Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

The formal character of Tradition is shown from the constitution and from the principles of the Church.

« In keeping with the form and institution which we have shown from the Gospel and apostolic writings, the Church of the apostolic age and of the ages successively following is exhibited in the other suitable records as constituted, both by express profession and by a constant manner of acting, always and everywhere resting on this principle: that they are the successors of the Apostles who, holding together in perpetual series and in mutual communion, guard the deposit of faith through the charism of truth, so that “nothing can be taken away from, nothing added to the heavenly dogma, which it suffices to have been revealed once.” »

I. When the very principles and foundations of the Christian religion are at stake — principles which are not only in theoretical profession, but which come into daily practice in such a way that on them universally depend the law of believing, the whole Christian faith and life — it is utterly evident that it could not have happened that the constitution of the Churches, the norm of teaching and believing, handed down and appointed by the Apostles throughout the whole world according to Christ’s mandate, should in all the Churches spread far and wide have been corrupted and changed into another plainly opposite, when, as the Apostles gradually died, the same Churches founded by them passed into the following successions — not indeed with another generation suddenly substituted for the former, but with the pastors and peoples of the former and of the following generation linked to one another in a continuous series, and with generations as it were intermingled one with another. Wherefore, if in these following successions the Churches are found everywhere constituted and governed by that principle of Tradition which we have shown from the Gospel and apostolic writings to have been instituted by Christ and put into use by the Apostles according to Christ’s disposition, it will be proved by the inescapable argument of the whole of history that the true sense of the institution of Christ and of the Apostles is that which we set forth above from the Scriptures themselves. If therefore our thesis be considered polemically against the Protestants, we do not appeal to the testimonies and doctrine of Christian antiquity as to an authentic setting-forth of revelation concerning the principle and organ for preserving the integrity of the deposit — an authenticity which they deny; but we appeal to the unanimous judgment of antiquity as to a historical testimony of faith, which both they and all men of sound mind acknowledge and cannot deny; from which testimony, namely, we may understand what the whole of antiquity believed to be the institution and doctrine of Christ and of the Apostles, and professed always and everywhere. From this attestation, in turn, we infer that the sense of the word of God which they too acknowledge in the Scriptures, concerning the principle of Tradition, cannot be other than that which the whole of antiquity professed in theory and in practice always and everywhere, and which the Catholic Church still professes; and this we infer not on account of the supernatural authority of the witnesses, denied by our adversaries, but on account of the historical impossibility of the change and corruption which would have to be supposed to have been introduced, immediately after the Apostles, into the very fundamental principles of the Church of Jesus Christ. This force of the testimony of Christian antiquity not even the Protestants themselves deny, at least in practice, insofar as they have not cast off reason along with faith; hence their solicitude to scrape together testimonies of the ancients which, torn from their contexts, they twist to their own opinion, and the same art of evading those that demonstrate the Catholic principle. For the rest, neither the sole nor the chief determining reason of the manner and worth of our theological treatment is the polemical one, since the distinct understanding of the doctrine of faith — and here, of the foundations of faith — is of far greater moment, from which, once rightly understood, the refutation of errors follows of itself. With these declarations made, we proceed to the demonstration of the thesis.

