eternal Peace—Christ, the Son of
the Living God.



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 13

This is our infallible authority for the answer

tc the question, What is the Bible? It is the answer
that St. Stephen preached to the Jews and for which
he died; that St. Peter proclaimed on the first Pen-

tecost
;
that St. Paul carried to the Synagogues

; that

St. Matthew made his setting of the Gospel. It is
the answer summarized by Our Lord when the Jews
questioned His authority: “Search the Scriptures,

for in them you think you have eternal life; it is
they that give testimony of Me.” That answer still
echoes to the four corners of the world through the

medium of the Catholic Church.
Thus understood in its purpose and presentation,

the Bible is truly the Book of Books. No other book
has received such encomiums or such tributes of
reverence. Poets, statesmen, moralists have drawn
upon it as the prudent householder of St. Matthew
could draw out from his storehouse new things and
old to fit every circumstance and crisis of life. Of
the many unrestricted admirations which the great-
est minds have offered as their feeble expressions
of appreciation, which time does not permit us to
recount here, none is more touching or more strik-
ing than that of Sir Walter Scott. About to close
his life of literary eminence, the greatest of modern
novelists said simply: “Bring me the Book.” His
son-in-law, solicitous to comfort the dying genius,

bethought him of the many books which the gifted
author had written at such laborious cost, and of
the many others that had been the companions of
his leisure hours. In his perplexity he asked inno-

cently, “What book?” “The Book,” came the quick
reply. “The Bible—there is but One.”

Truly it is The Book, and generations of men in
all languages so recognized it unconsciously by



14 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

calling it The Bible, which means the Book of Books.
It is the Book because, inspired of God, it reveals
Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and
the End; a precious Book, a sacred Book, a reli-
gious Book,—aye, a unique Book, not only admired,
but revered.

So is the Bible regarded today by the true lead-
ers of religion, Catholic, Protestant and Jew alike.
It is their veritable storehouse, and they honor it,
according to their understanding of it, with the de-
votion of tender gratitude. It is their common
meeting-ground, the sanest hope of a common under-
standing.

Three years ago it was my privilege to assist
with a group of Scripture scholars of fourteen dif-
ferent nationalities at the Sabbath service in one

of the oldest synagogues in Jerusalem. Many im-
pressions, inseparably linked with the Synagogue of
Nazareth two thousand years ago, remain with me
now, but the clearest is the image of the solemn re-
moval of the rolls of the Law and Prophets from
the curtained book-press. The attendants moved
about their sacred function with timorous rever-

ence
;
a reading-desk, counted as sacred as the Syna-

gogue itself, replaced the tribune or pulpit of the

Teacher
;

with an awe-inspiring solemnity that

might have greeted the appearance of the Messiah

Himself, the curtain was drawn back and the sacred
volume brought forth. The recollected attitude of
the listeners spoke eloquently their veneration of

the Word of God.

In Protestant churches the Bible reading is the

solemn moment. The words of the minister may be
moving and the hymns of the congregation uplift-



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 15

ing ; the message of God from the Bible is something
apart, and must be heard in perfect submission.

The experience of man, however, has seen no-
where such striking manifestation of the reverence
to the Holy Bible as that shown in the Catholic
Church, the Mother of Holy Scripture. How false
is the statement that the Catholic Church has little
interest in or respect for the Holy Word of God!
How little do those who say it know the lofty tri-
butes of Catholics, ancient, medieval and modern, to
the Bible! Let one speak for all to us today, one

from the Middle Ages, a monastic writer, known
in all lands for his devout treatise, “The Imitation
of Christ.” Thomas a Kempis thus pays his meed
of honor: “Whilst detained in the prison of this

body, I acknowledge that I need two things, namely
food and light. Thou hast, therefore, given to me,
weak as I am, Thy Sacred Body for the nourishment
of my soul and body, and Thou hast set Thy Word
as a light to my feet. Without these two I could not
well live; for the Word of God is the light of my
soul, and Thy Sacrament is the Bread of Life. These
also may be called the Two Tables, set on either
side in the storehouse of Thy Holy Church. One is
the Table of the Holy Altar, having the Holy Bread

;

—that is, the Precious Body of Christ ; the other is
the Divine Law, containing holy doctrine, teaching
a right faith, and even leading most securely to the
interior of the veil, the Holy of Holies. Thanks be
to Thee, 0 Lord Jesus, Light of Eternal Light, for
the Table of Holy Doctrine which Thou hast minis-
tered to us, Thy servants, the Prophets, and Apos-
tles, and Teachers.”

The reverence of the Catholic Church for the
Blessed Sacrament of the Altar needs no proof; it



16 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

is synonymous with Catholic worship. In placing
the Book of God’s Word on a table of equality with
the Holy Eucharist, Thomas a Kempis has paid to
the Bible the highest tribute of reverence that his

saintly soul could conceive. In both he has seen
Jesus Christ.

Enter any Catholic Church at the hour of Solemn
Mass and see for yourself the same reverence today
for the Holy Scripture. The deacon of the Mass is
about to sing the Gospel. Reverently he places the
Book on the altar beside the Tabernacle, and, pro-
foundly inclined, kneels before the Two to pray that
his heart and lips may be purified, as the communi-
cant of the day has purified heart and lips by Pen-
ance and fasting. Solemnly raising the Book to his
heart, he kneels before the Celebrant to receive the

blessing, and proceeds in solemn procession to the
place of honor, the right of the Tabernacle. No read-
ing-table is used; a consecrated sub-deacon holds

the opened Book in his arms, resting it on his fore-
head that he may obliterate himself and serve im-
personally, while acolytes stand on either side with

lighted candles to remind all that the Light of the

World is to be shed anew in brightness and beauty.
The deacon solemnly invokes the Spirit of God upon
all the hearers; still he pauses; he makes the sign
of the Cross on the page opened before him, on his

own forehead, lips and heart that the sign of Christ
may seal the solemn reading. Taking the censer
with incense blessed in the Name of Him in Whose
honor it is offered, he incenses the Book three times,

the liturgical offering to Christ. In the religious

chant of the Church he solemnly sings the Inspired

Word appointed for the day; at each mention of the
Holy Name of Jesus, the Celebrant, standing at the



THE STORY OP THE BIBLE 1?

Altar, reverently bows to the Cross, symbol of the
same Christ contained in the Book. At the end the
sub-deacon, his impersonal function completed, rev-

erently carries the Book back to the altar, and hands
it to the Celebrant, who kisses it with loving devo-
tion in the name of the entire congregation, stand-
ing at reverent attention.

What does it all mean? It is the Catholic
Church’s expression of her deep reverence for the

Bible. She is saying to her children: The Word of
God is Christ.



18 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

THE TITLE GUARANTEED
(Address delivered by Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan in the

Catholic Hour, July 6, 1930)

The literature of today is characterized by an
independence of thought and a boldness of expres-
sion that alarm prudent men. The quest for knowl-
edge is commendable and the courage of the pioneer
in unexplored fields is praiseworthy; the mere pur-
suit of novelties is fraught with tremendous dan-
gers. Experimentation in the laboratory of electrical
science, biology, or even medicine, cautiously con-
ducted, has brought us many blessings and we have
reason to hope for greater benefits in succeeding
generations. When the same method is used in the
social order : in education, in government, and above
all in religion, then we must bide our time lest we
rush to disastrous conclusions. Extravagant langu-
age has been used to destroy the confidence of cen-
turies in the fundamental institutions of both
Church and State; it is refreshing to recognize in
the maze of such aberrations the sane and sound
and scientific utterances of the Catholic Church.
This courageous attitude of the Catholic Church in
defending the ancient truth has been most conspicu-
ous in the study of the Bible, and it is my privilege
tonight to explain it to you in her answer to the
question : “Why we accept the Bible.”

In order to understand the tireless vigilance of
the Catholic Church over the Bible, we must recall
that she regards the Bible, Old and New Testament
combined, as the inspired Word of God, containing
the Biography of Jesus Christ. She has possessed
the Bible from the early years of her existence, and



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 19

defended it against insidious attacks of Gnostics,

Marcionites, Ebionites and Valentinians over 1700
years ago. She sees in the attack on the Bible today

in the name of scientific experiment, through higher
criticism or historical development, what she saw
in the first ages of Christianity, an attack on the

Sacred Person of Jesus Christ the Saviour of man-
kind. For this reason the Church has set no limits
to the defense of this Holy Book. It is not in the
name of literature or history, for she allows many
attacks on such books to pass without official no-

tice. It is not because the Catholic Church depends
on the Bible for her existence ; she was able to teach
souls the way of salvation and bring saints to Hea-
ven before the Word of God was written in the com-
pleteness of the New Testament. She does not,
therefore, defend the Bible in a desperate effort at

self-preservation, for, even if the Providence of God
had not preserved the Bible to our time, the Catholic
Church would still be the pillar and ground of truth.
Her reason is the same today as it has been in all
the centuries; it is the zeal of St. Peter at Jerusa-

lem, St. Paul at Corinth, St. John at Ephesus, St.
Clement at Rome, St. Ignatius at Antioch, St. Poly-
carp at Smyrna, St. Irenaeus at Lyons, St. Jerome
in Palestine. In that same zeal and spirit does the
Church of today “preach the Word, in season and
out of season, reprove, rebuke in all patience and
doctrine, and do the work of an evangelist.” She
defends the Bible because she is faithful to Jesus

Christ.

