Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

On the distinction between historical and dogmatic authority in the testimony of Tradition.

« The distinction between the principles of the Church before the Council of Nicaea and of the Church of the following age, asserted by certain Protestants — namely that the Church at one time was accustomed to vindicate the apostolic origin of her doctrine by merely historical testimonies, and at another time by the authority of her own magisterium — must be judged entirely fictitious. For in every age the historical element in the antiquity and agreement of the testimony, and the divine element of authority through the assisting Spirit of truth, were understood as distinct, yet never separated one from the other. »

Protestants affirm (as Twesten, Dogmatic, Vol. I, p. 117) that the more ancient Church appealed to Tradition only historically — namely by demonstrating that in the apostolic Churches, to which the Apostles themselves had preached, through the continuous succession of bishops down to their own times of the second and third century the faith handed down by the Apostles had not yet been corrupted, but was still intact; whereas in later time the Church "strove to supply by the authority which she claimed for herself what was lacking to the testimony of Tradition considered historically." Others teach (Lessing, Delbrück) that the ancient Church before Nicene times judged the handed-down rule of faith sufficient for herself, but that after the Council of Nicaea she held the inspired Scriptures as the sole source and norm of the doctrine of faith. Most others invert this comparison of times, affirming that down to the fourth century, or even later down to the seventh century, the Scriptures were the sole norm, and that from that time appeal began to be made also to Tradition (cf. the celebrated Fr. Perrone, on Tradition, n. 381).

I. How all these things are not only false but utterly absurd is evident to anyone who compares the doctrine of the holy Fathers set forth in the two preceding theses, where under each head we cited testimonies both of the Fathers who flourished before the Council of Nicaea and of those who flourished after that time, from the second to the sixth and seventh century. Those older and more recent Fathers with one mouth fully agree both in the use of Tradition as a historical demonstration from the perpetual succession of bishops, from connection with the Apostles and from communion and universal agreement; and in proclaiming the infallible security and divine authority of Tradition, which is derived from the Spirit of truth dwelling in the Church; and in asserting this authentic Tradition as the norm of interpretation of the Scriptures — although on this last point we still have to treat expressly below.

Indeed, if the apostolic Fathers and those following of the second and third century — Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc. — appeal to the doctrine handed down from the beginning, to the Tradition which is from the Apostles through the successions of presbyters, to the registers of the apostolic Churches, the same is no less frequent in the Fathers after the Council of Nicaea — Athanasius, Epiphanius, Optatus, Augustine, Vincent of Lérins and the rest — who commend the holy predecessors, because "what they received from the Fathers, they handed down to their sons," as Augustine says; and before him Athanasius: "we indeed demonstrate, he says, that the sentence has passed from Fathers to Fathers.... you assail the council, because namely it defined not your views but those things which from the beginning the eyewitnesses handed down, who were also ministers of the word," On the Decrees of Nicaea, n. 27. And no less than Irenaeus and Tertullian do the later Fathers also appeal to the continuous succession in the Church, especially the Roman Church as the centre and bond of unity, "since through that succession the ever-manifest truth is demonstrated," as we saw Epiphanius testifying; and Augustine: "there holds me in the Church the succession of priests from the very See of Peter down to the present episcopate," Against the Fundamental Epistle, n. 5. See above p. 69 ff.

Conversely, the later Fathers indeed lay the chief foundation in agreement, insofar as it is both the effect and the criterion of the Spirit of truth remaining for ever with the apostolic succession, and thus appeal to the authority of the magisterium derived from the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit. But no less expressly do the most ancient Fathers — Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian — trace back at last to the divinely derived authority from Christ to the Apostles and from the Apostles to their successors the supreme reason why it is forbidden to dissent from the common doctrine of the Church, and whereby it is established that the divine doctrine has been preserved sincerely and integrally through the order of succession: to the "charism of truth communicated with the episcopal succession," to the "communication of Christ, that is, the Holy Spirit," to the promised and sent "teacher of truth, the Holy Spirit." See p. 74 ff.

