A Commentary on the New Testament (Volume I)

By Ronald Knox

“Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” These famous words of Saint Jerome make for a stirring challenge in the Christian life. For while Sacred Scripture does indeed bear the words of eternal life, those same words also throw difficulties into the path of understanding—apparent contradictions, obscure sayings, parallel passages, variant readings, and so forth. Yet the fact remains that the God who reveals himself to man is the true Light, “full of grace and truth,” and not a God who delights in obscurantism. On these grounds stand Monsignor Ronald Knox’s three volumes of Commentary on the New Testament, originally published in 1952, 1954, and 1956. Intended for a lay readership, rather than scholarly, Knox’s work aims to resolve, at least in part, those difficulties of the New Testament for those who “want to read the Bible for themselves without shirking the difficulties.” 

In this first volume, The Four Gospels, Knox examines every sentence in the back­ground of the whole Gospel narrative, seeking to clarify the meaning of the exact words employed by the evangelists, what they would have meant to the original audience, and what they imply given the entirety of revelation. The result is a profound aid to appreciating the mysterious riches of wisdom and knowledge contained in the Gospels, with Knox like the rich man described in Saint Matthew’s account, “who knows how to bring both new and old things out of his treasure house.” 

The gospel is not a thing of man’s dictation. (The Letter to the Galatians)

Ronald Knox (1888–1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, and author, and one of the most prominent twentieth-century converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Best known for his contemporary English translation of the Scriptures (the “Knox Bible”), he wrote numerous works of apologetics and collections of ser­mons, retreat conferences, and lectures, as well as six detective novels.

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Paperback: 328pp.

ISBN: 978-1685954635