De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim evolutionismi

That the historical method, in opposition to the theological method, is not only wholly insufficient and disproportionate, but also productive of positive errors of every kind, when, after the preambles of faith, the question is no longer whether there is a Christian revelation, but what its sense is, and what the interpretation of those things that are contained in its sources. And that the same method, if it be carried so far that, under the deceitful guise of abstraction from the higher rules, it uses the same independence in constructing its customary hypotheses or conjectures as if those higher rules did not exist, has at its base a heresy the more pernicious the more artfully it is dissembled, and the graver the freer a way it opens to every denial of the revealed dogmas.

The general ground of this assertion is so evident that there is no need of a long explanation. For in whatever order of exegesis, the first and most necessary criterion of interpretation must always be taken from the things that are proper to the author or the school whose doctrines are under inquiry. Even ordinary good common sense surely dictates this; a quite obvious reasoning demonstrates it. For what, I ask, would you say of one who set about a commentary on the books of Aristotle, or an exposition of the tenets of the Peripatetic school, caring nothing for the terminology proper to Aristotle, nothing for the rules, nothing for the method, nothing for the principles that govern his school? When, therefore, you approach the interpretation, whether of the books that have God as their revealing author, or of the works which, although not inspired by God, are yet, if one may so speak, of the school founded and instituted by God for the custody and propagation of the revealed doctrine: you must attend before all else to all the norms descending from revelation itself, and to the special rules that revelation either implies by its nature or has assigned in fact. Now these are called theological criteria. But the historical method is precisely the one that ignores criteria of this sort, and uses exclusively only those that are taken from profane usage and the ordinary course of human affairs. How then is it sufficient and proportionate to the inquiry now in hand? Nay rather, how is it not conducive to positive and most grave errors, as regards the true sense of many texts? Let us now illustrate this by some examples.

For example, you read in Matthew that before Joseph and Mary came together, Mary was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; you read that Joseph did not know her until she brought forth her firstborn son; the mention of the brothers and sisters of Jesus also occurs to you several times. And you, enclosed within the historical method, easily conclude that uterine brothers and sisters are understood here; that firstborn is said not only of one before whom there was none, but also of one after whom there were others; finally, that the sense of the evangelist is that Mary was at some time known by Joseph, that she had sons and daughters, and that consequently she lost her virginity. You err, nay rather you fall into formal heresy. Had you attended to the higher criteria of faith, you would most certainly have excluded that sense. You would have understood that the evangelist removed the coming together as far as it could come into thought; you would have understood that he left it as indubitable and as it were placed beyond every possible suspicion, that after such and so great a conception by the Holy Spirit, the sanctuary of the divinity remained inviolate; you would have understood finally that it is said in the same sense, he did not know her until, etc., in which sense I would say, that man did not repent until he died, because when repentance is in question, the question can be only of the time of the present life, and he who affirms that someone did not repent as long as he lived here removes repentance from him for ever.

You read in Luke that Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men, and because this is said of Jesus no otherwise than of any well-behaved boy, you conclude that the sense of the evangelist is that Jesus grew inwardly in virtue, that little by little and imperceptibly he acquired consciousness of himself, that after the manner of the rest he became, from ignorant, wise. You err. Certainly Luke there bears witness, playing the part of a historian, to an external, sensible, experimental fact, seen by those among whom Jesus grew up; the fact, namely, of a certain progress observed in external actions, according as in them, whether they were of duties toward God or of duties toward men, with the evolution of the years wisdom and grace were more and more manifested. And if indeed one were to judge of the sense of the evangelist and of the fact attested by him according to the common rules, there would be, to be sure, a legitimate transition, a legitimate inference to an interior progress, inasmuch as in the ordinary course of things it is connected with the external phenomenon as a cause with an effect. But in truth, something forbids you now to pass judgment according to this common and ordinary norm. As regards the fact, the revealed principle forbids it, from which we are taught that the actions of the adolescent Christ did not proceed from a growing wisdom and virtue, but were only growing manifestations of the wisdom and virtue with which he was full from the beginning. As regards the sense of the evangelist, however, the most certain faith concerning the inspiration of the gospel forbids it, from which indeed it is sometimes permissible to abstract, but against which it is never permissible to hold anything.

