Catholic Glossary of Terms
Deposit of Faith--The body of saving truth entrusted by Christ to the Apostles and handed on by them to be preserved and proclaimed. The metaphor of a "deposit" suggests that this teaching is an inexhaustible treasure, that rewards reflection and study with new insights and deeper penetration into the mystery of the divine economy of salvation. Although our understanding of this teaching can develop, it can never be augmented in substance. [See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 84] In shorthand:
Deposit of Faith = Sacred Apostolic (Oral) Tradition + Sacred Scripture
Apostolic Tradition--Jesus commissioned the Apostles to "go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you" (Mt.28: 19-20). He promised that the Holy Spirit would "instruct you in everything and remind you of all that I have told you" (John 14:26). Just before his ascension into heaven Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation" (Mk 16:15). He commanded them to do precisely what He himself had done, namely, deliver the Word of God to the people by the living voice and granted them, through the Holy Spirit, the gift of tongues. It was by the Apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which books should be included in the New Testament. St. Augustine endorses the same position when he says: "I should not believe the Gospel except on the authority of the Catholic Church" (Con. epist. Manichaei, fundam., n. 6). As St. Paul urged in his 2 Thessalonians 2:15, "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter."
Bible--The Bible consists of the Old and New Testaments. The Church and the faith existed before the New Testament was inspired by the Holy Spirit and many thousands/millions were converted before the Bible canon (73 books) was agreed upon. In fact, most people could not read in ancient times and only wealthy families could afford to purchase the papyrus on which they wrote. The New Testament was created by the Church, not the reverse as is sometimes maintained. The 27 books that would go into the New Testament, the canon, were not decided upon until the Council of Rome in 382 A.D. under the authority of Pope Damasus I and this was reaffirmed at subsequent Councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 A.D. (this latter is the one accepted by many Protestants). Many other books were in use by the Church from the Gospels of Peter and Thomas to the letters of Barnabas and Clement, but these were not determined to be apart of inspired Scripture. It could be argued that it is not logical for Protestants to accept the New Testament and yet reject the authority of the Catholic Church which provided it.
Jesus died between 30- 33 A.D., but none of the Books of the New Testament were written before about 45-50 A.D. and only 3 or 4 of 12 Apostles were among the human writers. The Bible is the inerrant word of God, but it is not a systematic presentation of all that was in the Deposit of Faith. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity, especially the understanding of how Christ united His divinity and humanity and who the Holy Spirit is, were the subject of controversies/heresies necessitating the calling of Church Councils during the first 400 years of Church history precisely because the Scriptures are not explicit in answering all questions that arise.
The Nicene Creed, which is accepted by Protestants and Catholics alike, was produced by an Ecumenical (universal) Council of Bishops at Nicaea in 325 A.D. as a response to the Arian heresy. It was the Church which defined these doctrines and excommunicated heretics. [The bishops condemned Arianism and declared the Son consubstantial with the Father] At the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D., the Bishops condemned Macedonianism (another Trinitarian heresy) and declared the Holy Spirit consubstantial with the Father and Son.
Consider how amazing it is that the Catholic Church has lasted over 2000 years despite challenges by numerous great heresies like Arianism, which in some form was favored by a Roman Emperor and most bishops and nearly won the day in the 50 years following the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Arians were principally concerned with preserving the oneness of God from pagan polytheism. They were trained theologians and argued from Scripture using easily misunderstood verses such as "The Father is greater that I" (Jn 14:28), and thus came to the heretical conclusion that Jesus was not God, but rather a created superior being. Another heretical group, the 2d century Marcionites, threw out the Old Testament and gospels (except parts of Luke) and said only the letters of St. Paul were a part of Scripture and they were, in fact, the reason a Council of the Church bishops was called to put together the Canon of the New Testament in the 390's.
