Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

By synthesis from the foregoing the proper concept of Tradition is gathered, and is confirmed from the sentences of the Fathers.

« The whole doctrine of faith, insofar as under the assistance of the Holy Spirit in the agreement of the divinely instituted guardians of the deposit and doctors it is preserved in continuous succession, and manifests itself in the profession and life of the whole Church, is in the most proper sense divine Tradition. This the holy Fathers call ecclesiastical preaching, the rule of understanding, the rule of apostolic truth, if doctrine is directly regarded as object, which in apostolic succession is kept and handed down; but it is and is called consciousness of faith, catholic understanding, ecclesiastical sense, faith written in hearts, unwritten wisdom, if directly as subject is regarded the Church constituted under the assistance of the Holy Spirit and imbued with the charism of truth for understanding, guarding, and expounding the deposit of faith. »

I. The first part of the thesis is a mere synthesis of the foregoing. It has been demonstrated that the promulgation of revelation was so disposed by Christ Himself that the Apostles, discharging legation for Christ by their ministry and the authority of preaching with which they were furnished through the Spirit of truth, founded Churches and transmitted to them the whole revealed doctrine as an inheritance; and so it comes about that to the Christian religion, according to the institution of its divine author, «obedience of faith» answering to the supernatural authority of the teachers is essential, and hence an authentic magisterium is essential (th. IV). Moreover it has been demonstrated that Christ in express words instituted that the authentic magisterium, whose authority is from the assistance of the Holy Spirit leading into all truth, first ordained for the infallible promulgation of revelation, be perpetual even to the consummation of the age for the conservation and propagation of the same integral revelation (th. V). Whence it is further established that this economy instituted by Christ is from the nature of the thing connected with the character of unity in the universality of Christian faith (th. VI); nor can the Scriptures be judged substituted for the magisterium of apostolic succession, but they are an instrument of doctrine entrusted to the very guardians of the deposit to be guarded and expounded (th. VII). Then it has been demonstrated that according to this economy, defined and exhibited in the Scriptures, the universal Church has evidently been constituted from Apostolic times, resting on this fundamental principle, that the magisterium and ministry for guarding and preaching the integral revelation was instituted in apostolic succession; and so that to this magisterium, insofar as it is regarded in agreement and communion namely with the visible centre of unity, the supernatural charism of the Holy Spirit was promised and is ever present (th. VIII). To this office, moreover, we have understood that the visible element of the whole constitution and acts of the Church, both in (if it is lawful so to speak) daily life and in solemn deeds, marvellously corresponds; yet that constantly, always and everywhere, the formal rationale of authority and of full security in keeping and expounding doctrine was derived from the invisible charism of the Holy Spirit (th. IX, X). From all which it appears that the universal Church of all ages and all places with her whole history is a great real commentary and a perpetual confirmation of the true sense which in the words of Christ and the Apostles we Catholics believe and demonstrate.

It has therefore been demonstrated that the inborn nature and proper rationale of the Church was so constituted by the divine founder that faith and discipline, divinely handed down first by Christ Himself and, with the Holy Spirit dictating, by the Apostles, is propagated from generation to generation through a ministry and authentic magisterium ever vigorous and living. «And they that are from the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and they that are from the rising of the sun, His glory, when He shall come... This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is in thee¹, and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever» Is. LIX. 19-21. «The Tradition of the Apostles, as Irenaeus argues, manifested in the whole world, it is at hand to behold in every Church... and we have it to enumerate those who were instituted bishops in the Churches by the Apostles, and their successors down to us... Since, therefore, there are such demonstrations (var.: since these things are of such demonstration), we ought no longer to seek the truth among others, which it is easy to receive from the Church, since the Apostles most fully poured into her, as into a rich depository, all things which are of the truth, that everyone who will may take from her the drink of life; for this is the entrance of life» Iren. III, chs. 3, 4. But divine doctrine and discipline preserved and propagated from the Apostles, if considered together with the manner and organ of propagation — distinct and diverse from the instruments of Scripture and instituted by Christ Himself — divine Tradition is and must be called in the most proper sense (th. II, III). The point proposed in the first part of the present thesis is therefore established.

