Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus II (Pars Altera): Demonstratio Catholica

That Tradition is a source of revelation is proved by the testimony of the Christian economy, of the apostolic Scripture, and of the patristic literature.

As the Christian economy bears witness, revelation was propagated not so much by Scripture as rather by oral Tradition: 1° it was always propagated, and 2° it will always be propagated.

1. The Christian religion was always propagated by Tradition. For Christ Himself propagated His gospel not in writing, but delivered it to men by word. And in order to establish in perpetuity the religion preached by Himself, He did not confine it in a book from which individuals might draw their faith; rather, He instructed disciples by word of mouth, and from the disciples He chose teachers armed with magisterial authority. But to these teachers of the faith He did not say: "Sitting, write", but: "Going, preach to every creature". Likewise He did not enjoin upon men: "Whoever shall not have read and understood will be condemned", but: "Whoever hears you, hears me", and: "Whoever [while you preach] shall not have believed will be condemned".¹

The apostles discharged the office imposed upon them by preaching the gospel, by teaching Jews and Gentiles, by propagating the Church everywhere throughout the world. Of writing they took little or no care. Some wrote not even a single word; others wrote little. Those, however, who did write, wrote only as occasion offered, and after the gospel had at length been spread far and wide by means of oral Tradition. Finally, for the most part they did not send their faithful back to written books, but to oral preaching and Tradition, and for this reason they constituted bishops in the individual churches, endowed with authentic magisterium.²

Therefore, before the books of the New Testament existed — much more, before they were gathered into the canon and, translated into various languages, could be read in all the churches — the faith already flourished splendidly through the oral Tradition of the apostles and their successors. Hence in that time, that most glorious era of faith and Christian life, no other source of faith can be found than oral Tradition. And since, as the Protestants themselves admit, the apostles did not depart from Christ's ordinances, it must be said altogether that Christ Himself established Tradition as the first and ordinary source by which the Christian religion would be contained, from which it would be drawn, and through which it would be propagated. Indeed:

2. The Christian religion will always be propagated by Tradition, just as it was propagated from the beginning. The manner of propagating and preserving religion established by Christ and observed by the apostles belongs without doubt to the essence of the Christian economy, and consequently to its immutable character. Nothing indeed prevents the divine doctrine from being contained also in books, destined both for the living magisterium itself and for the faithful who depend on it. Nevertheless, the living magisterium, just as it is the supreme judge or proximate rule of faith,³ so it must be regarded as the fundamental remote rule, or the source perpetually instituted by Christ, to which Sacred Scripture has been added by special divine providence as a partial source. Therefore the manner of preserving revelation which prevails in the Catholic Church and has always prevailed is truly Christian, i.e. innate to the very nature of the Christian religion; whereas the manner of preserving doctrine devised by the Protestants in the sole instrument of Scripture is anti-Christian, by which the very immutable character impressed by Christ upon His religion is subverted.

By the same principle the universal character of the Christian religion is moreover subverted. The Christian religion must be preached to "all nations" and to "every creature", because God "wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth".⁴ But it is evident that not all men of all times can arrive at the knowledge of the truth by the reading of Scripture. Some lack copies of Scripture; think of so many centuries which did not yet know printing, and of so many regions which as yet know neither manuscript nor printed books! Others, although the sacred books are not wanting to them, either do not know letters, or are destitute of the leisure necessary for reading, or are kept away by youth or dullness of mind from rightly understanding the things read. Nay more, as we have shown elsewhere,⁵ the genuine understanding and interpretation of Scripture is so difficult and requires so many historical, philological, and theological attainments that even the most learned are unequal to it, unless they are enlightened by the light of Tradition and directed by the magisterium of the Church. Therefore the Christian religion cannot be transmitted to all by writings alone. This even the Protestants admit in practice. For in order to instruct the faithful in religion, they explain the Bible through "ministers of the word", substituting for divine Tradition and the authentic magisterium the arbitrary exposition of teachers devoid of all mission. By this manner of acting they clearly show that Scripture alone does not suffice, and that the Protestant principle, which rejects oral Tradition, is foreign to the Christian economy.

Protestants are bound to prove their principle from Scripture, since they affirm that nothing is to be believed unless it is proved from Scripture. But so far is Scripture from holding that principle ratified that it is rather reprobated, 1° implicitly by the character of the New Testament, and 2° explicitly by the words of the New Testament.