The Bible has both divine and human authority.
The divine authority, known as the inspiration of
the Bible, is the reason why we believe the Bible,
and this will be the subject of our next address. The



20 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

human authority is the right of the human authors
to be heard because they are competent and trust-
worthy writers; it is the reason why we accept the
Bible.

In defending the human authority of the Bible,
the Catholic Church has never deviated from her
position. She teaches today, as she taught from the
beginning, that the Bible is what it claims to be.
The historical books, Genesis, Kings, and the Gos-
pels, are records of history and are true

; the didac-

tic books, as Psalms, Proverbs, and the Epistles are
inspiring instructions and are true

;
the prophetical

books, as Isaiah, Ezechiel and the Apocalypse, are
exhortations to the soul, and are true. These books
were written in the time that they claim for them-
selves: the Pentateuch in the days of Moses, the

Epistles of Paul during his missionary travels, the

Gospels during the six decades following the Death
of Christ.

In answering the question, Why we accept the
Bible, we make the simple reply: Because its title
has been guaranteed. If a man owns an estate
which he has inherited from his forefathers for
generations, it is known in the town as the Brown
or the White estate, according to the family name.
Somewhere in the hidden archives of the Registry
of Deeds there is a title of its ownership, but the

present occupants are not troubled about it; they

pay their taxes and intend to pass on the property

to their children. When an intruder comes upon the
scene and appropriates a part of the property, they

order him to leave. If he retorts that the title to the

property is fictitious, the true owners do not agree

with him and leave the estate; they investigate the

title-deeds, and when they find them, they prove at



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 21

one and the same time that the intruder’s charge is
false and that their ownership is guaranteed. Such
is the attitude of the Catholic Church to the Bible,
her property from the beginning and to the end of
time.

The Church received the Old Testament, com-
plete and warranted, from the Synagogue as is at-
tested by the Greek translation called the Septua-
gint and completed at least 150 years before Christ
was born. The Church witnessed the writing of the
New Testament and carefully preserved each por-
tion of it as the Sacred Authors wrote. The Apostles
were sent by Christ to preach and to teach; there
was no command to write, as He, Himself, had not
written His message, but had spoken it in syna-
gogue, temple, lake shore, mountain side or desert
waste. When the occasion presented itself, some of
them wrote as the occasion demanded. Thus St.
Matthew wrote to the Jews of Palestine, first in
their own language, and afterwards directed the
writing of the same message in Greek. St. Mark,
companion and interpreter of St. Peter, at the re-
quest of the Christians in Rome, wrote for them the
substance of St. Peter’s preaching in that city. St.

Luke, faithful companion of St. Paul, wrote two
books for the benefit of his friend Theophilus, the

first containing an orderly account of the Life of
Christ from Birth to Ascension, and the second the
story of the spread of the Church under the leader-
ship of St. Peter and the missionary activity of St.
Paul. St. Paul passed with religious enthusiasm and
fervent zeal from city to city, establishing churches
wherever he went; he then kept in close touch with

the churches by letters, and these form the body of
the Epistles of St. Paul. Likewise St. Peter, St.



22 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

Jude and St. James wrote letters to the nascent
Church. St. John, the Beloved Disciple, youngest of
the Apostolic College, was spared to the end of the
century to watch over the beginnings of Christian-
ity. Exiled to the Isle of Patmos, he converted his
prison into a retreat of prayer, and, caught up in
ecstasy on the Lord’s Day into the vision of Heaven,
wrote the profoundest and sublimest book of the
Bible, consummation of Old and New Testaments
alike, the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation. At the
end of his blessed life, when the infection of heresy
threatened the purity of faith, supplementing his

three Epistles, he wrote his incomparable Gospel to
his fellow Christians, that they might “believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing,
have life in His Name.”

These are the titles to the human authority of
the Bible which the Catholic Church has accepted
from the earliest centuries and has preserved to the
present day. They are guaranteed by the earliest
witnesses of Christianity. The amazing wealth of
testimony to the authority of the Bible in the first

150 years of Christianity cannot be spread before

you now. Time permits us to state only that every
known Christian writing of the first and second cen-
turies, even those recently discovered, quotes some
section of the Bible, especially the New Testament,
in words familiar to us, and all that make mention
of the Gospels ascribe them to the days of the Apos-

tles. One witness will testify to us what is sub-

stantiated for us by the Apostolic Fathers and the

early Apologists. St. Irenaeus, born at Smyrna
about 130 A.D., was the pupil of St. Polycarp, friend

and companion of St. John the Apostle. He is a
true witness of the universal tradition of the



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 23

Church in the second century because, after his
early education in the East, he was made Bishop of
Lyons in the West; he was called by his contempor-
ary, Tertullian, “a most exacting investigator of
every doctrine.” He is a true link with the days of
the Apostles because, through his teachers, the
words of the disciples were still echoing in his ears.
He was as competent to testify to the fact of the
human authority of the Gospels as an historian of
today would be to verify the fact of the Civil War.
In his writing against the heretics, filled with St.
John's purity of vision whereby, in the maze of
philosophical windings of Gnosticism, he could be-

hold steadfastly the Truth, he writes as follows:

“Matthew published his Gospel among the Hebrews
and in their language, at the time when Peter and
Paul were preaching the glad tidings in Rome and
founding the Church there. After their departure,
Mark also, pupil and interpreter of Peter, did also
hand down in writing what had been preached by
Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul recorded
in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards
John, the disciple of the Lord who also leaned upon
His Breast, did himself publish his Gospel during

his residence in Asia.”

These words of St. Irenaeus are typical of the
testimonies of the early Church to the human auth-
ority of the Bible. They were not cited to the Chris-
tians of his day as something novel or doubtful;

they are written to express what all recognized as
true. They agree with what Papias wrote at Hier-
apolis, Clement and Origen at Alexandria, Tertul-

lian at Carthage, Aristides at Athens, Justin Martyr

at Rome. They stand unchallenged in history and
have never been retracted. They indicate what clear



24 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

and forceful guarantees the Church has in history
for her titles to the Sacred Books; thus they help
us to understand why we accept the Bible.

It is not needful to emphasize the fact that the
most certain authority of the Bible has been the
object of distrustful criticism and slanderous misre-
presentation. Radical sceptics, using the rational-

istic principles of Reimarus and Lessing, Strauss
and Baur, Renan and Drewes, have oversowed cockle
in the field by disseminating false conclusions in the
name of advanced learning. They employed their
God-given talents to weaken, and if possible, to
destroy the pre-eminent position which the Bible
has had in our civilization. As we would expect,
they have directed their attacks chiefly against the
Gospels, hoping thereby to overthrow the High
Priest and Mediator of the New Testament and en-
throne in His stead a god of reason. They were the
first intruders on the property of the Church to
brand the title as fictitious.

In their hate they consumed themselves in ex-
cesses. Some of them accused the authors of the
Sacred Books as deceivers or idiots and the stories
of the Bible as myths or deceptions. Others trans-
cended all the limits of historical study and common
sense, and blasphemously denied that Jesus Christ

ever existed. Through the fury of their attacks, the

Catholic Church held tenaciously to her teaching

that the Bible is true and that its title to human
authority and belief is historically valid. The Cath-
olic Church prevailed against them. No serious stu-
dent today would propose such opinions as histori

cal. Many people who have not the time or oppor-
tunity to follow the study and trace the question

back to its sources are still misled by the specious



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 25

arguments of myths and fables; it is unfortunate
that it takes a generation for the poison to circulate

even after the remedy has been discovered and ap-
plied. In popular literature, even in editorial col-
umns, these unscientific teachings are encountered
spasmodically even today. The Catholic Hour has
furnished us the opportunity tonight to correct the

wrong impression still existing in the minds of
many sincere and honest men, and to show them
beyond dispute that the Bible is all that it claims

to be.