Not one manuscript of the New Testament written on papyrus exists today! The persecutors of the Church during the first 300 years of the Church destroyed everything they could get their hands on, including, no doubt, some writings of the Apostles (Paul mentions letters, for example, we do not have). The Church was satisfied with mere copies because the bishops of the Church (referred to as elders in Scripture except in 1 Tim 3 & Titus 1:7 where they are called bishops) could teach not only all that could be found in Scripture, but the true meaning of it. There are about 200,000 variations in the text of the Bible in existing manuscripts (according to Henry G. Graham's book, Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church) and even today men of good conscience, including the best scholars disagree on the meaning of many of these verses on basics from Baptism to the Eucharist to how we are saved and that is why our Lord gave us the Magisterium.
Magisterium--The Church is the "pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Jesus did not leave the Church He created without the means to understand the gospel. Like the Ethiopian eunuch we might ask of the Scripture, "How can I understand unless someone guides me?" (Acts 8:31). Even Scripture testifies to how difficult it can be to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16). A Church, which Scripture calls "holy" and "glorious" (Ephesians 5:27) with the power to "bind and to loose" both on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16:18-19) can interpret the Holy Scriptures! [The idea that every believer's interpretation was as good as another began with an Augustinian monk's rebellion against the Church-- Martin Luther. He threw four books out of the New Testament which did not agree with his theology, but Protestants have put all four back in!] Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis declares that "Holy Scripture is to be explained according to the mind of the Church which Christ has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of revealed truth." The Catechism explains the task of the Magisterium is "to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. . . . To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals." See Papal Infallibility.
Septuagint--The Jewish rabbis meeting in Javneh (Jamnia) in Palestine about 90 A.D. perhaps in reaction to the Christians use of the Alexandrian canon (practicing a new form of Judaism without animal sacrifice or a temple) removed seven books from the Hebrew Old Testament canon (i.e., 1-2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch and parts of Daniel and Esther) which, however, were a part of the Greek Old Testament produced at the great library of Alexandria by the 70-72 of the best Jewish scholars about 100 B.C. This was known as the Septuagint (Latin for seventy) and was used by the inspired writers of the New Testament for about 2/3's of their Old Testament quotations (over 300)! The so called "deuterocanonicals" actually remained in Protestant Bibles as the "Apocrypha" until 1827 and are, of course, still in the Catholic Bible. The Books removed by Luther in 1534 included 1-2 Maccabees. Why? One big reason, no doubt, is 2 Mac 12:42-45 gives evidence for the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.
In Hebrews 11:35 we are encouraged to emulate Old Testament heros in these words, "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life" This is a reference to the seven sons of the Jewish mother whose martyrdom and that of her sons is record in 2 Maccabees, one of the books dropped out by Protestants. There is no story like this in the Protestant Bible, so the author of Hebrews was clearly referring to 2 Maccabees 7 and anyone who reads the story of their torture and death will remember it always. It records, how one by one the seven sons died a tortuous, cruel death, proclaiming that they would be vindicated in the resurrection. "The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], 'I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,'" telling the last one, "Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers" (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29).
The use of these books by the Fathers of the Church is too numerous to cite, but they obviously accepted them as part of the Old Testament. Protestants like to cite St. Jerome as one who rejected them, but he included them in his Vulgate translation and showed evidence that he came to accept them in his later correspondence. So, to sum up, the Septuagint is an important evidence for the validity of the Church’s inclusion of these seven books in the canon, but the crux of the problem for Protestants began when they rejected the authority of Christ’s Church and substituted that of the Reformers, like Luther, Calvin and Melanchton, to name a few, who do not agree with one another on most matters. If your Bible includes the seven books, you follow Jesus and the early Church. If your Bible omits them, you follow the late first century Jews at Jamnia, whom Luther embraced during his rebellion against the Church.