You read in Mark that Jesus, coming into Nazareth, could not there do any mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them, and thence you conclude that the writer was of the persuasion that the power of miracles in Christ was limited, and that in truth a defect of power was the cause why the benefit of healing was not bestowed on more of the sick. Again you err. For, the rules of faith being presupposed, without which the books of God have no right interpretation: « It must be said that what is said here, he could not there do any mighty work, is not to be referred to absolute power, but to what can be done congruously »¹. Not that, says Jerome, he could not do many mighty works for those unbelievers, but that, lest by doing many mighty works he should condemn the unbelieving citizens. According to which manner it is said in Gen. XVIII-17: Can I hide from Abraham the things I am about to do? And XIX-22: I cannot do anything until thou enter in thither. — Again you read in Matthew that Christ marvelled, hearing the centurion speak, and because with us wonder is wont to arise from this, that something happens contrary to our expectation, you transfer the same cause of wonder to Christ, and consequently you affirm him to be a partaker of our common defect or ignorance. Thus you, led by human sense alone; but higher criteria will supply another explanation: « It must be said that wonder is properly about something new and unusual. But in Christ there could be nothing new and unusual as regards the knowledge by which he knew things in the Word, nor even as regards the knowledge by which he knew things through infused species. Yet something could be new and unusual to him according to experimental knowledge, according to which new things could occur to him daily. And therefore if we speak of him as regards beatific or even infused knowledge, there was no wonder in Christ. If, however, we speak of him as regards experimental knowledge, then wonder could be in him, and he assumed this affect for our instruction, namely that he might teach that what even he marvelled at is to be marvelled at »².

You experience a difficulty in reconciling the evangelists with one another as regards the order and circumstances of Christ's appearances to the women after the resurrection, and relying on your method, which always has recourse to the more likely or easier hypotheses, you think that the evangelists have erred on this point, either all or some. That would perhaps be probable if the matter were human books; it is not probable, but most certainly to be excluded if it is divine. — You compare the gospel of John with the synoptics, and the comparison made, you judge that if Christ spoke as in John, he could not have spoken as in the synoptics, or conversely, if he spoke as in the synoptics, he could not have spoken as in John. It is a conjecture, a very weak one, whose whole probability, if it had any, is taken away by the most certain doctrine of faith, which sets before us four books altogether of one and the same holy gospel of Jesus Christ. And so on in many other matters, for the day would almost fail me in enumerating all similar cases.

But if you now object, in defence of your method, that the gospels are also truly historical documents, and as such are to be accepted, neither more nor less, among the preambles of faith in order to the judgment of credibility, when the rules and criteria that are derived from faith have not yet come into use, nor can they, lest — God forbid — a vicious circle be manifestly incurred: I will reply that this is most true, but that it must be added at once that in this inadequate acceptance of the gospel, an adequate and complete judgment about gospel matters is altogether impossible. You will therefore accept the external, visible facts of the experimental order that are attested in the gospel; but as regards their intimate reason, you will recall that from common criteria alone you will often arrive at conclusions only hypothetically true; hypothetically, I say, that is, according to the order of things commonly contingent alone, an order which the higher light of faith will afterwards teach you had no place there. You will also accept the substance of the historical narrative, which is most evidently the same, and most constant with itself in all our books, and such as to exhibit to every sincere man a most solid foundation of persuasion concerning miracles and the other signs. But as regards the manner of the narrative and its accidental circumstances, it must be remembered that the customary method of historical criticism will be able to lead you to many conjectures more or less likely, which nevertheless will be nothing more than conjectures, until the faith of inspiration, transcending your art, perhaps shows them to be false³. You will accordingly very often have reason to suspend judgment, and to say that from the sole view of historical science it does not appear that everything is so which sacred doctrine holds and hands down concerning the facts of sacred history, or concerning its absolute infallibility. But in every mode, the way of treating and interpreting the gospel with that same freedom and independence which is admitted in profane historical documents is a false, vicious, and error-leading method.

