De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim evolutionismi

That the authentic organ of tradition was instituted by Jesus Christ in His Church, namely the apostolic hierarchy with which He promised that He would be present unto the end of the ages. And that tradition itself is the preaching continued from age to age through the successors of the apostles under the charism of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, of the revelation first received orally from the same Jesus Christ and His apostles.

Here first recall the gospel history, and whatever is contained in it concerning the origins of Christian doctrine: Which when it had begun, says Heb. II-3, to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by those who heard. And note that word, declared, and again, by those who heard. In which indeed is briefly recapitulated that which in the above-mentioned history is altogether evident and open: namely, that the saving doctrine of Christ was brought forth and published by the same Lord Jesus Christ, not by published writings, but by the word of preaching, by personal teaching, by the oracle of the living voice. For He Himself, the Son of God made man, having conversed with men on earth, took up the part of master and teacher. He, shown to all the people by the prophecies fulfilled in Himself, approved by works and miracles as by divine seals, finally declared by the heavenly Father, in the solemn inauguration of His teaching, to be heard before all others, « having taken the garb of a teacher, taught us the manner of living well, that afterwards, as God, He might bestow eternal life »¹. And now He had accomplished the work which the Father had given Him, now for three years in Galilee and Judea He had announced the gospel of the kingdom in every direction, now He had formed His disciples, now by His blood He had established the new and eternal testament, and risen from the dead He was preparing His ascension into heaven. Looking forward, however, to the perpetuity and the propagation of the revelation which He had brought to the world, He addressed those whom He was leaving on earth as vicars of His work with these last words: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world. These last words, I say, are the words of Christ, who by an efficacious ordinance disposes the means whereby His revealed doctrine should reach the whole world and all future generations; words spoken after the resurrection in the solemn appearance on the mountain of Galilee, to which, besides the chief apostles, He had summoned all the other disciples², so that the whole Church which then existed might be witness of the things which He was commanding at the last.

There, moreover, is first the institution of the authentic organ of tradition. Of tradition, I say, of a doctrine not taken from anywhere at all, but received from Christ; a doctrine not to be acquired but committed, not to be gained but entrusted; in which not authors are sought but guardians, not inventors, but faithful stewards. Teaching, He says, to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. But Christ commanded to be believed the whole doctrine of the gospel which He Himself had personally preached while He conversed among us, and which through His Holy Spirit, as to its final complement, He had promised that He would reveal to His disciples, saying: « I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when that Spirit of truth shall come, whom I will send you from the Father, He shall teach you all truth »³.

There is secondly the institution of an organ of tradition which was to endure even unto the end of the world. For everywhere in the gospel, and especially in Matthew, συντέλεια αἰῶνος signifies the consummation of this present world, and the final advent of Christ, and the time of the universal judgment. Nor assuredly is the sense changed by the fact that the discourse is directed to those who were present, because it is directed to those present as about to remain always in their successors. Hence also here, all nations are bidden to be taught without any restriction either of places or even of times; and afterwards we see the apostles, executing the command of Christ, appointing in their place others who should be guardians of the doctrine received and teachers, through the Holy Spirit communicated to them and remaining in them⁴; to whom again it is prescribed that what they themselves have received they should commit to faithful men, fit also to teach others⁵; and that, until the advent of D. N. I. C., whom in His own times He shall show, the blessed and only mighty one, the King of kings and Lord of lords⁶.

There is thirdly the institution of an organ of tradition which is endowed with the charism of indefectibility. And behold, He says, I am with you. For what it is for God to be with someone, the most frequent and best-known testimonies of Scripture show. For it is an expression everywhere in use to signify the certain and invincible protection of God; an expression in which every kind of efficacious help is implied, and by which that assistance is asserted which, in the matter for which it was promised, admits no fall, and guards against every defection from the intended end. But to the apostles, and to their successors forever, is promised the assistance of Christ, not indeed for any effect whatsoever which human thought could perchance fashion for itself, when the kingdom of God is at issue; not precisely for the rooting out of all vices, not for the preventing of all scandals. Nay, these things are elsewhere expressly foretold as to come. It is expressly foretold that in the Lord's field there will be tares together with the wheat, and that both will grow until the harvest. Known is the net cast into the sea which gathers of every kind of fish. Known is the little boat of which that wonderful thing is observed, that though it is loaded and pressed with so great a multitude, yet it is not submerged. Known are the other parables of the gospel aiming at the same sense. Hence He does not say: I am with you founding a kingdom of righteousness already consummate, and of sanctity already absolute. But He says: I am with you teaching those things which are contained in the revelation of my gospel. Therefore the promised assistance, and the indefectibility answering to it, must without doubt be acknowledged in order to the undefiled tradition of the genuine doctrine of Christ.

There is fourthly the institution of an organ of tradition, to which continuously, and not only at intervals, Christ will lend the aforesaid assistance. For again, He does not say that He will be present on certain days and in certain circumstances, as for instance when categorical definitions of faith are to be drawn up, or when it will be necessary by an express decree to correct what was formerly falsely handed down, or to restore to purity the sense of revelation adulterated by the injury of the times. But, all days, He says. And what is all days? It is: in the ordinary and daily ministry of the magisterium, no otherwise than in its more solemn exercise. For by saying, all days, He removed every interruption whatsoever, however small, even of a single day, and left no room for deviation. What is all days? It is: in every age, at every time. The age of the primitive Church will pass; its origins will no longer be seen so near at hand; it will not be possible to measure the series of succession, as it were at a single glance of the eye, by counting the hands through which the treasure of heavenly doctrine has been transmitted, and still and always I am with you. Still and always will that same Spirit of truth be present who was present from the beginning⁷. Still and always, until the consummation of the saints comes, will be found those same pastors and teachers placed by Christ, so that we may not be little children wavering, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, in the cunning to the circumvention of error⁸. Still and always will that same apostolic hierarchy survive, which, by reason of the indefectible tradition of the gospel received from Christ, is the pillar and ground of the truth⁹.

