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There is only one true God. He took flesh and became
man only once. When man, He founded only onereligion and one Church, the Roman Catholic Religion
and the Roman Catholic Church. That Church is thedivinely appointed guardian of the writings divinely
inspired by God, known as the Bible. This Holy Bible islike no other book, because no other book has God for its principal author. Nevertheless the Bible is not the
foundation of the Church, but the Church is thefoundation of the Bible. That is why Catholics need
Mother Church as the guardian and interpreter of theBible. Alas, Protestants have sown much confusion in
the domain of Bible translations and Bible Studies, andin our own time their errors have been renewed by the
pseudo-Catholics known as modernists. With thesimplicity and clarity of a Catholic Catechism, this
"Catechism of the Bible" re-establishes the mind of theCatholic Church on many a vexed point. May it help
many Catholics graze safely in the divine pastures of Holy Scripture.
Contents
Lesson 1. Bible Definitions
Lesson 2. Inspiration of the Bible Lesson 3. Dates and Division of the Bible
Lesson 4. The Old Testament Lesson 5. The New Testament
Lesson 6. The Canon of Sacred Scripture Lesson 7. The Bible and Tradition
Lesson 8. The Languages of the Bible
Lesson 9. The Septuagint Version Lesson 10. The Vulgate Lesson 11. The Douay Bible
Lesson 12. The Bible and Science Lesson 13. The Bible and History
Lesson 14. Interpreting the Bible Lesson 15. Reading the Bible
Lesson 16. Differences between Catholic and Protestant
14. What view do Protestants hold about the Deposit of Faith?
Protestants hold that all things necessary for salvationare found in the Bible. To quote Luther: "The Bible and
the Bible only."
15. Do Protestants ignor e Tr adition?
Totally, and in this t?ey are illogical, for it is by
Tradition that we know what the Bible contains.
16. What is the Catholic view of the Bible and Tr adition?
That, while the Bible is the chief source, it is neither theonly nor the original source of our knowledge of
Revelation.
17. To what may we compar e the r elation between the Bible and Tr adition?
We may compare it to a professor's textbooks and hislectures; as a professor's lectures in the classroom, andhis textbooks clarify each other, so does the Bible clarify
Tradition and is clarified by it in turn.
18. Has Tr adition aided the Bible in other ways?
Yes, it has preserved the Bible and has helped theChurch to sift the true from the false, and has kept us
from false interpretation.
Lesson 8:The Languages Of The Bible
1. Wer e all the books of the Bible or iginally wr itten in one language?
No, besides Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic were used.
2. What books wer e wr itten in Hebr ew?
Almost all the books of the Old Testament.
3. What books wer e wr itten in Gr eek?
In the Old Testament, the Second Book of Machabees
and the Book of Wisdom; in the New Testament, all books except the Gospel of St. Matthew.
4. What books wer e wr itten in Ar amaic?
The Gospel of St. Matthew.
5. When wer e the books of the Old Testament, that wer e or iginally wr itten in Hebr ew,
No, we must remember that the Bible was written inevery-day language of the time, not in scientific terms.
Even to this day, for example, we speak of sunset eventhough the sun is not setting anywhere and we know that
the Earth is turning around the Sun and not vice-versa.
7. Can one be a gr eat scientist and still be a fir m believer in the Bible?
Yes, there have been and are now many great Catholic
scientists, believing firmly in the Bible.
8. Name some scientists who, at the same time, believed fir mly in the Bible.
Copernicus (a priest), Pascal, Gauss, Ampere, Pasteur,Marconi, to name just a few.
9. Does the Catholic Chur ch discour age the study of science as being opposed to the
Bible?
Nonsense; on the contrary, the Catholic Church hasalways encouraged science; some of her most eminent
children have also been leaders in science.
10. Can science be of any help to Bible study?
True science can help Bible study in interpreting somedifficult passages.
11. Is the Bible helpf ul in the study of science?
As a lighthouse helps a ship at sea, so does the Bible
help scientists.
Lesson 13:The Bible And Histor y
1. Is the Bible an histor ical book?
The Bible is not an historical book per se; it is primarilya religious book; but it does contain a certain amount of
historical teaching, which benefits from inerrancy, likeall the rest of the Bible.
2. Why would histor ical teachings benefit f rom inerr ancy?
A great number of historical facts are intimately unitedto our Faith in such a way that one cannot deny thehistorical facts in the Bible, without denying the Faith.
3. Give an example of such a connection between our faith and histor y.
The historical fact of the Resurrection of Our Lordcannot be denied without denying our Faith at the same
time, for: "... If Christ be not risen again, then is our
preaching vain, and your faith also is vain ..." (I Cor.XV, 14).
