Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

On the mode and organ of propagating doctrine according to the divinely instituted Christian economy itself.

« When the mode of propagation and conservation of Christian doctrine and discipline is inquired into, it is gathered already from the economy of the institution and of the first promulgation historically considered that the organ of conservation is the authentic magisterium, to which the Scriptures are a certain instrument of doctrine; but that the Scriptures are not the sole means of conserving doctrine, and much less the fount of the Christian religion, which individuals would draw for themselves from them independently of the authentic visible magisterium. »

We consider in this thesis the mode by which Christ the Lord instituted the divine religion and then commanded it to be propagated through the Apostles among all nations, so that from the mode of origin we may gather the mode of conservation: whether it is that which the Catholic Church theoretically teaches and practically exhibits, or whether at least some seed or trace appears of the mode of conservation which all Protestants theoretically teach, but in practice follow — or can follow — against their adversaries only in the negation of dogmas, by logical right, never in the affirmation and defense of what they have still retained.

1°. The Son of God himself, made man and conversing with men on earth, in a manner suited to persuading men first demonstrated himself to be the divine legate promised through the patriarchs and prophets and at last sent by the Father, wielding divine authority, and thus worthy of faith. This he did by irrefragable motives of credibility: by miracles¹, by prophecies uttered by himself and confirmed by the event, and by the searching of hearts², by the prophecies of the Old Testament fulfilled in him and by the whole history of preceding ages, which was a preparation and pedagogy for him³, by the Transfiguration and the apparition of the prophets, by the Father's voice fallen from heaven⁴, by the whole tenor of his life, doctrine and death, regard being had especially to the antecedent prophecies and the consequent effects⁵, and then, as the compendium of all demonstrations and their evident confirmation, by his resurrection from the dead, which he rendered manifest by so many ineluctable proofs and apparitions⁶.

Furthermore, once his divine legation and authority were manifested and demonstrated, for each of his doctrines, precepts and institutes he exacted full faith and absolute obedience, with the reward of beatitude and the punishment of eternal damnation set before them. « We see him (Christ), as far as that history teaches which even they (the heretics) themselves believe, to have willed nothing earlier nor more strongly than to be believed, when those with whom he had to do were not yet fit for perceiving the divine secrets. For what else do so many and so great miracles argue, he himself also saying that they are done for no other reason than that he be believed?... Therefore he... by miracles conciliated authority, by authority merited faith, by faith gathered a multitude, by multitude obtained antiquity, by antiquity strengthened religion, which neither the most inept novelty of heretics acting fraudulently, nor even the dotard error of the nations violently opposing, could in any part shake » St. Aug. de utilit. cred. c. 14, n. 32.

Lastly, the economy he chose for implanting his institutes in the human race, for establishing the integral divine faith and religion to endure perpetually, was not that he should comprehend doctrine and precepts in a written book, from which individuals would conform their faith and religion for themselves; but on the contrary by teaching and preaching he formed disciples, and from the disciples he selected teachers and masters, to whom he communicated his authority and the power of magisterium, of rule, and of priesthood, and from these Apostles (that is, men furnished with a legation from himself) and the other faithful he constituted the Church, subject to himself and united to himself as to its head, into which, as into a rich depository, he most fully poured all things that are of the truth (cf. Iren. bk. III, c. 4, n. 1). The authentic book, therefore, which Christ the Lord himself wrote, was the Apostles; written not with ink but with the Holy Spirit⁷, to whom, furnished with the charism of the Holy Spirit, with authority and power, he subjected the rest of the faithful to be taught, ruled and sanctified.

The first origin, therefore, and as it were the first degree of Christian doctrine and discipline, the first and supreme fount of the whole subsequent perpetual succession, is God himself made man, by the word of preaching, by a personal living magisterium. He provides for perpetuity not by fixing doctrine and precepts in written letters, from which letters individual men would derive for themselves the Christian faith and life; but he provides for perpetuity by instituting the Church, and by communicating to the Apostles, together with the charism of the Holy Spirit and the whole doctrine, the authentic magisterium, which is as it were the second degree of the handed-down doctrine and discipline, immediately joined with the first as with its cause. Let us consider this second degree more distinctly.

2°. Just as Christ the Son of God, so long as he lived in mortal life, was by his divine authority revealing truths and handing down divine institutes, so he instituted that after his departure the Apostles, discharging a legation for Christ, should propagate among all nations the Gospel received from him by preaching and teaching with power; that they should teach the observance of all things; that they should be his witnesses even to the uttermost part of the earth; that they should bear his name before nations and kings; that they should preach repentance among all nations; sent with the power with which he himself had been sent by the Father: Matth. XXVIII. 18. f.; Mk. XVI. 15; Lk. XXIV. 47; Jn. XX. 21; Acts I. 8; IX. 15. For this office of teaching and ruling he promised them and sent them the Spirit of truth, who would teach all things (to be revealed), and bring to mind all things whatsoever Christ himself had taught, and lead them into all truth; he promised to be with them as they taught on all days: Jn. XIV. 16; XV. 16; XVI. 13; Lk. XXIV. 49; Acts II; 1 Pet. I. 12; Matth. XXVIII. 20. Whence, by Christ's express asseveration, he who hears and receives the Apostles hears and receives Christ, since their doctrine and their authority is the very doctrine and authority received from Christ: Lk. X. 10. 16 (with parallels).

