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

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.