Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 596

;

572

THE rraxciPiuM

§ 88.

in action

[Div.

hi

is

by no

means ended when he has formulated, assimilated and duced the content of the Word in its state of rest; it

repro-

Hence

brings forth fruit.

the task of the theologian

is

his

duty, also, to trace the tvorking of this principium, when the fountain hfloiving. After it was finished, the Holy Scripture

was not hidden in some sacred grotto, to wait for the theologian to read and to make scientific exhibition of its content no, it was carried into the world, by reading and recitation, by teaching and by preaching, in apologetic and in polemic

And

writings.

once brought into the world,

an influence upon it

entered.

which

it

Both

it

has exerted

the consciousness-form of the circle its

authority,

created, are no

mean

and

which

the consequent activity

factors in the rise of an eccle-

and in the institution of an ecclesiastical communion. The Holy Scripture and the Church, therefore, are no foreign phenomena to each other, but the former should be looked upon as the mother of the latter. Not that the Word by itself was able to found a Church or a church life. The Holy Scripture does not possess such an inherent mystical power, and it is self-evident that the transcendental action of the regeneration of the elect had to go hand in hand

siastical confession

with the noetic action of the Word, in order to give rise to This second element, also, the Church and to maintain it. But however much it may be bound will be explained later. to this spiritual antecedent, in itself the church-forming and church-maintaining action of the Word cannot be denied, and, cum grano salts, the domain of the Church can be described as the

domain within which the Holy Scripture prevails and

operates.

he who tries to understand the its content in a scientific reproduce Holy Scripture, and to way, may not pass its action by, nor the product of this

From

action.

this it follows that

Theological science, therefore, must also institute

an investigation into the Church, into tion, history, etc.

his subject fully.

history,

He who It

church law,

studies as so

many

character, jurisdic-

neglects this has not investigated

cannot be etc.,

its

are

said, therefore, that

added

church

to the real theological

loose supplements.

On

the contrary, in

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