De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim evolutionismi

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.