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

By theologians are here understood those distinguished cultivators of sacred science who, after the Fathers, illustrated the Catholic truth in the name and by the mission of the ecclesiastical magisterium. Hence by the name of theologians are called the scholastics of the Middle Ages and their followers down to our own age, insofar as, imbued with the same scholastic principles, they wrote and taught. For this reason all these theologians are sometimes called scholastics simply, although not all lived in the scholastic age, nor did all use and do all use the scholastic method. We must speak of the authority of the consenting theologians, and likewise of the authority of individual theologians and especially of St. Thomas.

1. The authority of the consenting theologians. Proposition: The unanimous consensus of the theologians concerning a doctrine as to be believed is a certain argument of divine revelation.

The proposition needs no explanation, since it is subject to the same conditions as the thesis on the consensus of the Fathers. It is proved, however:

a) From the connection with the magisterium of the Church. For from the twelfth century down to our times the whole magisterium of the Church came forth from the Catholic schools: priests, confessors, preachers, bishops, supreme pontiffs were and are instructed in scholastic principles and doctrines. If therefore all the schools had taught errors, the whole magisterium itself would have been imbued with errors. Moreover, the ecclesiastical magisterium at all times kept watch over the theological schools, inspecting their doctrine, approving or reprobating scholastic books, praising or restraining doctors. Therefore it would have to be imputed to the ecclesiastical magisterium if errors were commonly taught in the schools. Finally, the whole magisterium relied on the Catholic schools in preparing, elaborating, publishing, and proposing to the faithful the documents of faith. Therefore either the schools as a whole do not err, or the whole Church, both teaching and learning, errs, which is absurd.

b) From the pontifical decrees by which scholastic theology is extolled and its assailants are condemned. Among very many¹ let the letters of Pius IX alone suffice, sent to the archbishop of Munich in the year 1863: "Nor were we unaware that in Germany too a false opinion had prevailed against the old school and against the doctrine of those great doctors whom the universal Church venerates on account of their admirable wisdom and the sanctity of their life. By this false opinion the authority of the Church herself is called into peril, since the Church herself not only permitted through so many continuous centuries that theological science be cultivated according to the method of those same doctors and according to the principles sanctioned by the common consent of all Catholic schools, but also very often extolled their theological doctrine with the highest praises and vehemently commended it as the strongest bulwark of the faith and as formidable arms against her enemies."²

c) From heretical persecution. "Contempt of the school and the plagues of heresies are and always have been connected after the school was born."³ Heretics always hated scholastic theology. Thus Luther: "I simply believe that it is impossible for the Church to be reformed, unless the canons, decretals, scholastic theology, philosophy, logic, as they now exist, are rooted out and other studies instituted."⁴ Melanchthon: "Scholastic theology is nothing but a vain, feigned, invented, damned, diabolical cavil and the dream of monks."⁵ Hatred of scholastic theology always led to heresy. For history teaches that the unanimous consensus of the schools or of the theologians was never pertinaciously opposed without heresy itself being incurred sooner or later. Certainly, e. g., de Lamennais, Bautain, Gioberti, Hermes, Bonnetty, Günther, Döllinger, Tyrrell and other modernists fell into their deplorable errors for this reason, because they despised and abandoned the footsteps of the scholastic theologians.

2. The authority of individual theologians. Proposition: The authority of individual theologians is diverse according to the number and weight of the authors; St. Thomas surpasses all in authority, without however the other scholastic masters, and especially St. Bonaventure, being to be neglected.

a) The authority of individual theologians is diverse according to the number and weight of the authors. By individual theologians we understand theologians taken apart from the consensus. Their authority of itself does not equal the authority of the Fathers. For most of the Fathers were bishops and therefore authentic witnesses of Tradition; not so the theologians. Moreover, the Church approved the individual holy Fathers at least in general; but she approved not individual theologians, but the schools of theologians, as witnesses of Tradition. Hence the opinion of a single theologian does not produce a probable argument, unless perhaps he be among the weightiest authors, e. g. the Master of the Sentences, Bl. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, Scotus, Bellarmine, Suarez. But several grave and respected authors procure for themselves a probable authority. And the more the weight and the number of the assenting theologians increases, the greater becomes the probability of the argument. Nevertheless neither is the opinion of the very many altogether certain and necessarily to be embraced, if other schools or other approved authors contradict it.⁶ On this matter Canus speaks most aptly: "The testimony of scholastic theologians, even of many, if other learned men fight against it, avails no more for producing faith than their reason or an even weightier authority would have approved. Namely, in scholastic disputation the authority of the many ought not to overwhelm a theologian; but if he have with him few men, provided they be grave, he will surely be able to stand against the very many. For these things are judged not by number, but by weight... For if something is contrary to Scotist or Thomistic pronouncements, it is not immediately an error."⁷