In the doctrine of the Fathers concerning the ministry of Tradition, then, a twofold discussion is distinguished: concerning the visible element, namely, and the invisible charism; these two are indeed connected, since the visible depends on the invisible, is constituted in its proper character by it, and is in a certain way informed by it; yet they are considered by the Fathers, and ought to be considered, both distinct. That is, to demonstrate the preservation and derivation of doctrine from the Apostles, the most ancient Fathers distinguish three things: apostolic succession, agreement, and the perpetual charism of the Holy Spirit. The succession of bishops from the Apostles is necessary, yet in the individual Churches it does not of itself suffice to demonstrate the apostolicity of doctrine; negatively, therefore, from its defect they prove that the apostolic doctrine is not held by the sects that arose later. For the apostolic succession to be not only material but formal, there is required in the perpetual succession of persons (the bishops) at once kinship and succession of doctrine; the criterion of this, moreover, is agreement and communion with the universal Church¹, the bond and at once the criterion of which communion is again communion with the Roman Church, which is the root and centre of unity (above, p. 69 ff.). Now from this succession and agreement the Fathers draw an argument in two ways: a) more historical and philosophical, because it is historically established that the bishops succeeding one another, whose memory and names are preserved in the veneration of the Church, were faithful guardians of the faith; for the name of one who had adulterated the deposit would not have been tolerated in the series of bishops (cf. above, p. 82). Moreover the unanimous agreement of all the Churches constituted throughout the whole world is itself an argument, even philosophical, of truth; for error is manifold, truth one. "Is it at all likely, says Tertullian, Prescription, c. 28, that so many and so great Churches should have erred into one faith? Among many outcomes there is no one issue; the error of the Churches' doctrine ought to have varied. But what is found to be one among many is not error but tradition." This historical and philosophical consideration is carried out chiefly polemically and in opposition to the varieties and dissensions of the manifold heresies. b) They draw the proper and supreme argument, as we have seen, from the theological consideration of succession and agreement, insofar as it has its origin from Christ for the custody of the deposit, and for its infallible preservation the protection of Christ and the assistance of the Holy Spirit are promised to it and ever present (th. VIII, n. 3).

It is not, therefore, in the manner of considering the ministry of Tradition and in the method of demonstrating the integrity of the handed-down doctrine that there is any difference between the most ancient Fathers and the more recent ones. But those who fabricated this considered only the historical argumentation in the older Fathers, concealing the theological argumentation, which is the most powerful and no less explicit in the same authors; whereas in the more recent Fathers they selected only the theological part, when they appeal to the abiding authority from the promised and conferred charism of truth, neglecting their historical and philosophical argumentation. By this art, indeed, contradictions and diversities of opinions will be found everywhere.

II. From their fundamental principle, the Protestants recognize in the agreeing testimony of Christian antiquity and of the whole Church no authentic proposition of revealed doctrine, but only a historical testimony of faith, as they say — i.e., a testimony from which we learn what was the faith of those attesting; so that not our faith is to be conformed to that testimony, but the testimony itself is to be examined and judged by the sole norm of faith, which is Scripture (cf. above, p. 7). But since even against their will they feel how much weight there is in the sentence and judgment of Christian antiquity, they strive to foist this very principle of theirs upon the ancient Fathers. They say, therefore, that those Fathers appealed to the then-flourishing doctrine of the Churches, and namely of the apostolic Churches, only because or insofar as they saw it actually agreeing with the doctrine of the Scriptures; so that the demonstration of the apostolicity of doctrine from the Scriptures, independently of the sense and agreement of the Churches, comes first and is alone the proper demonstration, while the examination of the Church's profession follows, and if it is found conformable to the Scriptures, furnishes some confirmation of the proper demonstration which was made from the Scriptures alone, independently of the authority and Tradition of the Church.

How shameless a lie this is, I think is sufficiently established from what precedes. See th. VIII. Nevertheless, besides what has already been demonstrated, let us inquire still more distinctly into the opinion of the ancient Fathers on this matter. They unanimously and in the most explicit terms establish that the ecclesiastical preaching and Tradition is the supreme and necessary norm to which the canon, the reading, and the interpretation of the Scriptures must be conformed. Not, therefore, the sense of Scripture elicited by independent interpretation is for them the norm by which they examine and either approve or reject the preaching and Tradition of the Church; but this preaching, as it is proposed by the Church, is for them the object of faith and the norm to which the judgment concerning the very canon of the Scriptures and their true sense must be conformed.