It is not the radical sceptic that we need to con-
sider seriously today, for he has dashed himself to

pieces against the Rock of Scandal long ago. Our
attention must be directed to the Liberal (Protes-
tant) School, under the leadership of Harnack,

Schurer, Julicher, Wellhausen, and Loisy. Called the

historical-critical school, it has attracted attention

by reason of its researches into ancient Christian

and Biblical Literature. The method used was ex-
perimentation of a scientific kind. The student be-
gan with a hypothesis and then sought to make the
literature prove it. One starts with the supposition
that miracles are impossible and so rules them out

of the Bible; another presumes that Bishops were

not appointed by the Apostles and so rejects early

documents which refer to them ; a third sets out to

prove that the Gospels are composed of a sub-

stratum of documents from unknown sources.
In marked contrast the Catholic Church has kept

a clear mind on all historical questions. She pro-

ceeds on the supposition that what was true two

thousand years ago is still true today, and so she

searches to find the truth about the authorship of

the Bible, whatever it may be. She has not been



26 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

deceived by the purpose of many of the Liberals;
she sees in their activity a new attack on Jesus
Christ. St. John wrote in his First Epistle: “Every
Spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God.” The
Church sees in the method and results of these
critics the same spirit that tried to dissolve Christ
during His public life. The haughty arrogance of
the Pharisees who refused to accept the evidence
before their eyes when Christ bade them to believe
His works, is the spirit of such critics. In a super-

cilious complexity of superiority, they look with

disdain on those who still teach the Virgin Birth, the
miracles of the Public Life and the Resurrection.
Anything which destroys the witness to Christ they
herald as brilliant and learned. Whether consciously
or not, their effort has been to kill the witnesses to

Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and especially John,

just as the Pharisees drove the blind boy from the
Synagogue because he confessed that Christ had

cured him, and even sought to kill Lazarus because,

living, he gave testimony to Christ. It is not by acci-

dent that their study of the Old Testament has cen-

tered about the passages that bear witness to

Christ: the story of Creation and the Promise of a

Redeemer, called the Protoevangelium, or the First

Gospel; the predictions of Isaiah, the Evangelist

among the Prophets
;
the prediction of Christ's Day

by Daniel, the Herald of the Gospel. Some among
them do not wholly agree; they are like Nicodemus,
who came timidly at night, or Gamaliel,who uttered
faint protest, but remained indifferent. Others, sad

to relate, apostates and traitors, have sold Him again
like Judas Iscariot. Rightly does the Church regard

the attack on the Bible as a new effort to dissolve
Christ.



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 27

As the attack centered particularly on the Four
Gospels, the Church took up the challenge and ex-
plored her own history to prove the title to her pro-
perty. At the same time the critics made a most
searching investigation by experimentation to prove
that the Gospels were not written by Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. The story has been one of
high adventure. It is without parallel in all the his-

tory of literature. Ancient libraries have opened
their most secret archives and have produced trea-
sures whose presence was unsuspected; the Greek
Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre at Constantinople
yielded to Byrennios in 1873 the priceless manu-
script containing the Didache, and the Monastery
of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai a Syriac version of

the Gospel in palimpsest to Mrs. A. S. Lewis in 1892.
Grammarians have busied themselves with the root
constructions and idioms of Hebrew and Aramaic,
Syriac and Koptic, Greek and Latin, in order that
they might analyze and test every word of the Sac-
red Text in the crucible of criticism. In 1865 the

Palestine Exploration Fund was organized in Eng-
land, having as one of its leading aims “to contri-

bute to the elucidation of Biblical problems”, and is

continuing to this day notable excavations in Pales-

tine, drawing out of the tomb the secrets of the
past. German and American universities still equip
and finance their expeditions each year to draw from
the hidden recesses of the earth the ancient wit-

nesses to the customs and manners of the people of

the Bible. The millions of dollars expended, the

hours of toil, the personal sacrifices of living in a

nomad’s tent under a Syrian sun are believable only

by those who have been on the scene itself. The
story is almost like a romance.



28 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

What is the result of it all ? It is another Resur-
rection. The Book of the Ages has won a new tri-
umph. The traditional position of the Catholic
Church has been vindicated. This we must empha-
size, for the Critics do not mount the house-tops to
announce their defeat. Mythicism, Syncretism, Ac-
comodation, Evolution—all have yielded to the un-
mistakable evidence that the investigator of true
historical sources has unearthed. The greatest of the
enemies have conceded the Church’s victory.

The recognized leader of Liberal Thought, Dr.
Harnack, who so recently laid down his earthly la-
bors, has written : “There was a time, and the gen-
eral public is still at that date, when it was consid-
ered necessary to hold the most ancient Christian

literature, including the New Testament, as a tissue
of deception and falsehood. That time has now
passed. For science this was a time during which
she learned much, and after which she has much to
unlearn. The most ancient literature of the Church
is, on all chief points, and in the majority of details,
true and worthy of belief from the point of view of
literary history. I do not hesitate to use the word
retrogression, or going backwards, for things should

be called by their right names. In our criticism of
the most ancient sources of Christianity, we are,
without any doubt, in the course of returning to
tradition.” Later, to make his opinion unmistakable,
he added: “My friends have taken offense at this
statement of mine, although I have in part already

established its truth. I now offer them a new proof,
and I beg for their impartial criticism. We can now
assert that during the years 30 to 70 A. D., and on

the soil of Palestine, more particularly in Jerusalem,



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 29

this tradition as a whole took the essential form
which it presents in its later development.’’

Similarly, Dr. Sanday notes that “the historian
who tries to construct a reasoned picture of the
Life of Christ finds that he cannot dispense with

miracles. Eliminate miracles from the career of
Jesus, and the belief of Christians, from the first
moment that we have contemporary evidence of it,
that is before 60 A. D., is an insoluble enigma.”

In New York City last year, Prof. Torrey of Yale
University stated at the meeting of the Biblical

Society : “There is evidence, both new and old, which
is destined, I believe, to bring about a great change

in the present ultra-critical view of the writings

which represent the earliest stage in the New Testa-
ment literature. I know of many arguments for the
late date of the Gospels, but of no argument that
will hold water.” ,

The high adventure of criticism thus has reached
the same conclusion which the courageous conserva-
tism of the Church has ever taught. The Bible re-
tains its historic position in the literature of the

world
; its title to human authority is guaranteed by

friend and foe alike; its right to our acceptance is

doubly proved; instead of dissolving the witnesses

to Christ, the critics themselves have been dissolved.

The Books of the Bible are like a golden chalice.
Made of the purest metal, we need not fear to have
them tried. Pure gold is indestructible, and the gold

of truth has withstood every test. As we admire the
chalice for the symmetry of its lines, the rich jewels

which adorn its cross, node, or calix, and the purity

of its precious metal, so do we admire the Bible for
the harmony of its records, the inspiration of its

lessons, and the unquestionable authority of its Sac-



30 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

red Authors. More, aye, more than this: we rejoice
that so priceless a vessel contains the Sacred Pres-

ence of Jesus Christ.



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 31

GOD’S WRITTEN MESSAGE
(Address delivered by Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan in the

Catholic Hour, July 13, 1930)

It is easy for the Catholic to answer the question,
Why do we believe the Bible? It is God’s Written
Message; “a letter,” says Leo XIII, quoting St. John
Chrysostom, “addressed by our Heavenly Father to
the human race and conveyed by the sacred writers,
the race being far away from its native country.”
This written message has been preserved for us in
definite books by the Catholic Church, for She alone
can decide what belongs in the Bible and what does
not belong in the Bible. We believe this message
because it is the Word of God.

All believers agree that the Bible is a unique

Book because it has God for its Author. This is the
testimony of the ancient Rabbinical School for the

Old Testament, of the Reformers for the whole
Bible, and of their followers today. The difficulty
experienced is not to answer the question, Whether
we believe the Bible, but rather, Why we believe
the Bible.

The reason of this perplexity is clear. The fact
that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, or that St. Luke
wrote the Third Gospel, are facts of history that can

be accepted on the evidence that guarantees the

titles. That God was the Author inspiring both
Moses and Luke is a fact that God must reveal if we
are to know it. God has revealed it to man, and the
Church, as God’s representative and interpreter on
the earth, has made it clear to Her children. This
Divine Authorship we call the Inspiration of the
Bible; this ecclesiastical approval we call the Can-



32 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

onicity of the Books. In simplest terms, as expressed

by Msgr. Grannan, “God is the Author of the Book

;

the Church is the Publisher.”
It is easier to state the answer to this question

than to explain it. The fuller understanding of the
Inspiration of the Bible is beset with great difficul-

ties. Learned volumes have been written on the
subject, and in some of the details Catholic theolo-
gians are not yet in agreement. It is always easier

to describe the appearance of things than to explain

the complexity of causes beneath. There are still

unsolved problems, natural mysteries, in the famil-

iar world about us. A child can turn on the radio,
but the ablest scholar cannot tell us adequately how
electricity transmits the sound. Nor can scientists
explain by what process light produces sight through
vision, or a living plant grows from a dying seed.
Yet no one, for all that, denies the existence of

sound or light or life. So in the mystery of Inspira-

tion. We believe the Word of God, although our
intelligence cannot entirely comprehend how the
sound of God's voice is transmitted to us, how the
light of His Truth is reflected to us, or how the seed
of a higher life may be found in the pages of an
ancient book. For this perfect understanding, we
can await the fullness of the Light of Heaven. Pre-

cisely because our minds labor under the limitations

of understanding, and because of the difficulties

raised by the question of Inspiration, it is important

in our explanation to strive for the utmost accuracy

of expression. To attain that, it is best to use the
simplest and plainest of language.

