Los Angeles herald., 1907-03-04
BISHOP CONATY
INTERPRETS BIBLE
DELIVERS THIRD SERMON ON
HOLY WRIT
Calls Scriptures Chiefly Book Of Laws
Giving Moral Preeepts for Con-
duct Of Llfe-Needs
Interpreter


THE Interpretation of the Bible
was the topic Of Rt. Rev. Bishop Conaty
at the Cathedral Of 81. Vibiana yester'
day morning I'm his third Lenten SER
mon on THE Bible"
Z Bishop Conaty took his text from
| IL Peter, 1870. o. Understanding this
first, that no prophecy of scripture Is
made by private Interpretation, foI
prophecy came not by the will of man
at any time; but the holy men OF God
spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost" He
said:
THE Bible is given to us as inspired.
haw shall we interpret It? Is IL pos
sible for man by himself to read and
understand it? To interpret q book Is
to understand II, to make it's meaning
plain or intelligible. To interpret the
Bible means to comprehend its sense
so that one may clearly understand It's
meaning and significance. The sense
may be literal or spiritual as IL is taken
according to the letter or the spirit of
the words Interpretation is called doc
trinal when 1t refers to the explanation
of dogma or doctrine, and exegetical
when 1t is the result of analysis through
the laws of Biblical criticism.
Wnat the Cnurch edcheS
"The Catholic church teaches that
Christ gave the entire deposit Of faith
to his church which he built upon the
apostles and that i'm the church is the
unerring authority by which we know
not only what Is the Bible but also
what the Bible means. In other words,
according to our belief, the Catholic
church is, for us, the interpreter of the
Bible.
This is in direct opposition to what
is known as private Interpretation Of
the Bible by which the Individual
reader of the Bible is declared compe-
tent to interpret it for himself. If the
Bible alone had been constituted by our
divine Savior as the rule of faith we
would expect to find this clearly eX-
planned by Christ and defined by him as
the condition of salvation. The texts
which are sometimes used to justify
this position are not obvious as proofs,
for by Interpreting privately those very
texts different men have arrived at
very different conclusions, and the
rule of faith should be clear enough for
all men to understand 1t in order that
all may know what to follow. 1t
should also be so general as to be
within the reach of all men. On the
other hanr, we find Christ very clear
in his statements concerning the
authority with which he vested the
apostles and by virtue of which he COM
missioned them as his church to teach
his gospel to all creatures.
"A mere book, no matter how sacred,
can in its life cover but a very small
portion of the lifetime of mankind and
reach, at its best, but a very small
percentage of men. For 2500 years
from the creation of man to the writ
ings of Moses there was no compilation
of sacred scripture by which men could
determine their duty to God. From
Moses to Christ the books of the law
were very limited in number and not
within the reach even of the people
who gazed upon them in the sacredness
of the synagogue. In earlier days
patriarch and prophet taught the peo-
pie, and under the Mosiac law the
scriptures were expounded by the doc
tors of the law to the Jewish people
in the synagogue. Under the Jewish
dispensation the synagogue was the
teacher appointed by God to give the
people the knowledge of the law, to
interpret it and to hold them fast to
its observances.
Truths in Traditions
From the beginning of the world the
truths of religion were in the tradl-
tions of the patriarchs and prophets
and by them transmitted from lip to
lip through the centuries. Many of
these were never gathered In a book
until Moses wrote $500 years after
Adam, and the canon of scripture
which the Jewish synagogue accepted
and which forms a greater portion of
the Old Testament was not compiled
until the time of Esdras in $50 B. C.
nnrino thnCa MANY oapturiaa rnoY, Lna1r,
the will of God and the truth of re-
ligion, but it was from the lips of the
teachers, who in the authority of the
traditions and the writings gave the
knowledge necessary for faith. 1t does
not appear to have been in the economy
of redemption that any one book should
contain all the doctrine of salvation or
that any book was to be mans sole
guide in faith and morals. We find
nowhere that Christ taught any such
doctrine or that the scriptures asserted
any such mission for themselves.
Private Interpretation has prac-
tically destroyed the integrity of the
Bible and robbed 1t of it's divinity. One
man reads in it the divinity of Christ,
while another interprets 1t to deny the
divinity and to assert only the hui
manity.
"The presence of Christ in the
Eucharist as the result of Christ s
words at the last supper, apparently so
clear and simple, have as many mean
ings as there are private interpreta-
tions. The words, This is my body,
This is my blood are interpreted by
some to mean his real presence and by
others only a figure of his presence.
Some of the great leaders of private
Interpretation have absolutely con-
tradicted themselves in various ways
concerning the meaning of these words.
THE same Is true of baptism and
original sin and of the atonement, all
of which are fundamental truths OF
Christianity. These disagreements and
contradictions are not the result OF
ignorance or inability to read the
Bible, but they are the results of the
study of men apparently we'll equipped
for the study OF the work. Now, II
this be the condition of a private in
depreciation Of learned men, what must
we expect of the poor. hard working
millions who have not the Biblical
knowledge by which even In a remote
way to understand the different
methods of expression as found In the
Bible? Even advanced scholarship has