INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE BY A. E. BREEN, D. D. Πάσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, ROCHESTER, N. Y. THE JOHN P. SMITH PRINTING HOUSE 1897 083203 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. No man can speak much of himself or his own achievement without being vain. Therefore, I shall be brief. My justification for adding one more to the vast number of the world's books, is the need of an English Introduction to Holy Scripture. Many treatises on this subject exist in the languages of Europe, and in the Latin tongue; but when, in 1893, I was appointed to teach Holy Scripture in St. Bernard's Seminary, I was unable to find in the English language a work of this nature to place in the hands of our students. While the English language surpasses every other known language of the world in the vastness and excellence of its literary resources, it is deficient in scriptural science. The works on Scriptural Introduction that we have in English are chiefly of protestant authors, and are inaccurate, filled with partisan hatred of Catholicity, and they have not kept pace with the progress of thought of this last half century. Thereupon, I conceived the design of writing my book, and it is the result of four years' unremitting toil. In this work, my aspirations have been very high. How far the achievement has come short of the aspirations, I leave to be decided by the judgment of the public. I have tried to write justly, not having in mind to advance any cause save the cause of truth. A chief feature of the present work is the arrangement of the traditional data favoring the deuterocanonical books in parallel columns with the scriptural passages therein quoted. This is the result of great labor, but I believe that the enhancement of the evidential value of such data thus arranged repays such labor. Another feature of the work, which, I hope, will be grateful to students, is the wide margins of the pages, which render it possible to write thereon things of special importance heard from the teacher. It would fill all my hopes of this present work to know that, in some degree, I had made the message of God more known and more loved. ROCHESTER, N. Y., Oct. 13, 1897. |