1°. Among the Fathers of the first, second, and third succession, and thereafter in all the Churches of East and West, there is a constant judgment, as it were axiomatic, that the continuous succession of pastors and doctors, divinely ordained, cohering with the Apostles in an unbroken series, is the visible organ for keeping and propagating the doctrine of Christ whole and undefiled; and that it is therefore to be received from the Tradition which is from the beginning. For the apostolic Fathers — Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp — and a little later Hegesippus attest that the Apostles, according to Christ’s mandate, ordained bishops as their future successors in the ministry in perpetual series¹; and so, that heresy may be avoided and true doctrine kept, union with the bishops is necessary, who are to be followed as Christ Himself; and that in this way the Tradition received from the beginning is to be held. Through this succession, then, perpetual and coherent from the Apostles, one and consentient doctrine was to be kept in all Churches however distant². St. Ignatius is solicitous about nothing more in his letters than agreement and union with the bishops, that the integrity of doctrine and the divinely appointed constitution of the Church be preserved. “I first admonished you to be unanimous in the judgment of God (γνώμη thought made manifest, word, doctrine); for Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the judgment³ of the Father, just as the bishops constituted throughout the ends of the earth are in the judgment of Jesus Christ; whence you ought to be unanimous in the judgment of the bishop. … For whomever the master of the house sends to govern his household, him we ought to receive as the one who sends him. It is manifest, therefore, that the bishop must be regarded as the Lord Himself. And Onesimus himself praises your good order in God, that you all live according to the truth and that there is no place among you for heresy,” to the Ephesians nn. 3–6. See to the Philadelphians nn. 2, 3; to the Trallians n. 7; to the Smyrnaeans n. 8; to the Magnesians nn. 6, 7. Eusebius (H.E. III, c. 36) sums up the scope and principal matter of the letters of Ignatius in these words: “He admonished the Churches of the several cities first of all to beware especially of the heresies then first breaking out and gaining strength, and exhorted them to cling tenaciously to the Tradition of the Apostles, to which, bearing witness, he judged it necessary for security’s sake to consign already even in writing.” Polycarp, in his letter to the Philippians n. 7, hands down this canon for avoiding heresies: “forsaking the vanity of the many and false doctrines, let us return to the doctrine handed down to us from the beginning.” Although, mentioning it only in passing, he does not indicate the mode of Tradition, it is no other than that declared by Ignatius in the letters written to Polycarp’s Church (of Smyrna) and to other Churches, the collection of which Polycarp himself gathered (see Polycarp’s letter n. 13 and Eusebius III, 36)⁴.

About the same time, still in the second century, Irenaeus — and a little later Tertullian — disputing against the heretics, had of set purpose to declare and defend at length the whole doctrine of Tradition and of the organ of Tradition. Irenaeus agrees with the Gnostics on the common principle that besides the Scriptures there is also a Tradition received from Christ and from the Apostles. But the heretics boasted of a hidden Tradition derived to the Gnostics alone through a succession of generations; Irenaeus on the contrary shows that Tradition is public in the universal Church, and that its organ is the succession of bishops from the Apostles, by which the integrity of doctrine is always preserved. “When they are refuted from the Scriptures, they turn to accusing the Scriptures, … because the truth cannot be found from them by those who do not know Tradition; for it was handed down not by letter, but by living voice. … But when we refer them again to that Tradition which is from the Apostles, which is guarded in the Churches through successions of presbyters, they oppose Tradition. … The Tradition of the Apostles, therefore, manifest in the whole world, is available in every Church for all to behold who wish to see the truth; and we can enumerate those who were instituted bishops in the Churches by the Apostles, and their successors down to us,” l. II, c. 2, n. 2; c. 3; l. IV, c. 26, nn. 4, 5; c. 33, n. 8. The same concerning the mode of Tradition is attested against the heretics by Tertullian. “Moreover, if any (heresies) dare to insert themselves into the apostolic age, so as to seem handed down by the Apostles because they existed under the Apostles, we can say: let them then produce the origins of their Churches, let them unroll the order of their bishops running down thus through successions from the beginning, so that that first bishop have as his author and predecessor some one of the Apostles or of apostolic men who yet persevered with the Apostles. For in this way the apostolic Churches bring forward their registers. … If these things are so, so that the truth is adjudged to us, we who walk in that rule which the Church handed down from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God, the reasonableness of our proposition is established, which defines that heretics are not to be admitted to a joinder of issue on the Scriptures, whom without the Scriptures we prove to have no part in the Scriptures,” Prescription cc. 32, 37; against Marcion l. I, c. 21; l. IV, c. 5. This same foundation Origen supposes for the Christian theology which he expounded in his books on First Principles. “Since there are many who think they hold the things of Christ, and some of them hold things diverse from their predecessors, let the ecclesiastical preaching, however, handed down through the order of succession from the Apostles and remaining in the Churches to the present, be preserved: only that is to be believed as truth which in nothing departs from the ecclesiastical and apostolic Tradition,” on First Principles, preface, n. 2.