If we appreciate the fact that God has revealed
His Truth to the mind of man, it is clear why we
believe the Bible. Following on the revelation, the



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 33

inspiration of God's Written Message is the most
reasonable gift that we could look for. The inspira-
tion of the Bible is a part of God's plan to protect

His revelation to man. Just as God did not abandon
Nature when He created the world, but continues
to exercise His Provident Care over the lilies of the
field and the birds of the air, so when He revealed
the higher life of grace and called us to be the chil-
dren of Heaven, He did not leave us orphans. He
sent the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit
of Truth to watch over His Message to man. The
call of Abraham, the Covenant with the Chosen Peo-
ple, the lofty sermons of the Prophets; these are
well known as part of the work of the Holy Ghost.
In a very special way the Holy Spirit exercised this
guardianship over God's Revelation. When occasion
prompted or required the writing of some part of
God’s message, then the Holy Ghost became in a
most particular manner the Authority for the writ-
ings which the spokesmen of God composed. In a
simple phrase, God Who spoke by the mouth of the
prophets, also wrote by the hand of the prophets.
This labor of the Holy Ghost we call the Inspiration
of the Bible.

Left to ourselves we might wonder how God
would communicate His Message to man. As Cardi-
nal Newman has written: “Angels, you will say,
must be appointed to this high office. Angels alone
are fit to preach the Birth, Sufferings, the Death
of God. And yet, my brethren, so it is, He has sent
forth for the ministry of reconciliation, not angels,

but men; not of some unknown nature and some
strange blood, but of your bone and of your own
flesh to preach to you.” As Almighty God has seen
fit to call men to be His Apostles and priests, so He



34 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

chose men to be the writers of the Bible. Moses He
called from the Court of Pharao, Samuel from the
sanctuary at Silo, David and Solomon from the
throne of Jerusalem, Jeremias from the little village
of Anathoth, Mark, Luke and Paul from their mis-
sionary journeys. To these He gave a special voca-
tion additional to that which made them prophets
or priests, the office of writing under His direction.
Just as today aspirants to the priesthood follow
their heavenly vocation, some late in life, others in
continuance of their preparation, but all called as
Aaron, so in the writing of the Bible the various
authors of the Books answered a divine summons
and offered themselves to the influence of God that
they might write what God wished. As the priest-
hood is the exercise of God's power through God's
priests, so the writing of the Bible is the transmis-

sion of God's written message through the instru-

mentality of God's secretaries. In both cases, God
uses men to reach the hearts of men.

By understanding this extraordinary relation-
ship between the Holy Ghost and the sacred writers,

we understand why we believe the Bible. It is the
supernatural influence of the Spirit of God on the
sacred writer, urging him to write, enlightening him
while writing, directing and assisting him to write
just what God wishes and no more. In the teaching
of St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest of Catholic theolo-
gians, each book, therefore, has two authors, acting

as one. He writes: “God as the First Cause, and
man as His instrument ; but not in such a way as to
suppose that one part of the book comes from God
only, and another part from man only. All comes
from each, but from each in a different manner."

Thus we understand that the Bible is all from God,



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 35

its source, and all through man, its channel. It is
not correct to call it partly human and partly di-
vine, but the two factors are everywhere present;
it is all human because written by man and all di-
vine because inspired by God. Expressing the doc-
trine in language familiar to our century, we may
call it a joint authorship, understanding that God is
the principal Author. We must recognize both in
all parts of the Book to understand the Bible. The
Holy Spirit could say to the inspired authors what
Our Lord said to His disciples: “He that heareth
you, heareth Me; he that despiseth you, despiseth
Me.”

This is the reason why the Catholic Church has
believed the Bible from the early ages of her history.
She has recognized in it God’s Written Message.

She has seen in it what Christ Our Lord pointed out
in the Old Testament, a divine authority. She re-
members that He spoke constantly of the Scriptures,
that is of the Old Testament, but always as the Book
of God. How strikingly does He teach it in the par-
able of the Rich Man and Lazarus! The Rich Man,
tormented in the flame of the eternal prison, pleads

that a messenger from the heavens be sent to his
brothers at home to warn them, lest they too re-
ceive like punishment after death. The answer, so
quickly given, is convincing: they have Moses and
the Prophets; that is sufficient; more will not be
gained by having one rise from the dead. They
have already the Word of God

!

The Church remembers also that when St. Peter
arose to address the first congregation, numbering
120 souls, he reiterated the sentiments he had
learned from the Master : “Men, brethren, the Scrip-
ture must be fulfilled which the Holy Ghost spoke



36 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

by the mouth of David.” The same thought he wrote
again in the Epistle at the end of his days: “pro-
phecy came, not by the will of man at any time, but
the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy
Ghost.”

Likewise the Church treasures the admonition of
St. Paul to his disciple Timothy : “Continue thou in
those things which thou hast learned and which
have been committed to thee, knowing of whom thou
hast learned them. And because from thine infancy
thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which can
instruct thee unto salvation, by faith which is in
Christ Jesus. All Scripture, inspired of God, is

profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to in-

struct in justice.”

From the Apostles, the early writers of the
Church learned to consider the Bible as inspired. St.
Clement of Rome calls them the “veritable oracles
of God;” St. Ignatius of Antioch, “the divinest pro-
phets;” Justin Martyr, “the divinely inspired;”

Theophilus of Antioch, “the instrument of God.”

St. Irenaeus calls “Holy Scriptures indeed perfect,

since they were uttered by the Word of God and His
Spirit.” St. Athanasius, “Scripture was written by
the Divine Influence and the Holy Spirit was in the
writers.”

Such was the universal teaching of the Church
when the official publication of the inspired books
was made 'in the Council of Laodicea in 363, and in
the Council of Carthage in 419. When called upon
at the Council of Trent to declare what books were

inspired, the Church published again the lists of the

early councils. In our own days She made the same
explicit and unmistakable declaration in the Vatican

Council : that this alone is the official publication of



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 37

the Book of God. “The Church holds these books as
sacred,” declared the Council, “not because they

were composed by mere human industry and were
afterwards approved by her authority, nor merely

because they contain revelation without error, but

because, having been written by the inspiration of
the Holy Ghost, they have God for their Author,
and as such have been delivered to the Church Her-
self.” The Catholic Church would be unfaithful to
Her historic mission if She had not written such a
preface to the volume.

The Bible itself will not give us a proof of its
own inspiration. When our minds have been en-
lightened by the teaching of the Church and we
know that God and man, conjointly, have written
the Bible, then we can understand why the Bible is
the Bible. There must be some power in that Book
sufficient to account for its pre-eminent position and
its far-reaching influence. Rationalists of our day
acknowledge it as incomparable literature, less arti-

ficial than the Greek, elevating in its moral teach-

ings, sublime in contrast with the writings of Assy-

ria, Egypt or Babylonia. They call it the great Book
of Man. They do not explain its greatness. If the
Bible were merely human, like other books, it would
suffer the same fate as other books. If it depended
for its expression on the men who wrote its words,
it could hardly survive at all. Surely it would not
remain today the meditation book of the greatest

saints, the authoritative source of highest moral-

ity, the storehouse of religion. To be all this, it
must be the Book of God.

In the sacred writings we find the fruits of the
two-fold authorship. Its profoundest thoughts are

those beneath the words, the suggestion and stimu-



38 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

lus to holiness and right living, which we may rev-
erently call the message between the lines. There
is a hidden power in the homely simplicity of Bibli-
cal language, recognized in every book from Gene-
sis to Apocalypse, which, like the amplifier, gives to

the message at once a wider range and a truer tone.
Read the Ten Commandments and you find your-
self transported from the scene in the desert of
Sinai and the tents of the wandering tribes to the
broad expanse of human history. Open to the fif-
tieth Psalm of David, and as you follow its confes-
sion of guilt, plea for pardon and renewal of spirit,
you are lifted far away from the transgression of
David to an understanding of the goodness and
mercy of God. Turn to a chapter of the Book of
Proverbs

:
you forget the ancient Jerusalem of Solo-

mon as the maxims penetrate and expand within
your own soul. Come with me now to St. Paul’s
Epistle to the Corinthians, the thirteenth chapter,

famed in all literature as the perfect apostrophe to
Charity; aglow with its burning and shining light,

you transcend the dissensions of the Corinthians.

Unfold but the very preface of the Gospel of St.

John, and your soul is lost in the bosom of God.
This is no human genius. The river cannot rise

above its source; the effect cannot be greater than

the cause which produced it. The sacred authors,

indeed, wrote as occasion demanded and to restrict-

ed groups; not directly to you and to me. Their

words are become fountains in a mighty river that

waters the soil of nations. They were but the in-

struments that God has used to preserve and pro-

tect His Written Message. By a condescension that
can be understood only in the Incarnation, God

thought with the writer, wished, remembered, and



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 39

expressed with him. Appropriating the words of
St. Paul, we may say that the Holy Spirit emptied
Himself to accomodate the knowledge of God to the
mind of man. Without destroying or suspending the
faculties of the writer, without making him the
mere mechanical instrument, God has given him the
special gift of writing for the benefit of all. He so
united Himself to the writer that He made the writ-
ing His own. It is often said that only a literary
genius can write the life of a great author

;
that only

a saint can adequately appreciate and describe the
life of a saint. How much more true is it of the Per-
fect Life of Christ, blending in one sublimity and
humility, strength and sadness, courage and char-
ity, divinity and humanity! Only God could write
the Life of God. This He has done. Just as the
priesthood of Jesus Christ makes all priests become
one Priest, Christ acting in all; so the Holy Ghost
makes all authors of the Bible become one Author,
and all the books become one Book, God inspiring
all.