4. How ar e we to account f or the appar ent contr adictions between the Bible and his?or y?
There are several reasons which account for these
apparent contradictions:- Most of the time the apparent contradiction is due,
either to a poor understanding of the text, or to a poor understanding of the context.
- When this is not the case and we have historicalsources which contradict the Bible, it is the Bible which,time after time, is finally proven right.
5. Give an example of the Bible being proven r ight against histor ians.
Barely two hundred years ago, most of the non-Catholic
historians denied the existence of the Assyrian and
Babylonian empires, because the only known historicalreferences of the time came from the Bible. Thearchaeological excavations of the last century not only
proved the existence of both empires, but located their capital cities: Babylon and Ninive. No self-respecting
historian will doubt the existence of these civilizationsnow.
6. So the Bible is always histor ically corr ect?
Yes, it is undoubtedly better to take God at His Word,
than any self-proclaimed "Expert historian." Most of thehistorians who cling to an historical interpretation which
contradict the Bible, do so because of their religious prejudices, and not for any serious historical or scientific
reasons.
7. Can histor y be of any help to the study of the Holy Scr iptur es?
Yes; a good historical background is very useful for a
proper understanding of many parts of the Bible.
8. Is the Bible helpf ul in the study of histor y?
Yes: both as an historical source and as a guideline toavoid errors.
Lesson 14:Inter pr eting The Bible
1. Is the meaning of the Bible so clear that anyone r eading it, can r eadily under stand it?
The Bible is by no means so easily understood: St. Peter
himself tells us that it contains many things: "... hard to
Preface dated August 24, 1989 From the Tan Books Printing.
The Douay-Rheims Bible is a scrupulously faithful translation into English of the Latin Vulgate Bible
which St. Jerome (342-420) translated into Latin from the original languages. The Vulgate quickly
became the Bible universally used in the Latin Rite (by far the largest rite of the Catholic Church).
St. Jerome, who was one of the four great Western Fathers of the Church, was a man raised up by God
to translate the Holy Bible into the common Latin tongue of his day. He knew Latin and Greek perfectly.
He was 1500 years closer to the original languages than any scholar today, which would make him a
better judge of the exact meaning of any Greek or Hebrew word in the Scriptures. Besides being a
towering linguistic genius, he was also a great saint, and he had access to ancient Hebrew and Greek
manuscripts of the 2nd and 3rd centuries which have since perished and are no longer available to
scholars today. St. Jerome's translation, moreover, was a careful, word-for-word rendering of theoriginal texts into Latin.
The Latin Vulgate Bible has been read and honored by the Western Church for 1500 years! It was
declared by the Council of Trent to be the official Latin version of the original. Hear what the Sacred
Council decreed: "Moreover, the same Holy Council ... ordains and declares that the old Latin Vulgate
Edition, which, in use for so many hundred years, has been approved by the Church, be in public
lectures, disputatious, sermons and expositions held as authentic, and so no one dare or presume under
any pretext whatsoever to reject it." (Fourth Session, April 8, 1546). As Pope Pius XII stated in his 1943
encyclical letter Divino Afflante Spiritu, this means the Vulgate is "free from any error whatsoever in
matters of faith and morals." And the Douay-Rheims bible is a faithful, word-for-word translation of the
Latin Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome.
In their translation, the Douay-Rheims translators took great pains to translate exactly. Contrary to the
procedure of the modern Bible translators, when a passage seemed strange and unintelligible they left it
alone, even if obscure, and "let the chips fall as they may." The modern Bible translators, on the other
hand, will often look at an obscure passage, decide what they think it means, then translate into words
that bring out that meaning. The result is that the English is usually (not always!) easier to understand,but it is not necessarily what the Bible says; rather, it is their interpretation and understanding of what
the Bible says. Moreover, the Holy Ghost may have hidden several additional meanings in the passage.
Those meanings may well be completely translated out!
Sometimes the question is raised: Why translate from a translation (the Latin Vulgate) rather than from
the original Greek and Hebrew? This question was also raised in the 16th century when the Douay-
Rheims translators (Fr. Gregory Martin and his assistants) first published the Rheims New Testament.
They gave ten reasons, ending up by stating that the Latin Vulgate "is not only better than all other Latin
translations, but than the Greek text itself, in those places where they disagree." (Preface to the Rheims
New Testament, 1582). They state that the Vulgate is "more pure than the Hebrew or Greek now
extant" and that "the same Latin hath bene barre better conserved from corruption." (Preface to the
Douay Old Testament, 1609).