1. Implicitly by the character of the New Testament. No one is unaware that the individual books of the apostles were written on a given occasion and out of a particular necessity, that they were accommodated to the particular circumstances then existing, and that they were for the most part directed to individual churches or persons. The internal disposition of the books, too, is such that the sacred writers by no means treat each and every head of revelation in a catechetical manner and a didactic order; indeed, some of Christ's deeds and sayings are narrated by all, others, however most grave, are signified only very briefly by one, and still others are scarcely indicated in passing, so that they can be known only by theological speculation. Now such a character of the books evidently shows that the apostles did not consider their writings the sole formal rule of believing, to the exclusion of Tradition and of the living magisterium instituted by Christ.

Moreover, on the testimony of the same character of the New Testament, the Protestants affirm altogether gratuitously that Scripture comprehends the whole of Christian revelation and is therefore a sufficient material rule of believing. For since the individual apostles consigned certain heads of doctrine to writing only occasionally and independently of one another, it could have come about only by the sole divine direction of the Holy Spirit that at length all the books taken together should comprise the whole of revelation. But such a special direction of God is demonstrated by no argument; indeed, it seems to be excluded by the New Testament itself. For in the Gospels we not rarely read that Christ taught very many things without the things that He taught being narrated.¹ From this it is apparent that the apostles were not moved by the Holy Spirit to write the whole of revelation. Besides, the Protestants themselves admit as divinely revealed several things that are not written: the baptism of infants, the Lord's day in place of the sabbath (against Exod 20, 8), that not every oath is forbidden (against Mt 5, 34), that blood and things strangled may licitly be eaten (against Act 15, 28 sq.), that it is lawful to use the sword (against Mt 26, 52), etc.

Therefore Scripture is the sole rule, or the sole source, of faith no more materially than formally. The same is established:

2. Explicitly by the words of the New Testament, above all by the Pauline and Johannine texts. St. Paul praises the Corinthians because they followed the doctrine that he had delivered to them only by word of mouth as the norm of faith: "I praise you, brethren, that in all things you are mindful of me, and as I delivered to you, you hold my precepts (παραδόσεις = traditions)."² To lead the Galatians back to the right faith, he set his oral preaching as a rule to be followed absolutely: "I marvel that you are so quickly removed from him who called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel ... But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema."³ He admonishes the Thessalonians that oral Traditions and written Traditions are of the same weight: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the Traditions that you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle."⁴ He beseeches Timothy strictly to keep the deposit of faith received by oral Tradition: "Hold the form of sound words, which you have heard from me in faith and in love in Christ Jesus. Keep the good deposit through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us."⁵ And since he felt that the time of his dissolution was at hand,⁶ he lays upon the same Timothy to commend the doctrine received by word to men fit for teaching others: "You therefore, my son, be strengthened in the grace which is in Christ Jesus; and the things that you have heard from me through many witnesses, commend these to faithful men, who will be fit to teach others also."⁷ St. John, who outlived all the sacred writers of the New Testament, nowhere, however, appeals to their writings, but most of all inculcates Tradition as the norm of faith. For he says: "Let that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father."⁸ That the same apostle most highly esteemed oral Tradition and preferred it to written instruction appears from these words: "Having many things to write to you, I would not by paper and ink: for I hope to be with you, and to speak mouth to mouth."⁹

From all these things it is clear that Tradition was, in the time of the apostles, the principal source of revelation, and that, according to the apostles, it was always to remain the principal source of faith. Hence the apostles differ by the whole heaven from the principle of the Protestants, who establish sacred Scripture as the sole source of revelation and the only norm of faith.

Whatever the Protestants may babble against the authority of the Fathers, they must nonetheless concede that those most ancient writers hand on in a genuine manner the Christian sense then prevailing, and that they interpret the sense of Christ, of the apostles, and of their disciples more correctly than the innovators of the sixteenth or twentieth century. Now the Fathers, from the apostolic age onward, proclaim Tradition in innumerable places to be a source of divine revelation. Since, however, we cannot review six hundred texts bearing on this point, we allude only to the systematic treatises which St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Vincent of Lérins elaborated on our question.

1. St. Irenaeus sets forth the principle of Tradition most excellently and applies it against the heretics of his own time in the work: "Adversus haereses" (about A.D. 180). For he teaches that by Tradition the faith of the apostles is kept one and unharmed in the churches throughout the whole world: "For the Church, sown throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples the faith ... This faith the Church, and indeed disseminated throughout the whole world, diligently guards, as though inhabiting one house, and likewise believes in them, namely as though having one soul and one heart, and preaches, teaches, and hands these things on harmoniously, as though possessing one mouth. For even if the languages in the world are dissimilar, yet the power of the tradition is one and the same. And neither do the churches which are founded in Germany believe otherwise or hand on otherwise; neither those which are in Hiberia, nor those which are among the Celts, nor those which are in the East, nor those which are in Egypt, nor those which are in Libya, nor those which are established in the middle of the world: but just as the sun, the creature of God, is one and the same in the whole world, so also the light, the preaching of the truth, shines everywhere and enlightens all men who are willing to come to the knowledge of the truth."¹

