Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE DOCUMENTS AND INSTRUMENTS FOR PRESERVING TRADITION.

ON THE MONUMENTS OF TRADITION CONSIDERED IN GENERAL.

On the monuments of Tradition insofar as they exhibit the agreement of the guardians of the deposit, and insofar as they serve them as instruments of doctrine.

« Tradition, hitherto considered according to the divinely instituted and prime organ thereof, can further be regarded as it has been preserved in the monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity, especially in written documents; for these monuments 1°. furnish a certain argument of divine Tradition, or rather exhibit Tradition itself, insofar as from them the agreement of the guardians of the deposit in some head of doctrine as pertaining to Christian faith is demonstrated; 2°. in comparison with the ever-living organ, however, these same monuments are intimately bound up with it, and are as it were a connatural aid for preserving Tradition, and instruments of doctrine. »

I. By monuments in general we mean works of antiquity, whether written or other things, from which we are led to knowledge of the ideas and doctrines, morals, condition, and whole history of the ancients, whether of individual men or above all of an entire society. By ecclesiastical monuments, therefore, we mean here works of manifold species and order still remaining from antiquity, from which we come to knowledge of the mind, profession, and faith which then obtained concerning Christian doctrine and discipline, regarded either as a whole or in its individual heads. It is clear, however, that written works hold the first place among these monuments; for these can report ideas and sentiments and the whole compass of doctrine more clearly, distinctly, and explicitly than the rest. Hither belong tables of symbols and public professions of faith, preserved either singly or in the acts of Councils or in the writings of the Fathers; the acts and definitions of Councils; the polemical and apologetic, dogmatic, catechetical and homiletic, exegetical, historical, and ascetic works of individual Fathers; the acts of Martyrs and Confessors; liturgical books and Sacramentaries; penitential books, canons of discipline, collections of ecclesiastical and even civil laws; ecclesiastical history in general, and the history of heresies; obliquely, even the writings of heretics and enemies of the Christian religion.

Other ecclesiastical monuments survive, sculpted, painted, architectural—in crypts, sanctuaries, sarcophagi, chairs, cups, necklaces, furnishings of the most diverse kinds destined for the sacred or profane use of Christians—in which very often some writing also appears in the inscriptions. Although monuments of this kind seem of themselves less apt for exhibiting a distinct notion of doctrine and profession than written books, yet at times they strike minds with even more vivid light, because they exhibit to the eyes not only ideas to the mind by letters in the manner of books, but the very acts, the religious life and worship of the ancient Christians in vivid artistic representation¹.

Figure 1. On a tripod or altar, whereof they that serve the tabernacle have no power to eat (Heb. XV. 10.), bread is set forth together with a fish; a man in the garb of a Greek philosopher stands with hand extended over the gifts set forth; behind is seen a female figure in the garb of one praying, with hands extended to heaven. Opposite there answers, depicted on the wall (but here omitted), another image, in which is seen the sacrifice of Abraham prepared, while the patriarch himself [stands] with hands likewise extended to heaven. You have the eucharistic sacrifice, in which Christ Himself is offered under the species of bread, exhibited to the eyes almost no less clearly and distinctly than it has been described by Ignatius, Justin, and Irenaeus; provided that the book of Christian art and its ecclesiastical symbols of antiquity do not furnish a certain argument of divine Tradition, unless agreement in the doctrine which they present can be demonstrated; the other [proposition], affirming: they do furnish [it] before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. At the margin a palm, and on it the phoenix bird, are symbols of the resurrection; for Christ risen from the dead is here exhibited. From the mountain flow seven rivers: namely, the fulness of grace flowing from Christ (in which are contained the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, Is. XI. 2. 3; the seven sacraments as channels, as it were, of the manifold grace of God). There follows the lower part of this remarkable monument. Christ the Lamb on the mountain, from which there spring as from one fount four rivers of evangelical doctrine. On either side two cities, IERUSALE and BECLE for BETLE, from which six lambs hasten under the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire to Christ: namely, the faithful from the Jews (Jerusalem) and from the Gentiles (in Bethlehem Christ was first manifested to the Magi, who were the firstfruits of the Gentiles). Above, IORDANES is the symbol of baptism. All these same things are seen in the mosaic work of the Church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian (Ciampini Vetera monumenta T. II. p. 60. pl. XVI.), and (except for the Jordan) in the Church of St. Mark (ibid. p. 122. pl. XXXVII.); except that in both places, for the ampler space, the lambs, symbol of the faithful, are twelve. In the Liberian Basilica there are likewise two cities, HIERUSALEM BETHELEM; five lambs beside the one, five beside the other (ibid. T. I. p. 200. pl. XLIX.). In the Church of St. Sabina, beneath the effigy of St. Peter is a female figure holding an open book in her hand, with the epigraph below ECCLESIA EX CIRCUMCISIONE; on the other side, beneath the effigy of St. Paul, there answers a like figure, ECCLESIA EX GENTIBUS (ibid. p. 188. pl. XLVIII.). The letters in the margin of our monument, PIE Z, are an inscription often repeated on cups: πἱε ζήσεως (drink, may you live).

Figure 5. Christ with a rod striking the rock in the desert. Christ Himself was the rock, 1. Cor. X. 4; and Christ from this rock pours forth the water of grace. In place of the type, Moses, is substituted the antitype, Christ, signified by him.

Figure 6. Christ, holding in His hand the rod of power, or the antitype of the rod of Moses, turns water into wine. But although the Evangelist expressly names six waterpots, Io. II. 6, nevertheless, as in this so in several other monuments there are seven waterpots. The reason is that it was intended to exhibit to the eyes not so much the history as the thing signified, i.e. eucharistic transubstantiation (Treatise on the Eucharist, p. 216.); this is indicated by the mystical septenary number of the fulness of graces.

Figure 7. Peter, leader and lawgiver of the people of the new Law, is substituted for Moses, leader and lawgiver of the O. T. Indeed, he takes the place of Christ as His Vicar (cf. figure 5.). Concerning the letters often running on the garments, as here you see the letter γ, consult Ciampini Monumenta vetera T. I. c. 13.

Figure 8. The image is taken from a glass fragment in the Borgia museum of the Congr. de Propaganda Fide. The distinguished Fr. Mozzoni, who had received it from the late Fr. Marchi of blessed memory, assigned it to the monuments of the second century. It is certainly most ancient; and together with other like monuments it demonstrates the cult in Christian antiquity toward the Saints, in particular through images, and the cult of hyperdulia above the holy Apostles themselves toward the Virgin Mother of God. The Blessed Virgin in the garb of one praying for us is seen placed between the two holy Apostles Peter and Paul. They furnish a certain argument of divine Tradition, and exhibit Tradition itself, where the agreement of apostolic succession can be demonstrated.

As regards the former, negative enunciation: where agreement—whether antecedent, synchronous, or consequent—cannot be demonstrated directly or indirectly, monuments of this kind exhibit only the private opinion and understanding of individuals, or at any rate it is not established that anything else is exhibited in them. A private opinion, however, regarded apart from agreement, is of no greater authority than is either the private authority of individual Fathers and teachers, or the arguments by which it is proved. It can therefore be a true opinion, it can be weighty, it can be probable; yet by force of such private understanding and testification it is not demonstrated to pertain to divine Tradition, because individual Fathers teaching something apart from the agreement of apostolic succession discharge the office not of witnesses of Tradition but of private teachers (of which we shall speak below); and because the criterion of the assistance of the Holy Spirit is lacking, and through²

Figure 9. Daniel slaying the dragon (Dan. XIV. 26.), type of Christ slaying idolatry, who as the prefigured antitype stands behind holding in His hand the rod of power, as in very many other monuments.

Figure 10. Tobias disembowels the fish: « the smoke of his heart.... driveth away all kinds of devils... and the gall is good to anoint the eyes wherein there is a white speck, and they shall be healed, » Tob. VI. 4. sqq. The fish a symbol of Christ, who expels the demon and enlightens the eyes. Both monuments (9. 10.) belong to the very many which show that the use of the deuterocanonical books was without distinction the same as that of the protocanonical, as sacred Scriptures.

Figure 11. The fish beneath the gourd signifies Christ prefigured in the history of the prophet Jonas, Ion. II. 1; IV. 6; Matth. XII. 40. For where in the Vulgate version is read ivy, in the Itala was gourd (LXX. κολοκυνθη heb. קִיקָיוֹן). What the septenary number in the plant symbolic of fecundity signifies is clear from what was said on figure 4. Even in other monuments, where Jonas is represented sleeping beneath the plant in human figure, the septenary number of gourds is kept (op. cit. Fr. Garrucci, pl. IV.). This infallible understanding—the criterion which, when the guarding of Tradition in and through the universal Church is at issue, we have seen to lie in agreement itself (above, th. VIII.)³. But if the opinion reported in the monuments were not only apart from agreement but even against it, it is clear that it would be a testimony not of divine Tradition but of an ancient error.

No less established is the truth of the second proposition, which was affirming: for where monuments exhibit the opinion of antiquity in such a way that from them the agreement of the guardians of the faith and of apostolic succession in some dogma of faith is demonstrated, by that very fact they exhibit doctrine under that character which is the certain criterion of divine Tradition. For then, by those monuments the guardians of the faith are set before us as present, not as private teachers but as agreeing witnesses of Tradition from diverse ages and diverse Churches, and there are reported not their private opinions but the unanimous testimony of Tradition. Therefore, just as by the agreeing testification of the living apostolic succession, so by monuments which report the agreeing testification of apostolic succession obtaining in an earlier age, divine Tradition is demonstrated and exhibited. Read Augustine, against Julian, b. I. n. 30-34; b. II. n. 31-37; Unfinished Work, b. II. n. 37.

II. In the second part of the thesis we compare the monuments and documents of ecclesiastical antiquity with the perennially living magisterium itself.

1°. These documents, regarded in general, we say to be an aid for preserving Tradition, intimately bound up with the prime organ and as it were connatural to it. For as the apostolate was instituted by Christ of itself not for writing books but for promulgating the Gospel of the kingdom by the authority of preaching, for founding Churches, for preserving the faithful in faith through the living magisterium itself and the authentic ministry—yet nonetheless some of the Apostles and of the disciples of the Apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit to embrace preaching in part in written documents as well, in aid of preaching and of the living magisterium (th. IV.)—so apostolic succession was instituted by Christ of itself and directly for preserving and propagating Christian doctrine and discipline by a magisterium and ministry ever living in perpetual succession; yet from this very divinely enjoined office there follows, as it were connaturally, according to the condition and necessity of things and times, a more or less ample writing down of Christian doctrine and discipline and its consigning in monuments. For since the Holy Spirit preserves the deposit not apart from human ministry, nor by a continual immediate revelation breathed into the guardians of the faith while they do nothing, but accomplishes it through a diligent, helping, error-preventing assistance, therefore human work also and the human element under this assistance of the Spirit is required (th. IX.). To this human work, placed under the direction of the Holy Spirit, it also belongs—and from the very nature of a society constituted of men and for men, it follows according to the wisdom and providence of God—that public professions of faith, solemn judgments and definitions of apostolic succession in Councils, vindications and declarations of handed-down doctrine against arisen novelties, catecheses and instructions of the Catholic people, expositions of the Scriptures, the liturgy, rites of sacramental administration, in sum all the chief acts of ecclesiastical life, be also consigned to writing, and that all these things, expressed in documents and monuments, be handed down to posterity. This writing and consigning is indeed not inherent in the office itself of apostolic succession from Christ's institution, as the personal magisterium and ministry is essentially inherent in it; nevertheless, of the magisterium—not indeed in individuals but regarded in general—some function, from the nature of things and men morally necessary and therefore consonant with the gentle providence of God, this too is: to provide for the integrity and perpetuity of doctrine and discipline also by documents and monuments⁴.

Moreover, for the very human action of the ever-living magisterium, for the same reason—because it is ruled not by ever-new revelations but by the assistance of the Holy Spirit—inquiry into the faith and profession of its predecessors and of Christian antiquity is often necessary: where either the present agreement is not sufficiently perspicuous, or the connection of the present profession with antiquity is to be vindicated against opposed errors, or, for the faithful, for their more lucid confirmation and declaration, the perenniality of doctrine and unity of faith through all ages is to be demonstrated. But this appeal to the mind and agreement of antiquity cannot be instituted directly except from the monuments and documents which survive. It is established, therefore, that the monuments and documents of Christian profession and discipline, both by origin and by moral necessity from the very nature of any society whatsoever and in particular of Christian society, are intimately bound up with the magisterium of perpetual apostolic succession, and are for Christian society as it were connatural bulwarks for preserving the integrity of Tradition. Cf. Bellarmine, De verbo Dei l. IV. c. 12.

2°. Although this be so, yet if ecclesiastical monuments are regarded formally—i.e., speaking not of the authors insofar as most of them, bishops or pontiffs, whether singly « dispensed through the distances of times and places » or gathered in Councils, constituted for their age the living magisterium, but considering the monuments in themselves insofar as they are monuments of antiquity—they cannot be reckoned the prime organ of Tradition, but are for the prime organ itself an aid and instrument of doctrine, however morally necessary and connatural in the manner declared.

For a) in the order of origin, the successors of the Apostles succeeding one another in perpetual series under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and « under the certain charism of truth which they received with the episcopal succession » (th. VIII.), are, from what has been demonstrated, the organ of preserving Tradition instituted simply and immediately by Christ; whereas this other bulwark for preserving Tradition has its origin, in its chief elements, from the prime organ itself, not from the immediate institution of God, although it be from God's special providence toward His Church. In one word it can be said: the perpetual, ever-living apostolic magisterium is the very substance of the thing instituted by God for preserving Tradition; preservation through monuments is a certain mode consequent upon the thing instituted by God.

b) Hence, in the order of necessity, the one is from God's institution simply necessary and essential; the other has been given to it for rightly discharging its office under God's gentle providence, and in a manner for its better being.

c) In the order of teaching, the one stands to the other as the inanimate instrument of teaching stands to the living teacher who uses it and is its authentic interpreter. Just as Sacred Scripture contains the written word of God, and thus constitutes a part of the deposit or objective revelation, whose guardianship, exposition, and preaching has been divinely entrusted to the ever-living apostolic succession under the direction of the Holy Spirit—and accordingly it belongs to this same succession authentically to declare the true sense of Scripture—so in nearly the same way all ecclesiastical monuments, insofar as they exhibit the agreement or definitive judgment of the apostolic successors at any past time whatsoever, contain the word of God, and accordingly pertain to the deposit to be guarded and expounded by the continuous and living apostolic succession. If, therefore, at any time doubt or controversy arise either about the existence of the agreement to be demonstrated from these monuments, or about the true sense of the doctrine exhibited in them, the living apostolic succession itself is the authentic interpreter and judge of the sense and of the agreement.

The word of God, whether contained in Sacred Scripture or in ecclesiastical monuments, is without doubt the rule and norm of believing for the whole Church; but the word of God to be expounded is the norm as in first act, the word of God expounded the norm in second act. Authentic exposition, however, so pertains to the ever-living magisterium of the guardians of revelation that individuals, in understanding the word of God whether contained in the Scriptures or in the other monuments, must always depend on the authority and preaching of this same magisterium, and understand and believe the word of God according to its catholic understanding. This is what is commonly said: Scripture and Tradition (objective, comprised in monuments and documents) is the remote rule of faith; the Church (the living magisterium and preaching of the Church) is the proximate rule of faith. Cf. Gregory of Valentia, de Fide disp. I. q. 1. point 7. §. 12.⁵; Suarez, de Fide disp. V. sect. 5; Stapleton, b. XII. c. 15-17.

On the Direct or Indirect Demonstration of Agreement from the Documents of Antiquity.

«The agreement of the witnesses of which we have spoken can be demonstrated from the monuments in two ways: 1°. by direct testimonies, which either, drawn from diverse ages and Churches, exhibit the common and universal profession immediately by their very agreement, or contain a solemn and authentic judgment concerning doctrine addressed to the universal Church; 2°. it can be demonstrated by inference, when the testimonies even of a few are understood, from the character of the witnesses, of the cause, and of the circumstances, to report nothing but the common faith.»

I. In the first part of our proposition we treat of the direct demonstration of agreement among the witnesses of Tradition to be drawn from the monuments, and thus we say that the existence of Tradition can be established in two ways, namely by the conspiracy of testimonies or by solemn judgment.

1°. If from the monuments there are adduced express testimonies of all ages from the apostolic age onward, or at least from that time when the doctrine in question first began to be impugned by heretics and for that reason to be treated more diligently by doctors persevering in Catholic union and agreement, and if these testimonies belong to diverse and nearly all provinces, this is plainly the same as if the whole Church with all her pastors and doctors, martyrs and faithful people in her connection with the Apostles and through the Apostles with the preaching of Christ Himself, were set before our eyes through the course of the ages in ever homogeneous progress, testifying to her faith and her understanding of the faith (cf. Augustine, Against Julian, bk. II, n. 37; see above, p. 86). Yet no more illustrious demonstration of the agreement of the guardians of the faith can be found. Therefore the worth and evidence of such a demonstration is established.

2°. A solemn and authentic judgment concerning some doctrine as revealed and apostolic of itself demonstrates the truth of what it enunciates, when it is the judgment of one who by authority received from Christ teaches the universal Church — whether the judge be immediately the apostolic succession in unity and agreement, as in the ecumenical Councils, or be the Pontiff by himself, who is the origin and centre of unity and agreement ¹ (cf. above, p. 114 ff.). Such a judgment, therefore, always either exhibits in itself and authentically manifests, or effects, the agreement of all persevering in Catholic unity, and it is the clearest and most solemn expression of the agreement of the guardians of the faith at least of that age in which the judgment was delivered, and of all subsequent ages. Therefore the monuments from which such a judgment becomes known thereby exhibit the consentient doctrine and Tradition in apostolic succession.

This mode of demonstrating agreement excels the other which we mentioned in the first place, because it is easier, suited to all, and fitter for excluding every doubt concerning the existence of agreement. Hence often, where the agreement of witnesses «dispensed through the distances of ages of times and places» is ambiguous or called into doubt, its declaration by an authentic judgment becomes necessary. «In antiquity itself, as St. Vincent of Lérins admonishes, ch. 38, to the rashness of one or of a very few let (the sons of Mother Church) first of all prefer the general decrees, if any there be, of a universal Council; then next, if that be lacking, let them follow what is nearest to it, the consentient sentences of many and great masters.»

II. Very often the condition of the Fathers, of the controversy, of the circumstances, and of the whole cause is such that from the testification even of a few eminent doctors the agreement of apostolic succession and the common doctrine is readily understood. If there be question of Fathers, though few, who in some controversy against heretics stood forth as leaders as it were for the Catholic cause and fought for it with the whole Church beholding and applauding — as Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Hilary, Augustine for the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity against the Arians and Semi-Arians; Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great, Agatho, Sophronius for the mystery of the incarnate Word against the Nestorians and Monophysites and their offshoots; Augustine, Fulgentius for the grace of God against the Pelagians and their remnants, etc. — the doctrine, I say, of these Fathers as to the very matter which they defended against heretics in the name of the whole Church (prescinding even from the authentic judgments which some of them delivered as pastors and doctors of the universal Church) is without doubt the expression of the common faith and profession of the whole Church. The same, however, cannot be said of all the questions which the Fathers, on the occasion of defending the common faith, happened to treat from their private opinion. «The deeper and more difficult parts of the questions that arise, which those who resisted the heretics treated more at large, as we dare not despise, so we are not bound to assert» — Indiculus of the authorities of the Apostolic See in ep. 21 of Pope Celestine to the Bishops of Gaul.

In general, if Fathers, even though fewer, whose authority in the Church of God was great both in their lifetime and after death (cf. Augustine, Against Julian, bk. I, nn. 11, 29), teach something as pertaining to the Catholic faith, or testify to doctrine publicly received and handed down by their forebears, whether they betray it in express words or by their manner of treating it; if they bear this testimony in such circumstances that it could not have escaped the notice of contemporary doctors, or at least of subsequent ones, and it was received with none contradicting — such testimony even of the fewer, so circumstanced, is of a kind that, considering the economy, unity and communion of the Church (th. IX), the agreement of the guardians of the faith is legitimately and certainly inferred from it. Thus St. Augustine, from the assertive manner of speaking even of individual Fathers, from the authority, renown, and merits by which they shone in the Church, infers that what they propose as Christian faith cannot but be drawn from the rule of faith and the common profession — for otherwise neither would they themselves have so taught, nor would they, so teaching, have been received by the Church with such celebrity. In this way he appeals to Cyprian: «you see with what confidence so great a man speaks from the ancient and undoubted rule of faith» (On the Merits and Remission of Sins, bk. III, n. 11); to Gregory Nazianzen: «he is indeed so great a personage that neither would he say this except from the Christian faith known to all, nor would they hold and venerate him as so illustrious, unless they recognized these things said by him as from the rule of the best-known truth» (Against Julian, I, n. 16); to Hilary, «so illustrious with such praise among Catholic bishops, so conspicuous with such renown and fame» (ibid., n. 9); to Ambrose, «whose grace, constancy, labours, perils for the Catholic faith, whether in works or in words, I have myself experienced, and with me the Roman world does not hesitate to proclaim» (ibid., n. 10); he denies that Chrysostom could in common dogma think otherwise than the whole Church, for otherwise he would not excel with such glory: «far be it that you (John) should think otherwise, and should excel so eminently in her (the Church)» (ibid., n. 22); by this reasoning, finally, he demonstrates inferentially the agreement of the Eastern bishops with the Westerners in the dogma of original sin: «for they too are Christians, and the faith of both parts of the world is one, because this faith is Christian» (ibid., n. 14).

