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If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:31, 32)."
Sacred Scripture, the written Word of God, is in itself Sacred Tradition:
"It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament and 27 for the New." (CCC* #120)
The Catholic and Apostolic Church has always taught and continues to teach:
"God is the author of Sacred Scripture. The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their Author, and have been handed on as such to the Church Herself.
"God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while He employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though He acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever He wanted written, and no more.
"The inspired books teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.
"Still, the Christian faith is not a "religion of the book." Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, a word which is "not a written and mute word, but the Word which is Incarnate and Living." If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures (Lk 24:45)." (CCC #105-108)
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This post has been placed permanently in the upper Tab Bar: Sacred Scripture/Tradition
* CCC: Catechism of the Catholic Church, #= paragraph numbers.
The Archbishops and Bishops of the United States in Conference assembled, to their Clergy and faithful people: Grace unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Venerable Brethren of the Clergy,
Beloved Children of the Laity:
To the Church which is taught all truth by the Holy Spirit, Christ entrusted the whole deposit of divine revelation. To the watchful care of the Church we owe the preservation of that Book from which Christians in every age have derived instruction and strength. How needful was the warning of the Apostle that "no prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20)", can be seen in the history of those movements which began by leaving each individual to take his own meaning from the sacred text, and now, after four centuries, have ended in rejecting its Divine authority. The Church, on the contrary, with true reverence for the Bible and solicitude for the spiritual welfare of its readers, has guarded both it and them against the dangers of false interpretation.
In the same spirit, dear brethren, we exhort you to acquire a loving familiarity with the written word: "for what things soever were written, were written for our learning; that through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rom. 15:4)". This intimate knowledge of Holy Writ will bring you close to the Person and Life of our Savior and to the labors of His Apostles. It will renew in your hearts the joy with which the first Christians received the tidings of salvation. And it will deepen in you the conviction that the Scriptures are indeed the word of God, "which can instruct you unto salvation by the faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15)" — a conviction which cannot be shaken either by the disputes of the learned who "stumble at the word," or by the errors of the unlearned and unstable "who distort the Scriptures to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16)". (Pastoral letter of the archbishops and bishops of the United States assembled in conference at the Catholic University of America, September, 1919. Scripture references are in the text.)