But when disputes have arisen, they are to be settled and all heresies repelled by having recourse to Tradition rather than to the Scriptures: "One ought not still to seek elsewhere the truth, which it is easy to take from the Church, since the apostles, as into a rich depository, most fully conferred upon her all things which belong to the truth ... For what? And if there were a dispute about some small question, would it not be necessary to have recourse to the most ancient churches, in which the apostles conversed, and to take from them concerning the present question what is certain and clear in the matter? But what if the apostles had not even left us the Scriptures, would it not be necessary to follow the order of the tradition which they handed to those to whom they were committing the churches? To this ordinance many nations of barbarians assent, those who believe in Christ, having salvation written without paper and ink by the Spirit in their hearts, and diligently keeping the ancient tradition ... If anyone announces to them the things which have been invented by the heretics, speaking in their own language, immediately closing their ears they will flee far, far away, not even bearing to hear the blasphemous discourse. Thus through that ancient tradition of the apostles they do not admit even into the conception of the mind whatever portentous speech of theirs is: for neither was there a congregation [of bishops in council] among them, nor a doctrine established [by writings]."²

Finally, the authentic witnesses of Tradition itself are the bishops, who duly succeed the apostles: "Wherefore it is necessary to obey those presbyters who are in the Church, those who have the succession from the apostles; who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the sure charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father ... Where, therefore, the gifts of the Lord are placed, there it is necessary to learn the truth, with those among whom is that succession of the Church which is from the apostles, and that which is sound and irreproachable of conduct and unadulterated and incorruptible of speech is established. For these ... keep our faith ... and expound the Scriptures to us without danger, neither blaspheming God, nor dishonoring the patriarchs, nor despising the prophets."³ "But since it is very long to enumerate the successions of all the churches" — the episcopal ones — it suffices to inspect the Tradition of the Roman church:⁴ "For to this church, on account of its more powerful principality, it is necessary that every church come together, that is, those who are the faithful from everywhere, in which, always by those who are from everywhere, has been preserved that tradition which is from the apostles."⁵

2. Tertullian, in the book "De praescriptione haereticorum" (about A.D. 200), reduces the principle of Tradition set forth by Irenaeus to a juridical form, so as to confound the heretics of all ages. The prescription of civil law consists in this, that every judicial action against the long-standing possessor of a thing is rejected from the threshold. Thus, according to Tertullian, every complaint of the heretics against the Church is refuted from the threshold by the right of religious prescription, by which the Church, from the time of Christ and of the apostles, possesses the handed-on doctrine: "Hence, therefore, we direct the prescription: if the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, no other preachers are to be received than those whom Christ instituted ... But what they preached, that is, what Christ revealed to them, here too I shall prescribe that it ought to be proved in no other way than through those same churches which the apostles themselves founded, by preaching to them as much by the living voice, as they say, as afterwards by letters. If these things are so, it follows accordingly that every doctrine which agrees with those apostolic churches, the matrices and originals of the faith, is to be assigned to the truth, holding without doubt what the churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God; but every other doctrine which savors against the truth of the churches and of the apostles and of Christ and of God is to be prejudged as falsehood ... We communicate with the apostolic churches, because no doctrine is diverse: this is the testimony of the truth."⁶

Tertullian says that it is absurd that Tradition has strayed or could stray from the truth, thus sharply rebuking the arrogance of the heretics: "Come now, let all have erred; let the apostle have been deceived in rendering testimony; let the Holy Spirit have had regard for no [church], so as to lead it into the truth, sent for this purpose by Christ, asked for this purpose of the Father, that He might be the teacher of truth; let the steward of God, the vicar of Christ, have neglected his office, allowing the churches meanwhile to understand otherwise and to believe otherwise than He Himself preached through the apostles: is it at all likely that so many and so great [churches] erred into one faith? Among many events there is no single outcome: the error of the churches ought to have varied. Besides, what is found one among many is not erred, but handed on. Let someone, therefore, dare to say that those erred who handed on? However the error came about; certainly error reigned for so long as there were no heresies. The truth that was to be liberated was waiting for some Marcionites and Valentinians: in the meantime the Gospel was preached wrongly, believed wrongly ... so many works of faith wrongly administered, so many virtues, so many charismata wrongly wrought ...