Now, further, the same defect occurs, proportion preserved, as regards the interpretation of tradition: namely, when they accept tradition as though it were stored up in a common historical fact, that is, in the fact of the transmission of any doctrine whatever according to the forces and industry of human minds alone; and to such a degree do they leave entirely aside the higher criteria which in the case would be necessary for passing a legitimate judgment about the sense of the ancient Fathers in many passages that are obscure to us and, absolutely speaking, could give occasion for various interpretations — among which the critics, in accordance with their itch for free and independent opinion, always choose those that incline to the heterodox side, so as to arrive at the desired conclusion: that the sense of the primitive Church was other than the sense which prevailed in a later age. And if tradition were guided by the human spirit alone, then surely nothing would stand in the way a priori of admitting the possibility of a change made in the sense and understanding of the dogmas. Then it would not be necessary to take from the clear explanations of the later Fathers a safe and certain norm for interpreting the more obscure expositions of the earlier ones. Then it would be lawful to pit the successors against their predecessors. Then you could perhaps say that those great doctors of the fourth and fifth centuries either deceived or were deceived, when they profess so asseveratingly and so insistently that they depend in all things on the sense and sentence of their predecessors. That Augustine did not understand the authors about whom he wrote in the exordium of the books on the Trinity: All those whom I have been able to read, who wrote before me concerning the Trinity which is God, the catholic expounders of the divine books, intend to teach according to the Scriptures that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, by the inseparable equality of one and the same substance, insinuate the divine unity, and therefore are not three gods, but one God⁴. That the writers, finally, of the first age acknowledged, under the highest and supreme God, in the Son and the Holy Spirit inferior gods or demiurges, and through this introduced a new paganism differing from the old one only by an accidental form. These things, I say, you could perhaps say; and although they seem harsh enough, they would still be acceptable conclusions for that discipline which is wont for the most part to rest in conjectures and hypotheses⁵. But now there, no less than in Scripture, an element greater than the human must be acknowledged; and what was just now the cause why the historical method and criticism must be called plainly insufficient for interpreting the gospel, will equally be the cause why it is called unequal to interpreting the monuments of sacred tradition.

But note well that we are not dreaming, in saying that if any things are found certainly demonstrated according to the legitimate criteria of historical discipline, those same things can sometimes be shown to be false according to the higher principles of faith and the proper criteria of theology. Far be it; this is not the sense of what has been premised. But we say only that the rules customary in the art of criticism very often lead to merely probable judgments, to conjectures more or less likely, not to say wholly imaginary. But now, what from the sole view of historical criticism could be conjectural or even probable, is no longer probable if it be opposed to a truth that is most certainly made known by another way. Nay rather, it is heretical or erroneous, and no longer falls under the licitness of opinion, if it contradicts those things that either faith teaches or theological criteria demonstrate. Accordingly, if under the appearance of precision with respect to the higher rules you attempt to treat the documents of Sacred Scripture or of Tradition with that same freedom and independence which is conceded in profane matters, you will not only not avoid heretical depravity, but you will add even the crime of a most artfully contrived fallacy. The author of the little book L'Evangile et l'Eglise wrote in the introduction of his work: « In this little book the intention proposed is to consider all things from the sole view of history; not, however, to compose an apology for Catholicism and traditional dogma. If this had been the proposed intention, the present work, especially as regards the divinity of Christ and the authority of the Church, would be very defective and incomplete... We do not intend here to demonstrate either the truth of the Gospel or the truth of Catholic Christianity, but only to define the relation by which the Gospel and the Catholic Church are united in history. A reader of good faith will not be deceived in this »⁶. It can scarcely be said how many of the incautious this deceitful profession has deceived. Was it not, they said, one thing to prescind, another to deny? Is not an axiom received among all that says: there is no lie in abstractions? Is not one thing the view of the historian, another that of the theologian? Certainly. And coming to the end of the book, you see all the dogmas of the Christian faith destroyed, one after another; you see them to be utterly abjured, unless perhaps he posits at the same time as most certain that the contrary of what is admitted and approved by the historian is to be received by the believer. Therefore I say: that the historical method, carried so far that under the deceitful guise of abstraction from the higher rules it uses the same independence in constructing its customary hypotheses or conjectures as if those higher rules did not exist, has at its base a heresy the more pernicious the freer a way it opens to the destruction of all the revealed dogmas.