De locis theologicis

HERE THE SAME CONCLUSION IS SHOWN BY CLEAR TESTIMONIES OF THE ANCIENT SAINTS

We should not listen to those who criticize and mock us for citing here testimonies from people whose judgment, they say, our opponents may rightly and justly reject as though it were given in their own cause. This was not the particular cause of the Roman Pontiffs but a matter common to the Church and all nations. Some of these witnesses were Latins, others Greeks; some Spaniards, some Africans, some Gauls and Germans. For almost all of these people, the cause of the Roman Church was not only not their own but foreign to them. Among them too were many men so distinguished and upright in doctrine, life, and conduct that their good faith neither ought nor can be suspected. Moreover, some of them were disciples of the apostles, or at least lived close to their time; only impious and brazen men would dare to cast suspicion of fiction upon that age.

But so that no room for evasion remains, I also wish to use testimonies from the ancient saints who were not Roman Pontiffs. For they certainly had no reason to be ignorant of this matter or to fabricate it. Irenaeus says in lib. 3 Advers. haeres., cap. 5: “Since it would take a very long time to list the successions of all the Churches, we point to the greatest, most ancient, and universally known Church founded at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul. By showing the tradition it has received from the apostles and the faith it has announced to people, which has come down to us, we confound all those who gather doctrines beyond what is fitting. For on account of its more powerful primacy every Church must agree with this Church—that is, the faithful everywhere—with which the apostolic tradition has always been preserved.” So far Irenaeus. Persuaded by this, Augustine says in Contra epistolam Manichaei, cap. 4: “Many things most rightly hold me in the bosom of the Church. The succession of priests holds me, from the very See of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord entrusted his sheep to be fed, down to the present bishop.” Augustine also acknowledges this apostolic chair and primacy in the Roman Church in epist. 162 ad Glorium et Eleusium, epist. 106 ad Paulinum, in Ioan. tract. 56, lib. 2 Contra Pelag. et Coelest., and lib. 2 Contra Donatist., cap. 1. Cyprian holds the same view most plainly in lib. 1 Epist., in his letter to Cornelius; in lib. 4, in his letter to Pupianus; and in the treatise De simpl. praelat. Ambrose too is a clear witness to this in lib. De excessu fratris sui Satyri, cap. 7 and serm. 47 de fide Petri. Cyril, cited by St. Thomas in libello Contra errores Graecorum, gives far clearer testimony to this truth than the other authors. Do not wonder that these passages can no longer be found in the books of the Thesaurus from which St. Thomas cites them. Heretics mutilated that book and erased everything in it that concerned the authority of the Roman Pontiff. Catholic scholars today have also discovered and exposed that heretics did the same in Theophylact’s commentaries on John. Not all the books of the Thesaurus have been translated into Latin, since the Sixth Synod cites book 32, which has not been rendered for us. St. Thomas also gives great weight to the same opinion, not merely asserting it but confirming it with the argument that the Apostle Paul came to Peter’s teaching, thereby setting an example for the future: in a similar case, people should have recourse to Peter’s successors, the Roman Pontiffs. Jerome too is a most reliable witness in his letter to Damasus on the word hypostasis. Gratian quoted his words in 24 quaestione prima, cap. Quoniam vetusto. I deliberately pass over the passage cited in quaest. cap. Haec est fides, from Jerome’s explanation of the Creed to Damasus, since Erasmus denies that letter is Jerome’s. Fortunately, the letter to Damasus on the word hypostasis is unquestionably Jerome’s. Add that in lib. 1 Apolog. adversus Ruffinum he holds the same, that someone who holds the Roman faith is Catholic. Bernard also supports our view in epist. 131 ad Mediolanenses, 166 ad Innocentium, 189 ad the same, 237 ad Eugenium, and 242 ad Romanos. I would cite others, but these are more than enough to establish the point. What unanimous, harmonious, and continuous judgment of so many great fathers would not compel anyone to accept what is said,

especially since their views are confirmed by the testimonies of holy synods as well, as will be shown in the next chapter.