There is fifthly and lastly the institution of an organ of tradition, not of any kind whatsoever, but by way of oral and always living preaching. — This indeed is shown in the first place by all that has just been said of the reason, the nature, and the perpetuity of the instituted ministry. For where, I ask, in the biblical system of the Protestants is there a place for that permanent, ordinary, perpetual organ, to which continuously, all days, unto the end of the ages, Christ should lend His assistance? None assuredly, because once the treasure of heavenly doctrine had been deposited by those who had heard, in the fixed instrument of Scripture, nothing further remained to be done, and the whole work of teaching all things whatsoever I have commanded you necessarily came to an end with the age of the apostles or of the apostolic men. — To this also the words teach, preach sound, understood in their obvious and natural sense, since Scripture is nothing but an artificial medium, accommodated to few, and introduced accessorily in aid or supplement of oral discipline. Hence also we learn from the most certain testimony of history that the apostles (whom no one will imagine either never to have attained the mind of Christ, or not to have obeyed His command) wrote nothing ex professo as executing their own proper and special office, but only occasionally, and as it were moved by some accidental reason. « Matthew, writes Eusebius l. 3 hist. c. 24, wrote on this occasion, because when he had preached to the Hebrews and was preparing to go to the Gentiles, he judged it useful, if to those whom he was leaving in body he should leave some memorial of his preaching. Mark, the same Eusebius relates l. 2, c. 15, wrote the gospel neither of his own accord, nor commanded by Peter whose disciple he was, but compelled by the entreaties of the Romans. Luke, the same Eusebius hands down l. 3, c. 24, wrote for this reason only, because he had seen many others rashly presume to commit to writing the things which they did not perfectly know, that he might namely draw us away from the uncertain narrations of others. John, Eusebius writes in the same place, preached the gospel without any writing even to his extreme old age, and Jerome adds in his book de Script. Eccl., that at length he was compelled by the bishops of Asia to write the gospel on account of the heresy of the Ebionites then arising. And so, had the heresy of Ebion not existed, we should perhaps not have the gospel of John, just as we should not have the other three, had the aforesaid occasions not been offered. For Eusebius rightly writes that only two of the twelve apostles wrote the gospel, and that they were provoked to this by a kind of necessity. From which it is manifestly gathered that the apostles thought, with a primary intention, not of writing but of preaching »¹⁰. Add also that if the apostles had wished ex professo to consign their doctrine to letters, they would certainly have composed a catechism or a similar book coalescing into a body of doctrine, whereas they wrote either a history, as the evangelists, or epistles on some occasion, as Peter, Paul, James, Jude, John, as Bellarmine added, l. c. It is therefore a sign, and indeed an unmistakable one, that they had been placed by Christ to hand down and transmit the revealed truth of the gospel, first and principally through living and personal preaching. But if the apostles, then also all their successors forever, who, as far as pertains to the present, evidently constitute one moral person with them. — It is confirmed lastly, and most manifestly, from the supreme commendations which the same apostles left to the Church in place of a testament. For what is it that Paul, with his passion now at hand, writes to Timothy, in whose person the whole body of superiors is understood? O Timothy, guard the deposit. And again: Hold the form of sound words which thou hast heard from me...... Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. And again: Thou therefore, my son..... the things which thou hast heard from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men who will be fit also to teach others. And yet: « In these places Scripture cannot be understood, but the treasure of doctrine, the understanding of the divine dogmas, that is, both the sense of the Scriptures and of other dogmas. Which whole doctrine he wished to be propagated through Tradition, as Chrysostom and Theophylact explain in this place. To which Irenaeus also alludes, l. 4, c. 43, when he says: Wherefore, it is fitting to obey the presbyters who are in the Church, those who have succession from the apostles, .... who with the succession of the episcopate have received the sure charism of truth according to the pleasure of the Father. And it is easily gathered from the very words. For if he were speaking of written words, he would not so anxiously commend the deposit. For Scriptures are easily preserved in chests, and by copyists; but the apostle wishes it to be kept through the Holy Spirit in the breast of Timothy. And then he would not add: These things commit to faithful men who will be fit also to teach others; but he would say, commit them to copyists, that they may transcribe many copies. Nor would he say: Which thou hast heard from me through many witnesses, but, which I have written to thee. And so, not the words only, but also the sense, and much more this than those, the apostle commends to Timothy, and bids him hand it on by the hands of his successors »¹¹.

We have therefore in the Christian religion, by divine institution, an organ of tradition, and that of an oral and always living tradition; an organ, I say, authentic, perpetually to endure, endowed with the charism of continuous assistance. I add also, undivided in itself, and in its individuality always visible; and this especially on account of the one designated centre and head, Peter, who is necessarily present in the apostolic hierarchy as first, (Matth. X-2); necessarily present with the mysterious name imposed on him by Christ, whereby the unshaken solidity of his ministry was signified, (Ioan. 1-42); necessarily present as the confirmer of the brethren, (Luc. XXII-32); as the rock upon which the Church is built, (Matth. XVI-18), understanding all these things here according to what is supposed as demonstrated and proved in the proper treatise. But now, if such is the organ of tradition as has been described thus far from the solemn document itself of the institution of the Church, it appears at once, and is understood without difficulty, that tradition itself, of which the present disputation runs, is nothing other than the preaching continued from age to age through the successors of the apostles under the charism of indefectibility, of that revelation which was first received from the mouth of Jesus Christ, or of His apostles, the Holy Spirit dictating.