Typology--St. Augustine speaking with the wisdom of the Early Church Fathers once said that the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. This means that we can find Christ in the Old Testament and that without an understanding of the Old Testament, there is no true understanding of the New Testament! Typology sees the Bible as a whole with Christ at the center. Early Church Fathers referred to it as the "mystical sense." St. Thomas Aquinas referred to is as the "spiritual sense." It is the study of types, which finds types of Christ in the Old Testament and types of the New Covenant prefigured in the Old. Thus, it is said that Jesus is the Second Adam, or that Moses and Elijah, the Prophets, prefigure Christ. The Old Testament sacraments, such as circumcision and the manna in the desert prefigure the New Testament sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. The crossing of the Red Sea, the water from the side of Christ and the baptism of John all prefigure the sacrament of Baptism. This is typology, when the places, persons or events of the Old Testament are types of what is to come in God’s plan for us. The type is obviously inferior to its fulfillment in the time of Christ. The most obvious type is perhaps that of Abraham’s sacrifice of his "only son", which prefigures the sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God, namely Jesus’ death on the Cross. There is a relationship between the type and the anti-type (e.g., Adam and Christ) but it is never perfect, but rather a pre-figuring or a kind of silhouette rather than a portrait.
The employment of a typological reading of Scripture implies that the "real" meaning of earlier events or persons is to be found in the consummation of these in later events and persons to which they point. This puts Jesus Christ at the center of all our Scripture reading and this same pattern is reflected in the organization of the lectionary (the readings used at Mass) and in the pattern of our liturgy. Our faith is Christocentric! The history of the world, for that matter, is Christ centered. The Early Church Fathers, doubtless in the Apostolic tradition, employed typology in their exegesis of Holy Scripture. Actually, in a sense it started with Jesus' Resurrection appearance to his disciples on the road to Emmaus, when he said because of their lack of understanding, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27).
The Spiritual Sense of Scripture- Although it is distinguished from the literal sense, which is primary and foundational, the two are not necessarily distinct when "When a biblical text relates directly to the paschal mystery of Christ or to the new life which results from it, its literal sense is already a spiritual sense." The Pontifical Biblical Commision in its document, "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church," defines the spiritual sense by noting:
As a general rule we can define the spiritual sense, as understood by Christian faith, as the meaning expressed by the biblical texts when read under the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the paschal mystery of Christ and of the new life which flows from it. This context truly exists. In it the New Testament recognizes the fulfillment of the Scriptures. It is therefore quite acceptable to reread the Scriptures in the light of this new context, which is that of life in the Spirit.
The spiritual sense represents a higher level of reality from the foundational literal sense. It must be founded on three levels of reality, according to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, namely: "the biblical text, the paschal mystery and the present circumstances of life in the Spirit." To read the whole document, click here. For more information on the three spiritual senses and the literal sense, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 115-119. Finally we note there is close connection between the spiritual sense and typology, as well as with the "fuller sense" or in Latin, the sensus plenior. Of the "fuller sense," the Pontifical Biblical Commission says it: "is defined as a deeper meaning of the text, intended by God but not clearly expressed by the human author. Its existence in the biblical text comes to be known when one studies the text in the light of other biblical texts which utilize it or in its relationship with the internal development of revelation."
Deuterocanonical--The word literally means "second canon" because these books were questioned and took longer to be accepted into the canon but they were nonetheless. "Deuterocanonical, therefore, are those books concerning the inspiration of which some Churches doubted more or less seriously for a time, but which were accepted by the whole Church as really inspired, after the question had been thoroughly investigated. As to the Old Testament, the Books of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, I, II, Maccabees, and also Esther, x, 4- xvi, 24, Daniel, iii, 24-90, xiii, 1-xiv, 42, are in this sense deuterocanonical; the same must be said of the following New Testament books and portions of: Hebrews, James, II Peter, II, III John, Jude, Apocalypse, Mark, xiii, 9-20, Luke, xxii, 43-44, John, vii, 53-viii, 11. Protestant writers often call the deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament the Apocrypha." --Catholic Encyclopedia . The charge made by some Protestants that these were "added" to the Bible at the Council of Trent in the 16th century, is false because they were a part of the canon from the time it was settled in the late fourth century. One of the great ironies is that Protestants accept the so called New Testament deuterocanonicals like Hebrews and Revelation approved at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in the 390's but not the Old Testament deuteroncanonicals approved at those same councils (such as Wisdom and I and II Maccabees).
