1. – What is the Bible
I. Etymologically, it is "the Book" par excellence, the book of books. Such, indeed, is the meaning of the word Bible, which derives from Greek via Latin Bible (a diminutive of Biblos: many books that have become one book, as Saint John Chrysostom said). A perfectly apt name, which rightly places the Bible above all other books and gives it a unique rank among the literary works of the entire world. The expression "The Books" is found in several places; cf. Daniel 9:2; 1 Maccabees 12:9; 2 Maccabees 8:23; 2 Timothy 4:13. A similar designation will be Holy Scripture, Or Holy Letters. « Scripture »" : is the expression usually used by Our Lord Jesus Christ when he quotes the books of the Old Testament.
All Scripture is inspired by God, 2 Timothy 3, 16; ; It was by the Holy Spirit that men spoke from God 2 Peter 1:21.
The council Vatican He specifies: The books of the Old and New Testaments (…) must be received as sacred and canonical in their entirety, with all their parts. The Church holds them as such (…) because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author (Session 3, Dogmatic Constitution, c. 2). This declaration is in line with the 4th session of the Council of Trent.
What makes the Bible a divine book and the word of God in the strictest sense is the inspiration by which all its parts were composed. The initial impulse that prompted the sacred writers to take up their pens, the inner illumination that suggested to them, more or less completely, the materials to be used, the perpetual direction or supervision exercised over their work: all this came from God, who is thus the author of the holy books. In accordance with the figurative language of the Fathers and Doctors, The divine Scripture is a feast of wisdom, and each book is a dish of it. (S. Ambr. From official Ministry, LI, n.165) ; L'’Scripture is the heart of God, the eyes of God, the tongue of God (S. Bonav. (In Hexaem. 12). This book should be read and meditated upon with deep gratitude and great love.
God is the author, but He works through human writers.. These authors, inspired by the Holy Spirit, preserved, except in rare circumstances, such as certain ecstasies, the free exercise of their natural faculties (See 2 Macc. 1, 1; Luke 1, 1-4); that is why each of them left, in the pages written by him, the individual imprint of his character, his condition, his style.
As a human-made book, the Bible belongs to time and space. Published in fragments, it took nearly sixteen hundred years to appear (from 1500 BC to 100 AD). Its primary homeland is Palestine; but several books were composed far from Jerusalem: «in Rome, for example, or in Babylon.” The languages it uses are Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic in a few rare passages.
III. Dictated, so to speak, by God, and written by men, the Bible has been faithfully transmitted and interpreted to us by the Church, as the history of the canon, both among the Jews and among the Jews, most admirably proves. ChristiansWe need not recount here the more than maternal care with which two equally divine institutions (the Synagogue and the Church), though so dissimilar in many respects, took turns ensuring its preservation. Suffice it to say that no ancient book offers such striking guarantees of authenticity and integrity.
2. – Jesus Christ, center of the Bible
I. But, above all, in the visible intention of God who gave it to the world, and according to the constant interpretation of the Synagogue as well as the Church, the Bible is the book of the Messiah, the book of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is truly the central and fundamental idea of the inspired writings, the idea toward which all others converge; this is their principal reason for being, without which all their unity and almost all their beauty disappear: Jesus, the Christ, Son of God. "Jesus Christ, whom both Testaments regard: the Old, as their expectation, the New, as their model, both as their center," said Pascal in his Thoughts. Or better still, according to the expression of Saint Paul (Eph. 2:20) commented on by Saint Irenaeus (Against Heresies, l.4, c.25, 1. Compare these lines from St. Augustine, Contra Faust.), Jesus Christ is the main cornerstone, which unites the two Testaments in the closest way.
II. Nothing could be easier to demonstrate than this thesis. Extrinsic, or authoritative, proofs, and intrinsic proofs drawn from the very depths of the Holy Scriptures, abound in support of it. We must limit ourselves here to indicating the principal ones. Naturally, we will place greater emphasis on the writings of the Old Testament, for it is quite evident that Jesus is the alpha and omega of the New Testament.
1° Extrinsic evidence consist in the testimony of Our Lord Jesus Christ himself and in that of his apostles, in the Jewish tradition and in the Christian tradition.
