De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim evolutionismi

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.