Why do we believe the Bible? In the words of
St. John, “If we receive the testimony of men, the
testimony of God is greater.” As God cannot de-
ceive or be deceived, and we know that God is the
Author, we believe the Bible because in it we have
Truth at its source. Whatever may be the testimony
of the writer, be it a scientific, historical, or dog-

matic fact, be it poetry or prose, this likewise is the

testimony of God. The orderly narratives of the
historical books, culled from various sources; the
lofty flights of poetic genius; the thundeing denun-
ciations of prophetic zeal; the burning enthusiasm
or pointed moralizing of the Epistles; the rugged
simplicity, cultured appreciation or meditative pro-



40 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

fundity of the Gospels—each and every thought as
expressed on the page before the sacred author is
true in the meaning that he gave 'it. We believe the
Bible because it teaches us the truth. “If we receive
the testimony of men, the testimony of God is
greater.”



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 41

UNFOLDING THE SECRET
(Address delivered by Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan in the

Catholic Hour, July 20, 1930)

The Bible has been described, and quite aptly,
as one message of divine love fashioned in one thou-
sand shapes. Because it was not written by one
man or by one group of men at one time, the unity
of the Bible is not the uniformity that we find in
other books. Its unity is traced in a complex design.

In its composition it is like a gigantic mosaic in

which variegated particles combine, under the guid-
ing and directing influence of the Holy Spirit, to
depict for us the revelation of the Word Who became
Flesh and dwelt among us. A comparative unity
may be found in the forty-eight states of the Union
—E pluribus unum—one from many ; or, more per-
tinently, in the Catholic Church, spread among many
nations differing in race, government and tradition,
yet united in One Lord, One Faith and One Baptism.

For this reason the Bible needs an interpreter
to be understood. In the rolls on which the ancient
parchments were folded and in the closed covers of
our present books we see a symbol of the hidden
lessons of Holy Scripture. As the book must be un-
rolled or spread out to be read, so the secret must
be unfolded to be understood. Written in languages

that have long since passed from daily use, directed
immediately to an Oriental civilization, expressed in

history, poem, allegory and parable, composed in
time of combat and transition, and, above all else,
containing the thoughts of Heaven in the words of
men, it is evident to anyone free to use his reason

that if the Bible is to be understood, it must have an



42 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

interpreter. As in a former address we saw that
God found it necessary to protect its writing, today
we learn how God has safeguarded its interpreta-
tion.

The Catholic Church has always taught and
practised this doctrine, and she does so today. Her
position on the interpretation of the Bible is historic
and axiomatic. Prompt and clear is her answer to
the question, How do we understand the Bible? It
is by unfolding the secret. This is done by seeking
the meaning of the authors of the book under the
guidance of the official interpreter, the Church.

For the Bible is not self-interpretative. It tells
us in its sacred pages that it does not contain all

that God spoke to men, and this is one of the rea-
sons why the meaning is not self-evident. St. Paul,
in writing to the Romans, reminded them that faith
comes, not by reading, but by hearing, and the
Epistle of Paul is not greater than the word of Paul.
St. John significantly notes that “many other signs
also did Jesus in the sight of His disciples which
are not written in this book.” Being, therefore, but

a partial record of God’s revelation, it contains dif-

ficulties that are in some cases most profound. St.
Peter, whilst commending the excellence of the Epis-
tles of St. Paul, writes : “In which are certain things

hard to understand, which the unlearned and un-

stable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures,

to their own destruction.”
It is the Church, founded by Christ, that was

fully equipped to save souls, even before the New
Testament was written. No greater Christians have
ever lived than those first disciples who learned the
Word of God without ever reading. Treasuring
Christ’s interpretations of the Old Testament, pos-



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 43

sessed of a full knowledge of the revelation of God,
endowed with a continuous memory of the Gospel
through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit,
the Great Reminder, the Church alone can unfold
for us the mysterious meaning of God beneath the
sacred text.

Centuries ago St. Augustine wrote: “If there is
no branch of learning, however easy and humble,
which does not require a master, what can be a
greater proof of rashness and pride than to refuse
to study the books of the divine mysteries by the
help of those who have interpreted them.” Anyone
who has studied the Illiad of Homer, the History of
Tacitus, or the Divina Comedia of Dante, knows at
ence how true it is that the student must have notes,
commentaries, and a teacher to understand a classic.
How much more true this is of the Bible. For Holy
Scripture is 'indeed different from all other books;
it is the inspired word of God. Two authors, writing
as one, composed each book

;
there is twice the need

of guidance in understanding their mind, and twice
the danger of misunderstanding it. The native of
Palestine to whom the book was written originally
may have understood it more readily ; the native of
America, reading it today, must ask with the Ethio-
pian, “How can I unless some man show me?”

The answer of the Catholic Church is so reason-
able and accurate that we are not surprised to find
it accepted generally today. When we visit the pub-
lishing houses of Bible societies now, we are im-
pressed by the number of editions of the Bible, and
of sections of the Bible, offered to the modern read-
er. We find on the shelves extensive commentaries
and copious explanatory notes for both the scholar
and the popular reader. What does this mean? It



44 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

shows us that they too are convinced that the Bible
needs an interpreter.

To the intense study of Higher Criticism is due
in large measure this change of attitude on the part
of those who formerly did not agree with the Church
in the need of an interpreter. By searching with
passionate zeal into the authorship, occasion and
purpose of each book of the Bible, the Critics have
shown in bold relief that the individual books were
directed by their authors immediately to particular
audiences, and were phrased in language familiar to
those who first received them. The same study has
shown that the Bible is not a written philosophy,
not a code of laws, not a scientific treatise. As Dr.
Westcott sanely observes, “The Apostles, when they
speak, claim to speak with divine authority, but

they nowhere profess to give in writing a systema-
tic exposition of Christian doctrine.

,,
In one of the

recent commentaries to aid the reader of the Bible,

the editors have summed up the conclusions of such
studies as follows: “Behind the Bible there stands

the continuous life of the people of God, the Jewish

and Christian Church, and much in that life can be
truly understood only by one who has shared it.”
Another has phrased his conclusion in the words:

“How can a book be a religion ?”
Truly, if Christ had intended a book, He would

have written it. Not a book, but a Living Voice was

the teacher of our religion in the beginning, and so it

is today. The Living Voice of the Church instructs

Her children, and that continuous life animates

them, as they grow in wisdom and age and grace

with God and men.
Since we need an interpreter, and we have one

in the Living Voice of the Church, it is pertinent to



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 45

ask, How do we understand the Bible? St. Jerome,
erudite interpreter of the Book, gives this advice to

Paulinus : “I wish you to know that you cannot thor-
oughly understand the spirit of the Holy Scriptures
without a guide to proceed you and to point out the
way.” Our guide is the Catholic Church. Under Her
direction we understand the Bible in the most nor-
mal and natural way that the most important les-
sons of life are learned. It is in the same manner
in which the citizen of the United States under-
stands the Constitution. The analogy will help us
to show how the Catholic not only understands and
knows, but lives the Bible.

The American boy, early in life, becomes con-
scious of the fact that by his birth he has been en-
rolled a citizen of a great nation. He is grateful to
his loving parents who have registered his name
before he was able to give his consent. As the years
advance, he learns the honored traditions of Ame-
rican life. The Constitution of the Country is not
placed in his hands, and he is not yet told to read it.
Even before he is acquainted with the background
of American history, he learns one lesson that he
never forgets, and that is the symbol of all other
lessons of patriotism to him : he learns to salute the
flag. He grows to respect it, to reverence it, to
pledge his allegiance to it, and to the country for
which it stands. He knows the significance of the
thirteen red and white stripes, and of the forty-eight
stars on a field of blue. He hears the glories of that
flag, the heroic sacrifices that have held it ever aloft,

and he longs to live under it and to reach the day
when he too may contribute of his own power to the
brilliance of its history. Inspired by the pictures

and the statues set before him, he sees that obedi-



46 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

ence to law is liberty, and to serve the flag he must
obey the Constitution of the land, the guarantee of
liberty, equality and unity.