On several occasions, the Lord Jesus affirms that the entire Bible speaks of him. He refers the hostile and unbelieving Pharisees to it: You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me., John 5:39. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me also, because he wrote about me, John 5:46. He sends his disciples and friends to this place: And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself., Luke 24:27. Then he said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”, Luke 24:44. He applies not only the whole thing, but also specific and minute details: for example, the symbol of the bronze serpent, John 3:14; Isaiah's oracle concerning the gentle and merciful conduct of the Messiah, Luke 3:16-21; the prophecies concerning his Passion, Matthew 26:54, and Luke 22:37. On the point of expiring, he utters this final cry: Everything is consumed, John. 19, 30, meaning that he had fully realized the Old Testament prophecies concerning his life, his role, and his death.
Like their Master, the evangelists and apostles constantly refer to the Bible, drawing freely from the rich treasury of messianic prophecies, highlighted by numerous texts (as many as two hundred and seventy-five have been counted). Their study is quite instructive. This number does not include mere allusions of thought and language, which are encountered at every turn. And yet, the New Testament is far from quoting everything, since it omits first-order messianic oracles, such as Is 9, 6-7; Jer. 23, 5-6; Zech. 6, 12-13, etc) the perfect harmony which exists between the life of Jesus Christ and the inspired writings, showing in all ways that in their eyes the Old Testament derives its main value from the Messiah who was to fulfill it.
Saint Philip exclaimed at the very moment he had just met Jesus for the first time: We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, son of JosephJohn 1:45 (it is remarkable that the angels, to announce to Zechariah, to Married, to Joseph, to the shepherds, the coming of the Messiah, use the expressions of the Old Testament, and the images of the prophets. Cf. Matt. 1, 20-21; Luke 1(13-17, 30-35; 2, 10-13). The four biographers of the Savior point out at every turn, in their narratives, the providential coincidences of his smallest actions with the figures and oracles of the Old Covenant. Jesus fulfilled, feature for feature, the great messianic ideal of the prophets: this is the fundamental thought upon which everything rests, to which everything is traced back in Saint Matthew (he quotes the Old Testament forty-three times). The formulas he uses to introduce his quotations are significant: All this took place so that what the Lord had announced through the prophet might be fulfilled.…; or: Then what had been foretold was fulfilled.. Thus, it is God's own plan and counsel that is highlighted; it is not a mere human accommodation, but a rigorous fulfillment. Although they did not write for Jews in the manner of the first evangelist, Saint Mark and Saint Luke follow a similar path, and they, in turn, historically prove, through passages from the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, that Jesus is the promised Messiah (St. Mark has nineteen quotations, St. Luke twenty-two). Saint John (fourteen direct quotations, independent of allusions) takes up the formula "« so that it may be fulfilled» of Saint Matthew, and, consistently, he bases his narrative on the Old Testament as its natural foundation: for him, Palestine is the land of Christ, and the Hebrews constitute his special nation (John 1:11); several incidents from Jewish history have foreshadowed the mysteries of the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, among others, the manna, the Passover lamb (John 6:32; 19:36). Nothing is more striking than these parallels, which the evangelists would not have thought of themselves, but which the Holy Spirit deigned to suggest to them (John 2:22; 12:16; 20:8, etc.).
It was also the Old Testament that provided all the apostles in general with the substance of their speeches and letters when they proclaimed Our Lord Jesus Christ. What does Saint Peter seem to be most struck by in the few pages of his that have survived? The literal and complete fulfillment, by his Master, of the ancient prophecies. He cites in turn, in this regard, Joel, Acts 2:16-21; David, Acts 2:25-28, 34-35; Moses, Acts 3:22-23; Isaiah, 1 Peter 2:6. But, unable to say everything, he summarizes his thought in the following lines, Acts 3:24-25: All the prophets who spoke successively, beginning with Samuel, also foretold these days.. (The Messianic era). Saint Stephen, the angelic-faced deacon, concludes his beautiful Christological discourse with these words: Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One., Acts 7:52. Saint Paul, this converted rabbi who had avidly immersed himself in the study of the Holy Scriptures and Jewish traditions, proved better than anyone, both through general principles and detailed applications, that Jesus Christ is truly the soul of the Bible. His principles are remarkably clear and forceful: for Christ is the end of the law, Romans 10:4; when Jesus Christ appears, it is that the time has come (cf. the "end of days", a phrase by which the Old Testament designates the Messianic era several times. Gen 49, 1. Nom. 24, 14. Is. 2, 2, etc.), Gal. 4, 4, which was what everyone ardently desired under the Old Covenant; ; The law was like a teacher to lead us to Christ., or better, according to the Greek text, a teacher who leads us to Christ, Gal. 4:24; the faithful are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Ephesians 2:20; the Old Testament, with its laws and ceremonies, was only a shadow, the New is the body, the reality, Colossians 2:17; Jesus Christ yesterday and today, yesterday under the regime and in the books of the Jewish theocracy, today in the Christian Church, Hebr. 13, 8 (Cf 1, 1-2: « Having spoken in the past, at many times and in many ways, to our ancestors through the prophets »These sentences speak for themselves. Moreover, Saint Paul personally commented on them, both orally and in writing, through applications that were as rich as they were frequent. His discourses to the Jews could be reduced to a few lines: And we bring you this good news: the promise made to our ancestors , Acts 13:32; ; bearing witness before small and great alike, without departing in any way from what the prophets and Moses declared would happen, Acts 26:22; ; seeking to persuade them through the Law of Moses and the ProphetsActs 28:23. His magnificent letters, all filled with the name and of love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, constantly return to this essential proof. Sometimes, at first glance, the applications seem surprising and far-fetched; for example, in certain passages where the history of the Hebrews is correlated with that of Christ and his Church (see especially 1 Cor. 10:1-10; Gal. 4:21-31; Heb. 9:3-40). But the great Apostle took care to cite this other profound principle: These things happened to them to serve as examples., 1 Cor. 10, 11.