To learn about the Catholic Christian definition of marriage, Click Here
Deposit of Faith = Sacred Apostolic (Oral) Tradition + Sacred Scripture
Apostolic Tradition--Jesus commissioned the Apostles to "go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you" (Mt.28: 19-20). He promised that the Holy Spirit would "instruct you in everything and remind you of all that I have told you" (John 14:26). Just before his ascension into heaven Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation" (Mk 16:15). He commanded them to do precisely what He himself had done, namely, deliver the Word of God to the people by the living voice and granted them, through the Holy Spirit, the gift of tongues. It was by the Apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which books should be included in the New Testament. St. Augustine endorses the same position when he says: "I should not believe the Gospel except on the authority of the Catholic Church" (Con. epist. Manichaei, fundam., n. 6). As St. Paul urged in his 2 Thessalonians 2:15, "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter."
Bible--The Bible consists of the Old and New Testaments. The Church and the faith existed before the New Testament was inspired by the Holy Spirit and many thousands/millions were converted before the Bible canon (73 books) was agreed upon. In fact, most people could not read in ancient times and only wealthy families could afford to purchase the papyrus on which they wrote. The New Testament was created by the Church, not the reverse as is sometimes maintained. The 27 books that would go into the New Testament, the canon, were not decided upon until the Council of Rome in 382 A.D. under the authority of Pope Damasus I and this was reaffirmed at subsequent Councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 A.D. (this latter is the one accepted by many Protestants). Many other books were in use by the Church from the Gospels of Peter and Thomas to the letters of Barnabas and Clement, but these were not determined to be apart of inspired Scripture. It could be argued that it is not logical for Protestants to accept the New Testament and yet reject the authority of the Catholic Church which provided it.
Jesus died between 30- 33 A.D., but none of the Books of the New Testament were written before about 45-50 A.D. and only 3 or 4 of 12 Apostles were among the human writers. The Bible is the inerrant word of God, but it is not a systematic presentation of all that was in the Deposit of Faith. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity, especially the understanding of how Christ united His divinity and humanity and who the Holy Spirit is, were the subject of controversies/heresies necessitating the calling of Church Councils during the first 400 years of Church history precisely because the Scriptures are not explicit in answering all questions that arise.
The Nicene Creed, which is accepted by Protestants and Catholics alike, was produced by an Ecumenical (universal) Council of Bishops at Nicaea in 325 A.D. as a response to the Arian heresy. It was the Church which defined these doctrines and excommunicated heretics. [The bishops condemned Arianism and declared the Son consubstantial with the Father] At the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D., the Bishops condemned Macedonianism (another Trinitarian heresy) and declared the Holy Spirit consubstantial with the Father and Son.
Consider how amazing it is that the Catholic Church has lasted over 2000 years despite challenges by numerous great heresies like Arianism, which in some form was favored by a Roman Emperor and most bishops and nearly won the day in the 50 years following the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Arians were principally concerned with preserving the oneness of God from pagan polytheism. They were trained theologians and argued from Scripture using easily misunderstood verses such as "The Father is greater that I" (Jn 14:28), and thus came to the heretical conclusion that Jesus was not God, but rather a created superior being. Another heretical group, the 2d century Marcionites, threw out the Old Testament and gospels (except parts of Luke) and said only the letters of St. Paul were a part of Scripture and they were, in fact, the reason a Council of the Church bishops was called to put together the Canon of the New Testament in the 390's.
Not one manuscript of the New Testament written on papyrus exists today! The persecutors of the Church during the first 300 years of the Church destroyed everything they could get their hands on, including, no doubt, some writings of the Apostles (Paul mentions letters, for example, we do not have). The Church was satisfied with mere copies because the bishops of the Church (referred to as elders in Scripture except in 1 Tim 3 & Titus 1:7 where they are called bishops) could teach not only all that could be found in Scripture, but the true meaning of it. There are about 200,000 variations in the text of the Bible in existing manuscripts (according to Henry G. Graham's book, Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church) and even today men of good conscience, including the best scholars disagree on the meaning of many of these verses on basics from Baptism to the Eucharist to how we are saved and that is why our Lord gave us the Magisterium.