The present Bible is the Challoner revision (1749-1752) of the Douay-Rheims Bible. Catholics owe the
saintly Bishop Richard Challoner (1691-1781) a great debt of gratitude for undertaking this work.
Challoner was one of those courageous priests who traveled around offering Mass secretly for small
groups during the religious persecutions in England. Such Catholics needed a Bible, and had needed one
for 100 years. The Douay-Rheims Bible had been printed a few times on the Continent but had never
really spread to England. Some Catholics in England were even reading the King James version -- a
situation which Bishop Challoner knew had to be rectified.
Some of the passages in the original Douay-Rheims Bible were needlessly obscure. As an extreme
example, Ephesians 6:12 read, "For our wrestling is not against flesh and bloud: but against Princes and
Potestats, against the rectors of the world of this dankness, against the spirituals of wickedness in the
celestials." The spellings were archaic, and the verses were not set off by new lines for clarity.
Challoner rectified these problems, checking carefully against the Clementine Vulgate and the original-
language texts. On the whole, Bishop Challoner's revisions were minor. He replaced certain anglicizedLatin words and archaic words and expressions, rearranged the word order of the sentences, and yet
maintained the overall word-for-word accuracy of the 16th/17th-century Douay-Rheims Bible.
The Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims Bible was a godsend. It became the standard Catholic Bible
in English until the mid-20th century (when the Confraternity Bible was published). It continued to be
called the "Douay-Rheims" because of its similarity to the original Douay-Rheims Bible. The great work
English Versions of the Bible, by Frs. Pope and Bullough, states that English-speaking Catholics the world
over owe Dr. Challoner an immense debt of gratitude, for he provided them for the first time in history
with a portable, cheap and readable version of the Bible, which has stood the test of 200 years of use.
Moreover, it is more accurate than any modern Bible because it is based on ancient texts, no longer
extant, which were "captured" and "frozen," so to speak, by St. Jerome (342-420) in his Latin Vulgate.
The Douay-Rheims is thus the most reliable English-language Bible there is. We look forward to the day
when the Christian world will rediscover this fact and come to a renewed appreciation of the
monumental work of St. Jerome, of the Douay-Rheims translators and of Bishop Richard Challoner --
men who were raised up by God to make the Bible available to the English-speaking world.
his will, his heart, his reason and his intellect.
Where is the man, no matter what denomination, church or religion, that will deny that we are
bound to believe what God has taught? I am sure there is not a Christian who will deny that we are
bound to believe whatsoever God has revealed. Therefore, it is not a matter of indifference what
religion a man professes. He must profess the true religion if he wants to be saved.
But what is the true religion? To believe all that God has taught. I am sure that even my Protestant
friends will admit this is right, for, if they do not, I would say they are no Christians at all.
"But what is the true Faith?"
"The true Faith," say Protestant friends, "is to believe in the Lord Jesus."
Agreed, Catholics believe in that. Tell me what you mean by believing in the Lord Jesus?
"Why," says my Protestant friend, "you must believe that He is the Son of the Living God."
Agreed again. Thanks be to God, we can agree on something. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of the Living God, that He is God. To this we all agree, excepting the Unitarians and Socinians, but
we will leave them alone tonight. If Christ be God, then we must believe all He teaches. Is this not
so, my dearly beloved Protestant brethren and sisters? And that's the r ight Faith, isn't it?
"Well, yes," says my Protestant friend, "I guess that is the right Faith. To believe that Jesus is the Son
of the Living God, we must believe all that Christ has taught."
We Catholics say the same, and here we agree again. We must believe all that Christ has taught, that
God has revealed. Without this Faith, there is no salvation. Without this Faith, there is no hope of
Heaven. Without this Faith, there is eternal damnation! We have the words of Christ for it, "He that
believeth not shall be condemned."
II.
But if Christ, my dearly beloved people commands me under pain of eternal damnation to believe all
that He has taught, He must give me the means to know what He has taught. And the means Christ
gives us of knowing this must have been at all times within the reach of all people.
Secondly, the means that God gives us to know what He has taught must be a means adapted to the
capacities of all intellects, even the dullest. For even the dullest have a right to salvation, and
consequently they have a right to the means whereby they shall learn the truths that God has taught,
that they may believe them and be saved.
The means that God give us to know what he has taught must be an infallible means. For if it be a
means that can lead us astray, it can be no means at all. It must be an infallible means, so that if aman makes use of that means, he will infallibly, without fear of mistake or error, be brought to a
knowledge of all the truths that God has taught.
I don't think there can be anyone present here, I care not what he is, a Christian or an unbeliever,
who can object to my premises. And these premises are the groundwork of my discourse and of all my
reasoning, therefore, I want you to bear them in mind. I will repeat them, for on these premises rests
all the strength of my discourse and reasoning.
