Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 436

412

and

§ 74.

SPECIAL PKINCIPIUM AND WRITTEN

lieeu circulated at

WORD

[Div. Ill

once in thousands of copies by the

much more certain than now handed down. Since, however, printing, as a strengthened form of writing, did not exist at that time, handwriting alone could guard against falsificaAnd though we must grant that this safeguard is far tion. from being absolute, yet it is certain that the written tradition has a preference above the oral, which defies all comparison, and thus, in order to come down to us in the least possibly falsified form, the Divine revelation had to be written. To him who thinks that the Revelation came from God, but that the writing was invented by man, the relation between that Revelation and its written form is of course He, on the other hand, who understands purely accidental. and confesses that writing indeed is a human invention, but one which God has thought out for us and in His own time has caused us to find, will arrive at the same conclusion with ourselves, that also in His high counsel the Divine revelation We is adapted to writing, and writing to the revelation. do not hesitate to assert that human writing has reached its highest destiny in the Scripture, even as the art of printing can attain no higher end than to spread the Word of God among all peoples and nations, and among those nations we woukl have been

press,

of the authenticity of

to put

it

what

so

is

within the reach of every individual.

To

this still

another and no less important spiritual benefit attaches self, in

so far as printing (and writing in part) liberates

it-

men

from men and binds them to God. So long as the revelation is handed down by oral tradition only, the great multitude was and ever remained dependent upon a priestly order or hierarcli}- to impart to them the knowledge of this revelaHence there ever stood a man between us and God. tion. For which reason it is entirely natural that the Roman hierarchy opposes rather than favors the spread of the printed Bible.

And

it

behooves

us, in the

very opposite sense, to immedi-

confess, that the Divine revelation, in order to reach

ately those of writing,

upon

who were

called to life, had to assume the form and that only by printed writing could it enter

its fullest

mission of power.

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen