Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

After we have spoken of the subject and object of the authentic magisterium for the infallible custody, exposition, and defence of the deposit against assailing errors, we shall here briefly declare the meaning of the censures by which propositions repugnant to the truth of doctrine are wont to be condemned either authentically by ecclesiastical power or scientifically designated by the doctors. In the Council of Constance, sess. VIII and XV, and in the confirming Bull of Martin V, 45 articles of John Wyclif and 30 of John Hus were condemned under these censures: the articles «notoriously heretical and reprobated by the holy Fathers, others not Catholic but erroneous, others scandalous and blasphemous, some offensive to pious ears, several rash and seditious.» These censures, however, were not attached one by one to the individual propositions, but added to the whole list (as they say) in globo, so that there was no proposition to which none of the enumerated notes applied, and no note was set down which did not pertain to some of those propositions. This form the Supreme Pontiffs, when many propositions had to be condemned at once, generally kept thereafter: thus Leo X in his Bull «Exsurge» against Luther, Gregory XIII and Pius V against Baius, Innocent XI against the pseudo-mystic Michael de Molinos, Alexander VIII against 31 Jansenist propositions, Innocent XII against 23 propositions from Fénelon's book (of which, however, none was condemned as heretical), Clement XI against the 101 propositions of Quesnel (in the Bull «Unigenitus»), etc. In the dogmatic Bull «Auctorem Fidei», to cut off the frauds of the Jansenists, Pius VI attached to the several doctrinal heads of the Pistoians their several censures one by one.

As to the meaning of the different notes, first must be considered what propositions are called heretical, erroneous, rash, since these censures occur most frequently, and once they are determined the others are more easily understood.

a) Heretical is a proposition which certainly is opposed (whether contrarily or contradictorily) to a truth of whose revelation, sufficiently proposed in the Church, there is certain evidence. Two things are therefore required, both revelation and sufficient proposition in the Church, for the opposed doctrine to be heretical. For it does not suffice that the truth be contained in objective revelation, so long as it has not been sufficiently proposed; otherwise a proposition calling into doubt e.g. the supreme authority of several deuterocanonical books would always, even in the fourth century, have had to be called heretical, as would one denying the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin even before its solemn definition. This manner of speaking, both because it is odious, is prudently avoided, and in reality is not true, since heresy includes the notion of opposition to a profession of which there is certain evidence in the Church. Although if such a proposition, contrary to a revealed but not yet sufficiently proposed truth, were called materially but not formally heretical, the whole dispute would be almost entirely about the manner of speaking. It is not required, however, for this censure of a proposition that revelation be evident to the author himself. For here it is not a question of the sin of heresy but of a proposition heretical in itself, to whose character the good faith of the author is irrelevant. Hence propositions can be and often are condemned as heretical which did not then first begin to be such but already were such before, without the author thereby necessarily being guilty of the crime of heresy or being declared to be. Conversely, one to whom the revelation of a truth is sufficiently evident, though it has not yet been so universally proposed that all are bound to believe it, can by denying commit a sin against faith, without the proposition enunciating the denial in its declared sense being heretical in the external forum and subject to the censure of heresy (cf. Treatise on God, Prolegomena, n. III).

It is evident of itself and established from what precedes that it belongs to those who are the authentic doctors and judges in doctrine of faith for the universal Church — to the Supreme Pontiff and to an ecumenical Council — to define doctrine contained in revelation which nevertheless has not hitherto been sufficiently proposed. In such a definition there is indeed contained the sufficient and altogether most clear proposition of faith for the universal Church, and in this very fact is contained, or (generally) explicitly added, the censure of heresy against the opposed doctrine, which hitherto, in the formal sense we have stated, had not been heretical.

Concerning the stated rationale of that first censure all agree, at least as to the substance of the matter; but there is some diversity of opinions where not only the generic but the strict and specific notion of the remaining censures must be declared. Generically every false proposition is erroneous, and so in theological matter, of which there is question in censures, every proposition repugnant to a sufficiently established theological truth — and hence heresy too, even in the highest degree — contains error; and every heretical proposition, being erroneous in the stated sense, is also at least in itself rash. But by the usage of the Pontiffs, and hence by the usage of theologians, each of the two latter censures is distinguished from heresy, and a rash proposition from an erroneous one, as the lower degree from the higher. Hence further, a proposition is damnable both as erroneous and as rash, and is condemned under these notes, insofar as it is in some way opposed to theological truth, but not so that it is certainly opposed to a truth which certainly is or is defined to be a truth of faith, but in some lower degree; and the censure of a rash proposition is in turn lower and less grave than the note of error. Now in determining the proper specific notion by which each censure is distinguished from all the others — comparing at once the diverse theories of theologians and above all their practice, as they employ them, and as they have been employed above all by the Supreme Pontiff himself in the Bull «Auctorem fidei» — the following points hold with sufficient constancy.