ON THE PRIVATE AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY FATHERS AND DOCTORS.

On the Authority of the Holy Fathers, If They Are Regarded Singly.

«The authority of the individual Fathers, regarded by itself, is indeed neither infallible nor peremptory; yet not only piety but also manifest reason persuades that both the theological opinions of individuals be not lightly esteemed, and that they be received in a sense dissonant from the common doctrine of the other Fathers in dogma and in theological matters only with the greatest caution.»

I. What is contained in the first part of the enunciation is evident of itself; for certitude and security that they never err, and the irrefragable authority thence arising, cannot be present from any excellence of knowledge and sanctity, but from the sole charism of the Spirit of truth and His indefectible assistance. This, however, was promised not to individuals, whether bishops or holy doctors, but, as we have long since demonstrated, to those alone who by Christ's institution received the charge of authentically teaching the universal Church, and insofar as they discharge this charge — to the successors of Peter, I say, in whom is the origin and bond of unity and agreement, and to the whole episcopate, if regarded in unity and agreement among themselves and with their centre. Two things, therefore, we shall note: first, that both in the thing itself and in the sayings and (if it be lawful so to speak) in the methodology of certain ancient doctors we carefully distinguish the agreement of the Fathers, insofar as it exhibits the agreement of the infallible Church herself, and then the authority of the individual Fathers; the second note will be concerning the conditions which some theologians require for the authority even of the agreement itself.

1°. Augustine most clearly distinguishes the Fathers regarded privately as individuals and regarded in unity and agreement as witnesses of Tradition. Having cited certain testimonies of Fathers attesting the dogma of original sin, whose agreement with the rest and with the whole Church he had gathered from the circumstances and manner of speaking (cf. th. XIV, n. II), he declares the difference between their private authority and the Tradition of the Church for which they testify. «These things,» he says, «I have mentioned not because I rely upon the opinions of any disputants as upon canonical authority; but that it may appear that from the beginning even to the present time, when this novelty arose, this concerning original sin was guarded with such constancy in the faith of the Church, that it was brought forward as most certain by those who handled the Lord's eloquence, rather to refute other falsehoods, than that it was attempted by anyone to be refuted as false» — Augustine, On the Merits and Remission of Sins, bk. III, n. 14.

That very agreement of the Fathers in a doctrine of faith, therefore, does not infallibly exhibit a true opinion because the individual consentients are in themselves and subjectively infallible; but although individuals can err, from Christ's promise it is infallibly certain that the agreement of all can never be in any error contrary to faith, never was, and by virtue of the promised divine providence could not be — since such a common agreement against the handed-down faith of the Church would already suppose or induce the corruption of the very faith and Tradition of the Church.

Concerning individuals, therefore, or even concerning several Fathers regarded outside agreement, are said and must be understood the things which Augustine sometimes seems to affirm — that he is moved not by the authority but by the reason and proof of the Fathers. For where agreement is present, it is not indeed the authority of individuals that proves, as the authority of the individual inspired writers alone suffices; but in the agreement itself is contained the reason and proof of Tradition, historical and philosophical as well as theological (above, th. VIII–X). Thus, therefore, are those words of Augustine to be understood: «I so read other books besides the Scriptures that, however much they excel in sanctity and doctrine, I do not therefore think a thing true because they so thought; but because they were able to persuade me, either through those canonical authors or by probable reason, that it is not at variance with the truth» — Augustine, ep. 82, n. 3, to Jerome; cf. Against Faustus, bk. XI, ch. 5; ep. 93, n. 35, to Vincent. In the same sense he asks in his own letters for free correctors — not indeed of the doctrine which he hands down in agreement with apostolic succession, but of his private opinions. «In all my letters,» he says, «I desire not only a pious reader but also a free corrector... as I say to him, do not serve my letters as the canonical Scriptures... what you did not hold as certain, unless you have understood it as certain, do not hold firmly; so I say to him, do not correct my letters from your opinion or contention, but from divine reading or unshaken reason» — On the Trinity, bk. III, proem; cf. On the Gift of Perseverance, ch. 21, n. 55. Hence too is understood the legitimate sense of the words of Tertullian (Prescription, ch. 3): «persons are approved by the faith, not faith by persons.» The sense, that is, is the very one expressed by Vincent of Lérins, ch. 23: «it is surely a great thing and necessary to be recalled... that all true Catholics should know that they are to receive doctors together with the Church, not to desert the faith of the Church together with (individual) doctors.» Likewise is understood in what sense that is true which St. Thomas says, I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2: «(theology) uses the authorities of the doctors of the Church as arguing from what is proper, but probably» only, not with necessary conclusion, as it argues from the authorities of Sacred Scripture. Lastly is understood how absurd and contrary to Augustine's own opinion is the proposition of the Jansenists (30th among those condemned by Alexander VIII, 7 Dec. 1690), which ran thus: «where one finds a doctrine clearly founded in Augustine, he can hold it absolutely, without regard to any Bull of the Pontiff.»