We see this mode of preaching the Gospel and propagating the Church, prescribed and instituted by the divine master, fulfilled in execution by the deeds themselves on the part of the Apostles. Everywhere they vindicate for themselves the office and authority of legates of Christ God: Rom. I. 5; X. 14. f.; XVI. 18; 1 Cor. II. 16; III. 9; IV. 1; 2 Cor. III. 6; V. 20; 1 Tim. I. 11. By the signs and powers of the Holy Spirit, as seals of their doctrine, they confirm the authority of their mission after the example of Christ himself: Mk. XVI. 20; 1 Cor. II. 4; 2 Cor. XII. 12; 1 Thess. I. 5; Heb. II. 3. 4. Teaching with this authority, they demand faith and obedience for the integral preaching as for the word not of themselves but of God, and thus gather the faithful into the Church, whose faith is one and whose profession is one, because it is the faith and profession, at least implicit, of the integral apostolic preaching: Rom. XVI. 17; Gal. I. 6–9; 2 Tim. I. 13. 14; III. 10. 14; Eph. IV. 15; Matth. XXVIII. 20.

To this authority, therefore, there answers on the opposite side the obedience of faith in believers, not of free option, but necessary with eternal salvation at stake. « Preach the Gospel... he who does not believe shall be condemned » Mk. XVI. 16. The obedience of faith is rendered indeed to the very authority of God revealing: « when you received from us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men but, as it truly is, the word of God » 1 Thess. II. 13. Yet the immediate authority of God the revealer, according to his sweet providence and according to the positive institution of God and Christ, is manifested and applied both to individuals and to all through the divinely bestowed and demonstrated authority of God's legates, who are sent so that through them both the divinity of the utterance and, this supposed, the revealed truths and consequently the legitimate sense of the truths may be received. The obedience of faith, then, regards not only the authority of God considered immediately in himself, which is the motive of faith and (as it is commonly called) its formal object; but it regards also the authority of God's legates, through which the formal and material object of faith is applied. « Through whom (Jesus Christ) we have received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith among all nations for his name » Rom. I. 5.⁸ « For I dare not speak of any of those things which Christ does not effect through me unto the obedience of the nations⁹, in word and deed » ib. XV. 18. « Destroying counsels (λογισμους) and every height extolling itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ (εἰς τὴν ὑπακοὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ), having in readiness to avenge all disobedience » 2 Cor. X. 5. 6.

3°. From this character and history of Christian origins there easily appears what we said in the enunciation of the thesis was to be inferred from it. Authority, the personal authentic magisterium, the apostolic preaching on the one side, and answering on the other side subjection, obedience, and the duty of receiving from them and through them the faith that is handed down, and the explication of the faith, are not something external to the Christian religion and economy and as it were superadded by accident in certain mutable circumstances; but are something inward and a certain essential property of the economy instituted by Christ. We say that the authentic magisterium, with the answering duty of the obedience of faith, is essential not as it were a priori to any religion whatever, but to the Christian religion according to the form impressed on it by Christ and demonstrated above. For it is not a question of the metaphysical essence of religion in general, but of one of the essential elements and as it were of the physical essence of this Christian religion, that is, instituted in this determinate form by Christ, the incarnate Word.

Now with this relation between the authority of the living magisterium and the duty of the obedience of faith supposed as an essential element in the Christian economy, it evidently follows that the same divinely instituted form is immutable, nor can it pass into another wholly diverse form, by which the notion of a living magisterium and authority is excluded, without subverting the very character impressed by the divine institutor on the Christian religion. But such a diverse and repugnant economy is certainly that by which Scripture is deemed to be the sole fount of Christian doctrine and religion, so that individuals independently of the authentic magisterium draw it from the books alone, and the books are the sole supreme norm according to which individuals judge what and in what sense belongs or does not belong to Christian doctrine and discipline. Therefore the apostolic economy, considered in itself according to its primitive form, demonstrates that that mode alone of conserving and propagating revelation which prevails and always prevailed in the Catholic Church is truly Christian, that is, implanted in the very nature of the Christian religion as it was instituted by the divine founder and as it were incorporated in his Church; but that the mode feigned by the Protestants of conserving doctrine in the written letter alone, from which individuals in the human race are bound to derive and conform for themselves their faith and religion, is antichristian, subverting the very character impressed by Christ on his religion.¹⁰ We conclude, therefore: just as even the Protestants themselves are compelled to confess that the chief organ for the first promulgation of the Christian faith, by the example, mandate and institution of Christ, was the personal authentic magisterium and not the instrument of Scripture alone, so too from the same institution it is concluded that the living authentic magisterium remains the organ of perpetual conservation. Conservation is homogeneous with origin, progress with beginnings — not, as would have to be asserted from the Protestant principle, a wholly diverse order of apostolic origin and subsequent propagation, nor a passage from one economy to another wholly diverse.¹¹

It is self-evident, however, that this divinely instituted relation between the authentic magisterium and the obedience of faith, between teachers and learners, which we have demonstrated, certainly does not prevent the divine doctrine from also being comprehended in written books, destined both for the authentic magisterium itself and for the learners dependent on it. Yet the magisterium itself and the personal authority of the teachers must be deemed the fundamental institution of Christ the Saviour, to which by God's special providence Scripture was superadded and commended as a partial fount and instrument of doctrine. Hence we see that fundamental institution declared expressly and in many ways by Christ and the Apostles (see the cited places above); but no precept of committing doctrine to letters was given by Christ to the Apostles as something essential and proper to the apostolate, nor was it so acknowledged by the Apostles, who all certainly discharged the office instituted by Christ, yet not all wrote books, and much less thought that the whole doctrine had to be consigned by them to books. But of this we shall speak later.