On Sacred Scripture...

"[It has been decided] that nothing except the canonical scriptures should be read in the Church under the name of the divine scriptures. But the canonical scriptures are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, Paralipomenon, two books, Job, the Psalter of David, five books of Solomon, twelve books of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two books of the Maccabees . Of the New Testament: four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, one epistle of the same [writer] to the Hebrews, two Epistles of the Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John. Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that Canon. because we have received from our fathers that those books must be read in the Church. Let it also be allowed that the Passions of Martyrs be read when their festivals are kept. "
-Third Council of Carthage, Canon 47, 397 A.D.

“It is manifest that those things are not to be inquired into, which Scripture has passed over into silence. For the Holy Spirit has dispensed and administered to us all things which conduce to our profit.”
-Anastasius of Antioch, Anagog. Contemp. in Hexem. lib 8 init.

"...from the tokens of truth are more exact as drawn from Scripture,than from other sources..."
-Saint Athanasius, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Decretis, 31

“The Holy and Inspired Scriptures are sufficient of themselves for the preaching of the truth.”
-Saint Athanasius, Father and Doctor of the Church, Contra Gentiles, 1:1

"These [canonical] books are the fountains of salvation, so that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the oracles contained in them: in these alone the school of piety preaches the Gospel; let no man add to or take away from them."
-Saint Athanasius, Father and Doctor of the Church, Festal Letters 39

"For they [the Scriptures] were spoken and written by God."
-Saint Athanasius, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Incarnatione 56

"...the Scriptures...will learn from them more completely and clearly the exact detail of what we said"
-Saint Athanasius, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Incarnatione 56

"Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us."
-Saint Athanasius, Father and Doctor of the Church, Ad Epis Aeg 4

"Divine Scripture is sufficient above all things."
-Saint Athanasius, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Synodis 6

'The Scriptures are enough for instruction."
-Anthony of Egypt, Vita S. Antoni 16

“What more shall I teach you than what we read in the Apostle? For Holy Scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine, lest we dare to be wiser than we ought.”
- Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Bono Viduitatis 2

“Let us therefore give in ... to the authority of the Holy Scriptures.”
- Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Peccatorum 33

“Let us search for the church in the sacred Scriptures”
-Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, Epis 105

“He will find there in much greater abundance things that are to be found nowhere else, but can be learnt only in the wonderful sublimity and wonderful simplicity of the Scriptures.”
-Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Doctr. Christ. 2,42,63

“It believes also the Holy Scriptures, old and new, which we call canonical, and which are the source of the faith by which the just lives...”
-Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, De Civ. Dei 19,18

'The hearers taught in the Scriptures ought to test what is said by teachers and accept that which agrees with the Scriptures but reject what is foreign.”
-Saint Basil the Great, Father and Doctor of the Church, Moralia 72:1

“Therefore let God-inspired Scripture decide between us; and on whichever side be found doctrines in harmony with the word of God, in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth.”
-Saint Basil the Great, Father and Doctor of the Church, Ep. Ad Eustathius

“How can we prove and certify as true something which Sacred Scripture does not attest?”
-Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Father and Doctor of the Church, Glaphyra on Genesis, PG 69,53c

“In regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not the least part may be handed on without the Holy Scriptures. Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments. Even to me, who tell you these things, do not give ready belief, unless you receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of the things which I announce. The salvation in which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning, but from the Holy Scriptures.”
-Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Father and Doctor of the Church, Catechetical Lectures 4,17.

“Nothing must be taught without the Sacred Scriptures.”
-Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Father and Doctor of the Church, PG 33,476-7

'Therefore I beg you all that you give up what appeals to this one or that one and that you address all these questions concerning these things to the Scriptures.'
-Saint John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church, Homily 13 on 2 Corinthians

“If anything is said without Scripture, the thinking of the hearers limps. But where the testimony proceeds from the divinely given Scripture, it confirms both the speech of the preacher and the soul of the hearer.”
-Saint John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church, Commenting on Psalm 95

“But when Scripture wants to teach us something like that, it interprets itself and does not permit the hearer to err. I therefore beg and entreat that we close our ears to all these things and follow the canon of the Holy Scripture exactly.”
-Saint John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church, Homily 13 on Genesis