Apollos, the famous Alexandrian Jew whose conversion was completed by Aquila and Priscilla, friends of Saint Paul, is called in the book of Acts, 18:24, a man well-versed in the Scriptures. But what exactly was his skill, his power? Saint Luke expresses it in these terms a little further down, verse 28: For he vehemently refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.
If we move from the books of the New Testament to the ancient Jewish interpretations of Scripture, such as the Targums, the Talmud, the Midrash, and the writings of the early rabbis, we see that in Israel, until the 12th century AD, it was a perpetual and sacred tradition to find the Messiah everywhere in the Bible. Sometimes his name is inserted in the middle of the texts to clearly indicate that only he can be referred to (Numbers 24:17, according to the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan: "A king will come from Jacob, and the Messiah will arise in Israel"). On the famous Mèm'ra, equivalent to Logos, Sometimes a paraphrase applies it further to passages that did not directly evoke his memory (Gen. 49:10, the Targums add: "Until the time of the Messiah" Hos. 14:8, the Targum of Jonathan translates: "They will dwell in the shadow of their Christ"). And a thousand other similar features. See the book by Rabbi David Drach, who became Catholic under the name: David Paul Louis Bernard DRACH., Harmony between the Church and the synagogue(downloadable from JesusMarie.com); sometimes, even in the Talmud and similar writings, endless discussions are opened among the most renowned rabbis to prove, willingly or unwillingly, that everything applies to him. "The prophets," says a rabbinic axiom, "only prophesied about the happiness of the Messiah's days." The exaggeration is obvious; nevertheless, on the whole, this approach of the Jewish scholars was a rigorous truth, since Christ is the heart of the Holy Scriptures. One should not try to apply everything immediately to the Messiah; but the passages that do not directly concern him at least serve as a support for those that announce him. As in a lyre, says Saint AugustineThe strings alone are sonorous by their very nature, and yet the wood on which they are mounted serves no other purpose than to contribute to the production of sound. So it is with the entire Old Testament, which resounds like a harmonious lyre with the name and reign of Jesus Christ.