See also Cyprian. epp. 27. 69; Athanas. de decret. Nicaen. n. 27; Epiphan. haeres. 27. n. 6. (Carpocratianorum); haeres. 56. n. 3. (Melchisedechian.); Optatum contra Parmen. l. II. n. 2. 3. August. de utilit. credendi c. 17; contr. epist. fundamenti c. 4; ep. 53. al. 165. n. 2. ad Generosum; ep. 118. al. 56. n. 32. ad Dioscorum; Vincent. Lirin. Communit. c. 9. 33.

Hence all the Fathers — who were for the most part themselves pastors, or at least present witnesses of the principles by which the Churches were governed — repeat and inculcate that this is the office, this the chief solicitude of bishops: to hand down whole, as a deposit to their successors, the doctrine received from their forefathers. “True knowledge (γνῶσις ἀληθης) is the doctrine of the Apostles, and the ancient state of the Church (το ἀρχαιον της ἐκκλησίας συστημα) in the whole world, and the character of the body of Christ according to the successions of bishops, to whom they handed down the Church that is in each place: a treatment most full, reaching down to us by the guarding of the Scriptures, receiving neither addition nor diminution, and a reading without falsification, and a lawful and diligent exposition according to the Scriptures, without peril and without blasphemy,” Iren. IV, c. 33, n. 8; cf. l. I, c. 10, n. 2. “For us, says Tertullian, it is lawful to introduce nothing from our own judgment, nor even to choose⁵ what anyone may have introduced from his own judgment: we have the Apostles of the Lord as authors, who themselves chose nothing to introduce from their own judgment; but they faithfully assigned to the nations the discipline received from the Lord,” Tertull. Prescription c. 6; cf. c. 9. Augustine, appealing against the Pelagians “to the holy prelates of God, illustrious in the holy Church,” proves their authority chiefly by this reason: “what they found in the Church, they held; what they learned, they taught; what they received from the Fathers, this they handed down to their sons,” against Julian l. II, n. 34. See the Clementine Recognitions l. VIII, n. 37 (Galland. T. II. p. 298.); Athanas. ad Serapion. ep. I. n. 28; Basil. ep. 145. T. III. p. 233; Epiphan. haeres. 56. n. 3; Lirinens. Commonit. n. 12. 14. 26. 27. 32.

2°. The communion and agreement of the Churches with one another, with the apostolic Churches, and by name with the Church of Peter, was always held to be the criterion of the integrity of apostolic doctrine in the Churches derived by perpetual succession; in which last, even alone and considered by itself, is contained, and was always believed to be contained, the demonstration both of sincere apostolic doctrine and of communion with the universal Church.

The celebrated testimony is that of Irenaeus, l. III, c. 3, who, to demonstrate the “Tradition of the Apostles manifested in the whole world in every Church,” testifies that it suffices to indicate “that of the greatest and most ancient and known to all, the Church founded and constituted at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, the Tradition which it has from the Apostles and the faith announced to men, reaching down to us through the succession of bishops,” since, namely, “to this Church, on account of its more powerful principalship⁶ every Church must agree⁷, that is, those who are faithful from every quarter, in which there has always been preserved by those who are from every quarter⁸ the Tradition which is from the Apostles.” The unity of preaching and the agreement of the whole Church may be seen excellently described by Irenaeus l. I, c. 10, n. 2; l. V, c. 20, n. 1. Most effectively Tertullian: “The Apostles founded Churches in each city, from which the other Churches thereafter borrowed and daily borrow the offshoot of faith and the seeds of doctrine, that they may become Churches; and on this account they too are reckoned apostolic as offspring of apostolic Churches. … While all are one, they prove unity, while they have communion of peace and the name of brotherhood and the pledge of hospitality, which rights are ruled by no other reason than (profession of faith) the one Tradition of the same sacrament. … What they preached (the Apostles), that is, what Christ revealed to them, I shall prescribe here too must be proved in no other way than through those same Churches which the Apostles themselves founded, themselves preaching to them, as they say, with living voice as well as afterward by letters. If these things are so, it follows that every doctrine which conspires with those apostolic Churches, the matrices and originals of faith, must be reckoned to the truth, without doubt holding what the Churches received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God. … We communicate with the apostolic Churches, in that none has a diverse doctrine: this is the testimony of truth,” Tertull. Prescription cc. 20, 21; cf. 32, 36.