Magisterium--The Church is the "pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Jesus did not leave the Church He created without the means to understand the gospel. Like the Ethiopian eunuch we might ask of the Scripture, "How can I understand unless someone guides me?" (Acts 8:31). Even Scripture testifies to how difficult it can be to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16). A Church, which Scripture calls "holy" and "glorious" (Ephesians 5:27) with the power to "bind and to loose" both on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16:18-19) can interpret the Holy Scriptures! [The idea that every believer's interpretation was as good as another began with an Augustinian monk's rebellion against the Church-- Martin Luther. He threw four books out of the New Testament which did not agree with his theology, but Protestants have put all four back in!] Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis declares that "Holy Scripture is to be explained according to the mind of the Church which Christ has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of revealed truth." The Catechism explains the task of the Magisterium is "to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. . . . To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals." See Papal Infallibility.
Septuagint--The Jewish rabbis meeting in Javneh (Jamnia) in Palestine about 90 A.D. perhaps in reaction to the Christians use of the Alexandrian canon (practicing a new form of Judaism without animal sacrifice or a temple) removed seven books from the Hebrew Old Testament canon (i.e., 1-2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch and parts of Daniel and Esther) which, however, were a part of the Greek Old Testament produced at the great library of Alexandria by the 70-72 of the best Jewish scholars about 100 B.C. This was known as the Septuagint (Latin for seventy) and was used by the inspired writers of the New Testament for about 2/3's of their Old Testament quotations (over 300)! The so called "deuterocanonicals" actually remained in Protestant Bibles as the "Apocrypha" until 1827 and are, of course, still in the Catholic Bible. The Books removed by Luther in 1534 included 1-2 Maccabees. Why? One big reason, no doubt, is 2 Mac 12:42-45 gives evidence for the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.
In Hebrews 11:35 we are encouraged to emulate Old Testament heros in these words, "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life" This is a reference to the seven sons of the Jewish mother whose martyrdom and that of her sons is record in 2 Maccabees, one of the books dropped out by Protestants. There is no story like this in the Protestant Bible, so the author of Hebrews was clearly referring to 2 Maccabees 7 and anyone who reads the story of their torture and death will remember it always. It records, how one by one the seven sons died a tortuous, cruel death, proclaiming that they would be vindicated in the resurrection. "The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], 'I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,'" telling the last one, "Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers" (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29).
The use of these books by the Fathers of the Church is too numerous to cite, but they obviously accepted them as part of the Old Testament. Protestants like to cite St. Jerome as one who rejected them, but he included them in his Vulgate translation and showed evidence that he came to accept them in his later correspondence. So, to sum up, the Septuagint is an important evidence for the validity of the Church’s inclusion of these seven books in the canon, but the crux of the problem for Protestants began when they rejected the authority of Christ’s Church and substituted that of the Reformers, like Luther, Calvin and Melanchton, to name a few, who do not agree with one another on most matters. If your Bible includes the seven books, you follow Jesus and the early Church. If your Bible omits them, you follow the late first century Jews at Jamnia, whom Luther embraced during his rebellion against the Church.