“As a trusty door, Scripture shuts out heretics, securing us from error...”
-Saint John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church, Joann. 58

“Everything in the divine Scriptures is clear and straightforward; they inform us about all that is necessary.”
-Saint John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church, Epis 2 ad Thess 3,4

“Being most properly assured that the Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God.”
-Saint Irenaeus, Father of the Church, Against Heresies 2,28,2

“The apostles at that time first preached the Gospel but later by the will of God, they delivered it to us in the Scriptures, that it might be the foundation and pillar of our faith.”
-Saint Irenaeus, Father of the Church, Against Heresies 3,1

“Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, and that no lie is in Him.”
-Saint Irenaeus, Father of the Church, AH 3,5,1

“Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ.”
-Saint Jerome, Father and Doctor of the Church, In Is. Prologue

“It is necessary to take the Holy Scriptures as witnesses; for our comments and statements without these witnesses are not trustworthy.”
-Origen, In Jerem 1,7

“For he knows that Scripture, as a whole, is God's one perfect and complete instrument, giving forth, to those who wish to learn its one
saving music...”
-Origen, In Matt. tom 2

“It is right that His conduct be investigated according to the rule of Scripture.”
-Tertullian, Ad Marcion 3,17

"I would give up my life a thousand times, not only for each of the truths of Sacred Scripture, but even more for the least of the ceremonies of the Catholic Church."
-Saint Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, Life - Thirty-three, 3.

"Saint Paul tells us, "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life" [2 Cor 3:6]. A man has been killed by the letter of the Sacred Scripture when he wants to quote it only so that people will think him to be very learned, . . . when he has no desire to follow the spirit of Sacred Scripture, but wants to know what it says only so he can explain it to others."
-Saint Francis of Assisi

On the Eucharist - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity...

"From Eucharist and prayer they hold aloof, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the FLESH of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His loving-kindness raised from the dead. And so, those who question the gift of God perish in their contentiousness. It would be better for them to have love, so as to share in the resurrection. It is proper, therefore, to avoid associating with such people and not to speak about them either in private or in public, but to study the Prophets attentively and, especially, the Gospel, in which the Passion is revealed to us and the Resurrection shown in its fulfillment. Shun division as the beginning of evil."
-St. Ignatius of Antioch (35-107 A.D.), Bishop and Father of the Church

"I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ"
-Saint Augustine Doctor and one of the four Great Fathers of the Church (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus"
-Saint Justin Martyr, Father of the Church (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children"
-Saint Clement of Alexandria, Father of the Church (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).

"Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ"
-Saint Ambrose of Milan (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).

"The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ"
-Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).

"After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink"
-Aphraahat the Persian Sage (Treatises 12:6 [A.D. 340]).

"We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving"
-Council of Ephesus, Session 1, Letter of Cyril to Nestorius [A.D. 431].


From the Council of Trent. December 13, 1545 to December 4, 1563. Gloriously reigned over by Popes Paul III, Julius III, Pius IV, and attended by about 225 Bishops. It produced 16 Dogmatic documents...

ON THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.

CANON I.--If any one saith, that in the mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema.

CANON II.--If any one saith, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me (Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the apostles priests; or, did not ordain that they, and other priests should offer His own body and blood; let him be anathema.

CANON III.--If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a [Page 159] bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.

CANON IV.--If any one saith, that, by the sacrifice of the mass, a blasphemy is cast upon the most holy sacrifice of Christ consummated on the cross; or, that it is thereby derogated from; let him be anathema.

CANON V.--If any one saith, that it is an imposture to celebrate masses in honour of the saints, and for obtaining their intercession with God, as the Church intends; let him be anathema.

CANON VI.--If any one saith, that the canon of the mass contains errors, and is therefore to be abrogated; let him be anathema.

CANON VII.--If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema.

CANON VIII.--If any one saith, that masses, wherein the priest alone communicates sacramentally, are unlawful, and are, therefore, to be abrogated; let him be anathema.

CANON IX.--If any one saith, that the rite of the Roman Church, according to which a part of the canon and the words of consecration are pronounced in a low tone, is to be condemned; or, that the mass ought to be celebrated in the vulgar tongue only; or, that water ought not to be mixed with the wine that is to be offered in the chalice, for that it is contrary to the institution of Christ; let him be anathema.