If God commands me under pain of eternal damnation to believe all that He has taught, He is bound
to give me the means to know what He has taught. And the means that God gives me must have been
at all times within the reach of all people, must be adapted to the capacities of all intellects, must
be an infallible means to us, so that if a man makes use of it he will be brought to a knowledge of all
the truths that God has taught.
III.
Has God given us such means? "Yes," say my Protestant friends, "He has." And so says the Catholic.
God has given us such means. What is the means God has given us whereby we shall learn the truth
that God has revealed? "The Bible," say my Protestant friends, "the Bible, the whole of the Bible, and
nothing but the Bible." But we Catholics say, "No, not the Bible and its private interpretation, but the
Church of the Living God."
I will prove the facts, and I defy all my separated brethren, and all the preachers, to disprove what I
will say tonight. I say, then, it is not the private interpretation of the Bible that has been appointed
by God to be the teacher of man, but the Church of the Living God.
For, my dear people, if God has intended that man should learn His religion from a book, the Bible,
surely God would have given that book to man. Christ would have given that book to man. Did He do
Some years ago, when I lived in St. Louis, there was held in that city a convention of ministers. All
denominations were invited, the object being to arrange for a new translation of the Bible, and give
it to the world. The proceedings of the convention were published daily in the Missouri Republican. A
very learned Presbyterian, I think it was, stood up, and, urging the necessity of giving a new
translation of the Bible, said that in the present Protestant translation of the Bible there were no less
than 30,000 errors.
And you say, my dear Protestant friends, that the Bible is your guide and teacher. What a teacher,
with 30,000 errors! The Lord save us from such a teacher! One error is bad enough, but thirty
thousand is a little too much.
Another preacher stood up in the convention, I think he was a Baptist, and, urging the necessity of
giving a new translation of the Bible, said for thirty years past the world was without the Word of
God, for the Bible we have is not the Word of God at all.
Here are your own preachers for you. You all read the newspapers, no doubt, my friends, and must
know what happened in England a few years ago. A petition was sent to Parliament for an allowance
of a few thousand pounds sterling for the purpose of getting up a new translation of the Bible. And
that movement was headed and carried on by Protestant bishops and clergymen.
VII.
But, my dear people, how can you be sure of your faith? You say the Bible is your guide, but youcannot be sure that you have the faith. Let us suppose for a moment that all have a Bible which is a
faithful translation. Even then it cannot be the guide of man, because the private interpretation of
the Bible is not infallible, but, on the contrary, most fallible. It is the source and fountain of all kinds
of errors and heresies and all kinds of blasphemous doctrines. Do not be shocked, my dear friends.
Just be calm and listen to my arguments.
There are now throughout the world 350 different denominations or churches, and all of them say the
Bible is their guide and teacher. I suppose they are all sincere. Are all of them true churches? This is
an impossibility. Truth is one as God is one, and there can be no contradiction. Every man in his
senses sees that every one of them cannot be true, for they differ and contradict one another, and
cannot, therefore, be all true. The Protestants say the man that reads the Bible right and prayerfully
has truth, and they all say that they read it right.
Let us suppose that there is an Episcopal minister. He is a sincere, honest, well-meaning and
prayerful man. He reads his Bible in a prayerful spirit, and from the word of the Bible, he says it is
clear that there must be bishops. For without bishops there can be no priests, without priests no
Sacraments, and without Sacraments no Church. The Presbyterian is a sincere and well-meaning man.
He reads the Bible also, and deduces that there should be no bishops, but only presbyters. "Here is
the Bible," says the Episcopalian, and "here is the Bible to give you the lie," says the Presbyterian. Yet
both of them are prayerful and well-meaning men.
Then the Baptist comes in. He is a well-meaning, honest man, and prayerful also. "Well," says the
Baptist, "have you ever been baptized?" "I was," says the Episcopalian, "when I was a baby."
"And so was I," says the Presbyterian, "when I was a baby." "But," says the Baptist, "you are going to
Hell as sure as you live."
Next comes the Unitarian, well-meaning, honest, and sincere. "Well," says the Unitarian, "allow me to
tell you that you are a pack of idolators. You worship a man for a God who is no God at all." And he
gives several texts from the Bible to prove it, while the others are stopping their ears that they may
not hear the blasphemies of the Unitarian. And they all contend that they have the true meaning of
the Bible.