2°. This place, where we declare when the authority of the Fathers is not irrefragable, still necessarily demands the explanation of the twofold condition under which that highest degree of authority is wont to be denied them.

a) Some distinguish between the Fathers as they are witnesses of Tradition and as they are doctors; under the former aspect all confess their authority to be ineluctable, under the latter aspect they say it is not so great that it would be a sacrilege to depart with due reverence from their placita. For this distinction to be true, it would have to be made between the Fathers as witnesses of Tradition and authentic doctors regarded in unity and agreement, and the same men considered as private doctors. For the same men who are guardians of the deposit are also divinely instituted doctors, and this twofold charge, though it can perhaps be distinguished, cannot be separated, as we shall demonstrate elsewhere. Under the same condition, therefore, under which the Fathers infallibly guarded Tradition, they also, with the Holy Spirit assisting, infallibly expounded revealed doctrine and declared it according to its legitimate sense; which condition we have often said to be agreement among themselves and with the centre of unity. Where, therefore, the Fathers in discharge of the office of doctors unanimously, constantly and assertively declare the sense of a dogma that had been obscure, expound what had been implicit, define more strictly what seemed ambiguous, the sense of revelation so handed down and expounded by them must be believed no less true and genuine than when in discharge of the office of guardians they handed to posterity what they had received from their forebears already clear and expounded. If, then, the Fathers, insofar as they are doctors, are said to «hand down the mode in which the doctrine of the Church is subjectively conceived by them,» and furthermore in this business their authority is denied to be ineluctable, that cannot be understood of a unanimous and constant mode of conceiving; for this unanimous concept of doctrine is nothing else than the Catholic understanding formed and refined under the infallible assistance and direction of the Holy Spirit (th. XI, n. II). True it is, however, that individuals as private doctors and regarded apart from agreement are not infallible in their mode of conceiving, in the exposition and illustration of revealed doctrine, concerning which enough has been said. Where, therefore, there is question of defining the authority of the Fathers, a simple distinction between the Fathers in agreement and the same men regarded singly seems to us far fitter.

b) The other condition, under which the authority of the Fathers is denied to be irrefragable, I shall set down in the words of Melchior Cano, and with him it is twofold. First indeed he says: «the testimonies of the saints can be referred to the confirming of the dogmas of philosophy.» Of these he lays down: «the authority of the saints, whether of few or of many, when adduced for those faculties which are contained in the natural light, does not furnish certain arguments, but avails only so far as reason consonant with nature shall have persuaded.» To these he then adds certain other doctrines of ecclesiastical authors, «which,» he says, «without loss of piety can be unknown not only to the unlearned but even to the learned, because they are neither dogmas of faith nor derived from them.» Hither he refers certain questions concerning the nature of sanctifying grace, concerning the mode of operation of the sacraments, the question whether John the Evangelist has not yet departed this life; nay (for that age in which Cano wrote) even the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Concerning questions of this kind he lays down this principle: «the authority even of all the saints, in that kind of questions which we have said do not at all pertain to faith, makes indeed probable faith, but does not make certain faith» — Cano, On the Places, bk. VII, chs. 2, 3; ch. 3, nn. 1, 9.

I readily concede further that in merely philosophical questions not the authority of the Fathers avails of itself, but the reasons by which what they affirm can be proved are to be regarded; provided, however, there be kept before one's eyes what we said (p. 125 ff.) and shall yet say elsewhere — that questions philosophical in themselves, on account of their intimate nexus with revealed truths, can be and frequently are in a certain respect truly theological. But in questions pertaining to religion and to the proper rationale and understanding of dogmas, which Cano mentioned in the second place, I would never say, nor without begging the question can it be said, what he says: «the authority of all the saints in that kind of questions which we have said do not at all pertain to faith does not make certain faith.» If it were already established in advance as true, what is assumed — that these questions do not pertain to faith — I confess that the agreement of all the Fathers would not effect that they pertain to faith; but this itself is what is in question, whether they do not pertain to faith. If, however, the Fathers unanimously, constantly and assertively agree, and so agree in them as either expressly or by their manner of treating to betray that they are held as truths of faith comprehended in ecclesiastical preaching and in the Catholic understanding, surely their very agreement proves with ineluctable authority that those questions pertain to faith, and in what they so unanimously teach they make certain faith. The begging of the question is evidently shown by the example by which Cano wished to illustrate his assertion. Immediately after those words, «the authority of all the saints... does not make certain faith» (bk. VII, ch. 3, concl. 4, n. 9), he subjoins the example of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, «which controversy, as he thought, was not of the number of those that could either promote or impair the Catholic faith.» The learned man could at that time, the truth not yet having been elicited, think that this question did not pertain to faith, because he thought there was no sufficient agreement of the Fathers and no testification of Scripture on either side; but surely he could not say that this question was of those «in which the authority of all the saints does not make certain faith, because it is a question not pertaining to faith.» For if the authority of all the saints have a ratified and firm affirmation, the agreement itself demonstrates that what they testify to pertains to faith — as indeed it was always contained in the objective Catholic revelation, and now pertains to faith even as proposed to all by the Church.

