The 1960s were an incredibly busy and productive time for the Dominican Yves Congar (1904–1995). In addition to drafting many seminal passages of Council documents, including Dei Verbum 8, which is the subject of this paper, he also wrote his historical-theological masterpiece, Tradition and Traditions between 1960 and 1963. Drawing on the latter's explicit references to John Henry Newman, this article unpacks the particular ways in which Newman's thought contributed to the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation through the reception by and writing of Congar. Particular attention is paid to the connatural way of knowing which stems from the gifts of the Holy Spirit, typically alluded to by Newman in his meditations on the faith of Mary.

When God created all things in His Wisdom, we are introduced to His work in three stages because we cannot understand all the works of God at once. So God instructs us about these elemental things which happened before men existed on this world, and He tells us that in the beginning of His creation He created the good things, the basic things, the things which could, as it were, contain all the other things that He wanted to make. On the first day He created the Light, and on the second day He created the Heaven, and on the third day He created the Earth and the Sea and all the things which grow on the earth. All these things are the good things. God said so and it is so.

Then there was the second stage in God’s creation. God could have left these things to grow; the seeds of life were in the earth. They were given on the third day and all seems to be complete; but it was not enough for God. More than the seeds of life were needed for them to prosper. It was not good enough that they should be just good. Things need more than the seeds of life if they are to live; they need the blessing of God, if they are to be fruitful. The work of the second three days was the work of blessing what was already good. On the first day God created light, but on the fourth day He made the stars which shine in the light.