Next comes the Methodist, and he says, "My friends, have you got any religion at all?" "Of course we
have," they say. "Did you ever feel religion," says the Methodist, "the spirit of God moving within
you?" "Nonsense," says the Presbyterian, "we are guided by our reason and judgment." "Well," says theMethodist, "if you never felt religion, you never had it, and will go to Hell for eternity."
The Universalist next comes in, and hears them threatening one another with eternal hellfire. "Why,"
says he, "you are a strange set of people. Do you not understand the Word of God? There is no Hell at
all. That idea is good enough to scare old women and children," and he proves it from the Bible.
Now comes in the Quaker. He urges them not to quarrel, and advises that they do not baptize at all.
He is the sincerest of men, and gives the Bible for his faith.
Another comes in and says, "Baptize the men and leave the women alone. For the Bible says, unless a
man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. "So," says
he, "the women are all right, but baptize the men."
Next comes in the Shaker and he says, "You are a presumptuous people. Do you not know that the
Bible tells you that you must work out your salvation in fear and trembling, and you do not tremble
at all. My brethren, if you want to go to Heaven shake, my brethren, shake!"
VIII.
I have here brought together seven or eight denominations, differing one from another, or
understanding the Bible in different ways, illustrative of the fruits of private interpretation. What,
then, if I brought together the 350 different denominations, all taking the Bible for their guide and
teaching, and all differing from one another? Are they all right? One says there is a Hell, and another
says there is not Hell. Are both right? One says Christ is God, another says He is not. One says they
are unessential. One says Baptism is a requisite, and another says it is not. Are both true? This is an
impossibility, my friends. All cannot be true.
Who, then, is true? He that has the true meaning of the Bible, you say. But the Bible does not tell us
who that is, the Bible never settles the quarrel. It is not the teacher.
The Bible, my dear people, is a good book. We Catholics admit that the Bible is the Word of God, the
language of inspiration, and every Catholic is exhorted to read the Bible. But good as it is, the Bible,
my dear friends, does not explain itself. It is a good book, the Word of God, the language of
inspiration, but your explanation of the Bible is not the language of inspiration. Your understanding
of the Bible is not inspired, for surely you do not pretend to be inspired!
It is with the Bible as it is with the Constitution of the United States. When Washington and his
associates established the Constitution and the Supreme Law of the United States, they did not say to
the people of the States: "Let every man read the Constitution and make a government unto himself.
Let every man make his own explanation of the Constitution." If Washington had done that, there
never would have been a United States. The people would all have been divided among themselves,
and the country would have been cut up into a thousand different divisions or governments.
What did Washington do? He gave the people the Constitution and the Supreme Law, and appointed
his Supreme Court and Supreme Judge of the Constitution. And these are to give the true explanation
of the Constitution to all the American citizens, all without exception, from the President to the
beggar. All are bound to go by the decisions of the Supreme Court, and it is this and this alone that
can keep the people together and preserve the Union of the United States. At the moment the people
take the interpretation of the Constitution into their own hands, there is the end of the union.
And so it is in every government. So it is here and everywhere. There is a Constitution, a Supreme
Court or Law, a Supreme Judge of that Constitution, and that Supreme Court is to give us the
meaning of the Constitution and the Law.
In every well-ruled country there must be such a thing as this: a Supreme Law, Supreme Court,
Supreme Judge, that all the people abide by. All are bound by decisions, and without that, no
government could stand. Even among the Indian tribes such a condition of affairs exists. How are
they kept together? By their chief, who is their dictator.
So our Divine Savior also has established His Supreme Court, His Supreme Judge, to give us the true
meaning of the Scriptures, and to give us the true revelation and doctrines of the Word of Jesus. The
Son of the Living God has pledged His Word that this Supreme Court is infallible, and therefore, the
true Catholic never doubts.
"I believe," says the Catholic, "because the Church teaches me so. I believe the Church because God
has commanded me to believe her." Jesus said: "Tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church,
let him be to thee as the heathen and publican." [Matt 18:17]. "He that believeth you believeth Me."
said Christ, "and he that despiseth you despiseth Me." [Luke 10:16]. Therefore, the Catholic believes
because God has spoken, and upon the authority of God.
But our Protestant friends say, "We believe in the Bible." Very well, how do you understand the Bible?
"Well," says the Protestant, "to the best of my opinion and judgment this is the meaning of the text."He is not sure of it, but to the best of his opinion and judgment. This, my friends, is only the
testimony of a man. It is only human faith, not Divine Faith.
It is Divine Faith alone by which we give honor and glory to God, by which we adore His infinite
wisdom and veracity. That adoration and worship is necessary for salvation.
I have now proved to you that private interpretation of the Scripture cannot be the guide or teacher
of man. In another lecture I shall prove that the Catholic Church is the only true Church of God, and