De locis theologicis

WHERE THE PATHS FOR INVESTIGATING THE TRADITIONS OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES ARE LAID OUT

Now that these matters are understood, what remains to be explained is the hinge on which the whole discussion turns: how a theologian can know that this or that dogma was handed down by the apostles. Let us set out some examples more broadly. If it is asked whether we have the minor orders, the Lenten fast, infant baptism, the veneration of images, and the Creed from the tradition of the apostles, we say that what must now be explained is whether there is any clear and direct path by which one can arrive at certain knowledge of these matters. We are not people who, like the Pharisees, want to pass off our traditions as divine and apostolic; everywhere we wish to distinguish the true from the false and the divine from the human, especially in matters of the dogmas of the Catholic faith. In such matters, a confused mixture of the two is most pernicious. There are, then, four clear paths; if we follow them, we will not go astray in investigating the traditions of the apostles. The first path is opened by Augustine, among other places, in Against the Donatists 4, in these words: “What the universal Church holds, although it was not instituted by Councils but has always been retained, is rightly believed to have been handed down by apostolic authority alone.” The reason for this is plain. If we cannot trace the origin and beginning of some custom observed for a long time throughout the whole Church to the Supreme Pontiffs or to Councils of bishops, but that custom can be traced back to the times of the apostles, it follows plainly that it came from the apostles. For example, if it is called into question whether the minor orders of subdiaconate, lectorate, and the others are in the Church by apostolic tradition, it is to be investigated in this way: if the beginning of these orders

came from Damasus, Symmachus, or any other Pontiff or Council, it certainly was not an apostolic tradition. But if mention of this matter is found among earlier writers before any Pontiff or Council, and continues back to apostolic times, then we finally understand that the minor orders were from apostolic tradition, as indeed they were, since not only later writers but also Ignatius in epist. 8 ad Antiochenos, Dionysius in Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 3, Clement in his letter to all, and Anacletus in his decrees mention it as something already received in the Church. By the same reasoning, you will teach that the law of fasting was an apostolic tradition. Its mention is found in Augustine’s Letter 86 to Casulanus and Letters 118 and 119 to Januarius; Jerome’s Letter to Laeta on the Education of Her Daughter, advers. Iovinianum 2, and commentary on Isaiam cap. 58; Ambrose’s Sermons 25 and 38; Chrysostom’s Homilies 3 and 16 to the People of Antioch; Basil, in other homilies and especially at the beginning of the homily he preached against drunkards and in his later homily on fasting; the Council of Nicaea, cited in 18 Distinct., chapter “Habeatur”; the Council of Laodicea in many canons; Sozomen in Tripartite History 1, chapter 10; Origen in hom. 10 on Leviticus; Irenaeus, cited by Eusebius in Hist. Eccles. 5, chapter 24; and Telesphorus in his letter to all, whom some wrongly consider the author of our fast. Ignatius mentions the matter earlier in Letter 4 to the Philippians; we also have Apostolic Canon 68, approved by the Trullan Synod in canons 9 and 20. For this reason Theophilus of Alexandria, in Paschal Book 1 and 3, rightly not only prescribes the law of fasting as handed down by the ancients but says it was an evangelical tradition. And in Heresy 80, where he teaches the doctrine and faith of the Church preserved by ecclesiastical tradition, Epiphanius speaks expressly of the apostles handing down the fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, when he mentions the Lenten fast. Pope Leo too says in his sermon for Pentecost, which begins “Plenissime,” that the fast of the four seasons was established by the apostles for the Trinity. Jerome, in his letter to Marcella against Montanus, also plainly teaches that we fast for Lent according to the tradition of the apostles. What we have done in this example we can do in many others; by the same reasoning we can prove that infant baptism, the consecration of virgins, monastic profession, lamps and lighted candles in churches, the veneration of images, and many other things of this sort were handed down by the apostles. What we have said about morals must also be applied to dogmas of faith if heretics accuse any one of them of being new. You have a splendid example of this in Eusebius, Eccles. hist. 5, final chapter. But let us move on to the rest. The second path, close to this one and indeed more direct, is as follows: if the Fathers from the beginning, in continuous succession through the ages, held some dogma of faith in the most unanimous agreement and refuted its contrary as heretical, even though it is not found in Sacred Scripture, then the Church plainly holds it by apostolic tradition. Examples include the perpetual virginity of Blessed Mary, Christ’s descent into hell to free the souls of Adam and the other Fathers held there, the fixed number of the Gospels, and other such matters, which I will not enumerate so as not to be long-winded. For the Church received all dogmas of faith from the apostles either in writing or by word of mouth, since they were ministers of the word. The Church has no new revelations in matters of faith but preserves those that the apostles, through the Holy Spirit, left to the faithful people, as we shall demonstrate later. Third path. If something is now approved in the Church by the common consent of the faithful, but human authority could not have brought it about, then it must necessarily derive from the tradition of the apostles. For example, the dissolution of vows and release from oaths were not within human power, both because by natural law we are bound to fulfill vows made to God and to keep oaths, and