b) St. Thomas surpasses all in authority, without however the other scholastic masters, and especially St. Bonaventure, being to be neglected. For "among the scholastic doctors the prince and master of all, Thomas Aquinas stands out far above the rest, who, because he supremely venerated the old sacred doctors, therefore in a manner obtained the understanding of all. Their doctrines, like the scattered members of some body, Thomas gathered and joined together into one, disposed them in wonderful order, and increased them with such great increments that he is rightly and deservedly held the singular safeguard and glory of the Catholic Church. Indeed, docile and keen in genius, easy and tenacious in memory, most upright in life, a unique lover of truth, richly endowed with divine and human science, compared to the sun, he warmed the whole world with the heat of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his doctrine ... So he disputed that in him there is wanting neither a copious harvest of questions, nor a fitting disposition of parts, nor the best manner of proceeding, nor the firmness of principles or the strength of arguments, nor the perspicuity or propriety of speech, nor the facility of explaining every abstruse point ... He obtained this from himself, that he alone conquered all the errors of earlier times, and supplied most invincible arms for destroying those which are to arise in perpetual succession in the future. — Moreover, distinguishing reason, as is fitting, from faith above all, yet consociating both amicably, he preserved the rights of each and consulted the dignity of each, so that reason, borne up on Thomas's wings to the human summit, can now scarcely rise higher; nor can faith scarce expect more or stronger aids from reason than those which it has already obtained through Thomas."⁸

On account of this intrinsic authority the writings of St. Thomas likewise obtained the highest extrinsic authority. The most learned Catholic philosophers and theologians of all ages delivered themselves to the divine Thomas not so much to be cultivated as to be thoroughly nourished. Almost all the founders and legislators of religious orders either commended the doctrine of Aquinas to their followers or altogether prescribed it to be followed. The most celebrated universities, academies and schools chose the Angelic prince and supreme master. But, what is of more value, ecumenical councils and supreme pontiffs pursued him with wonderful praises and the amplest documents. "In the councils of Lyons, Vienne, Florence and the Vatican you would say that Thomas took part in the deliberations of the fathers and almost presided over them ... The fathers of Trent, in arranging the order of the very midst of the council chamber, wished the Summa of Thomas Aquinas to lie open upon the altar together with the codices of divine Scripture and the decrees of the supreme pontiffs, whence counsel, reasons and oracles might be sought."⁹ The supreme pontiffs themselves, from John XXII down to our age, commended the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas in almost innumerable documents.¹⁰ Especially, however, Leo XIII, Pius X and Benedict XV often ordered "that in Catholic schools, where sacred youth is instructed in the science of philosophy and theology, Thomas Aquinas be held the supreme master"¹¹ Finally, the new code of canon law strictly prescribes to all schools, both of secular clerics and of religious orders: "The professors shall treat the studies of rational philosophy and theology and the instruction of the students in these disciplines entirely according to the method, doctrine and principles of the Angelic Doctor, and hold them sacredly."¹² This law, insofar as it regards sacred theology, is to be understood in this way, that in the common schools "it be permitted to use the books of those authors who expound in compendium the doctrines derived from the source of Aquinas",¹³ but in the universities and other institutes to which power has been given of conferring academic degrees, "schools be held on the Summa theologica itself",¹⁴ i. e. the masters "are to have the Summa theologica of St. Thomas as the text of their lectures and explain it in the Latin tongue"¹⁵ Hence the doctrine of St. Thomas enjoys the most special approbation of the Church, and he who follows it follows the doctrine most commonly received in the Church.