This is the tradition which all Christian antiquity acknowledges. This is the tradition which is called by Ignatius, ad Ephes. n. 1, the sentence of Jesus Christ, in which the bishops are established throughout the bounds of the earth; by Polycarp, ad Philipp. n. 7, the doctrine delivered to us from the beginning; by Irenaeus, l. 3, c. 2, the tradition which is from the apostles, which is kept in the churches through the successions of the presbyters; by Tertullian, Praescript. c. 37, the rule which the Church delivered from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God; by Origen, de Princip. Praef. n. 2, the ecclesiastical preaching delivered from the apostles through the order of succession, and remaining in the Church even to this day. This is the tradition to which, against the first heretics or Gnostics, the Fathers of the first and second centuries appeal. And the Gnostics indeed, when they were argued against from the Scriptures, answered: « Because the truth cannot be found from these by those who do not know the tradition. For they did not deliver it by letters, but by the living voice »¹². Nor on this principle did the Fathers have any contradicting them, but rather consenting, and in all things unanimous. But when they were again recalled to tradition itself, then they threw out a hidden tradition, derived to themselves alone, either from Valentinus, or from Marcion, or from Cerinthus, or from Basilides¹³. To whom was opposed the authentic tradition, which is public in the Church, and which has as its organ the continuous succession of bishops from the apostles, and especially from the prince of the apostles in the Roman See. An outstanding passage in this matter is that of Irenaeus, which it will be pleasing to transcribe here in full, so that what has thus far been laid down as a foundation may have both a recapitulation and an invincible confirmation.

« The tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world is present to be seen in every Church by all who wish to see the truth; and we are able to number those who were appointed bishops in the churches by the apostles, and their successors even to us, who taught nothing of this kind, nor knew anything such as these men rave about... But since it would be very long in a volume such as this to enumerate the successions of all the churches, pointing to the greatest, and most ancient, and universally known church, founded and constituted at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul, and showing the tradition which it has from the apostles, and the faith announced to men, coming down through the successions of bishops even to us — by this we confound all those who in any way, whether through self-complacency, or vain glory, or through blindness and evil opinion, gather together otherwise than they ought. For to this church, on account of its more powerful principality, it is necessary that every church should come together, that is, the faithful who are from everywhere; in which the tradition which is from the apostles has always been preserved by those who are from everywhere. The blessed apostles therefore, founding and instructing the church, delivered the episcopate of administering the church to Linus. Of this Linus Paul makes mention in the epistles which are to Timothy. To him succeeds Anacletus. After him, in the third place, Clement obtains the episcopate from the apostles, who also saw the very apostles and conferred with them, and with the preaching of the apostles still sounding and the tradition before his eyes, not alone; for many were still surviving who had been taught by the apostles... By this ordination and succession, the tradition which is from the apostles in the Church, and the proclamation of the truth, has come down even to us. And this is a most full demonstration, that one and the same life-giving faith is that which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles even now, and delivered in truth... Since therefore there are demonstrations so great, it is not fitting to seek the truth any longer among others, which it is easy to take from the Church, since the apostles, as into a rich depository, most fully conferred into it all things which are of the truth... But what if the apostles had not even left us the Scriptures? Would it not have been fitting to follow the order of the tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the churches? To which ordination many nations of barbarians assent, of those who believe in Christ, having salvation written in their hearts through the Spirit without paper and ink, and diligently guarding the ancient tradition, believing in one God, the creator of heaven and earth, and of all things that are in them, through Jesus Christ the Son of God ».¹⁴

And tradition indeed in the Church stands thus according to the institution of Christ. Whence it is now easy, before we proceed to further matters, to bring out the following conclusion, which in the business proposed to us is most of all to be attended to.

That tradition, taken in the true and Catholic sense, is the rule of faith; and that the concept of tradition under the aspect of a bare human fact, or of a preaching proceeding from Christ and the apostles with historical authority alone, is a false and Protestant concept, bearing the mark of heresy.

First of all it must be observed what the difference is between the object and the rule of faith. The object is the truth to be believed. The rule, formally as such, is that which contains the truth to be believed, and to which we must conform ourselves in believing, insofar as we believe that which is proposed in it as to be believed. Hence the truths preached through tradition, which we may call tradition in the objective sense, are indeed the object of faith. But the ecclesiastical preaching itself, or tradition itself taken in the formal sense, is the rule of faith¹. But again it must be observed that the rule directs not in any way whatsoever, but infallibly. For whoever follows a rule in any order whatsoever, insofar as it has the force and act of a rule, not only does not err, but cannot err. To that extent, therefore, in the matter of faith, tradition obtains the character of a rule, insofar as it infallibly guards, infallibly preserves, and infallibly conveys to our knowledge the revealed truths; and this by reason of that divine element which, according to the institution and promise of Christ, must necessarily be recognized in it, as the preceding proposition taught us. Now I call divine the element which has been called by the Fathers by various names: now, the sure charism of truth in the succession of the episcopate from the apostles (Iren. l. 4, c. 26); now, the operation of the Spirit of truth, not suffering the churches to understand otherwise, or believe otherwise, than what He Himself preached through the apostles (Tertull. Praescript. c. 28); now, the influx of the Lord inhabiting the Church, lest any most studious speculation go astray (August. Enarr. in Ps. 9, n. 12); now, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit lest one depart from the truth (Cyrill. Alex. epist. 1 ad monachos Aegypti); now, the grace of the Spirit, taught by which, all men, even those separated by the division of mountains and seas, agree in the same thing (Theodoret. Dial. de Incommutabili); now, the effect of the sentence of D. N. I. C., by which it comes about that in the apostolic see the Catholic religion is always inviolably preserved (Profess. fidei sub Hormisda ab Orientalibus subscripta). And many other things converging to the same sense are to be found everywhere in the Fathers, which there is no time to recount one by one. Meanwhile, however, no doubt is left that tradition, taken in that genuine and Catholic notion which all the monuments of the Christian institution supply to us, is both called and is the true rule of faith.