II. As to the second part of the thesis, first must be set before our eyes the phraseology of the Saints, where they speak of divine doctrine and discipline as it flourishes and lives through all ages in the faith and profession, in the life and worship of the whole Church, and namely in the agreement of pastors and doctors.

Now St. John says: «The Son of God came and gave us understanding (διανοιαν), that we may know the true God and be in His true Son» 1 John II. 20; and St. Paul: «But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God, that we may know the things that are given us by God... For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ (νουν Χριστου)» 1 Cor. II. 10-16.

We have heard above (p. 66) John's disciple Ignatius admonishing that all be «unanimous in the mind of God»; to which unity the bond are «the bishops established throughout the ends of the earth, who are in the mind of Jesus Christ»; and since Jesus Christ is the very mind, the very Word of the Father, therefore those who are unanimous in the mind of the bishops (united with the bishops throughout the ends of the earth) are in the mind of God. The mind of the Father, then, is Jesus Christ; the mind of Jesus Christ is in the agreement of the bishops, and through them in the agreement of all the faithful: ep. to the Ephesians, n. 3 ff.

Irenaeus, as we have seen, most distinctly declares Tradition as the integral doctrine which through the successions of the Apostles has come down even to us, with the Holy Spirit working and lavishing the charism of truth (above, p. 74 ff.), and the compendium of which doctrine was comprehended and always handed down to all Christians in the apostolic symbol. Now this faith, handed down in the Church and manifesting itself in her whole life, he calls «the immovable rule of truth,» by which heresies and false interpretations of the Scriptures are discerned, bk. I, ch. 9, n. 4; bk. III, ch. 2, n. 1; «the preaching of the truth» το της ἀληθείας κηρύγμα, III, ch. 3, n. 3; «the preaching of the Church everywhere constant and equally enduring» bk. III, ch. 24, n. 1; «the true and firm preaching of the Church, with which one and the same way of salvation is shown in the whole world» bk. V, ch. 20, n. 1; «the proclamation of the Church, which the prophets indeed proclaimed, but Christ perfected, and the Apostles handed down, from whom the Church receiving throughout the whole world alone well guarding handed down to her sons» bk. V, preface (cf. Council of Trent, sess. IV).

In the same sense Tertullian calls it «the rule of faith, one altogether, alone immovable and irreformable» On the Veiling of Virgins, ch. 1; Against Praxeas, chs. 2 and 3; Prescription, chs. 13, 14; «the rule which the Church handed down from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God» Prescription, ch. 37.

By Clement of Alexandria also it is called the ecclesiastical rule, from which the exposition of the Scriptures is received, and by which the New and the Old Testament are brought into harmony — whereas the Gnostics feign a repugnance between the two Testaments: Stromata VI, p. 676. The very γνῶσις, i.e. the deeper understanding of the mysteries and the Scriptures, he teaches to have been handed down by succession from the Apostles; it is «the unwritten Tradition of the written,» coming from Christ to the Apostles, from the Apostles down to us, and therefore pertaining to the very ecclesiastical rule according to which the Scriptures are to be understood: ibid., pp. 645, 679. This he also calls ecclesiastical wisdom² bk. VII, p. 759; «the truest γνῶσις is in the ancient Church alone,» but not among the heretics, ibid., p. 755; for the heretics «deprave the rule of the Church»: they have, that is, «a false key, and do not enter as we do through the Tradition of the Lord, but digging through the wall of the Church they transgress the truth,» ibid., pp. 764, 765.

There follows Clement's disciple Origen. In the preface to the books On Principles there is set down as the norm to which all opinions must be conformed «the ecclesiastical preaching handed down from the Apostles through the order of succession and remaining in the Churches even to the present;» this he calls «the rule of apostolic truth» on Ps. 36, hom. 4, n. 1, vol. II, p. 671; «the rule of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to apostolic succession»³ (2) On Principles, bk. IV, n. 9, vol. I, p. 166.

The ancient author of the book inscribed against the Artemonites, the «Little Labyrinth,» calls Tradition the ecclesiastical mind and the rule of the primitive faith⁴ in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. IV, ch. 28. Very similar is the manner of speaking of Athanasius, who calls the universal doctrine by which the bishops and the whole Church are informed «the understanding, according to which we think»⁵ Oration II against the Arians, n. 34, vol. I, p. 502; and «the ecclesiastical scope, the anchor of faith,» Oration III, n. 58.