Time passes, and he reaches man’s estate. He
becomes a lawyer, physician, or business man. He
finds that the foundation for citizenship has been
deeply laid, for 'he learns with experience that there
is no more important lesson in civic life than to
honor the flag of his country. It chances now that
he reads the Constitution. Its lesson is not strange

to him; he already understands it. He may consult
the original, carefully guarded in the Congressional
Library in Washington, and he finds the handwrit-
ing strange and some the expressions confusing,
but it is all familiar. Here and there he finds a pas-
sage that he does not comprehend. He does not at-
tempt to decide the meaning for himself ; he has the
decision of the Supreme Court, the treasury of Ame-
rican tradition, where the secrets of the past are
stored away. Officially and with authority, the

Court interprets the Constitution for the people. The
boy has not become a citizen because he read the
Constitution; he was that from his youth. He be-
comes a better citizen if he has studied it and has

absorbed and assimilated to himself the true mean-

ing of the Constitution in the light of its authentic

interpretation.

In a parallel manner the Catholic understands
the Bible. It is the natural way, plumbing the

depths of the best pedagogy. The Catholic boy is

taught, not only that he is born into the citizenship

of a great country, and to salute and respect and

defend its flag ; more than that, he is taught that he

has been born again into the citizenship of the King-

dom of God by Baptism. As life unfolds, the secret



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 47

is opened out to him
;
the love which God showed to

man in the first moments of creation, the fall into
sin, and the promise of a Redeemer. The story of
the faithful expectation of the Redeemer through
the history of the Jews is then understood by him
when he sees the crib erected in his church at
Christmas time to tell him the story of the New
Testament.

With the emblem of his country, the flag, he
associates from early youth the banner of the King-
dom of God, the Cross of Christ. It is the symbol of
the spiritual liberty purchased for him at so great a
cost, and it becomes to him the explanation of the
Bible. In the cross he studies the deep mystery of

the New Testament. The arms outstretched to
countless souls instill in his heart the truest demo-
cracy, the salvation of all in One. In the Cross the

lessons of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Bethany, Olivet,

Gethsemani, Calvary, are taught. Through the Cross
he learns that perfect obedience is unmeasured love.

Later in life he reads the Bible with his devo-

tional books, or in his study of religion, or in the

Gospels of the Sundays. How familiar it all seems
to him now. The Man of Sorrows is no mystery,
whether in the Lamentations of Jeremias or in the
Epistles of St. Paul. The more he reads the better
he understands the Cross. He does not become a
Christian because he reads the Bible ; he is a Chris-

tian already by Baptism, and he has known the les-
sons of Christianity because the Church has unfold-
ed the secret to him. He becomes a better Christian
when he knows the Bible more intimately. If a par-
ticular passage proves too difficult for his under-

standing, then he turns to the Church, the Author-

ized Interpreter of the revelation of God, the Su-



48 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

preme Court of the Bible. He turns to her, not as
to a most venerable human institution, as in our
national life, but as a divinely instituted, infallible
Court; a Court that has received this most solemn
delegation: “He that heareth you, heareth Me.”

Through the guidance of the Church, he has
come to the knowledge of Christ, the Central Figure
of the Bible. He learns to know Christ as the Apos-
tles and their disciples knew Him. Others may con-
sider Christ as a Teacher, a Physician, a Moralist;

to the Catholic He is the Son of Man and the Son of
God. The Cross has taught him that humanity died
and divinity lived; that the two are reunited in
glory, and through the Cross, man is joined to God.
As from the flag he has learned the lesson of earthly
devotion, from the Cross he understands the life of
heavenly love.

The gift of understanding is a spark of the di-
vine life with which God has blessed humanity.
Through it we hear the voice of conscience, we dis-
cern the God of Nature, and we attain to the pos-
session of Truth. Wrongly used, it brings disaster:
disssension to the home, anarchy to the nation, chaos

to religion. Properly guided, it is the medium of
priceless blessings to humanity and the crowning

glory of the individual. The differences between un-
derstanding and misunderstanding is the distance

between truth and error, right and wrong, light

and darkness.
As the citizen needs and finds an interpreter to

open his understanding to the Constitution, the

Christian needs infinitely more an interpreter that

he may understand the Bible.
Deep-seated is our sincere acknowledgement of

the millions that have been spent in our American



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 49

educational systems to train our understanding, and
to those idealists of every generation who have sac-
rificed their comforts to develop its dormant life.
Everlasting is our loving gratitude to the living

voice of the Church that teaches us from our wak-
ing hours to the close of day how to understand the
Bible.

On the road from Jerusaleu to Gaza we see a
chariot traveling towards the South. From all ap-
pearances a prominent person is passing; none less
than a high official of the Queen of Ethiopia. In
his hands he holds a scroll. He is deeply absorbed
in its contents, frequently reading aloud to himself.

Now a venerable figure approaches him, and hears
the official read from the Prophet Isaias: “He was
led as a lamb to the slaughter.” Philip the Evange-
list, for it is he, asks the puzzled reader : “Thinkest

thou that thou understandest what thou readest.”
In all sincerity he answered: “And how can I un-
less some man show me?” Philip mounted the char-
iot and explained the meaning of that profound
prophecy.

The distinguished stranger could unroll the
book

;
the representative of Christ had to unfold the

meaning. That question: “How can I understand,”
is still asked, and must be asked. Every earnest
reader of the Bible feels the perplexity of the Ethio-

pian. The Catholic reader feels it, too, but he knows
that he has another Philip, a greater Philip, the
divinely appointed authority of the Church. With
the submissiveness of the Ethiopian, we follow
gratefully, humbly, gladly her infallible interpreta-

tion.



50 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

THE FOSTERING MOTHER OF
HOLY SCRIPTURE

(Address delivered by Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan in the
Catholic Hour, July 27, 1930)

When the historical critic searches today for the
lost manuscripts of the Bible, whether at Sinai, Con-
stantinople, Fulda or Bobbio, it is most significant
that he goes first to an ancient monastery. Again,
when the archeologist discovers the ruins of a By-
zantine Church in Palestine, whether at Samaria,
Gethsemani, or Cariathiarim, he explores at once

to find the ancient biblical site beneath. Significant

indeed, because these reveal more eloquently than
learned dissertations that the Church has ever been
the Fostering Mother of Holy Scripture.

From the very beginning of her ceaseless ac-
tivity in the salvation of men she has guarded the
Written Word with jealous care, and has been tire-
less in watching over its destiny. As early as the
year 200 she proclaimed through Tertullian against

the enemies of the Book: “This is my property. I
have long possessed it; I am the heir of the Apos-
tles.” Her fidelity to this trust is one of her strong-
est claims today on the gratitude and devotion of
all believers. If we possess the Bible today, we owe
it to the Catholic Church.

The most conspicuous example of this zealous
vigilance is the translation of the Latin Vulgate. In

the third and fourth centuries, those who sought to
find the Bible in the language which they could read,

the Latin tongue, were confused by the various

translations. St. Augustine informs us that “in the



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 51

early days of the faith, every man who happened to
get his hands upon a Greek manuscript, and who
thought he had any knowledge, were it ever so little,
of the two languages, ventured upon the work of
translation.” Under these conditions the Church’s
solicitude to bring the Bible to the people is clearly

revealed. Pope Damasus, in the year 383, summoned
the erudite Dalmatian, St. Jerome, to the task of

preparing a translation which could be relied upon
as faithful to the Bible. For a quarter of a century
the indefatigable scholar buried himself in his task,

and gave through the Churchto posterity the greatest
of the ancient translations of the Bible. He discov-
ered a style befitting the task, and “cast the library
of Oriental volumes into a form congenial at once
to the declining Roman world, and the advancing
Barbarians whose children would receive Baptism.”
Ruskin writes that by it “the severity of the Latin
language was softened, like the Venetian crystal,
by the variable fire of Hebrew thought; and the
Book of Books took the abiding form of which all
the future art of Western Nations was to be an
hourly enlarging interpretation.” If the heavenly

wisdom of the Church had not secured the Bible in
the Vulgate of St. Jerome, we cannot easily con-
jecture how it could have been rescued from the
succeeding literature of the Goth, Frank and Saxon.

Because the period of the Middle Ages has been
so misunderstood and so misrepresented, we must
emphasize the fostering care of the Church during
that much discussed era. We find the evidence today
in unexpected ways.

Diligent students have counted over 8,000 manu-
scripts of the Vulgate that can still be seen in the

libraries of Europe, all the product of the Middle



52 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

Ages. Mindful of the laborious task of copying by
hand the entire text of the seventy-two books of the
Bible, and knowing that the 8,000 still extant re-
present but a small fraction of the number of Bibles
actually transcribed, it is evident to any thinking
man that the Bible was safely preserved during that
period by widespread use.

This thought is more deeply impressed upon us,
when we see the number of commentaries on the
Bible that have come from the Middle Ages with
such fruitful results for succeeding generations. Not
to dwell on the profound exegesis of Albertus Mag-
nus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure, we
may stress the Commentary of Nicholas Lyranus,
the far-famed Postilla, which won the respect of the
Jews in its own day, and which was used so exten-
sively by Martin Luther 200 years later.

