De locis theologicis

ON THE FIRMNESS AND CERTAINTY OF THE APOSTOLIC TRADITIONS

Once these points have been explained, it will not be difficult to show what is chiefly sought in this part: that the most certain arguments can be drawn from the traditions of Christ and the apostles to confirm both the customs of the Church and the dogmas of faith. If the Apostle Paul sets the custom of the Church against the contentious Corinthians, why should we not likewise set against the heretics the custom of the Church, received from the apostles and established by the practice of so many centuries and the agreement of nations, when they demand that we produce Scripture to confirm everything? Certainly, although Paul seemed to have said enough from both Scripture and natural reason to establish the point he wanted the Corinthians to accept, he nevertheless considered that some among them might perhaps resist such testimonies and arguments. He therefore had no better argument for proving his case than to refer them to the custom of the Church: “If anyone,” he says,

“If anyone seems contentious,” Paul says, “we have no such custom, nor does the Church of God.” His meaning is this: if anyone is so hard and stubborn that, despite the arguments offered, he is not persuaded but still contends that a woman ought to pray with her head uncovered, I refute him in no other way than by saying that the Churches of God have no such custom. Such great force resides in tradition that Paul thought those who were moved neither by Scripture nor by natural reason should be refuted by the custom and institution of the Churches. Again, in his First Letter to Timothy he says: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with sound words”—he does not say “with the Scriptures.” And in Galatians: “If anyone preaches to you beyond what you received, let him be anathema.” On the basis of these passages Origen rightly defines in his commentary on the Letter to Titus a heretic as one who professes to believe in Christ yet believes about the truth of the Christian faith something different from what the Church’s tradition holds. And in book 1 of Periarchon he says: “Just as, although many among the Greeks and barbarians promised truth, we have given up seeking it among all those who assert it with false opinions, after we believed that Christ is the Son of God and were persuaded that the truth must be learned from him, so, although many think they know the things of Christ and some of them hold opinions different from those of their predecessors, the preaching of the Church must be preserved, handed down from the apostles through the order of succession and remaining in the Churches to the present day. That truth alone must be believed which in no way disagrees with the Church’s tradition.” Thus far Origen. Ignatius too says in his letter to Heron: “Anyone who says something beyond what has been handed down, even if he is worthy of trust, even if he fasts, even if he maintains his dignity, even if he works miracles, even if he prophesies, appears to you as a wolf.” If, then, anyone who opposes the Church’s tradition must be considered anathema, a heretic, and a wolf, surely a most certain argument can be drawn from it to confirm the dogmas of faith and the customs of the Church. Moreover, the most authoritative writers plainly confirm that institutions of this kind, even when received without writing, have the same force as if they had been written by the apostles. Irenaeus lib. 3 Advers. haeres., cap. 4 et lib. 4, cap. 43; Tertullian as well, although he later departed from the Church’s tradition, nevertheless holds the same view in lib. De corona militis. It is worth quoting his words here, for he tells us not only what he thinks but also why. “The ancient observances of the Church, if no Scripture has determined them, have certainly been strengthened by custom, which without doubt has flowed from tradition.” Immediately after recalling certain traditions of which there is no mention in Scripture, he says: “If you demand a law for these and other disciplines, no written law of tradition will be put forward for you. Custom is their author, their confirmer, their guardian in the faith; it is a competent witness to ancient tradition. Custom is also accepted as law in civil matters; it makes no difference whether it rests on writing or reason.” Thus far Tertullian. And rightly so: for if reason commends a law, then a custom based on reason is no less worthy of commendation than a law. Dist. 1, chapter “Consuetudo.” Basil also confirms the same point with a powerful argument in libro De Spiritu Sancto, cap. 27, saying: “Of the dogmas preached in the Church, some we have from teaching set forth in writing, while others we have received in a hidden mystery from the tradition of the apostles. Both have equal force for piety; no one who has even slight experience of these matters contradicts this. For if we try to reject unwritten customs as having little importance, we will condemn what the Gospel requires as necessary for salvation—or rather, we will reduce the very preaching of the faith to a bare name.” Thus far Basil.