Epiphanius names it «the royal way, which is the Church, and the way of truth,» Heresy 59 (of the Novatians), n. 12, cf. 13; Hilary «consciousness of faith; consciousness of the common faith»⁶, which he opposes to the «impious understanding» of the heretics: On the Trinity, bk. VIII, ch. 1, and On the Synods, n. 65; Rufinus «the rule of understanding received from apostolic succession,» Ecclesiastical History, bk. II, ch. 9; Augustine «the rule of faith, the rule of soundness» on John, tract. 18, n. 1; On Christian Doctrine, bk. III, ch. 2; «the rule of piety,» Literal Meaning of Genesis I, ch. 21, n. 41 (so too Pseudo-Augustine, On Predestination and Grace, ch. 1); «the canonical sense;» «the catholic understanding,» serm. 294, ch. 20 ( elsewhere serm. 14 on the words of the Apostle); Against the Epistle of Parmenian, bk. II, ch. 10, n. 20; cf. Against Faustus, bk. IV, ch. 2; Vincent of Lérins «the authority of ecclesiastical understanding;» «the norm of the ecclesiastical and catholic sense,» Commonitorium, ch. 2; cf. ch. 38; the Council of Trent «the universal sense of the Church,» sess. XIII, ch. 1.

That all these locutions can be distributed into the twofold class indicated in the thesis is clear from the very signification of the names; for by some — and these the most excellent — is more directly designated the consciousness and understanding of Catholic doctrine which is in the Church, and namely in the teaching Church under the charism of the Holy Spirit, when it is called «the consciousness of the common faith, the ecclesiastical sense, the catholic understanding, ecclesiastical understanding, the ecclesiastical scope;» by others is directly signified the handed-down doctrine and objective faith itself informing the understanding and consciousness of the Church, where it is called «ecclesiastical preaching, the proclamation of the Church (τὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας κήρυγμα), the rule of faith, the rule of piety, the rule of apostolic truth, the rule of understanding.» It is clear, however, that this is not one thing and another; but one and another consideration of one thing — namely of Tradition regarded in the complex (see above, p. 12).

I do not think doubt can befall anyone whether what is designated by these names is really the handed-down faith and the profession of the Church; for this is most manifest in all the places cited. I shall adduce, however, for each class of locutions an example in its full context. Vincent of Lérins, chs. 1 and 2, after saying that faith must be fortified «first by the authority of the divine law (Scripture), then by the Tradition of the Catholic Church,» immediately adds: «here perhaps someone will ask, since the canon of the Scriptures is perfect and of itself more than sufficient for all things, what need is there that the authority of ecclesiastical understanding be joined to it?» He answers: on account of the difficulties and the various interpretations by which the Scriptures are expounded, it is greatly necessary «that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed according to the norm of the ecclesiastical and catholic sense.» Here the Tradition of the Catholic Church, ecclesiastical understanding, the ecclesiastical and catholic sense evidently signify one and the same thing and are promiscuously used.

Augustine, on John, tract. 18, n. 1, perceiving the difficulties in the interpretation of chapter V of John, thus admonishes his hearers. «Nor have heresies arisen... except while good Scriptures are understood not well, and what in them is not well understood is also rashly and boldly asserted. Therefore, dearly beloved, we must hear these things very cautiously, for the grasping of which we are little ones, and with a pious heart and trembling, as it is written, holding this rule of soundness, that what according to the faith wherewith we are imbued we shall have been able to understand, we rejoice in as food; but what according to the sound rule of faith we have not yet been able to understand, let us remove doubt, let us defer understanding... Let vain presumption be far even from me, dearly beloved, if I wish to dwell sound in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.» The faith, therefore, wherewith we are imbued is called the rule according to which we are to interpret the Scriptures, so that if the words of Scripture seem to present a sense contrary to that rule of faith, we do not waver in faith, but confess that we do not understand the Scriptures. But that faith wherewith we are imbued and that rule of faith, objectively considered, is in the Church, from which we received it, so that the security of our faith is through the Church — the pillar, that is, and ground of truth.