Nevertheless, by this approbation St. Thomas is set as the common master of theology only with regard to the scholastic part (which they also call dogmatic and moral), since positive theology in the broad sense (apologetics, introduction, patrology, canon law, pastoral theology, ecclesiastical history) is wholly or for the most part foreign to St. Thomas and is to be taken from elsewhere. But even with regard to the scholastic part not all and singular points of the doctrine of St. Thomas are approved, but the doctrine in general, in which "if you regard its substantial elements, nothing is found that could not be defended."¹⁶ Therefore, the body of doctrine being preserved, it will sometimes be lawful in individual opinions reverently to dissent from St. Thomas; nay, in some opinions, though few, it is necessary to dissent from him.¹⁷ From which at length it is evident that the Church, by more solemnly approving and preferring St. Thomas, does not disapprove or neglect the other scholastics. The Church, as we have shown above, makes much of the whole genuine scholasticism. However much she extols St. Thomas, she nevertheless warns that the newer doctors also follow the other scholastic masters as "distinguished leaders".¹⁸ Nay, she acknowledges the consensus of the scholastics as an irrefragable testimony of divine Tradition. This one thing she disapproves, if by certain scholastics some things are established "repugnant to the principles of St. Thomas".¹⁹ Therefore "if the doctrine of some author or saint ... has ever been approved with singular praises, it is easily understood to have been approved to that extent in which it cohered with the principles of Aquinas or was in no way repugnant to them".²⁰

With this singular praise, before all other scholastics, St. Bonaventure was approved, so that after the divine Thomas indeed, but together with him, he is to be venerated by the Catholic schools.

Likewise the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and of Universities of Studies decreed on 7 March 1916: "The Summa theologica of St. Thomas is to be held as the text of the lectures with regard to the scholastic part of the questions; namely so that, together with some text which ... contains the positive part, the Summa theologica be held in hand and explained with regard to the scholastic part." Acta ap. sed. II, 656 sq.; VIII, 157.

The supreme pontiffs themselves, who extol the Angelic Doctor, likewise concelebrate the Seraphic Doctor. Sixtus V declares: "By the gift of that Divine One, who alone gives the spirit of knowledge and wisdom and understanding, and who increases his Church through the ages of centuries, as need requires, with new benefits, and furnishes it with new safeguards, scholastic theology was found out by our ancestors, the wisest men, which two most glorious doctors especially, the angelic St. Thomas and the seraphic St. Bonaventure, the most distinguished professors of this faculty, ... cultivated and adorned with excellent genius, assiduous study, great labors and vigils, and handed it down to posterity best disposed and in many ways most excellently explained ... For these are the two olive trees and the two candelabra shining in the house of God, who illuminate the whole Church with the richness of charity and the light of knowledge: these, by the singular providence of God, at the same time came forth like two stars rising from two most distinguished families of religious orders. These two Saints, since they were contemporaries devoted to the same studies, fellow students, at once masters, honored in equal measure by Gregory X, the supreme pontiff, and in this pilgrimage of life were most closely united by fraternal charity, spiritual familiarity, and the fellowship of holy labors, ... so that Sixtus IV, recognizing these two Saints as most similar and almost twin brothers in Christ, rightly decreed that St. Bonaventure be adorned with a prerogative of veneration and honor like St. Thomas."²¹ Leo XIII, fully confirming this encomium of his predecessor, adds: "How great a bond existed between St. Thomas and the Seraphic Doctor, how great a likeness of holiness and doctrine, is known to all ... Wherefore there is in no way any doubt but that Catholic youths especially, growing up to the hope of the Church, who betake themselves to philosophical and theological studies to be pursued according to the doctrine of Aquinas, will draw the greatest utility from reading the works of St. Bonaventure, and from the writings of both, as from the principal armories, take up swords and weapons, with which in the most foul war stirred up against the Church and human society itself they may strenuously overcome the enemies."²² Finally Pius X: "We judge that Bonaventure, as one divinely given not only to his own century but to all posterity, can benefit this age also outstandingly ... The more so, because he stood forth as the second prince of the scholastics together with Aquinas."²³