Consult Cyprian. de unit. Ecclesiae p. 195; ep. 42. p. 57; ep. 52. p. 73. (ed. Baluz.); PP. Antiochen. contr. Paul. Samosat. ep. synod. (inter Opp. Dionys. Alexand. ed. de Magistris p. 280. 281.); Athanas. de decret. Nic. Synodi n. 4; Episcoporum Aegypti ep. apud Theodoret. Hist. Eccl. l. IV. c. 3; Basil. ep. 251. al. 72. n. 4; Epiphan. haeres. 31. p. 202. (ed. Petav.); Optat. l. VII. n. 5; August. cont. litt. Petiliani l. II. c. 51; Cassian. de Incarnat. l. I. c. 6; Lirinens. Commonit. n. 4. 8. 23. 38. 39; Leontius cont. Nestor. l. I. (Galland. T. XII. p. 667.); Episcopi orientales ad extinguendum schisma Acacianum et postea Photianum in VIII. Synodo subscribentes professioni fidei a Pontificibus Hormisda et Hadriano II. propositae Hard. T. II. p. 1017. 1030; T. V. p. 773. 785. 786. coll. 1029; Agatho Pontifex ep. ad Impp. Hard. T. III. p. 1080. 1081.

That unity and agreement of bishops, instituted by Christ Himself and effected and preserved through union and agreement with the successor of Peter, the holy Fathers further declare to be the criterion of the integrity of doctrine, when they describe the same in the Apostles themselves as representing their whole succession (see above, p. 32 sq.). “You cannot deny,” says Optatus to the Donatist Parmenian, “that you know that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was first conferred on Peter, in which sat Peter, head of all the Apostles, whence he was also called Cephas: in which one chair unity was to be kept by all, nor did the other Apostles each defend single (separate) chairs for himself, so that he would now be schismatic and a sinner who should set up another chair against the singular chair,” Opt. l. II, n. 3 (Galland. T. V. p. 471.). Cf. Tertull. contr. Marcion. l. IV. c. 2; Hieronym. ep. 112. n. 8. (ed. Vallarsi); August. contr. Faust. l. XXVIII. c. 4; Theophil. Alexandrin. ep. ad Episcopos Aegypti (Galland. T. VII. p. 617.); Sophron. ep. synod. ad Serg. CP. lecta in Synodo VI. (Harduin. T. III. p. 1260).

The solicitude of the holy Fathers in enumerating and demonstrating the perpetual apostolic succession in the Roman Church — “to which, on account of its more powerful principalship, every Church must agree” — proceeded from the same zeal and was directed to the same end: namely, that they might directly demonstrate the truly apostolic succession of the guardians of the faith, and indirectly, from the communion of the Churches with one another and with the Roman Church, containing the unity of all the members and of the whole body, show the integrity of the apostolic faith. For this purpose they expressly profess to have consigned the continuous series of Peter’s successors: Irenaeus l. III, c. 3; Ephraem Syrus apud Asseman. Bibl. Orient. T. I. p. 129; Optatus l. II, n. 3; Epiphanius haeres. 27. n. 6; Augustinus ep. 53. al. 165. n. 2. cf. Tertull. Praescript. c. 32. “Let no one wonder,” says Epiphanius after describing the names of all the Pontiffs, “that I have run through each so diligently; for through these the truth is shown ever manifest.”

For the rock upon which Christ built His Church, so that the gates of hell may not prevail against it — Peter, namely, in his perpetual succession according to Christ’s institution (Matth. XVI. 18) — is the principle of the visible unity by which the whole Church is one in communion and agreement of faith; and thus the rock laid by Christ is understood to be the formal cause by which the teaching Church is one body, infallible in its definitions through the assistance of the Holy Spirit as through the efficient cause, for preserving and expounding the deposit of faith. The body, namely, of the teaching Church is not simply the teaching Church, to which the assistance of the Spirit of truth and the guardianship of Christ in teaching is promised, except insofar as it is as it were informed by its visible head, so as to be simply the teaching Church, and constituted under the assistance of the Spirit of truth, through which it is infallible. Therefore I have said that the formal cause, or as it were the constitutive form, of the infallible body is the visible head of that body; the cause, indeed efficient of infallibility, neither is nor can be other than the assisting Spirit of truth.

