New Catholic Encyclopedia -1967- Volume 14 Page 299 -
Page 299 draws a sharp, pre-modernist line: The teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium) does not sit above the Word of God, but serves it. For a mid-century Catholic, this was a crucial clarification against the charge that the Pope could just "make up" new dogmas.
Flipping the Page on Vatican II: A Look at Volume 14, Page 299 (1967)
No. The 1967 edition still bears the scars of pre-conciliar defensiveness. But page 299 of Volume 14 is a small masterpiece of transition. new catholic encyclopedia -1967- volume 14 page 299
It reminds us that revelation isn't just something that happened 2,000 years ago. It is something happening on page 299 , every time we read with fresh eyes.
The page discusses how Revelation is not merely a book dropped from heaven, but a living reality. It balances the Protestant Sola Scriptura with the Catholic Duo Fontes (two sources: Scripture and Tradition). But interestingly, writing in 1967, the author is already hedging. They acknowledge that Scripture and Tradition are not two separate "containers" of truth, but a single flowing stream. Page 299 draws a sharp, pre-modernist line: The
This is fascinating because 1967 was a powder keg of hermeneutics. Dei Verbum (the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation) had just been promulgated two years prior. For the previous century, Catholic theology had been defensive—focused on the “deposit of faith” handed over as a neat package of propositions. But page 299 of this encyclopedia captures the shift mid-motion.
This is where the 1967 text shows its conciliar colors. Prior editions might have focused solely on the hierarchy. But here, on page 299, the text acknowledges that the entire people of God, from bishop to baptised janitor, participate in the grasping of Revelation. This was radical for its time. The 1967 edition still bears the scars of
Here is what a reader in 1967 would have found on that page:
What strikes me most about this particular page is its tension. You can feel the author trying to write with the certitude of the 1950s while the windows of the 1960s are blowing open. The language is still scholastic, dense, and Latinized. But the subject is dynamic: Revelation as an encounter with a Person, not just an assent to a fact.