But far different is the Protestant concept, in which the divine element is entirely cut away, so that tradition is now nothing more, nor can be anything more, than a bare and simple fact to be reckoned among the common facts of history: a fact, namely, of men continuing the school of Christ and of His apostles through successive ages by their own cleverness, their own industry, their own genius. This supposition once made, it is at once evident that no question about the rule of faith any longer remains. For first, as was observed a little above, the rule of faith, properly speaking, is not that which preserves the genuine and undefiled doctrine of revelation only possibly, or casually, or contingently, but that which preserves it also by right, and necessarily, and per se. But at the very first glance there occurs the evident disproportion of human cleverness and human industry to an effect of this kind, especially in the matter of divine dogmas, in which, above all, the argument of the Protestants in Bellarmine, l. 4 de verbo Dei, c. 12, is always pressing: that very many impediments stand in the way, or certainly can stand in the way — forgetfulness, ignorance, negligence, perversity — which are never lacking in the human race. But these things, if you please, I pass over. Grant that the aforesaid impediments have in fact had no place; grant that the divine doctrine has in fact been preserved in the purity of its truth through the course of so many ages and amid so many vicissitudes of things; grant that this preservation resting on fact alone is enough for the rule of faith considered in itself. Grant this, I say, since there is now no place for disputing these matters at greater length; and even with any most generous concession made, you must at least admit this, that it is not enough for the rule as far as we are concerned. For as far as we are concerned, a human tradition of this kind will obtain no other value than that which the demonstration of its coherence with the original utterance of God in Christ or in the apostles will procure for it, compiled from the common criteria and sources of history alone: namely, through collation, discussion, and scientific crisis of the monuments of past ages from ancient times onward. And who, I ask, is equal to this study, when the matter at hand is not a few certain facts, and those most celebrated, most famous, and existing in the proper domain of history, but doctrines most abstruse? Who, amid so great a multitude of rivulets, will distinguish the pure waters that flow straight from the source from those that are spurious and adulterated? Who will separate the precious from the vile amid so many confessions disagreeing among themselves and destroying one another? In every way, therefore, it appears most manifestly that tradition taken according to the Protestant conception neither is nor can be the rule of faith, and that in this part at least the old Reformers were consistent with themselves, when they established Scripture as the one sole and only rule, tradition being excluded.

But that this conception, which sums up in itself the whole heresy of Protestantism, is in complete opposition to the gospel and its fundamental economy, has already been sufficiently shown; and if anyone desires more, he will find more also in the treatise on the Church, where we treat of the power of the magisterium. That it also openly contradicts the sense of all Christian antiquity is easy to gather even from the few documents cited above. Indeed, the Protestants affirm: « The earlier Church appealed to tradition only historically, namely by demonstrating in the apostolic churches, to which the apostles themselves had preached, through a continuous succession down to their own times in the second or third century, that the faith handed down by the apostles had not yet been corrupted but was still entire. But in later times, the Church strove to supply what was lacking to the testimony of tradition considered historically, by the authority that she claimed for herself² ». This, I say, they affirm, but gratuitously and without any foundation.

To make this evident, one must consider that the promised assistance for the incorrupt custody of the deposit, and for the infallible course of tradition in the straight path of the original revelation, in no way excluded the ordering of secondary causes accommodated to this same end, and their fitting cooperation. For the sweet providence of God always so disposes itself that it aptly tempers the instruments to the principal cause, and whatever the human instrument can render of its own by its proper activity, this it not only does not take away, but procures and employs even more. We do not, therefore, intend to deny the connaturalness to the effect of which we speak, which truly exists in the succession and continuous series of bishops transmitting to one another, in the same see, as it were from hand to hand, the deposit of religion. Nor do we dream that the human element, human safeguards, human industry and solicitude, must be removed from tradition. For if we judged that these were to be removed, we would have the apostle himself as an objector, exclaiming: O Timothy, guard the deposit. For why this entreaty, why this so urgent commendation, if nothing was required on Timothy's part? But we wish only this, that the supreme and sufficient reason of certitude concerning the preserved integrity of the revealed doctrine is not yet found in these things, as long as one prescinds from the charism of perpetual assistance promised and conferred by Christ³. Accordingly it must be understood that the human element is subordinated to the divine and so joined to it that, in the use of the theological locus of tradition, a twofold argument occurred to the Fathers. One from the consideration of the charism perpetually accompanying the apostolic succession. The other from the consideration of that succession itself according to the historical conditions preserved in the Church from the beginning; and although this, from itself alone, would not be, absolutely speaking, ultimate and apodictic, yet polemically it was most efficacious against the manifold authors of sects, who had all begun to dogmatize anew from themselves: « This wisdom, says Irenaeus l. 3, c. 2, (which Paul speaks among the perfect), each one of them says is his own, which he has found out from himself.... For each one of them, altogether perverse, is not ashamed to preach himself, corrupting the rule of truth ». Both arguments, therefore, were used by the Fathers, both earlier and later. For not only the later, but also the most ancient — Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, cited a little above — ultimately referred the supreme reason by which it is established that the divine doctrine has been preserved sincerely and integrally through the order of succession to the charism of truth communicated with the succession of the episcopate, to the communication of Christ, to the Spirit of truth promised and sent as teacher. And similarly, not only the earlier but also the later — for example Athanasius (de decr. Nicaen. n. 27), Epiphanius (l. 1, Haeres. 27, n. 6), Optatus (l. 2 de schism. Don. n. 2), Augustine (epist. 53, n. 2, etc.) — equally appeal to the sentence transmitted from fathers to fathers, to the doctrine handed down from the beginning, to the continuous succession of priests in the Church, especially the Roman Church, since through that succession, the words are Epiphanius's, the truth is perpetually made manifest. And therefore, from first to last, there appears no trace of the opposition falsely imagined by the Protestants for the necessity of their cause. So much, approximately, Card. Franzelin, de Trad. thes. 10.

