Los Angeles herald., 1907-03-11
CATHOLIC CHURCH
PRESERVED BIBLE
BISHOP C0NATY breaches
FOURTH OF SERIES
Says All Religions Based on Holy
Writ Must Give Credit to the
Church for Its Early
Work

was the topic OF BlsnOp COnaJy yesttI
day morning at the last mass at the Ca
thedral of st. Vibiana in his fourth ser
mon in the Lenten course. Bishop Co
naty said in part:
| LIT would seem difficult to understand
how any one could believe the antago
nism of the church to the Bible since II
Is to the Catholic church that the worlt
owes the preservation of the books nov
recognized as forming the Bible. Fol-
| 1900 years the Catholic church ruled the
| Christian world almost without ques-
tion, and the pope was the ecclesiastical
sovereign recognized a the vicar OF
Christ. During that time she was the
sole guardian of the Bible and her care
and preservation of it are evidences OF
her deep love for it. Besides that it is
through the Bible that the church
proves her claim to teach and in it she
finds proofs for her doctrine and wor-
ships. Her love for the Bible is seen in
the very sacredness with which she in
vests the books and the jealousy with
which she has guarded the sacred text.
"Those who build their religion upon
the Bible have to credit the church for
having preserved it for many centuries.
How Church Receives Bible
THE Catholic church does not receive
the Bible as the immediate medium of
divine revelation or the constituted
teacher of faith for one ignorant of
faith, but she believes the Bible to be
the word of God, that in 1t Is the prom
ise of Christ and the fulfillment of the
promise, as also the establishment of
the church as the teacher of the gospel
of Christ She regards the Bible as one
of the sources of faith originally de-
posted with her and she is witness
to the Bible and her word is needed to
assure us of the divine inspiration and
authority of the sacred scriptures. She
kept her saints and scholars TRANSCRIPT
ing the copies in the centuries before
printing and her monasteries and
churches were libraries in which the
Bible was the most precious of all the
books. She has always prescribed the
study of 1t in all her institutions for
the education of her clergy and laity
and has obliged her priests and reli-
gious to reverently, attentively and de-
voutly read portion of it every day.
Her prohibitions at different times
or the reading of the Bible in certain
localities in the popular languages have
been to protect the ignorant from the
danger of false and imperfect transla-
tions, as also to protect the Bible from
Corrected and authentic
have been made under the
of the church during all times
and in all languages centuries before
there was any question of the reforma-
ton. No Catholic can in safe conscience
deny that the Holy Bible is the word of
God, nor can any Catholic reject any
of it's books or texts. There is no d.
vine or ecclesiastical precept compell-
ing the people to read the Bible; it is
recommended, urged by the
ph11rpb hut NOT praSprihpd
Knowledge of Bible Essential
From the days of the apostles, who
impressed upon their disciples the i'm
portance of knowledge OF the scriptures,
the church has made the knowledge of
the Bible an essential part in the studies
Of the priesthood. The clergy most par
ticularly were required to study the
sacred writings, and the canons of the
different councils inculcated this duty.
In the monastic schools it was an inn
portant branch of study and some
schools were world famous for Scrip
ture study. Hundreds of both sexes
went to the convent of Chello, near
Paris, to attend the Scripture lessons of
st. BERTHA. One of the obligations in
the schools of the early church was
that of learning by heart the New Tes-
lament and the Psalms.
"St. Benedict prescribed for his monks
a time which was to be given to the
study of the Bible, and 1t was also pre-
scribed that the Scriptures be read
aloud during meals. thousand years
later learned Benedictine wrote, Two
things have maintained the vigor and
discipline of our order-the love of God
and the study of the Bible In the
Irish monastaries the first of the seven
grades of wisdom was the ability to
chant in Latin the $50 Psalms from
memory. st. Bede, the English histor.
ian, says: The Irish monastaries were
so famous that from all parts of Europe
students flocked for the Scripture les
sons We know that in the ordination
of deacons from time immemorial these
words are used: Read this volume of
the Gospels read and understand it, and
teach 1t tolothers.'
Before the art of printing was discov-
cred it was impossible for the sacred
books to be in the hands of all, but 1t is
to the credit of the church that innum-
cradle copies were. circulated by the
labor OF the monks who spent their
years in copying and Illuminating the
sacred text.
TransIations for People
"As to the laity, the church occupied
itself from the earliest times with hav-
ing authentic translations made for the
people. 1t was not an easy matter to
make a copy of the Bible, as it had to
be transcribed by hand and it has been
conservatiyely estimated that in the
middle ages a copy of the Bible would
cost $1,000. Yet it has been said that the
monastery was indeed poor that had not
its copy and when once obtained the
monks set to work to speedily tram
scribe it. The most valuable manu-
scripts in European libraries are the
copies of the Bible from monastic
schools and medieval churches. Prob
ably the most valuable, as we'll as the
most beautifully written book in ex-
istence, is the Book Of Kells, a Vellum
manuscript of the four Gospels made by
the Irish monks and now In the Royal
Irish library of Dublin. The book of
Armagh. also an Irish manuscript.
contains a translation of the Bible in
the Gaelic, and dates from the fourth
century. In fact, many of these copies
are interllned by the monks with the
Gaelic translations, and 1t Is from these
CLOSES, as they are called. of the Bible
that modern scholars have been able to
rebuild the ancient Gaelic. OF the l39