With the use of a commentary, or an explana-
tion of the meaning of the words of the sacred text,
we are accustomed to associate today the concord-
ance of the Bible, or the arrangement of all the

words according to subject matter. The presence of
the concordance is striking evidence that the Bible

is being applied to life. With the assistance of 500
Dominicans, in the year 1244, Cardinal Hugo St.
Caro prepared the great concordance of the Vulgate

for the use of preachers. It served as a biblical

source for their sermons, to aid them in finding
readily the subjects in the Bible for explanation to

the faithful in the various languages then spoken.

Historians have already enumerated sixty-four edi-

tions of this concordance, all of them before the
Reformation.

The paved streets, the ruins of houses, the pil-
lars of temples indicate clearly to the excavator that



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 53

he has discovered a town. Just so surely do these

concordances, commentaries and manuscripts prove

to us the active preservation of the Bible by the

Church during the Middle Ages.
This evidence is stronger when we come to the

age of printing. This blessing of Nature was used
at once to serve the greater blessing of Grace. The
facility of multiplying the copies of the Bible was
appreciated immediately by the Church. The first
great book to be printed was the 42-line Bible at
Mainz, thirty-six years before Columbus discovered
America. It is called the Mazarin Bible, after Cardi-

nal Mazarin, and today is recognized as one of the

most famous and valuable books in all history. Its
value and beauty are so admired at the present time
that within recent years three copies were sold in
the United States for extraordinary prices, the last

less than a year ago for the reputed sum of $150,000.
Since the Middle Ages this had been the prized trea-
sure of a community of Austrian monks, and with
bleeding hearts they sacrificed it to relieve their

present economic destitution. It is a tragic but elo-

quent recognition of the invaluable service of the

Church to the Bible.
The motherly care which guarded so faithfully

the translation of the Bible into the Latin Vulgate

brought it also into practically all the languages of
Europe before the Reformation. The Bible appeared
in Italian in 1471, Spanish in 1478, French in 1487.
The German translations, at least eighteen in num-
ber, were widely circulated before Luther’s New
Testament, and at least five were complete before
the year 1477. The English translations began as
early as the eighth century with Venerable Bede,
and according to the testimony of Blessed Thomas



54 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

More, Archbishop Cranmer and the Martyrologist
Foxe, “the whole Bible was found in the Mother
Tongue before Wycliffe was born.,, Far from neg-
lecting the Bible in this period of religious peace, the

Church made use of every opportunity consistent
with the times to bring it before the people by her
active preservation.

The story that charms us most by its appealing
forethought is unfolded in the Bible of the Poor.

With the truest instincts of Teacher and Mother,
the Church provided also the famous picture Bibles
for those who could not read. The sound educational
principle of the object lesson was well known to her
in the Middle Ages, as these publications convince

us. For they were series of illustrations in pictures
of the great events of Bible History, allegorized and
moralized, and produced in picture groups to be cir-
culated among those who had no opportunity to
read. One of the best examples of the picture Bible
from the thirteenth century has come to us in three
parts, and they are guarded with jealous care at Ox-

ford, London and Paris. In all, six hundred pages
of the complete work may be seen, and these con-
tain 5,000 illustrations. Thus did the Church pre-
serve the Bible, even for those who could not read
it. The poor had the Gospel preached to them.

To the Christians of the Middle Ages every-
thing connected with the Bible was sacred. I need
mention only the name to recall to you the unparal-
leled enthusiasm and devotion of the Crusades—the
rescue of the Bible Land, hallowed by the footprints

of Christ. Today we can hear a greater story, less
known but equally inspiring, extending down from
the Middle Ages to this year of grace 1930. It is

the preservation of the Holy Places in the name of



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 55

the Church by the unarmed crusaders, the heroic
sons of St. Francis, who have endured exile and its
hardships, and often violent persecution unto death
in their faithful custody of the sacred sites. For the
past 700 years, and long before our modern explora-
tion societies were thought of, these intrepid cham-
pions have lived in and have studied with true re-

ligious zeal, the Land of the Book.
The heritage of the Middle Ages is bequeathed

us in the encyclopedic commentaries, so numerous
in the Reformation period, of which Maldonatus,

Cornelius a Lapide and the Cursus of Salamanca

are well known examples. During the Reformation
period, when the Bible was subjected to a new dan-
ger, the Church showed more than ever the instinct
of a wise and provident Mother. In a maze of dis-
cordant opinions about the Bible, she published the

true lists of the Books in the Council of Trent, re-
peating the decrees of the early councils, and with
unusual prudence and caution, regulated the use of
translations in this dangerous epoch.

When new problems arose in our century, threat-
ening the very possession of the Bible, the same
spirit that prompted Pope Damasus in 383 to sum-
mon St. Jerome to translate the Vulgate urged Pope
Leo XIII in 1902 to organize the Biblical Commis-
sion for the express purpose of defending the Bible.

Out of it today has developed the Pontifical Biblical
Institute, created in 1908 by Pope Pius X, and dedi-
cated to the exclusive study of the Bible. As this
work of the Church continues through the century,
aided by the scholarly contributions of universities
and seminaries throughout the world, and particu-
larly by the brilliant contributions of the Dominican
School at Jerusalem, it is clear to the most short-



56 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

sighted that the Bible will be preserved for the fu-
ture as it has been for the present, by the guardian-
ship of the Catholic Church.

In this illustrious record of devotion and leader-
ship, the Church has kept faith with the Bible. Lest
the impression might be created that she has pre-
served only the Book, we must observe here also
that the Church has kept the Book, and still keeps
it, chiefly by using it. She has looked upon the Bible
and everything connected with the Bible as a price-
less treasure, committed to her by the Apostles. She
has not been like the slothful and unprofitable ser-
vant of the parable who buried his treasure; like
the good and faithful servant, she has used it to
gain twice the amount of the talents. She has ever
borne in mind the admonition of St. Paul to the
Bishop Timothy : “All Scripture, inspired of God, is
profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct

in justice.”

Great teachers in the Church have always fol-
lowed this admonition. A few examples, the proto-
types of all others, show it. St. John Chrysostom,
Prince of Christian Orators, vividly placed the Life

of Christ and the teachings of St. Paul before the
people. St. Augustine illustrated the profoundest

philosophy with the examples drawn from the Scrip-
tures. In the Middle Ages, all of the popular preach-

ers, Dominican, Franciscan and others, depended

with faithful familiarity on the Bible. A conspicu-
ous example 'is St. Bernard, whose language to the

people is saturated with biblical expressions. That

Book of world-wide fame, the Imitation of Christ,
published more than any other book except the
Bible itself, and in which “throbs the spiritual heart



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 57

of Medieval Christianity,” is a beauteous tapestry

woven on the texture of the Psalms and Gospels.
With the varied and unique ways of a true

teacher, the Church still uses the Bible for our in-

struction and spiritual elevation. Who of us is not
familiar with the Liturgical Year? In Advent we go
wTith John the Baptist into the desert; we kneel with
the shepherds before manger at Christmas. We
adore Him again with the Wise Men of the East at
Epiphany, the while we consecrate a New Year to
His Holy Name. Penitential ashes on our foreheads,
we fast with Him the forty days of Lent. Lament-
ing in the plaint of Jeremias we kneel in sorrow be-
fore the Cross on Good Friday. Recalling the hope-
ful promises of the Old Testament, we wait before
the tomb with the holy women on Easter Saturday

;

wrhen all is fulfilled, we rise triumphant with Him in
the glory of Easter morning. With the disciples we
stand on the Hill of Ascension

;
persevering in pray-

er with Mary the Mother of Jesus and His brethren,
we welcome the coming of the Holy Ghost on Pente-
cost. Through the remaining feasts of the year we
meditate on the parable and miracles of His Public
Life until another Advent brings anew the message
of hope. Day by day and every day the Church uses
the biblical associations of the inspiring story to

awaken in our hearts true devotion to Christ.
More especially is that lesson taught in the Holy

Mass—the dramatization of the central event of all
revelation—obediently done in commemoration of
Him. The Sacrifice is surrounded with readings
from the Old and the New Testament alike, and the
Epistles and Gospels especially are read to the peo-
ple that the application of the Bible to the day may
not be lost. We hail with great joy the Liturgical



58 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

movement fostered today especially by the Sons of
St. Benedict, for, in following the Liturgy of the
Church, we are learning the Bible with the Church.

In the devotions of her children, the Church also
teaches us the Bible. The official devotion of the
Church, known as the Office or Breviary, which
every priest must read each day for the space of
about one hour, is practically the Bible divided into

the days of the year. The daily meditation of priests
and religious is centered about the Christ of the
Gospels. The greater part of the famous exercises
of St. Ignatius is devoted to reflections on the Life

of Christ. The favorite prayer of the Catholic people
is the great Bible prayer, the Our Father, taught
first by Christ to His Apostles. Next to it is the
Ave Maria, “Hail Mary”, dear indeed to Catholic
hearts, another Bible prayer, taken almost entirely

from St. Luke : “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with
thee. Blessed art thou among women.”

The Rosary! What memories of spiritual com-
fort surround that word ! What is it but the repeti-
tion of the two great Bible prayers with devout
meditation on the great Bible scenes of Nazareth,

Bethlehem, Jerusalem. Is it surprising that it

should be called the prayer-book of the people? We
understand its powerful influence; it is the Bible

unfolded to us.

