Faithful to the original Gospel? (7)

I believe the answer is:

literal

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'faithful' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

I don't understand the remainder of the clue.

(Other definitions for literal that I've seen before include "Precise" , "typographical error" , "character fault?" , "Verbatim - true" , "Actual" .)

I've seen this clue in the Irish Times.

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