But that Peter, in his perpetual succession, may be the active principle in confirming his brethren unto agreement of faith and in holding together the unity of the Church in the rock, to this end Christ prayed that the faith of Peter, ever permanent, might not fail in this divinely enjoined office and charge, and conferred upon the rock considered in itself a firmness on which the firmness of the Church might perpetually rest — the Church which, in this union with the rock and through the rock, is constituted by Christ God the pillar and ground of truth. Therefore in the successor of Peter considered in himself, the infallibility for proposing and deciding doctrines of faith by his definition is of the same character as in the whole body of the teaching Church united to its head. But these things demand another place and a far ampler treatment.

3°. That this principle — that the apostolic succession thus united and consentient is under the assistance of the Holy Spirit — has from the very beginnings of the Church constituted the sum and crown of the whole doctrine of the authentic organ of Tradition. Always and everywhere there flourished the explicit profession that the efficient cause through which whole doctrine is preserved in the perennial succession and in the unity of the guardians of the faith, according to the promise also consigned in the Scriptures, is from Christ’s donation the very Spirit of truth. For they say that this is done “through the certain charism of truth,” Iren. IV, c. 26, n. 2; “through the working of the Spirit,” id. III, c. 24, n. 1⁹; “through the teacher of truth, who does not suffer the Churches to understand otherwise or to believe otherwise” than they received from the Apostles, Tertull. Prescription c. 28¹⁰; “through the Lord dwelling in the Church, lest speculation, however most zealous, go into error,” August. on Ps. 9, n. 12; “through the suggestion of the Holy Spirit (ἐνηχοῦντος του πνευματος ἁγιου), lest they fall away from the truth,” the bishops in agreement with Cyril of Alexandria, letter to the monks (T. V, among the letters, p. 4); “through the charism received for teaching in the same Spirit, and through the Spirit of the Father who speaks in them,” Leontius against the Aphthartodocetae (Galland. XII, p. 682). The disjunction of mountains and seas in no way impedes the agreement in one truth, because one Spirit Himself effects that agreement, and while they remain in unity, “all have been taught by the one grace of the Spirit”¹¹, Theodoret, dialogue on Immutability (T. IV, p. 32). Wherefore “whosoever shall have despised the doctors and pastors dispensed by God in the Church through times and places, who hold one thing in Christ in the sense of Catholic dogma, despises not man but God,” Lérins c. 40. That “in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion is always kept inviolate” — the reason of this privilege is “that the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be disregarded, saying: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church” (the profession proposed to the Orientals and subscribed by them in the time of Hormisdas and in the Eighth Council, ll. cc. above). Cf. Basil. contr. Eunom. l. I. n. 3; Hieronym. in Amos IX. 15. (in fine); Augustin. sermon. de symbolo ad Catechum. n. 14. (T. VI.).

4°. From the chapters set forth follows what the most ancient Fathers no less inculcate: that the first of all things to be sought is where the Church instituted by Christ and propagated by the Apostles is; for in it the whole doctrine of Christ is necessarily found, and by the Church it is sincerely preached. “We must therefore flee their opinions. … but take refuge in the Church, and be brought up in her bosom and nourished with the Lord’s Scriptures,” Iren. l. III, c. 4; c. 24, n. 1; l. V, c. 20, n. 2. There may be read Ignatius ad Magnes. n. 7; Theophil. Antiochenus ad Autolyc. l. I. n. 14; Clemens Alexand. Strom. VII. p. 755; Tertull. Praescript. c. 19. 37; Origen. de Princ. praefat.; Cyrill. Hierosol. cateches. XVIII. n. 26. 27; Hieronym. dialog. contr. Lucifer. (ad finem); Augustin. de util. cred.; contr. ep. fundamenti c. 4. 5.

II. If abstraction is made from the constant and universal doctrine hitherto expounded, the manner of acting and of judging in practice concerning the truth or falsity of dogmas and opinions which were called into question, observed always and everywhere, evidently demonstrates the very thing we have said: namely, that the whole of Christian antiquity was informed by this principle and rested on this foundation — that revelation is integrally preserved and handed down through the consenting pastors and doctors of the Church given by Christ (Eph. IV. 11); that therefore this agreement in doctrine as revealed is the certain criterion of the divine Tradition derived from the Apostles; and consequently that any new doctrine repugnant to such agreement by that very fact is repugnant to revelation and to divine Tradition.