This is already evident from this delicate comparison of Saint AugustineThe Christian Fathers and Doctors of the early centuries, when studying the Bible, liked to view all its constituent parts as concentric circles, or as converging rays, with the Lord Jesus at the true center. Like the Apostles and following the Savior's urgent recommendation, they scrutinized the Scriptures primarily to discover the promised Messiah (It is in theEpistle of St. Barnabas, (composed between the years 71 and 120 AD, in which we find the first systematic discussion of passages from the Old Testament carried out by Jesus Christ). Saint Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew ; Athenagoras, in his Apology ; Tertullian, Against the Jews ; Saint Irenaeus, Against Heresies (Book 4, chapters 19-26) frequently develop this theme. Origen and the other writers of the Alexandrian school said that it was better to seek Christ ten times where he was not, than to forget him even once where he was. (Against Celsus), 1. 2, c. 13. ; Phillocal. c. 15. Cf. In Levi. Hom. 1.) Some members of the Antioch school did, it is true, attempt a regrettable reaction, and went so far as Theodore of Mopsuestia, among others, to deny that Jesus Christ had been foretold by the prophets (these are the very words of the Second Council of Constantinople, which condemned Theodore); but they found no serious echo, and the Fathers of the West as well as those of the East—Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Ephrem, Basil, Chrysostom—continued to seek and find Christ throughout their Bibles. «The cup of wisdom is in your hands,” says Saint Ambrose (In Psalm(1, n. 33). This cup is twofold: it is the Old and the New Testaments. Drink them, for in both you drink Christ. Drink Christ, for he is a fountain of life… Drink the Word in both Testaments… One drinks Scripture, one devours it, when the juice of the eternal Word descends into the veins of the spirit and into the essence of the soul. Saint Augustine, Sermon 20 of Sanctis. See also De civit. Dei, 1.17 and 18, and Contra Faust., l.12. Christian art and Christian epigraphy at their beginning, that is to say at the very origin of the ChristianityHad they not been filled with this thought? Types and prophecies, Abel and Jonah, Isaac and Daniel, the slain lamb and the devouring lion, the manna and the fleece, the flood and the rainbow: these traits and a hundred others from the Old Testament are attributed to Our Lord Jesus Christ by the paintings in the catacombs of Rome, and by the ancient inscriptions of Asia Minor or of the Syria.
And from those distant times to the present day, all believing exegetes have likewise come to greet Jesus Christ in the Jewish Bible, where he manifests himself no less than in the apostolic writings. Jesus Christ was present among men before his visible appearance, present on the other side of Calvary, on the slope of the old world, as Word and Savior. We have heard Pascal, the genius of the 17th century; Bossuet also cast his gaze upon the sacred pages: «All (the inspired authors) wrote in advance the history of the Son of God, who was also to be made the son of Abraham and David. Thus, everything is followed in the order of divine counsel. This Messiah, shown from afar as the son of Abraham, is shown even more closely as the son of David (Discourse on Universal History, Part 1, Chapter 4. Every page of this magnificent work aims to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is the center not only of the Bible and Jewish history, but of universal history. All parts of the Bible are united in the most intimate way by a unique relationship: their relationship to Jesus Christ, the Anointed of God, the Savior of Israel, the Savior of humanity. Without him, the entire sacred history would have neither coherence nor purpose. Indeed, it would have none, since he is the perpetual object of promises, religious customs, national expectation, and the ardent aspirations of God's people. The expectation of the Messiah sheds light on all the books of the Old Testament, which, thanks to it, form the most perfect harmony, and which would otherwise be chaos. Lacordaire, on this same thought, has written eloquent pages, in which he shows, from the top to the bottom of the Holy Scriptures, "the figure of Christ illuminating everything with his light and his beauty."« Letters to a Young Man on the Christian Life, Paris, 1878, p. 111. The second letter, The Worship of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, largely relates to the same subject.
2° It is no less easy to demonstrate by the intrinsic evidenceThat is to say, by the very content of the sacred books, Our Lord Jesus Christ is the culminating point and central idea of the Bible. This volume, composed by so many different and dissimilar authors, at such long intervals, under such different civilizations, presents a remarkable unity: everything is linked together in an astonishing way. Now, Christ is the moral bond that unites its various parts into a single bundle. Each individual writing presents the messianic idea in a new form; all of them explain, verify, and complement one another. This axiom, which the Middle Ages extracted from the writings of Saint Augustine (Quaest. 73 in Exod.) : The New Testament is hidden within the Old Testament. The Old Testament is clearly revealed in the New Testament., is a perfect summary of the thought we need to develop.
1. It is easy to see that Jesus Christ is the sole theme of the New Testament. The Gospels, the Acts of the ApostlesThe Letters and the Book of Revelation deal exclusively with him and his reign. But we have already seen that the evangelists and apostles establish perpetual points of reference between their own books and those of the Old Covenant. However, let us limit ourselves here to two pages from the Holy Gospels. What, in essence, is the genealogy of Jesus as we read it in Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38? What are the seventy-two names in the longest list? It is as complete a summary as possible of the Old Testament. The secondary details have been omitted, and only the essential facts have been retained; and everything essential relates to the Messiah, to Jesus Christ.
2. If the Gospel is an abridgment of the Law and the Prophets, it can also be said that the writers of the Old Covenant condensed the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ in their most beautiful passages: they are, as has been so aptly said, the evangelists of the Old Testament; at God's dictation, they outlined for the Messiah the program he was to fulfill one day; they painted his image slowly but surely. And it is not only in the prophetic writings themselves that one can study this portrait of such exact likeness; it is perceived throughout the entire Bible, for the messianic oracles resound everywhere.