If authority is neglected, his reasoning will make the point most certain. For since we receive the Scriptures themselves on the authority of the Church, and cannot prove more certainly that the Gospel inscribed with Matthew’s name is truly his by any argument than by having received it that way from the Fathers, we will surely derive firm arguments in a similar way from the other institutions we retain from the apostles. If someone brings forward a new sacred book that our Fathers never received—like Basilides, who named and appointed prophets for himself—it cannot be refuted by a surer argument than the tradition of the ancients, as was explained more fully lib. 2. Thus, as Eusebius reports lib. 6, cap. 10, Serapion gravely rejected the Gospel put forward by heretics under the name of Peter. And, as Basil argues, in the courts of the commonwealth too, where written evidence is lacking, witnesses are trusted; just as in human affairs we accept eyewitnesses, so in matters of faith we accept those who have heard, since “faith comes from hearing.” It would be a ridiculous commonwealth that proved everything in court by written evidence and nothing without writing. For we make written documents because of contentious people. Otherwise good people are kept in the truth and their duty by the spoken word alone. Moreover, many things pertaining to Christian morals and doctrine are not found in Sacred Scripture, as we have already established; it would therefore be foolish to demand Scripture in every matter. Tradition, then, is sometimes needed to confirm the dogmas of faith. Again, when Polycarp, Tertullian, and Irenaeus confidently opposed unwritten traditions to Marcion and Valentinus; when Epiphanius opposed them to the Melchizedekians, Apostolics, and Aerians; Jerome to Vigilantius; Augustine to the Donatists; and, to sum up, all the saints opposed them to adversaries of the Catholic faith, and when each one used their force to overthrow the heresies of his own time as if those traditions had been written, we can surely refute and overthrow by means of such traditions any dogmas of the heretics who exist now or may exist in the future, with no less force. For it would be most absurd, as Jerome concludes against Vigilantius, to listen to one Luther or Oecolampadius chattering in a corner of the Church, but to despise all our elders from the apostles onward. If we neglect their traditions, it is hard to say how much damage religion will suffer, as Distinct. 2, chapter “Ecclesiasticorum,” says. What will the whole condition of things be, and especially the piety, worship, and ceremonies directed toward God—not only in the Church, whose mysteries and Sacraments largely consist in tradition, but in any even moderately well-ordered commonwealth—if the customs that grew up from the very beginning with the commonwealth are despised, weakened, and overturned? We are longer here than necessary. Who does not see plainly those things that some mention at greater length? Augustine is cited by these people in his letter to Januarius and in another to Casulanus, where he wrote that it is a most insolent madness to debate whether such customs should be observed; those who despise them should be restrained no less than if they transgressed divine laws, even if some of these customs are human. We could mention other authors too, but we would be using unnecessary witnesses on an undisputed matter. Paul alone sufficiently establishes this point ad Thess. epistola, cap. 2, saying: “Hold fast to the traditions you received, whether by letter or by spoken word.” Apostolic dogmas therefore have equal force and must be retained equally, whether they reached the Church in writing or by word of mouth, as St. Basil argues from this very testimony of the Apostle in lib. De Spir. Sancto, cap. 29. Indeed, the Apostle himself argued from both Scripture and Tradition to the Hebrews, as Chrysostom notes homilia 18 in epistola ad Hebraeos.

He also argued from both Scripture and Tradition to the Hebrews, as Chrysostom observes in homilia 18 in epistola ad Hebraeos. From all these and many other points it is clear that those who despised traditions were always rightly and deservedly cast out of the Church as heretics. Those who treated as worthless the solemn Lenten fasts received from the apostles were considered heretics in this way, as can be seen in Augustine, De haer., cap. 53, and in the letter of the Council of Gangra to the bishops of Armenia. Those who denied the distinction between bishop and presbyter were likewise condemned for heresy, as you will find in Augustine, the same book and chapter, Epiphanius, lib. 3, cap. 75, and the Council of Constance. In short, the Church abhorred Wycliffites, Lutherans, and any other ancient plagues no less for denying traditions of this kind than for rejecting written dogmas. This is why the Seventh General Synod, session 7, issued a teaching that agrees most closely with our argument, in these words: “We confess that we wish to retain the ecclesiastical traditions that are in force either in writing or by custom, among which is the depiction of images. Therefore, observing the tradition of the Catholic Church, we define that holy images are to be venerated. Whoever dares to think otherwise or, after the manner of impious heretics, to defile the ecclesiastical traditions, if they are bishops, let them be deposed; if laypeople, let them be deprived of communion.” At the end of the same session the Fathers say: “If anyone does not care for the traditions of the Church that are in force either in writing or by custom, let him be anathema.” The Council of Trent, session 4, defines the same in these words: “The Holy Council of Trent, recognizing that the saving truth of the Gospel and the doctrine of morals are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions of Christ himself, which were received by the apostles or, at the direction of the Holy Spirit, handed down by the apostles themselves, as it were from hand to hand, until they reached us; receives and venerates these traditions, pertaining both to faith and to morals, as dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy Spirit, and preserved in the Catholic Church by continuous succession, with equal piety and reverence as the Sacred Books.” And later: “If anyone knowingly and deliberately despises the aforesaid traditions, let him be anathema.” No more. For we should return to the foundations I set out in chapter 3, from which this very point we are pursuing in the present chapter would already be sufficiently established, even if we added nothing else. Yet just as it would be endless work to pursue every detail, so it is necessary to explain some matters more fully. Nor should what we have provided to explain this locus seem excessive. The greater the force with which heretics assail this locus, the greater the effort we must make to explain and fortify it with the utmost care. And, as we said above, of the ten parts into which we divided the nature and power of the theological loci, this second part, which consists in tradition, touches theology and faith most of all. Such an important matter could not be completed in a few words. But let us at last dissolve the arguments against traditions that we set out in the first chapter.