1°. As the chief argument, against which no exception could avail, for demonstrating revealed doctrine and for convicting the opposed error, there ever availed this: “thus believes the Catholic Church which is under heaven, and all the bishops agree with us,” Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata (Mansi T. I. p. 1033.); the Nicene Council at the end of the Creed; the subsequent Councils. See Athanas. de Synodis n. 5; ad Epictet. 3; Augustin. de Baptism. l. II. c. 9. n. 14; l. VII. c. 5; Cyrill. Alex. ep. synodica 3. ad Nestor. n. 5. 7. (in ed. Garner. Opp. Marii Mercator. T. II. p. 71.).

Hence, for proving the orthodoxy of individuals, whether bishops or faithful, appeal was made to communion with the consenting bishops of the Catholic Church, or with the apostolic Churches, and chiefly with the center and bond of unity and agreement, the Roman Pontiff. So against the Gnostics, Irenaeus and Tertullian in the places cited above (Iren. III. c. 4. n. 1; cf. l. I. c. 10. n. 2; Tertull. Praescript. cc. 20. 21. 32; contr. Marc. l. IV. c. 5.); against the Novatians, Cyprian, Epistle 52 to Antonian, and elsewhere; against the Semi-Arians, Basil, Epistle 204, al. 75, to the Neocaesareans; against the Apollinarists, Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 1 to Cledonius, T. II, p. 84 (Maurist edition); in the Antiochene schism, Jerome, Epistle 15, n. 2 (Vallarsi edition), al. Epistle 57; against the Donatists, Optatus l. II, nn. 3, 5, 11 (Gallandi V, pp. 471–473) and Augustine, Epistle 43, al. 162, nn. 1, 7, 19; Epistle 44, al. 163, nn. 3, 6; against the Monophysites, the Eastern bishops in the profession of faith prescribed by Pope Hormisdas, and against the Photians in the Eighth Synod (Hardouin, Collection of Councils, ll. cc. above).

2°. Since the doctrine of faith was handed down by God to the Apostles, by the Apostles to the Church, and continually preserved by the subsequent pastors and doctors, appeal was ever made to the antiquity of the doctrine impugned by heretics; antiquity, moreover, was demonstrated from the testimony and agreement of the preceding Fathers. Conversely, by the same reason the novelty of the opposed doctrine was demonstrated, and on account of that very novelty it was condemned, because it was repugnant to the faith received from forefathers. Hence the further principle: that antiquity, of which there is evidence from Tradition, is to be followed; that all opposed novelty of doctrine is to be barred. “What is true is what is first; what is first is what is from the beginning; what is from the beginning is what is from the Apostles,” Tertull. against Marcion IV, c. 5. “Let nothing be innovated, unless what has been handed down,”¹² Stephen I, Pontiff (in Cyprian, Epistle 74).

“Let novelty cease to assail antiquity,” Celestine I, Pontiff, Epistle 21, n. 2. “Let nothing be allowed to novelty, for nothing may be added to the old,” Sixtus III, Pontiff, Epistle 6, n. 7; cf. Vincent of Lérins c. 43. In this way were condemned the Gnostics and sundry ancient heretics (Iren. III, 4; V, 20; Clem. of Alexandria, Miscellanies VII, pp. 762, 764; Tertullian, Prescription 8, 9, 10, 23, 26; against Praxeas c. 2; against Marcion IV, 5); those dissenting on the value of the baptism of heretics (Stephen, Pontiff, in Cyprian, Epistle 74 to Pompey, and Lérins nn. 9, 10); the Novatians (Pacian, Epistle 3, nn. 1, 2); the Arians in the Nicene Council (Athanasius, on the Synods nn. 4, 9; Hilary to Constantius