Through the succession of bishops, to whom the Apostles handed over the Church which is in each place, says Irenaeus, "there has come down to us by a guarding without fiction a most full treatment of the Scriptures... and a reading without falsification, and a lawful exposition according to the Scriptures," bk. IV, c. 33, n. 8. In the same way Tertullian: "recourse must not be had, then, to the Scriptures, nor must the contest be established in them... The order of things required that this first be proposed... to whom the faith itself belongs, whose are the Scriptures, by whom and through whom and when and to whom the discipline was handed down by which men become Christians; for where it shall appear that the truth of the Christian discipline and faith is, there will be the truth of the Scriptures and of the expositions and of all the Christian Traditions," Prescription, 19. But to discover where the truth of doctrine is, Tertullian with the rest appeals to the agreement of the Churches (above, p. 71). Hence Irenaeus further admonishes that teachers have been placed in the Church by the Lord Himself: "where, therefore, the charisms of the Lord have been placed, there one must learn the truth, among those with whom is that succession of the Church which is from the Apostles... For these both guard our faith... and expound the Scriptures without peril bk. IV, c. 26, n. 5; cf. ib., c. 32, n. 1. So too Clement of Alexandria: "all things are right before those who understand, i.e., those who, receiving the exposition of the Scriptures declared by Him (the Lord) according to the ecclesiastical rule, preserve it," Stromata VI, p. 676. And he says the true and genuine Gnostic is he "who, having grown old in the Scriptures themselves, preserving the apostolic and ecclesiastical rectitude of doctrines, lives most rightly," Stromata VII, p. 762 (cf. VI, pp. 645, 679; VII, p. 755; Origen, Principles IV, n. 9; Eusebius, Evangelical Demonstration, bk. I, c. 8). Origen, the disciple of Clement, both in the preface to the books on Principles declares the ecclesiastical preaching to be the foundation of all theology and of Christian γνωσεως (cf. above, p. 68), and expressly defines Tradition to be the supreme norm of the interpretation of Scripture. "As often as (the heretics) bring forward the canonical Scriptures, he says, in which every Christian agrees and believes, they seem to say: behold, in the houses is the word of truth (Matt. XXIV, 26). But we must not believe them nor go out from the first and ecclesiastical Tradition, nor believe otherwise than as has been handed down through the succession of the Church of God," Commentary on Matthew, n. 46, Vol. III, p. 864. In the books of the Recognitions, falsely ascribed to Clement of Rome but written at the beginning of the third century, the admonition of St. Peter is introduced. "Many things, as I see, ingenious men take as likelihoods from what they read; and therefore it must be diligently observed that the law of God, when it is read, be not read according to the understanding of one's own ingenuity. For there are many words in the divine Scriptures which can be drawn to that sense which each one has spontaneously presumed for himself, which must not be done. For you must not seek the sense which you have brought in from outside, alien and strange, which you would confirm by the authority of the Scriptures; but from the Scriptures themselves take the sense of truth, and therefore one must learn the understanding of the Scriptures from him who preserves it as handed down to him from his forebears according to the truth," bk. X, n. 42 (Galland, II, p. 322); cf. bk. VIII, n. 37 (ib., p. 298). Not to be more prolix, that is the opinion of all the Fathers from the apostolic age which St. Vincent of Lérins in the fifth century found confirmed "by very many men excelling in holiness and doctrine," that each one "ought to fortify his faith in a twofold way: first, namely, by the authority of the divine law, then by the Tradition of the Catholic Church." The reason, moreover, why to the canon of the Scriptures "the authority of ecclesiastical understanding must be joined," is declared by Vincent: "because namely all do not receive Sacred Scripture, on account of its very loftiness, in one and the same sense; but one interprets its utterances in one way and another in another, so that almost as many men as there are, so many opinions seem possible to be drawn from it." Having named some heretics who defend their heresies from the Scriptures themselves, he concludes: "and therefore it is greatly necessary, on account of the windings of so great and varied error, that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed according to the norm of the ecclesiastical and catholic sense," Lérins, cc. 1, 2, 38; cf. also Augustine, On Genesis According to the Letter, Unfinished Work, n. 15; Rufinus, Church History, bk. II, c. 9. See Stapleton, Controversy 1, bk. XI, c. 3.