Thus, then, you have in tradition, understood in the true and Catholic sense, the most certain rule of faith. But because Scripture is also assigned as another rule, the very continuation of the matter leads us to the consideration of the relation that one bears to the other. Hence the third proposition, which now follows.

That tradition, which is the rule of faith, is prior to Scripture in the order of time, of knowledge, and of comprehension; and differs from it especially in this, that it exists not only as a remote rule but also as a proximate and immediate one, according to the twofold consideration under which it can be taken.

1. — In the first place, it is no task at all to show that tradition precedes Scripture in the chronological order. This is already to be observed in the Old Testament. For Scriptures did not exist from the beginning of the world, and yet from the beginning there was a rule to which the holy men of God conformed their faith. « From Adam to Moses there was some Church of God in the world, and men worshipped God by faith, hope, and charity, and by external rites, as is clear from Genesis, where Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Melchisedech, and other just men are introduced. But there was no divine Scripture before Moses, as is clear..., because in Genesis there is no mention of written doctrine, but only of tradition: I know, says God, Gen. XVIII-19, that Abraham will command his sons, and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord. Therefore for two thousand years religion was preserved by tradition alone.... Then from Moses to Christ, among the people of God itself, although Scriptures existed, the Jews nevertheless used tradition more than Scripture, as is clear from Exod. XVIII-8, Deuter. XXXII-7, Iudic. VI-13, Psalm. XLIII-1, LXXVII-5, Eccli. VIII-II. »¹ In this is also the solution of the common difficulty, why in the Mosaic books so few things occur concerning the future life, and concerning the rewards or punishments established therein, and, speaking universally, concerning many truths that are held as the foundations of the moral and religious life. For the solution is largely drawn from this, that the Scripture coming afterwards presupposed the antecedent rule of tradition, and left it in its full strength, and always remaining in full vigour. But perhaps you think it happened otherwise in the economy of the New Testament? Nay rather, in the New Testament the same precedence of tradition is demonstrated by even more luminous facts, since all the monuments of Christian origins show that the churches were first founded by the apostles without Scriptures, and were already living their own life. Matthew had not yet written, and already the Church throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria was being built up, walking in the fear of the Lord (Act. IX-31). Mark had not yet written, and already there was the Roman church, whose faith was proclaimed in the whole world (Rom. I-8). John had not yet written, and already he had founded and was governing all the churches of Asia, as Jerome writes in l. de script. eccles. All the apostolic epistles were directed to churches already existing, as is more than sufficiently clear from their very inscriptions. Finally, Paul did not appeal to any written instrument when he said to the Galatians, whom certain men were trying to draw away from the right way of the gospel: If anyone has preached to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema (Gal. I-9). And to the Corinthians: But I praise you, brethren, that in all things you are mindful of me, and that as I delivered to you, you keep my precepts. And again: For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, etc. It must therefore be said that from the beginning there pre-existed the rule of tradition alone, and that the subsequent addition of Scripture could not be that which would overturn the fundamental means once for all established in the Church for preserving and propagating the revealed doctrine, but that it was rather subordinated to it and even more served it.

2. — But even if the rule of Tradition did not precede the rule of Scripture in the order of time, it always does so in the order of knowledge. And indeed, tradition becomes known as the rule of faith by the very arguments by which the credibility of the Christian religion, or of the Catholic Church, becomes known. For from the moment you have demonstrated that the Catholic Church is revealed as instituted by God, by one and the same argument you have demonstrated that that organ of perpetual and ever-hearing magisterium was placed by God which is on the base and foundation of the same Church². You have demonstrated that the preaching of this magisterium was divinely ordered, so that the faith of believers must conform to it forever. You have therefore demonstrated tradition in the character of an obligatory rule of faith, since ecclesiastical preaching and the authentic tradition of which we now speak are really the same, as is clear and open from what has been said thus far. Nor does it matter what method or what process you employed in the demonstration of the true religion: whether you took the principle of arguing from the divine notes that are in the Church and inseparably adhere to it, or rather from the historical monuments of the mission, advent, and work of Jesus Christ, according to the twofold norm indicated in the Council of the Vatican, Sess. 3, cap. 3³. For always, and in the same way, the rule of Tradition is and remains demonstrated by that very fact.

But it is not so with sacred Scripture. For once that initial demonstration which is set out in the preambles of faith, or in what they call fundamental theology, has been completed, it is still, per se loquendo, altogether unknown to you whether there are or are not Scriptures inspired by God. For even if none such existed, the principles of the demonstration would be the same and unchanged; and the adequate conclusion to which those principles lead would also be the same. But if perhaps in the course of the demonstration, while treating the historical monument of the revelation that Jesus Christ brought us, you came upon those testimonies of Christ by which the faith of the Jews concerning the Law and the Prophets is confirmed, then indeed concomitantly, and as it were per accidens, there could have come to you a knowledge of those Scriptures of the Old Testament which are called protocanonical; but concerning the Scriptures that are proper to the New Testament, you still know nothing, and nothing besides. And if concerning these too, nay concerning these especially, you seek suitable testimony outside the authentic Tradition, there is nowhere to find it except in the apostolic writings. But apart from the fact that the knowledge of the authority of the apostles as organs for promulgating revelation presupposes the already known rule of Tradition which wholly runs down from them: what, I ask, will you find in the apostolic writings concerning the inspired Scriptures of the New Testament, formally as inspired? Nothing at all beyond that well-known passage of the second [epistle] of Peter, III-16, concerning the epistles of Paul. But the epistles of Paul are not all, nay not even the principal, Scriptures of the New Testament. Moreover, which epistles of Paul had already been published at the time when Peter was writing, someone might perhaps say it is uncertain. Finally, this very second epistle of Peter is rejected as supposititious and not genuine by those precisely who profess to depend solely on written documents. In every way, therefore, the biblical system of the Protestants appears to hang in the air, lacking base and foundation. Nor is it badly compared to the system of the world in the cosmogony of the Indians, who assert that the universe is like an elephant placing its feet on four tortoises, without saying what that is on which the tortoises themselves rest. But we, from the organ of tradition to which the office of teaching all truth was committed by Christ, rightly and deservedly receive the revealed truth of the whole canon of inspired Scripture, so that thus, through Tradition, Scripture becomes known, and is by that very fact posterior in the order of knowledge.