For the rest, if Stephen’s words are considered in themselves, they directly do not define a question of faith; but they contain a precept of handed-down discipline to be inviolably kept, which has for its foundation the doctrine of faith defined directly and in itself “after Cyprian’s passion.” Stephen’s words are: “if anyone shall have come to you from any heresy whatever, let nothing be innovated, unless what has been handed down, that hands be imposed on him for penance” (in Cyprian, Epistle 74 to Pompey). Namely, as Augustine says, “the question of baptism had not yet been diligently treated; but yet the Church kept the most salutary custom of correcting in schismatics and heretics themselves what is wrong, not of repeating what has been given” (on Baptism l. II, n. 12). This most salutary custom the Roman Pontiff commanded to be kept, yet without directly and explicitly defining the doctrine itself concerning the minister of baptism on which it rests. Therefore Cyprian was not cut off from the unity of the Church, and in this sense it may be said that the controversy was not directly and immediately of faith, but disciplinary. II, n. 4); the Apollinarists (Gregory of Nazianzus to Cledonius, Epistle 2, T. II, p. 97); the Nestorians in the Ephesine Council (Cyril, to his clerics n. 10, Garner’s edition, Works of Marius Mercator T. II, p. 51; Lérins n. 42); the Eutychians in the Chalcedonian Council (Hard. II, p. 650); the Pelagians and Nestorians by Popes Celestine and Sixtus (Celestine, Epistle 21 to the Gauls; Lérins n. 43); the Monothelites in the Lateran Council under Martin I (Hard. III, 887). In these and in all others there was ever “the wonted and customary issue of the affair: antiquity, namely, was retained, novelty exploded” (Lérins n. 9). Cf. Stapleton T. I, l. VII, c. 4.

Further, in the appeal to preceding Fathers, the purpose was not so much to demonstrate historically the derivation from the Apostles of the doctrine in question, as rather by a theological argument to infer from the preceding agreement the absolute antiquity and apostolicity of the doctrine; since it was held settled and beyond controversy among Christians that the consenting Fathers never handed down as doctrine of faith anything but what they themselves had received, nor taught anything but what they had learned from their predecessors (cf. above, p. 69). Therefore, in the appeal to predecessors, the consenting attestation even of the proximately preceding was judged sufficient, while it was not judged necessary to adduce the direct testimonies of the most ancient Fathers, that it might be established concerning the judgment even of the most ancient and concerning the apostolicity of the doctrine. So in the fifth century the Fathers of the Ephesine Council appeal, as to irrefragable witnesses of apostolic doctrine, to ten preceding Fathers, among whom only two (Cyprian and Pope Felix) are of the third century, all the rest of the fourth or even of the fifth (see Lérins n. 42). Leo the Great, in his letter to the Emperor Leo, appeals to six Fathers, of whom three of the fourth century, the other three of the fifth (Hard. II, p. 65). Among the 25 Fathers cited by Augustine in his first book against Julian, only two (Irenaeus and Cyprian) are older than the fourth century. Likewise in the seventh century, in the Lateran Council under Martin I, among the 20 Fathers cited, no more than two or three were, or at least were thought to be, earlier than the fourth century (Justin, Hippolytus, Dionysius the Areopagite) (Hardouin III, p. 858). In the sixth synod — both in the letter of Agatho there recited and by the Council itself — 15 Fathers are appealed to, none of whom flourished before the fourth century (Hard. III, pp. 1094, 1202 sq.).

We conclude with the confession of a Protestant man, Münscher, who, compelled by the evidence of the matter, at least acknowledges the fact (History of Dogmas T. III, p. 132). “Even if,” he says, “no express testimonies were at hand concerning the authority and use of Tradition, its force and moment would yet betray itself from many indications. For thence arose that solicitude in every opinion, nay in every theological term, to remove the suspicion of novelty; thence the protestation, so frequent and express, of bishops, synods, and creeds, that nothing is set forth but the doctrine received from holy predecessors; thence the zeal in controversies of faith to confirm doctrine by the authority of the ancients, and to arraign the opposed doctrine of novelty; thence the diligence in Councils to collect the testimonies of antiquity to which they might conform their definition. … These things, namely, demonstrate that it was held as the criterion of true doctrine, as Athanasius says (on the Decrees of Nicaea n. 4), when all agree with one another, and differ neither among themselves nor from the Fathers.”