Typology--St. Augustine speaking with the wisdom of the Early Church Fathers once said that the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. This means that we can find Christ in the Old Testament and that without an understanding of the Old Testament, there is no true understanding of the New Testament! Typology sees the Bible as a whole with Christ at the center. Early Church Fathers referred to it as the "mystical sense." St. Thomas Aquinas referred to is as the "spiritual sense." It is the study of types, which finds types of Christ in the Old Testament and types of the New Covenant prefigured in the Old. Thus, it is said that Jesus is the Second Adam, or that Moses and Elijah, the Prophets, prefigure Christ. The Old Testament sacraments, such as circumcision and the manna in the desert prefigure the New Testament sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. The crossing of the Red Sea, the water from the side of Christ and the baptism of John all prefigure the sacrament of Baptism. This is typology, when the places, persons or events of the Old Testament are types of what is to come in God’s plan for us. The type is obviously inferior to its fulfillment in the time of Christ. The most obvious type is perhaps that of Abraham’s sacrifice of his "only son", which prefigures the sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God, namely Jesus’ death on the Cross. There is a relationship between the type and the anti-type (e.g., Adam and Christ) but it is never perfect, but rather a pre-figuring or a kind of silhouette rather than a portrait.
The employment of a typological reading of Scripture implies that the "real" meaning of earlier events or persons is to be found in the consummation of these in later events and persons to which they point. This puts Jesus Christ at the center of all our Scripture reading and this same pattern is reflected in the organization of the lectionary (the readings used at Mass) and in the pattern of our liturgy. Our faith is Christocentric! The history of the world, for that matter, is Christ centered. The Early Church Fathers, doubtless in the Apostolic tradition, employed typology in their exegesis of Holy Scripture. Actually, in a sense it started with Jesus' Resurrection appearance to his disciples on the road to Emmaus, when he said because of their lack of understanding, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27).
The Spiritual Sense of Scripture- Although it is distinguished from the literal sense, which is primary and foundational, the two are not necessarily distinct when "When a biblical text relates directly to the paschal mystery of Christ or to the new life which results from it, its literal sense is already a spiritual sense." The Pontifical Biblical Commision in its document, "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church," defines the spiritual sense by noting:
As a general rule we can define the spiritual sense, as understood by Christian faith, as the meaning expressed by the biblical texts when read under the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the paschal mystery of Christ and of the new life which flows from it. This context truly exists. In it the New Testament recognizes the fulfillment of the Scriptures. It is therefore quite acceptable to reread the Scriptures in the light of this new context, which is that of life in the Spirit.
The spiritual sense represents a higher level of reality from the foundational literal sense. It must be founded on three levels of reality, according to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, namely: "the biblical text, the paschal mystery and the present circumstances of life in the Spirit." To read the whole document, click here. For more information on the three spiritual senses and the literal sense, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 115-119. Finally we note there is close connection between the spiritual sense and typology, as well as with the "fuller sense" or in Latin, the sensus plenior. Of the "fuller sense," the Pontifical Biblical Commission says it: "is defined as a deeper meaning of the text, intended by God but not clearly expressed by the human author. Its existence in the biblical text comes to be known when one studies the text in the light of other biblical texts which utilize it or in its relationship with the internal development of revelation."
Deuterocanonical--The word literally means "second canon" because these books were questioned and took longer to be accepted into the canon but they were nonetheless. "Deuterocanonical, therefore, are those books concerning the inspiration of which some Churches doubted more or less seriously for a time, but which were accepted by the whole Church as really inspired, after the question had been thoroughly investigated. As to the Old Testament, the Books of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, I, II, Maccabees, and also Esther, x, 4- xvi, 24, Daniel, iii, 24-90, xiii, 1-xiv, 42, are in this sense deuterocanonical; the same must be said of the following New Testament books and portions of: Hebrews, James, II Peter, II, III John, Jude, Apocalypse, Mark, xiii, 9-20, Luke, xxii, 43-44, John, vii, 53-viii, 11. Protestant writers often call the deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament the Apocrypha." --Catholic Encyclopedia . The charge made by some Protestants that these were "added" to the Bible at the Council of Trent in the 16th century, is false because they were a part of the canon from the time it was settled in the late fourth century. One of the great ironies is that Protestants accept the so called New Testament deuterocanonicals like Hebrews and Revelation approved at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in the 390's but not the Old Testament deuteroncanonicals approved at those same councils (such as Wisdom and I and II Maccabees).
To learn about the Catholic Christian definition of marriage, Click Here