As to this second point, therefore, we think thus. When it is asked what is the authority of all the consentient Fathers in a theological matter, the distinction to be repeated first of all is not simply, as it were a priori, from a presumed discrimination between things that pertain to faith and things that do not; but far more safely is distinction made between the diverse modes in which doctrine is proposed by the Fathers. If they agree in such a way as manifestly to hold doctrine as pertaining to the common faith of the Church, the agreement itself demonstrates divine Tradition, so that to think against such unanimous doctrine is altogether nefarious, and in itself indeed heretical. If agreement exists in a doctrine or exposition of doctrine as religious or theological and true, yet it does not sufficiently appear whether they propose it as a doctrine of faith, or if the agreement itself is not so manifest — to clash against such common doctrine will for the most part not lack the note of error or temerity. Nay, though I do not deny that it can for the most part be discerned from the very nature of the thing whether a question is merely philosophical or theological, yet this itself you will often gather more safely from the very manner of teaching of the Fathers. For things that are merely philosophical you will not find treated and asserted by the holy Fathers in any common agreement as pertaining to Christian religion and piety.

II. The second part of the thesis, where we say that the authority even of individuals is to be venerated, is established from at least the office of pastors belonging to most of them, from their singular zeal for faith, unity and truth, from their knowledge and erudition in Christian doctrine and discipline, from their eximious sanctity, by which they rendered themselves fitter for God's peculiar illuminations and expressed Christian doctrine not only by word and writings but by life itself, from their antiquity by which they approach nearer to the beginnings of the Christian thing and cohere more closely in time with the Apostles themselves, from the signal veneration in which in the Church of God they were always held, both living and after death, as chosen by God's singular providence toward His Church and more abundantly furnished with the charisms of doctrine and sanctity for the exposition, illustration and defence of Christian faith. Hither are to be transferred the things we said in th. IX, n. II; th. XIV, n. II.

All those notes, which are the ground of the authority of individuals in things pertaining to Christian doctrine, are comprehended under the name Father of the Church. For four things are required, that an ecclesiastical writer in the proper sense be reckoned in the number of the Fathers of the Church. a) It is required that his writings be of great moment for maintaining and illustrating apostolic doctrine and Tradition — which can sometimes be obtained not so much by amplitude and erudition as by simple orthodox doctrine and antiquity, as e.g. happens in the writings of some of the apostolic Fathers and apologists. b) Besides doctrine there is required not only communion with the Catholic Church to the end, but also holiness of life; for in this is included a peculiar conjunction with God, the fount of all wisdom, thence a deeper and more refined understanding of Christian faith and discipline, an ardent love of the Church and of unity and sincerity of doctrine. Although this sanctity does not render individuals infallible, it yet bestows on them, even regarded apart, an authority in teaching such as does not belong to other, even most ancient, ecclesiastical writers regarded in themselves, who as historical witnesses, insofar as they agree with others, can be excellently employed, but as doctors avail less by their own proper authority; such are Tatian, Tertullian, Origen, Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius, Rufinus and others. c) These characters of doctrine and sanctity must be joined with antiquity. The ancient bishops and doctors call by this name of Fathers all their predecessors distinguished by integrity of faith, doctrine and sanctity, through whom they themselves had received Christian faith and doctrine. For several centuries now the usage has prevailed, as to this appellation, of distinguishing a twofold age of the Church. The earlier age, nearer to Christ and the Apostles, is reckoned through that time in which the exposition, illustration and defence of Christian doctrine and discipline against the inrushing heresies was accomplished in most of the chief heads. The holy theologians, for the most part bishops, by whose labours, studies and writings this was effected, and the doctrine of the Church illustrated for all posterity, and from whose documents the subsequent ages received the illustrated and defended doctrine; who therefore, from their nearer connection with the Apostles, from doctrine and sanctity were in peculiar authority and veneration with the subsequent bishops and doctors, as fathers with sons, so that later men derived from them as sons from fathers new defences and declarations perchance necessary, or at least sought confirmation of doctrine — these holy theologians and ancient bishops, I say, are called Fathers of the Church, and that time is called the age of the Fathers. But although the objective Catholic revelation after the Apostles receives no further increase, yet its exposition, illustration and defence can never be said to be simply and absolutely terminated; hence it comes about that the age of the Fathers, and consequently the series of the Fathers, is not assumed by all in one way and with the same terminus. By a sufficiently common usage St. Bernard (d. 1153) is wont to be reckoned the last among the Fathers. d) To these is added the approbation of the Church, which where the three foregoing are present is never wanting and is already included in them; for no solemn decree is necessary, but there suffices a practical, if it be lawful so to speak, agreement ¹.

III. Where there is question of reconciling the Fathers with one another, the difficulty can present itself in three ways. For either a universal agreement affirming of one age is objected to be opposed to a universal agreement denying of another age; or some of the Fathers seem contrary to the common doctrine of the rest; or, when at one time no agreement appears but diverse men seem to think diverse things, at a subsequent time all convene in one ratified and firm opinion.

1°. Opposition between the agreement of one age and of another in matters of faith can never be real, but only apparent. This is established from the principles demonstrated in th. VIII–X; because, namely, with a ratified and firm agreement in proposing and expounding the doctrine of faith there is always conjoined, from Christ's promise, the charism of truth; and truth remains one and the same for ever. It will therefore always be possible to show either that the opposition is not in the thing itself but in the manner of speaking; or that the supposed agreement of the antecedent age is not real, and is not a ratified and firm common opinion, much less a profession of faith, but a private opinion more or less widely spread among some Fathers. If at any time from historical and hermeneutical resources alone neither could be clearly demonstrated, yet from the theological principle, otherwise most certain, it would remain undoubted that the contradiction is not real but apparent. The theological principle is reduced to that which Leontius opposed to the Monophysite heretics feigning a dissension of the Fathers among themselves: «because the Fathers (regarded in agreement) received the charism of doctrine, nor were they themselves who spoke (left solely to their human studies); but the Holy Spirit spoke through them» (Gallandi, vol. XII, pp. 669, 682). See above, p. 74 ff.

