[[364]]
The matter was evidently thought serious in the higher regions of
the Church, for in November, 1893, appeared an encyclical letter by
the reigning Pope, Leo XIII, on _The Study of Sacred Scripture_. Much
was expected from it, for, since Benedict XIV in the last century,
there had sat on the papal throne no Pope intellectually so
competent to discuss the whole subject. While, then, those devoted
to the older beliefs trusted that the papal thunderbolts would
crush the whole brood of biblical critics, votaries of the newer
thought ventured to hope that the encyclical might, in the language
of one of them, prove "a stupendous bridge spanning the broad abyss
that now divides alleged orthodoxy from established science."[[364b]]
Both these expectations were disappointed; and yet, on the whole,
it is a question whether the world at large may not congratulate
itself upon this papal utterance. The document, if not apostolic,
won credit as "statesmanlike." It took pains, of course, to insist
that there can be no error of any sort in the sacred books; it even
defended those parts which Protestants count apocryphal as
thoroughly as the remainder of Scripture, and declared that the
book of Tobit was not compiled of man, but written by God.
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