New Testament. The Old Testament contains the revelations made in the beginning to man, and those which God made subsequently through the Patriarchs and the prophets of Israel before the coming of Christ. The New Testament, written by the Apostles and Evangelists, records the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, the foundation of His Church and the early events of her history.
Frequently the true sense of the Scriptures is obscure. Sometimes the words are to be taken in their exact litreral meaning; at other times they are figurative. The sacred writers, as Pope Leo XIII. has said,[1] put down what God, speaking to men, signified in the way that men could understand and were accustomed to.
The Church alone, guided by the Holy Ghost, can infallibly declare what is the true sense of the sacred text. In comparatively few cases has the Church declared whether the words are to be taken literally or in a figurative sense. She has never, for instance, taught that the six days of creation mean days of twenty-four hours each; nor has she determined the age of the world, or the date at which man was created. On the other hand, she has always clearly insisted on the great truths taught in the history of the creation, related in the Bible, which are the unity, the eternity, the goodness, and the omnipotence of God; His creation of all things out of nothing; the spirituality and the immortality of the human soul; the fall of man; the wickedness of sin: the transmission of the effects of original sin from our first parents to all their descendants; the character of marriage as a union for life between one man and one woman; and the necessity of a Divine Saviour for all the human race. Whenever the Church is silent regarding the meaning of a text or passage of the Bible, no private person, however learned he may be, has the
- ↑ The Study of Holy Scripture. "Encyclical Providentissimus Deus."