Against this Tradition of the Church it is unlawful for heretics to appeal to Scripture, since the Church alone, by right of prescription, duly possesses and expounds the sacred books: "Therefore one must not appeal to the Scriptures: nor is the contest to be engaged in those things in which the victory is either none, or uncertain, or equal to the uncertain. For even if the comparison of the Scriptures would not turn out so as to place both sides equal, the order of things required that to be proposed first which now alone is to be disputed: to whom does the faith itself belong? whose are the Scriptures? from whom, and through whom, and when, and to whom was handed on the discipline by which men become Christians? For where it shall have appeared that the truth both of the discipline and of the Christian faith is, there will be the truth of the Scriptures and of the expositions and of all Christian traditions ..."⁷ "If these things are so, that the truth is adjudged to us, whoever of us walk in that rule which the Church handed down from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God, the rationale of our purpose stands, defining that heretics are not to be admitted to entering upon a challenge concerning the Scriptures, whom we prove, without the Scriptures, not to pertain to the Scriptures."⁸

Scarcely could the Protestant principle of Scripture alone be rejected more clearly and explicitly, scarcely could the Catholic principle of Scripture and Tradition be more firmly established.

3. St. Vincent of Lérins wrote two "Commonitoria" (A.D. 434), constituting a proper compendium on the rule of faith. And indeed he enunciates the rule of faith theoretically, overthrowing the Protestant principle in advance: "Often, therefore, with great zeal and the utmost attention inquiring of very many men eminent in holiness and doctrine, in what way I might be able by a certain and, as it were, general and regular path to discern the truth of the catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity, I always received this sort of answer from almost all, that whether I or anyone else should wish to detect the frauds of rising heretics and to avoid their snares and to remain sound and whole in the sound faith, he ought, with the Lord's help, to fortify his faith in a twofold manner: first, namely, by the authority of the divine Law, and then by the tradition of the catholic Church. Here perhaps someone may ask: Since the canon of the Scriptures is perfect and suffices by itself more than enough for all things, what need is there that the authority of ecclesiastical understanding be joined to it? Because, namely, the sacred Scripture, on account of its own depth, is not received by all in one and the same sense, but one and another interprets its utterances now one way, now another; so that almost as many men as there are, so many opinions may seem to be able to be drawn from it. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius another; Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillianus another, Iovinianus, Pelagius, Caelestius another; finally Nestorius another. And therefore it is very necessary, on account of so many windings of so varied an error, that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed according to the norm of the ecclesiastical and catholic sense."⁹

Having established this rule theoretically, Vincent of Lérins affirms that antiquity also always used it in practice: "We have said that it has always been and is even today the custom of catholics to approve the true faith in these two ways, first by the authority of the divine Canon, then by the tradition of the catholic Church ... Lest we should seem to bring this forth by our own presumption rather than by ecclesiastical authority, we brought forward the example of the holy council which was celebrated almost three years before (431) in Asia at Ephesus. ... Where, when there was a dispute about establishing the rules of the faith, lest some profane novelty should creep in there after the manner of the perfidy of Rimini, it seemed to all the priests, who had come together there to the number of about two hundred, the most catholic, most faithful, and best thing to do, that the opinions of the holy Fathers should be brought into the midst, of whom it was certain that some had been martyrs, others confessors, but that all had been and had remained catholic priests; so that, namely, duly and solemnly, by their consensus and decree, the religion of the ancient dogma might be confirmed and the blasphemy of profane novelty condemned."¹⁰

In vain do the adversaries object those texts of the Fathers and of the Scholastics in which the sufficiency of Scripture alone is extolled.¹¹ For the Fathers and theologians understand that Scripture alone suffices when illustrated and fructified by ecclesiastical Tradition alone, as, for example, Vincent of Lérins expressly explains in the passage praised above. Led by the hand of Tradition, the Fathers and theologians found in Scripture many things which are found in the letter of the sacred books either scarcely or nowhere, whether because they rested content in allusions, or because they admitted the spiritual sense almost everywhere, or because they drew conclusions from the texts of Scripture. Although, however, from Scripture thus explained through Tradition almost all revealed truths are established, the Fathers nonetheless judge that there are certain truths which are made known by Tradition alone. Thus St. Basil: "Of the dogmas and preachings preserved in the Church, some we have from the doctrine delivered in writing, but others we have received, delivered to us in mystery, from the tradition of the apostles, both of which have the same force for piety, and no one will contradict them: certainly no one who knows even by slight experience what the institutions of the Church are."¹²

Therefore the Protestants, who set up the Bible alone, to the exclusion of Tradition, as the rule of faith, openly contradict the whole economy ordained by Christ, the whole New Testament founded by the apostles, and finally the whole antiquity described by the Fathers. But the Catholic rule, which holds that besides Scripture Tradition also is a genuine source of faith, and indeed the principal one, is in agreement with the Christian economy, the apostolic Scripture, and the patristic literature. Therefore the Protestant rule of faith is openly a-Christian, the Catholic rule openly Christian.