3. — Hence it is further established that Tradition precedes Scripture also in the order of comprehension, insofar as, namely, the revealed doctrine was integrally deposited, in a true sense, not in Scripture but in Tradition. — I say, not in Scripture: first, because, as was just premised, not even the truth about Scripture itself, that is, about the catalogue of books that are to be received as sacred, is contained in it; secondly, because it itself sends us back many times to tradition, as to the source of certain dogmas that are not written, as Bellarmine shows from 1 Cor. XI-2, 2 Thess. II-14, 2 Tim. I-13, 3 Ioan. 13⁴; thirdly and finally, because the mere writing of the books of the New Testament, which we saw above was occasioned by contingent circumstances, is a luminous sign by which God made plain that it was not His counsel that we should have in the sacred books a full and adequate depository of revealed truth. — But on the contrary, you will rightly and deservedly recognize such a depository as rich in Tradition. For it is Tradition that was placed by Christ as the primitive, principal, and primary instrument of doctrine. It is to Tradition that Scripture was consequently entrusted; entrusted, I say, not only in order to make known what is to be accepted as truly inspired by God as Scripture, but also in order to make known the sense which, without the key of understanding, either remains closed or is uncertain⁵. Whence it follows that in the deposited tradition there is also contained, in a true sense, the written revelation; and if also the written revelation, then the whole revelation entire.

Thus, therefore, tradition is the rule of faith prior in every way: in time, in knowledge, in comprehension. Last you will ask: is it a remote rule, or a proximate one? I say: both remote and proximate, under different considerations.

4. — And indeed, that unceasing preaching of the Church, persevering through the course of the ages even to us, is taken in two ways. First, in the intervening links of antecedent ages on which it depends, and through which it is always continued with the preaching of those who were the first and immediate promulgators of the revealed word.

Then, however, according to itself absolutely, in any separately designated difference of time. In the first way, therefore, ecclesiastical preaching is tradition under the precise aspect of the transmission of the revealed doctrine as it were from hand to hand from the apostles, or tradition reduplicatively as flowing from the source through an unbroken channel from ages past, and under this consideration it is no more than the remote rule of the Catholic faith. For thus it becomes known only through the investigation of the monuments of past ages, that is, through the study of works left from antiquity, which lead to the knowledge of the sentence, profession, and faith that once existed concerning Christian doctrine, considered either as a whole or in individual chapters. And if it is only by mediation of investigation and of a process proper to theological science that one knows that what it contains are dogmas, then it neither has nor can have the character of a proximate rule. Wherefore one must come to ecclesiastical preaching, no longer considered in the coherence of the continuous succession from the first origin of revelation, but absolutely in its exercise for this designated time now. Under this respect, it is indeed always tradition, insofar as it always hands down what it has received explicitly or implicitly from the fathers, but it is now tradition under the precise formality of the authoritative magisterium clearly proposing and explaining what must be believed according to the revelation running down from the apostles. And thus also, it is the proximate and immediate rule of faith, which is adequately convertible with the infallible and ever-living magisterium of the Catholic Church, formally as it is the magisterium.

But indeed, in whatever way you take tradition, whether as the proximate rule or as the remote, I would have this accurately noted: that its authentic organ was not instituted by Christ to preserve or propose material and inert formulas, but the true sense of revealed truth; and that accordingly, the office of infallibly transmitting, guarding, and proposing the deposit of faith is inseparable from the office of infallibly defining, declaring, and explaining what is contained in it. But now, if tradition is not only conservative but also explicative of the whole word of God, both written and unwritten, then some progress in it through the course of the ages is beyond doubt to be acknowledged: such progress, however, as in no way contradicts the immutability of dogma, and takes away nothing at all from the nature of the deposit, in which it is not lawful to change anything, still less to diminish or to add. And it will now be worthwhile, if we declare this same point somewhat more fully in the conclusion of the present chapter.

That from what has been said it follows that tradition has indeed a certain evolution in the course of time, but one joined with complete immutability and consensus in the same dogma always and the same sense: so, namely, that as regards the investigation of the traditional sense, special rules, and those far different from those which govern historical science, were rightly and deservedly laid down by the Fathers.

Therefore it pleases [us] to complete the exposition of the true and genuine concept of tradition by setting before our eyes those things which follow or do not follow from what has been said. And lest a free faculty of wandering be granted us, we must begin from those things which do not follow.

In the first place, it by no means follows that all truths pertaining to the deposit of faith must have been in one and the same way in the primitive preaching of the apostles, and in one and the same way also in the consequent tradition, for every stage and every difference of times. For it is one thing that all matters of faith and morals of which Christian doctrine consists were from the beginning and always transmitted under the charism of infallibility; another thing, however, that all were always proposed equally explicitly¹, equally expressly², equally clearly³. For this indeed has nothing in common with indefectibility from the norm of truth, as is evident in the terms, apart from the fact that so plenary a proposition of the whole doctrine immediately from the beginning would scarcely have been connaturally possible, and on the other hand it was so much the less necessary because, together with the deposit of dogmas, the charism of the Holy Spirit for their explanation according to the occurring necessities of individual ages passed to the successors of the apostles by the promise and institution of Christ. Recall what was premised a little above concerning the twofold office of the guardians and teachers of the faith in the body of those set over [the Church], by considering it accurately.