human authority cannot pardon and remove things owed and established by natural law, as Gratian teaches at the very beginning of Distinct. 13; and also because in matters owed under an agreement with a superior, an inferior has no power. The same reasoning applies to the dissolution of a ratified marriage by a solemn monastic vow. For since even an unconsummated marriage was indissoluble by natural law before the evangelical law, and no human commonwealth had the power to dissolve such a marriage, it follows that this custom of the Church descended from the institution of Christ and the apostles. For one cannot believe that the Church of God arrogated to itself any general power over matters pertaining to natural law, unless it had received it from Christ and the apostles. This would be a grave error in morals, where we shall show in its place that the Church cannot err. I am not unaware that Alexander III seems to teach otherwise in that final example. When it was objected to him that a marriage could not be dissolved by a solemn religious vow, since it is written, “What God has joined, let no human separate,” he replied that this testimony of Scripture should be interpreted as concerning a consummated marriage. By this answer he indicated that a ratified marriage, if not consummated, could be dissolved by human authority. But, to set aside the fact that Adam’s words, “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,” etc., from which the Lord concluded that what God had joined a human being ought not and indeed could not separate, were spoken in Paradise at a time when the marriage had not yet been consummated; and to set aside the fact that the marriage contract itself is so firm and enduring by nature that it cannot be dissolved even by the will of those who contract it, although that will is ordinarily very powerful in dissolving human agreements—certainly it has always seemed absurd to the most serious theologians that any marriage could be dissolved by a human being. How much more serious was what Innocent III said, although in another context, but also aptly here: it is not a human being but God who dissolves this, since the Supreme Pontiff dissolves it by divine and not human authority. Surely the Church received from the apostles what the Lord said to Peter—“Whatever you loose on earth,” etc.—namely, the extent to which it ought to be expanded or restricted, since the apostles undoubtedly handed down matters of this kind as necessary to the Church’s government. And some report that John the Evangelist, at Christ’s command, was separated from his bride for the sake of the Gospel. Jerome certainly says in book 1 advers. Iovinian. that John was both a virgin and a husband. Epiphanius also says in Heresy 78 that Paul released Thecla from marriage, although she had as her fiancé the handsomest leading citizen of the city, and that she scorned earthly things and remained a holy virgin so as to become mistress of heavenly things. But we answer Alexander. Someone may perhaps say: “Certainly not.” For someone who prepares another answer to an argument by which Catholics are pressed is not thereby immediately opposed to the Pontiff. Enough, then, has been said about the third path. The fourth path is similar, easier, and more familiar. If churchmen unanimously testify that a dogma or any custom was received by us from the apostles, this is without doubt a certain argument for believing it to be so. Thus the Fathers said at the Sixth Session of the Seventh General Synod that images were handed down by the apostles. The authorities who say the Church received from the apostles the Creed by which the common people profess their faith are Rufinus in his Exposition of the Creed; Jerome in his letter to Pammachius on the errors of John of Jerusalem; Ambrose in Sermon 38 on fasting and Lent; Cassian lib. 6 to

the Emperor Leo; Isidore lib. 6 Etymol. cap. 18; Pope Leo in epist. 8 et 13 ad Augustam; and Clement in epistola prima ad Iacobum, if Clement is indeed the author of that letter. Enough of this. It would be tedious to set out more examples, and it is not necessary for our purpose. It will be enough to have shown four paths by which one may investigate whether a tradition is apostolic.