The promise of a Savior, made in the earthly paradise, is the first link in an unbroken chain of prophecies, from Adam to Zechariah, father of Saint John the Baptist. It has therefore long been given the beautiful name of proto-gospel (Gen. 3:15). A brilliant ray of light that Adam and Eve carried with them from Eden, like a vivid consolation in their distress. With Noah, Gen. 9:26, the promise becomes more precise and clearer: the "son of the woman" will be the son of Shem, to whom the story of redemption is then linked. The circle tightens further with Abraham, when God announces to him that in his offspring all nations will be blessed, Gen. 12:3. We do not say, "And to his descendants" as if referring to several people, but he says, "To your descendants" as if speaking of only one, namely Christ., adds Saint Paul, Gal. 3:16. Later, Gen. 27:27 ff., the line of Jacob is separated from that of the profane Esau, again in view of the promise. Then Jacob himself, divinely enlightened, chooses Judah from among his sons to be the nagid, or prince, from whom the Messiah will be born, Gen. 49, 8 and ff. Several centuries pass; new revelations make the image of the Redeemer increasingly distinct: Balaam foretells his kingship, Num. 24, 17, and Moses, his triple role as legislator, mediator and prophet, Deut. 18, 18-19.
The Messianic rays, after having been rare and isolated for so long, suddenly multiply and acquire an incomparable brilliance from the time of David. This holy king contemplated the Messiah from afar and sang of him in his Psalms with a magnificence that nothing will ever equal. The other prophets no less saw the mystery of the Messiah. One sees BethlehemThe smallest town in Judea, made illustrious by his birth; and, at the same time, raised higher, he sees another birth by which he emerges from all eternity from the bosom of his Father (Micah 5:2); another sees the virginity of his mother (Isaiah 8:14). This one sees him enter his temple (Malachi 3:1); another sees him glorious in his tomb, where death had been conquered (Isaiah 53:9). In proclaiming his magnificence, they do not conceal his reproaches. They saw him sold; they knew the number and use of the thirty pieces of silver with which he was bought (Zechariah 9:12-13). So that nothing might be lacking in the prophecy, they counted the years until his coming (Daniel 9); and, unless one is willfully blind, there is no longer any way to fail to recognize him. Bossuet, Discourse on Universal History, 2nd part, ch 4. See also ch. 5 and following, which develop the same thought.
In these multiple oracles, the progress of revelation is admirably accentuated. The Holy Spirit has only gradually and progressively conjured this radiant figure of Christ, who rises before us ever more vividly, as the fullness of time approaches, the era when the sacred oracles are to be fulfilled. Each prophet adds a new detail: when the last of them has withdrawn, the picture is complete, and the image is of such precision that it will suffice to encounter the figure thus represented to exclaim immediately: It is He! Behold this Christ whose countenance fills and animates the entire Old Testament.
- We have already provided, so to speak, two summaries of the Bible, the genealogies of Jesus and the Messianic oracles, in order to demonstrate that everything in it relates to the Savior. We will add a third variation on this theme.
Just as the writings of the Old Covenant can be summed up in a series of proper names which represent the ancestors of Christ, just as all these books can be reduced to the prophecies relating to Jesus, so too they can be brought back in the simplest and most natural way to the history of the Jews, the privileged nation; now this history is closely united to that of the Messiah, it is a constant march towards the Messiah (St. Aug. Against Faust. Line 12, Chapter 7: It is a succession of men, for four thousand years, who, constantly without interruption, come one after the other to predict this same advent (of Jesus Christ). It is an entire people who announce it, and who endure for four thousand years, to bear collective witness to the assurances they have of it, Pascal., Thoughts.
Long before Abraham, mind you, in Genesis, how the sacred writer proceeds by elimination. The human race is treated like a vigorous plant, pruned from time to time to preserve its freshness and beauty. The severed branches are those that have no connection with the promised Christ: the branch of Cain (ch. 4), the branches of Japheth and Ham (ch. 10), all the Semitic branches except that of Abraham (ch. 11 and 13), the branch of Ishmael (ch. 25), the branch of Esau (ch. 26). And the same is true in the following books. What does not concern the people of the Messiah is considered secondary, and is only touched upon in passing. On the contrary, the smallest details are dwelled upon with love and indulgence when they relate to Israel and redemption. Compare, for example, the story of the Fall, Gen. 3, recounted so explicitly, to that of the many patriarchal generations over which we glide so swiftly, Gen. 5; the biographies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose every detail is noted, and the formation of the first empires, Gen. 11, presented with a stroke of the pen. Why the graceful idyll of Ruth Has it been preserved in its entirety, except because of the genealogy that concludes it and which reveals several ancestors of the Messiah? Ruth, 4, 18-22. Likewise in the other writings.