Now, if from the infallibility of tradition it by no means follows that all and singular truths indiscriminately pertaining objectively to the deposit of faith must at every time shine on the lampstand of the Church as regards the distinct and explicit perspicuity of their notes, neither does it follow that there could have been none concerning which at some time there existed within the very bosom of Catholic unity and communion a diversity either of senses or of opinions. « Indeed, that there are some such truths is demonstrated from all those definitions of Councils or Pontiffs which declared as truths of faith those doctrines concerning which, before the definition, Catholic doctors followed different sentences without loss of faith and communion, agreeing moreover in this, that they confessed that those doctrines did not yet pertain to the deposit of faith sufficiently manifested. The same is gathered also from the fact that even now there are several theological questions by no means defined, which nevertheless turn upon the sense of some chapters of revealed doctrine in such a way that they seem able to be solved from the analysis of the same revealed doctrine, and thus to be defined by the infallible magisterium. Hence there are in the Fathers the distinctions between the substance of the faith, which is one among all, and the questions of deeper understanding (Iren. l. 1, c. 10, n. 23); between those things which are most manifestly preached in the churches, which are defined in ecclesiastical preaching, concerning which there is one sentence of the whole Church, and other things which are still to be inquired into from sacred Scripture and investigated by sagacious research, which are not manifestly discerned, which are not distinguished by sufficiently manifest preaching, which are not evident in ecclesiastical preaching (Origen., de princip. in praefatione). A distinction is drawn in Christian doctrine between the rule of faith, which among us has no questions, and that which, without prejudice to the rule of faith, can come into question (Tertull., Praescript. c. 13). One thing is what pertains to the very foundations of the faith, and other things are those in which at some time even the most learned and best defenders of the Catholic rule, without prejudice to the bond of faith, do not agree, and one says something better and truer about one thing than another. (August., lib. 1 contr. Iulian. c. 6). A distinction is drawn between the error to be tolerated in questions not diligently digested, not yet confirmed by the full authority of the Church, and the error not to be tolerated, which strives to shake the very firmament of the Church (August., Serm. 294, n. 4). A distinction is drawn, finally, between some small portion of our faith that is less clearly bright, and that which the Lord willed no one in His Church to be ignorant of (Leo M., epist. 30 ad Pulcheriam, c. 2) ». In sum: at any time there were certain further determinations of revealed doctrine which, contained more or less obscurely in the deposit handed down by the apostles, and not yet illustrated by the full light of diligent inquiry, had not yet passed into the proximate rule of faith, or the sufficient proposition of the ecclesiastical magisterium. Concerning these, accordingly, there could at some time be no concordant sentence in the bosom of unity, before the controversy was terminated by the authority of the Church⁴. Nor is there anything to see in this that is opposed in any way to the previously asserted infallibility of tradition.

But now, other things are those which follow by complete necessity from the promised assistance of God even to the end. And first indeed it follows that it is impossible for any opinion deriving its origin from any man or private doctor whatsoever to obtain ever a common consent as though it were doctrine of faith, and to prevail in the Church under the false name of divine tradition. Concerning this matter you have an example in the opinion of the millenarians, which, first introduced by Papias out of his excessive simplicity, and received and published, on account of reverence for the man who had conversed with the apostles, by some even of the more illustrious Fathers of the second and third centuries, soon had against it the consenting sentence of all, and from the fourth century onward, by common calculation, was to be banished among fables⁵.

Secondly, it follows, on the other hand, that it is necessary that if any point of doctrine, at first more obscurely retained in the profession of some more universal principle, or preserved rather by practical use than by express and formal preaching, began afterwards to come into controversy as regards its origin from divine tradition, while different men thought different things and even contended among themselves, until at last, the question being settled, it was brought to the strength of full consensus: it follows, I say, that it is altogether necessary that such doctrine truly belong to the genuine and authentic deposit of which the Church is the guardian. And this indeed because of that praised providence of God which does not permit tradition to wander from the straight path; because of that sure charism of truth of which Irenaeus speaks, l. 4, c. 26; because of the Paraclete, the teacher of truth who does not suffer the churches to understand otherwise, or believe otherwise, than they received from the apostles, as Tertullian says, Praescript. c. 28; because of the Holy Spirit inhabiting the Church, lest any most studious inquiry go astray, as Augustine says in Ps. 9, n. 12, and very often elsewhere.

Thirdly, it follows that whatever is preached by the organ of tradition as dogma is indeed not only infallibly true with the truth revealed by God, but also immutably proposed to the faith of all following ages in that very sense in which it was preached from the beginning. For preaching, like truth, consists in the sense, not in the words; and it is the proper mark of heretics to bring in, under the words and formulas of Catholic tradition, senses different from those which they found established and fixed in the Church. For Sabellius too retained the Trinity, but a nominal one. And Arius confessed the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but as three hypostases of diverse substance, not however of one supreme, individual, and creative essence. And Nestorius preached one person of God and man in Christ, but in such a way as not to declare the Word united to the flesh according to subsistence. And Pelagius asserted divine grace, but by understanding by grace free will, which indeed in its own order is also a gratuitous gift of God. And Berengarius conceded the sacramental presence, but a mystical, not a real one, according to symbolic representation, not according to the truth of substance. And so of the rest, to whom this was always common, that, a new sense being brought in against the Catholic sense, they separated themselves, and by that very fact fell into error, because that sense from which one departs is immutably true. Hence it is that false doctrine is called in the style of Scripture another doctrine: « I besought you, he says, to remain at Ephesus..., to charge certain men not to teach otherwise »⁶. And again: « I wonder that you are so quickly transferred to another gospel, which is not another, except that there are some who trouble you and wish to turn away the gospel of Christ »⁷. For at whatever time it is said of a dogma of faith something other than what was said before of the same dogma, there will be heterodoxy by opposition to orthodoxy, and every heretical sentence will easily and without discussion be known by innovation alone, insofar as it introduces a sense different from the sense sanctioned in the tradition and preaching of those to whom Christ says: Behold, I am with you all days. But in vain will they appeal to the Scriptures. For Tertullian will rightly and deservedly reply that the Scriptures did not form the churches, but were directed to churches already formed, so that one must first examine whose the Scriptures are, and among whom resides the key of their interpretation⁸. In vain again will they appeal to a more sublime gnosis and a higher understanding. For even this pretext of the Gnostics the most ancient Fathers excluded, by showing the royal road against all heresies, the ancient Church which precedes all sects, and saw them separating themselves. Those are the schools in which one disputes; this alone is the Church worthy of the name in which God is believed. Whoever therefore rises up under any pretext against the tradition of the Church, with new senses invented, has ceased to be a believer, and is cast back from the tranquil port of divine truth into the tempestuous sea of human opinions⁹. In vain, finally, will they plead the length of time elapsed since the first origins, since the exception would perhaps be valid if the immutability of tradition in the same sense and the same sentence had another foundation than the assistance of Christ and the promise of Christ. But now the argument is valid in the same way at every time, and it was opposed to the innovators by the later Fathers with the same firmness as by the earlier. « And so you say: The gospel has been preached in all nations, the world has believed, the Church has been made, has grown, has borne fruit, but the ignorance of those who understand badly afterwards erred, and perished; in us alone and in those who follow us the holy Church has remained on earth. This sacrilegious vanity the truth of the gospel overturns, and the authority of the prophets and holy Fathers, which must not be violated. Hence the Lord promises to His holy Church in His gospel, saying: Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.... False, therefore, is what is believed and asserted by you concerning the body of Christ »¹⁰.

