Handing On Divine Revelation: Vatican Council II

Decree On Divine Revelation, Chapter 2

... God has seen to it that what He has revealed ...

would abide perpetually in its full integrity

and be handed on to all generations.

... Christ the Lord ... full revelation of ... God ...

commissioned the apostles ...

this commission was faithfully fulfilled ...

by their oral preaching,

by example, and

by ordinances,

... (the apostles)

handed on what they had received

from the lips of Christ,

from living with Him, and

from what He did, or

what they had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

... in order to keep the gospel forever whole and alive ...

the apostles left bishops as their successors,

handing over their own teaching role to them.

This sacred tradition, therefore, and

sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testament

are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God ...

... the apostolic preaching,

which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books,

was to be preserved by a continuous succession of preachers until the end of time.

... what was handed on by the apostles includes

everything that contributes to

the holiness of life, and

the increase in faith of the People of God;

so the Church

in her teaching,

life, and

worship,

perpetuates and hands on to all generations

all that she herself is,

all that she believes.

There is a growth in the understanding of

the realities and

the words

which have been handed down ...

through the contemplation and study made by believers ...

through the intimate understanding of spiritual things ...

through the preaching of those who have received through episcopal succession the sure gift of truth.

Words of the holy Fathers witness to the living presence of this tradition;

Through the same tradition the Church's full canon of the sacred books is known;

and the sacred writing themselves are more profoundly understood and increasingly made known in her.

... there exists a close connection and communication between

sacred tradition, and

sacred Scripture ...

both of them

flowing from the same well spring ...

merge into a unity and

tend toward the same end.

Sacred Scripture is the word of God

consigned to writing under the inspiration of the Spirit;

sacred tradition hands on in its full purity God's word

entrusted to the apostles by Christ.

... it is not from sacred Scripture alone

that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed.

Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God.

Last Updated: January 3, 1997