SUMMARY OF PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS, ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE.

SUMMARY OF PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS, ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE.

     God has elevated man, freed him of guilt and ruin, restored him to his initial dignity and has made known to him the mystery of his divinity.

     He revealed himself through the inspiration of the holyspirit to man. This supernatural revelation, the church believe, is contained in both written tradition and written books which is called sacred and canonical. God himself is the author of the sacred book, he composed the book; the words of the book are his words.

     Priests are encouraged to read this sacred book, meditate over it, ponder on it and explain it to the people. The apostolic office also enjoins them to help in making this sacred book reach the Christians and also to defend it against the attack of the heretics.

     The holy spirit himself testifies that all the scripture is inspired by God and is profitable to teach, reprove, correct and instruct justice. Jesus himself used the sacred book to prove that he was sent by God. He used it against the saduccees, Pharisees, Satan and he also made use of it at the close of his death and at his resurrection. The church therefore enjoins us to hold the scripture with esteem and reverence because our faith, doctrine and teaching all lies on it. As St Jerome will rightly say,  ”to be ignorant of the scripture is not to know Christ.

     In preaching with the scripture, the priests have to depend on God and try their best to teach what God is trying to communicate and should not depend on themselves or human science or prudence. For any preacher who depend on himself or human science may preach well but his words will lack the fire and utterance and power of God which the speech of God possess.

     Therefore, the church fathers encourages preachers to read and study the scripture and let the word of God penetrate their own soul, least they will use it in reproving others and forgetting their own self. The church has made sure that this sacred book is not neglected as it has prescribed a considerable portion of the scripture to be read and reflected upon by her teachers in the divine office and also to be read to the people at least on feast days and solemnities and to be interpreted only by capable men.

     This scripture, right from the beginning of Christianity is the essential for those who are well known for holiness of life and sacred leanings and as it was seen, (founded in their books).

     With the coming of science, through the help of printing machines, the bible was made accessible to people (which include the Christians and the rationist)

        How to study the scripture

     Initially, the church suffers from those who rejected the teachings and tradition of the church and held the scripture as one and only source of revelation and final appeal in matters of faith, but now, the church have to face the rationist, those who have trusted in their own thinking and have rejected and deny the existence of revelation and the scripture. They see the holy scripture as a book filled with stories fabricated by men. They see prophesies and oracles of God in the scripture as predictions made up after the events, they see the miracles as mere tricks and myths, for them, the gospel was not the work of the apostles at all. Among those rationists, some are considered to be theologians of the church and men of the gospel. These attacks on the catholic faith keeps growing and the evil plan of the enemy is more directed to the ignorant masses as they poison the peoples faith by  means of books and conversations etc

     These enemies are everywhere and have forcefully taken many school away from the church and have corrupted the minds of the young ones; making them have contempt for the scripture. Should not these stir up the hearts of our preachers and pastors to oppose the rationist that the Holy Scripture may find the champions that are needed in so momentous a battle.

     It is therefore very important that the scripture is studied in seminary schools and academic institutions and also the teachers of this scripture should be carefully selected and that they should be those whose behavior and character is proved by their love of God and their long familiarity with the scripture.

     It is also very important that there should be successions of these teachers by selecting good and promising young men who have finished their theological studies and set them apart solely for the scripture and providing them all they need to complete their studies. They should take note of the following when they are through with their studies and ready for work.

     The professor should teach the students how to defend the sacred writings and to penetrate their meanings, how to meet and refute objections, how to teach the sacred scripture and how to interpret it.

     The professor should make use of the vulgate as his text as decreed in the council of trent for public lectures. They should also be careful in weighing meaning of words and making use of illustrious parallelism of passages etc so as not to overload the minds of the students with information that will be rather a hindrance than help.

Holy scripture and theology; interpretation of the fathers

     The scripture is inspired by the holy spirit, and therefore contains mysteries which are beyond human understanding. God gave the scripture to the church. For one to read the interior meaning of the scripture, one must follow the guide laid down by the church and also take the church as his/her teacher. No one, except the mother church is allowed to interpret the scripture. So therefore, all preachers should follow the interpretations of the church. All interpretations therefore must harmonize the inspiration of the sacred writers and should also be in conformity with the doctrine of the church.

     The church holds the church fathers with great esteem for having tendered the church. The holy fathers are of supreme authorities and whenever they all interpret any text of the bible in one same manner as pertaining the doctrine of faith and morals, such interpretations is considered to come from the apostles as a matter of catholic faith. So, for one to be a professor of the scripture; among other recommendations, one must have a deep knowledge of theologies and commentaries of the church fathers.

     It is therefore not forbidden to go beyond what the church fathers have laid down provided the person carefully observe the rule laid down by St. Augustine not to depart from the literal and obvious sense , except only where reason makes it untenable or necessities requires.

     The senses of the scripture is fully found inside the catholic church as the church fathers has rightly said, nevertheless, the studies of non-catholic used well may sometimes be of use to the student.

     For Thomas Aquinas, in his word, he said he can defend the scripture with another passage of the scripture when a heretic rejects a portion of the scripture but when the heretic rejects divine revelation, then, there is no way left to prove the article of faith by reasoning. So, care must be taken that beginners approach the study of the scripture well prepared to avoid the danger of error and doubting the words of the sacred scripture. The best preparation is the application to philosophy and theology under the guidance of Thomas Aquinas and through training as directed by the church.

The authority of the holy scripture: modern criticism; physical science

     According to St. John Chrysoston, priests should try to know the tactics of the enemies and get acquainted to ways of contending them. For the enemies has different weapons and tactics. So, it is necessary that professors of sacred scripture and theologians should master the languages the sacred scripture are originally written. A good knowledge of science is also needed to refute those who use physical science to scrutinize and detect mistakes in the scripture. Attacks of this kind is dangerous to the people most especially the young ones, who may start holding the scripture with contempt, and at a point will disbelieve the scripture entirely.

     According to St. Augustine for the theologians he said that they must show science discovery that has to do with physical nature capable of reconciliation with the scripture, if it goes contrary to the scripture, they must prove it to be false or believe wholly that it is false.

     We are not to hold all the opinions of the church fathers, the era of the church fathers and our own era is not the same, on passages where physical matter occur in interpreting the sacred scripture, they have sometimes expressed ideas of their own time which in our time is considered incorrect.

Inspiration incompatible with error

     There are people who labor hard just to find mistakes in the scripture. The entire books of the bible are inspired by the spirit, God is the author of the sacred scripture and cannot be the author of error.

     Theologians can not be enough for defense of the scripture, learned people are also needed.

     Let us therefore put these into action in order to praise God for revealing of himself to man.

     Blessings.

Pope leo XIII, 18^th of November, 1893

            providentissimus dues, an encyclical letter of pope leo XIII.

18^th of November, 1893