Fourthly and finally, it follows that when the question is about those dogmas in which the sum of the whole Christian religion consists, and which therefore were from the very beginning of the Church formally and explicitly proposed as dogmas, the theological demonstration through the argument from tradition cannot be a matter of much labour. But Augustine will give you four rules which greatly simplify the whole matter. The first rule is that it will certainly not be necessary to discuss individually the testimonies of the Fathers, if at any time the tradition is established by public, authentic, and universal acts, of which kind, for example, are those in the matter of original sin, the baptism of infants for the remission of sins, and also the exorcisms which are performed over them according to the rite of the Church¹¹. The second rule is that if the matter is to be decided from special testimonies, you may rightly and deservedly be content with the testimony of the Western Church alone. And the reason is given, not only because there is a special privilege of this church on account of the apostolic see which it has in its bosom, and with which it is more closely joined, but also, and especially, because in the faith of the Latins the faith of the Orientals already shines sufficiently, since they too are certainly Christians, and there is one Christian faith and tradition of both parts of the world¹². The third rule, and one closely akin to the preceding: that whether you wish to bring authorities from the Latins or from the Greeks, there is no need to cite many authors, but one or another doctor pre-eminent in fame and authority suffices for the sense of the others to be perceived in him, and this again on account of the unanimity of the Church, led by one spirit and one tradition. And this is what Lirinensis also noted in the second Commonitorium n. 30, where, after he had enumerated those ten Fathers whose testimonies were recited in the Council of Ephesus, he continues: « These, then, are all at Ephesus, in the sacred number of the decalogue, produced as masters, counsellors, witnesses, and judges; whose blessed Synod, holding their doctrine, following their counsel, believing their testimony, obeying their judgment, without weariness, presumption, and partiality, pronounced concerning the rules of faith. Although a much larger number of the ancients could have been brought forward, yet it was not necessary, because neither was it fitting that the time of business be occupied by a multitude of witnesses, and no one doubted that those ten truly thought nothing other than all their other colleagues »¹³. The fourth rule is then added, that the unanimous sense of the present Church is a suitable proof of the sense of antiquity, insofar as, when the knowledge of what is now held in the Church has been had, it is impious to think that the faith was otherwise in past ages¹⁴.

Now this latter rule of Augustine is the one that most pertains to our matter, insofar as it establishes that the sense of the contemporary Church concerning the dogmas of our religion is a most certain sign of a sense by no means different which antiquity had concerning the same. Hence it pleases [us] to rest on this point as on the last consequence of the premises concerning the infallibility of tradition. And if indeed we prescind from those further determinations of faith which only in the course of time, as was noted above, passed into settled dogmas, (because that consideration would lead us too far from the purpose of our intention), but speak again only of those things which constitute the sum of the Christian religion, which pertain to the very foundations of revealed doctrine, which the Lord willed no one in His Church to be ignorant of, as the Fathers cited above said, the truth of the conclusion will at once be evident. For these things were from the very beginnings proposed explicitly as dogmas in the tradition and magisterium of the Church; moreover, whatever is once proposed in tradition as dogma necessarily remains, always in the same sense, both handed down and believed. Therefore it is necessary that that sense still be in fact retained which was firmly held from the beginning; and by that very fact, it is altogether impossible that those who come among us under the name of orthodox Fathers, and who as such always had authority in the Church, should ever have thought in reality anything other than what is today both believed by us and taught, and commended to posterity as an inviolable deposit.

But now the neocritics come forward, pleading that nothing prevails against a positive fact. But many ancient Fathers are found who in fact thought otherwise than we do concerning the dogmas of religion, even the primary ones, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, original sin, grace, and other such things. For the ante-Nicenes expressed the procession of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in ways that exhibit most false ideas and plainly different from ours, for example tritheism, inequality of persons, nay even a corporeal divinity. The same ancients, down to Cyril of Alexandria inclusive, think no more correctly about the Incarnation than Eutyches thought afterwards, and only after long contentions do we see delineated the previously formless dogma of the hypostatic union. Most even before Augustine are true Pelagians, or certainly Semi-Pelagians. Chrysostom and the other Greeks know nothing of original sin, etc. etc. So now our critics think, who nevertheless bring nothing new, but follow in the footsteps of the Socinians and Calvinists, collecting with easy erudition the patristic passages which they used, in Petavius, or in Bossuet in his polemical works against Jurieu and Richard Simon¹⁵.