Indeed, the books that make up the Old Testament naturally fall into one of these three categories: historical books, prophetic books, and poetic or wisdom books. The first class recounts the various events of the theocracy (a very apt expression, which dates back to the historian Josephus)., Control Apion. 2:16), that is, God's direct rule over the Jews. But why did the Lord employ such diverse methods to educate his people? The covenant at the altar on Sinai, Mosaic law, the trials of the desert, the settlement in the Promised Land and in Jerusalem, the victories and defeats, the phases of glory and periods of humiliation, the isolation from all other peoples, and finally, the exile: all of this was designed to form the chosen nation and, so to speak, to educate them for the coming Christ. This divine plan is visible on every page of the Bible; it unfolds majestically, always advancing despite human obstacles, until its fulfillment on Christmas Day, or rather, until the more perfect consummation of heaven, which the final chapters of the Apocalypse (It is remarkable that the Bible ends as it began, with a creation. Cf. Gen. 1:2 and Rev. 21. The portico and the keystone of the scriptural temple are thus intimately united.) For the same reason, the oracles of the prophets, when they did not refer directly to the Messiah, were nevertheless intended to prepare for his coming, maintaining the Hebrew people, sometimes through threats, sometimes through promises, in sound beliefs, in the practice of the law, and in their devotion to their God. As for the sacred poems, some, like the Psalms, are the prayers of the messianic nation; others, like the Song of Songs, express in allegorical form the union of Israel with its Christ; still others, like Proverbs, L'’Ecclesiastes, etc., show, by their very name, Hokmah, «wisdom» and also through several very direct details (notably, Prov. 30:4; Wis. 7-9, etc.), the intimate relationship they have with the divine Logos. Is it any wonder that the Israelites, shaped by such books, always had their eyes fixed on the future, and lived in perpetual expectation of the Savior? Throughout their history, the mere name of Messiah was a magic word, which exerted the most powerful influence on them.
III. However one considers it, the Bible is truly the book of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The steps of God seeking the first guilty men, less to punish them than to proclaim to them the gospel of salvation (Gen. 3:8), these are the first steps of the Messiah on earth; “and, from that distant time onward, one constantly encounters in the holy books the traces of the divine Redeemer. The messianic idea is, from Genesis In the Book of Revelation, the golden thread that indissolubly unites all inspired writings. Indeed, Saint Jerome rightly said thatTo ignore the Scriptures is to ignore Christ himself.For two centuries, rationalists have strangely obscured the Bible, veiling the brilliant light that illuminates all its mysteries; they have reduced it to a chaos akin to the oracles of paganism, which nothing can bind or control. Our scholars have yet to grasp that a serene eye, like a concave mirror, gathers scattered rays into a single point. They divide and divide, until the last atom disappears into shadow. But they are blinded by their dogmatic prejudices; they have sadly depressed it, seeing in it nothing more than a human book, a "national literature of the Hebrews," because they refused to contemplate Christ within it. But, in the eyes of faith, nothing has changed despite their impious efforts. Therefore, we adore Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible before beginning to read or study it, remembering that, although it is a book sealed with seven seals, it is the Lamb, "the Lamb slain from the beginning," Revelation 13:8, who will open it for us and provide its interpretation (Revelation 5:6-9). John 1,18: he did the exegesis). In reading, we will contemplate him everywhere with happiness, since his presence fills everything (S.Ambr., Exposit. In Luc, (l.7,12). What admirable fruits will gradually be produced in our hearts. "The Scriptures give birth to the Word, which is the truth of the Father" (Clement of Alex., Stromat., l.7, c.16).» «Every day the Word becomes flesh in the Scriptures, in order to dwell among us (Orig., Phillocal. c. 15.). "From these holy clouds behind which he hides, he will water and fertilize our souls (St. Aug., De Gen. Contr. Man., l.2, c.5; and also Lacordaire, op., Letters to a Young Man on the Christian Life.