b) An erroneous proposition is one repugnant to theological doctrine which is either defined or universally taught and retained in the Church as certain and at least intimately connected with doctrine of faith, but is not proposed as doctrine revealed in itself and hence of faith. The proper rationale of error is thus taken from the proper rationale of the opposed truth. Of this note there are two marks: one positive, namely certitude from universality of consensus as in a theologically certain proposition, and from at least an intimate nexus with doctrine of faith; the other negative, that the doctrine is not proposed and preached as certainly revealed and of faith. The positive note serves to distinguish this censure of error from the lower ones, as will later be established; the negative note distinguishes it from the higher, i.e. from the censure of a heretical proposition¹. The reason, moreover, why a doctrine, though universally held as certain, is yet not judged to be simply of faith, can be twofold: either because it is not sufficiently established that the consensus is not only as in a true proposition but also as in a revealed proposition to be believed by faith, and therefore, before a definition of the Church concerning it exists, theologians generally confess that it cannot be called simply of faith; or because it is a theological conclusion deduced from one revealed proposition indeed, but from another certain only elsewhere, whether theologically or by the light of reason. The censure of an erroneous proposition thus embraces both one which, as stated, is opposed to a certain theological conclusion — of which sort, besides others, e.g. XXII condemned in the Bull «Auctorem fidei» can be judged — and one which is opposed to doctrine to be held indubitably as true from universal agreement and preaching, but which is not proposed simply and certainly as of faith, as would be e.g. X, which in the same Bull is called at least erroneous. Doctrine proposed in the manner last stated is generally proximate to faith, and a proposition opposed to it is called proximate to heresy. Hence it appears that every proposition proximate to heresy is also erroneous, but not every proposition visited with the censure of error is also proximate to heresy; for the censure of an erroneous proposition extends more widely than that of one proximate to heresy.

c) The note of temerity, as we said, is of a lower degree than the preceding censure of error. A proposition rash in its direct sense must be repugnant to some theological doctrine not merely probable but common, so that to deny it is not lawful. Since it is a censure of lower degree than error, a rash proposition compared with an erroneous one will be in less direct opposition to the truth, or opposed to a truth less strictly connected with doctrine of faith. Since this more and less must be discerned by moral estimation and theological prudence, it is no wonder that theologians, unless the Church herself has defined the degree, generally fluctuate between these two censures, calling the same propositions erroneous which others call rash, and being also wont to join the two, saying that a proposition is erroneous or at least rash. A proposition rash in its direct sense will therefore be one which either is repugnant to theological doctrine universally and constantly received among the pious and learned as to be held on grave grounds of authority and of the analogy of faith (to which e.g. XLI of the Pistoians belongs), or affirms something contrary to institutions approved in the Church and to custom, though not revealed in themselves (as would be XXVII, XXXI, LIV ibid.). Moreover a proposition can be rash modally in that it unjustly condemns a probable or more probable doctrine; thus rash was declared proposition XXVI of the Pistoians, by which they explode the doctrine of the «limbo of infants» as a «Pelagian fable».

Since one proposition can be opposed to truth in several ways, hence the same one can be and usually is visited with several distinct censures. If at any time sentences are condemned as rash and at the same time erroneous (as several propositions in the cited Constitution «Auctorem fidei» X, XLVII, LXIV, LXXVII, LXXVIII), it must be noted what we admonished above concerning the more generic meaning of temerity, by which indeed a heretical and erroneous proposition can at once be called rash. Finally it is evident of itself that, where theological censures are in question, temerity is not understood as merely subjective, opposed to prudence and counsel — in which sense whatever is said tumultuously, without necessary consideration and proportionate reason, is said to be rash.

d) Far more easily is determined the proper meaning of the other censures, which are connected with the aforesaid and are as it were intermediate. A proposition is said to savour of heresy which affords grave ground for judging that it coheres with a heretical principle and has proceeded from a heretical opinion of the author; suspect of heresy, which has something amiss in it so as to beget a reasonable suspicion of implicit heresy. It is readily evident that with these two notes of savour and suspicion of heresy there can be joined a stricter determination of the manner in which the sentence is opposed to truth; thus both Pistoian XXII and XXVIII are called suspect of heresy, savouring of it, and erroneous. A proposition is evil-sounding which, though in a less usual signification of the words it admits some harmless sense, yet in the common signification of the words contains something contrary to sound doctrine, without being determined to the harmless sense by context and the circumstances of time, person, and things. Hence anyone sees that an evil-sounding proposition can readily be at the same time subject to other censures (see Pistoian XLIV, LXV); and it is further understood that a proposition which at one time, the signification of terms not yet fixed or another signification attaching to the words, was harmless among the ancient Fathers, can now, uttered without explanation, be evil-sounding — of which sort would be e.g. a proposition now simply affirming three substances in God, just as to blessed Jerome «poison seemed to lurk beneath honey» (ep. 15, n. 4, to Damasus) if three divine hypostases were said simply «without their interpretations». A proposition offensive to pious ears is «one repugnant to the common estimation of the faithful, into which they have been led by piety conformed to sacred doctrine» (so Kilber, Treatise on Faith, n. 228). The other notes — a proposition schismatic, inducing to schism, seditious; blasphemous, impious; scandalous, pernicious; injurious, captious, etc. — if they need any explanation, can be read as declared among the theologians. See Cano I, bk. XII, ch. 11; Suárez, On Faith, disp. XIX, sect. 2; Card. de Lugo, On Faith, disp. XX, sect. 3; Henr. Kilber (among the Würzburg Theologians), On Faith (at the end), and others.