large, but to the Teaching Apostolate; nevertheless, the Scriptures are the common property of all the members of the Church. The duty of the administrators is to communicate its teaching to all who are in the obedience of the Faith. The body of the Faithful thereby secure a better knowledge than if each one were to interpret according to his own light. Besides, such private handling of Scripture is really opposed to the notion of its being the common property of all.
6. The Bible belongs to the Church and to the Church alone. If, however, those who are outside her pale use it as a means of discovering and entering the Church, such use is perfectly legitimate. But they have no right to apply it to their own purposes, or to turn it against the Church. This is the fundamental principle of Tertullian’s work, De Præscriptionibus Hæreticorum. He shows how Catholics, before arguing with heretics on single points of scriptural doctrine, should contest the right of the latter to appeal to the Scriptures at all, and should thus defeat their action at the outset (præscribere actionem, a mode of defence corresponding to some extent with demurrer).
7. Lastly, the rights of the Teaching Apostolate include that of taking and enforcing disciplinary measures for promoting the right use, or preventing the abuse of Scripture.
SECT. 20.—DECISIONS OF THE CHURCH ON THE TEXT AND INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE
The principles laid down in the preceding section were applied by the Councils of Trent (sess. iv.) and the Vatican (sess. iii.).
I. The Council of Trent issued two decrees on the Sacred Text, one of which is dogmatic, and the other disciplinary. These decrees, however, did not so much confer upon the Vulgate its public ecclesiastical authenticity, but rather declared and confirmed the authenticity already possessed by it in consequence of its long-continued public use. “If any one,” says the Council, “receiveth not, as Sacred and Canonical, the said books, entire with all their parts (libros integros cum omnibus suis partibus) as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church,