The sorrowing way of the Cross, found in every
church, and followed so devoutly, is surely a favor-
ite devotion of Catholics. Here again the Fostering
Mother leads us by the hand along the way of re-
demption from Pilate to the tomb.

Another brilliant chapter in the Church's pre-

servation of the Bible for us is her contribution to



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 69

Christian art. It is a bright spot in the history of

civilization, but it is not this phase which interests

us today. That is but the body ; we penetrate to the
soul of Christian art and see it as the visualizing of

the great events of the Bible. Enter a Catholic

church and you are impressed with the devotional

atmosphere. As you seek for its explanation, you
will find represented on windows and frescoes the
Life of Christ from Birth to Ascension in the favor-
ite mysteries of the Rosary, or such familiar scenes

as Christ healing the sick, blessing little children,

forgiving the sinner.

The power of a single church to teach a whole
scriptural theme was deeply impressed on me some
six years ago when I happened upon a pilgrimage
church in the Village of Weis in Upper Bavaria. It
is a church visited by thousands and thousands of
pilgrims from the surrounding towns ; a penitential
church where the faithful come to be reconciled to
God in the Sacrament of Penance. I was struck
first with the name of the church

;
it is dedicated to

Christ at the pillar of scourging. The numerous
frescoes and paintings all point to one lesson, the
forgiveness of Christ. Over one confessional is the
Good Shepherd, another Peter repentant, a third
the weeping Magdalene, a fourth the dying thief.
The same theme is carried out in the frescoes by
numerous applications; David is led to sorrow by
Nathan, and the prodigal son returns to his father’s
home. Crowning it all with an aureole of brilliant
light is an outspread panorama of the judgment of
the just. They are receiving the blessing of Christ at
the Gate of Heaven where time will be no more. The
casual visitor, much more the pilgrim, cannot miss
this visualizing of the most consoling lesson of Re-



60 THE STORY OP THE BIBLE

velation, God’s forgiveness. Here is the soul of
Christian art.

Frequently today we hear of another example of
the Church’s use of the Bible. Formerly, especially
in the Middle Ages, in hundreds of places in Eng-
land, France and Germany, sacred mystery plays,
mostly biblical plays, were produced. Too few re-
main today, and of these the most prominent is the
Passion Play of Oberammergau.

Again we hear the deep impression made by the
soul-stirring religious drama. Read it in letters sent
to your homes, or in the special articles written for
the daily press. Catholics and non-Catholics alike
are moved to tears of deep religious feeling, but it
is no mere emotion. People confess readily that they
leave the Passion Play with a newer and truer ap-
preciation of the love and mercy of the sacrifice of
Christ. They are fired with nobler, deeper, stronger
resolutions to lead better Christian lives than the

reading of the story ever brought them.

This, in truth, is the object of the Church’s use

of the Bible. In preaching, liturgy, devotion, art,

drama—in all she finds the tremendous natural
forces to instil in the lives of men the moral better-
ment contained in the Bible. Any Catholic who fol-
lows faithfully the Church in her teaching through

these means has the essential knowledge and the
true spirit of the Holy Scriptures.

We have called the Bible a treasure. The Church,
realizing its priceless value, preserves, transmits

and defends it. Like a wise teacher and loving

mother, She uses this treasure in the various ways
described for the sanctification and salvation of Her
children.



THE STORY OF THE BIBLE 61

The Bible has a meaning for all time. Some
parts, like the ceremonial of the Old Law, have al-
ready served their purpose in leading us to Christ,

as St. Paul expressed it. The essential meaning, the
soul of the Book, has a pertinent solution for every

problem of our day.

What are these problems? Anarchy of every
shade has already inundated some nations, and we
are informed of an insidious campaign to spread it
even here. The Bible teaches us obedience to author-
ity. It gives us the most perfect example that we
could have in ChristWho went down to Nazareth and
was subject to Mary and Joseph; Who was obedient
even to the death of the Cross.

A new morality is proposed; in truth it is the
destruction of morality by the perversion of sound
ethical principles. Through the Bible we have the
echoes of Sinai's thunder, and the gentle but firm
Voice of the Sermon on the Mount.

We hear again that disruption threatens the
home and family. It is the same problem that con-
fronted Christ, and He solved it in those uncompro-
mising words: “What God hath joined together, let
nc man rend asunder."

Catastrophes occur in the financial world, with

thousands of victims. Here we see the fruit of a
false gospel of material success and material pros-
perity: a gospel which will never bring peace and
good will to men. We must heed the true Gospel:
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but
in heaven, for where thy heart is, there is thy trea-
sure also," and “What doth it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul."



62 THE STORY OF THE BIBLE

Fundamental to all our social relationships is
that word which will not pass away : the Charity of
Christ: the lesson of love of neighbor taught so

beautifully and completely in the parable of the
Good Samaritan.

There are reasons why we talk about the Bible
today and every day. My sole object has been to re-
present before you all plainly, clearly and uncom-
promisingly, the Catholic Church’s relationship to

the Bible. I wish to express to you my sincerest
gratitude for the kindly reception given this pre-

sentation, reflected by so many letters from various
States of the Union. It is my deepest hope, my
heartfelt wish, that all people of these United States

should understand the Bible better, and especially
that central principle of Christianity—the one ex-
pressed by Him in Whom we all believe, Whom we
love, Whom we try to follow and obey, Our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who said in His Farewell
Discourse, “By this shall men know that you are
My disciples, that you have love one for another.”



CARDINAL HAYES STATES AIMS OF THE CATHOLIC
RADIO HOUR

(Extract from his address at the inaugural program in the

Studio of the National Broadcasting Company, New York
City, March 2, 1930).

Our congratulations and our gratitude are extended to the
National Council of Catholic Men and its officials, and to all
who, by their financial support, have made it possible to use
this offer of the National Broadcasting Company. The heavy
expense of managing and financing a weekly program, its
musical numbers, its speakers, the subsequent answering of

inquiries, must be met. That responsibility rests upon the
National Council of Catholic Men ....

This radio hour is for all the people of the United States.

To our fellow-citizens, in this word of dedication, we wish to
express a cordial greeting and, indeed, congratulations. For
this radio hour is one of service to America, which certainly
will listen in interestedly, and even sympathetically, I am
sure, to the voice of the ancient Church with its historic
background of all the centuries of the Christian era, and
with its own notable contribution to the discovery, explora-
tion, foundation and growth of our glorious country. . . .

Thus to voice before a vast public the Catholic Church is
no light task. Our prayers will be with those who have that
task in hand. We feel certain that it will have both the
good will and the good wishes of the great majority of our
country-men. Surely, there is no true lover of our Country
who does not eagerly hope for a less worldly, a less material,
and a more spiritual standard among our people.

With good will, with kindness and with Christ-like sympa-
thy for all, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue.
So may it be fulfilled. This work of dedication voices, there-
fore, the hope that this radio hour may serve to make known,
to explain with the charity of Christ, our faith, which we
love even as we love Christ Himself. May it serve to make
better understood that faith as it really is—a light revealing
the pathway to heaven: a strength, and a power divine
through Christ: pardoning our sins, elevating, consecrating

our common every-day duties and joys, bringing not only
justice but gladness and peace to our searching and ques-
tioning hearts.



Hear and Help the Catholic Hour

Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic
Men, Washington, D. C.

Your Contribution to the Continuance of These
Weekly Broadcasts of Catholic Truth is

Needed and Solicited

The following forty-eight Stations in the System of the
National Broadcasting Company present the Catholic

Hour Every Sunday:

New York WEAF Tulsa KVOO
Boston WEEI San Antonio WOAI
Providence WJAR Phoenix, Ariz. KTAR
Hartford WTIC Pittsburgh WCAE
Worcester WTAG Detroit WWJ
Portland, Me. WCSH Hartford WTIC
Philadelphia* WFI Cleveland WTAM
Philadelphia* WLIT Cincinnati WSAI
Baltimore WFBR St. Louis KSD
Washington WRC Chicago WENR
Schenectady WGY Madison WIBA
Buffalo WBEN Davenport* WOC
Atlanta WSB Des Moines* WHO
Asheville, N. C. WWNC Omaha WOW
Jacksonville WJAX Kansas City WDAF
Miami WIOD Duluth-Superior WEBC
St. Petersburg, Fla. WSUN New Orleans WSMB
Richmond, Ya. WRYA Denver KOA
Clearwater, Fla. WFLA Fargo, N. D. WDAY
Jackson, Miss. WJDX Bismarck, N. D. KFYR
Louisville, Ky. WHAS Butte KGIR
Memphis WMC Portland, Ore. KGW
Nashville WSM San Francisco KPO
Hot Springs, Ark. KTHS Oakland KGO
Fort Worth WBAP Seattle KJR
Houston KPRC Spokane KGA
Oklahoma City WKY

*These stations broadcast the Catholic Hour alternate weeks.