1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

"TO KNOW noth·
ing of the
Scriptures is to
know nothing of
Christ.'" So said
Catholic "Saint" Jerome,
fourth- and
fifth-century Latin
"church father,"
hailed by Pope Pius
XII as "the greatest
of the Doctors in Bible
teaching."2 So
convinced was Jerome
of the importance of studying the
Bible that he also wrote: "If there is anything
in this life that sustains the wise
man and moves him to keep a serene mind
amid the tribulations and upheavals of the
world, it is, I am convinced, first and
foremost, meditation on the Scriptures and
knowledge of them."3
That this was not an isolated view is attested
to by a church-approved Catholic
work in the following terms: "This veneration
of the Holy Scriptures is to be found
in all the early Fathers. The numerous
translations made in order to put them
into the hands of the faithful, the consid·
erable textual criticism that dates from
that time, particularly by Origen and
Saint Jerome, provide glaring proof of the
literary activity that went on in the early
centuries, and indicate irrefutably that the
Bible occupied a special place in the minds
of the Christians. Moreover, most of the
writings of the Fathers are homiletic commentaries
of the Scriptures."4
8
YOU ARE
ALLOWED TO
READ
BIBLE
Since the early
"church fathers"
unanimously rec.
ognized the value
of the Holy Scriptures,
how is it
that in many Coun·
tries Catholics still
regard the Bible as
a "Protestant
book" and therefore
as forbidden reading? To answer that
question, we shall need to review a few
pages of church history.
The Bible in Living Languages
The large portion of the Holy Scriptures
commonly called the Old Testament was
originally written in Hebrew, with a few
small sections in Aramaic. A" Hebrew
passed away as a generally living language,
those Jews who spoke only the common
or koine Greek, popularized by the armies
of Alexander the Great, felt the need
of a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures
in the international language of the day. To
meet their needs, during the third and sec.
and centuries before Christ, the Greek
Septuagint Version was produced. This
translation into a vulgar, international
tongue, was later used and quoted by
Christ's apostles and disciples, and the latter
used this same widely understood language
for their own writings, commonly
called the New Testament.
AWAKE!