The Arians or favourers of the Arians in the fourth century contended that consubstantiality, or at least the word consubstantiality of the Son with the Father as defined in the Council of Nicaea, had before been condemned by the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, and so was repugnant to the preceding agreement. Against them St. Athanasius first of all lays down the theological principle itself. «It is not fitting to set those against these, for all are Fathers; nor would it be holy to define that these spoke well, those ill; for all fell asleep in Christ... It is not lawful to blame either, for all cared for the things of Christ, all turned their studies against the heretics» — Athanasius, On the Synods, nn. 43, 45. In general he admonishes, nn. 13, 14, that if once the consentient Fathers be accused of error, all teaching authority, and thus the whole economy of faith, will be subverted. Then indeed, so far as without the opportunity afforded of inspecting the letters of the Antiochene Fathers it seemed to him ², he explains, n. 45, in what way the Fathers of either Council are to be said to have taught diverse but not contradictory things for a diverse scope. In like manner have been confuted by Catholic doctors all those, both ancient and recent, who contended that one doctrine concerning the Most Holy Trinity flourished among the Fathers regarded universally before the Council of Nicaea, and another among the subsequent Fathers. From the theological principle itself, namely, it is certain that the contradiction cannot be but apparent. With hermeneutical and historical resources then rightly applied, this very thing is demonstrated — that the manner of speaking and arguing was diverse, but the thing and doctrine itself the same, though not expounded by all with the same clarity and distinction. Cf. Treatise on the Trinity, th. X, XI.

2°. The hypothesis of which we have hitherto spoken — of a real opposition between the agreement of one age and of another — is excluded by the very promised charism of indeficient truth in the authentic magisterium, nor can it ever be but an apparent opposition; but two other hypotheses can be real: that there is in truth no agreement of the Fathers concerning some head of doctrine, or that a few are found contrary to the common agreement of the rest. But in these one must proceed prudently and cautiously, lest dissensions be rashly feigned where in the thing itself there is perhaps full agreement.

a) If diverse Fathers seem to think diverse things, nothing else remains in interpreting but that the sense of individuals be determined from text and context and the remaining circumstances, and if the opinion of the diverse Fathers is truly diverse, that it be concluded that from the authority of the dissentient Fathers the truth of such doctrine cannot be established. Yet it would not thence yet follow that the truth of the doctrine cannot be established from elsewhere. For it can happen that after dissension among doctors there subsequently followed in some question full agreement in the Church of God; of which progress of exposition we shall speak below.

b) If a few Fathers seem to contradict the constant and already in their age common doctrine, then indeed the characters commemorated in this thesis, n. II, by which the individual holy Fathers were distinguished, and the principles on which they always rested in the exposition of Christian doctrine, and most of all the authority in which they were always held by the whole Church (th. IX and th. XIV), altogether demand that the ambiguous sayings of the Fathers, even if less proper and more unwonted significations of words must be supposed, be expounded in a sense consonant with the common doctrine of the others. For the character, the whole manner of thinking, and the principles of an author otherwise certainly known must be held as the chief norm of interpretation, at least in the negative sense — namely, that there be not attributed to his words a sense repugnant to that known character of the author. But nothing can be more repugnant to the known principles and character of the holy Fathers than a doctrine alien from the common agreement.

This very rule is handed down not only by Facundus of Hermiane — although he himself erred in its application to Theodore of Mopsuestia (see Petavius, Prolegomena, ch. 2, n. 8) — but long before him by St. Ambrose. «If a word offends,» he says (ep. 48, n. 4, to Sabinus III), «ask the virtue of the profession... even a doubtful word an undoubting mind overshadows and defends from lapse.» One example out of innumerable may be the exposition of Hilary's words given by Augustine. «When one wished most briefly to intimate the properties of the individual persons in the Trinity, he said: eternity, he says, in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift. And because he stood forth a man of no mediocre authority in the treatment of the Scriptures and the assertion of faith — for Hilary put this in his books — of these words... having scrutinized the hidden understanding so far as I could, I judge that he followed nothing in the word “eternity” but that the Father has no Father (principle) from whom He is» — Augustine, Trinity, bk. VI, ch. 10, n. 11. Thus see certain difficult locutions of Dionysius of Alexandria concerning the Son of God expounded in a sound sense in Athanasius, On the Opinions of Dionysius, and On the Synods, n. 47; like locutions of Gregory the Wonderworker declared in Basil, ep. 210, al. 64, n. 5; Chrysostom's manner of speaking concerning the innocence of infants to be baptized expounded, and at the same time the fraud of Julian the Pelagian detected, in Augustine, Against Julian, bk. I, n. 22. Many other locutions of certain Fathers come to be reconciled, of which there is treatment in wellnigh all treatises of theology — as when they say: that the Word immanent in the Father was made prolate in the creation of the world or in the incarnation; that the Father alone is by nature invisible; that the Son ministers to the Father; that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, yet proceeds through the Son and is the Spirit of the Son; that there is one nature of the three persons, as one is the nature of many men; that the persons in God are distinguished only by consideration of the mind (ἐπινοια). (Of these severally there has been treatment in the Treatise on the Trinity.) Thus likewise they say that the two natures in Christ are distinguished only by consideration; that there is one nature of the incarnate Word; that in Christ the virtue of the body sustained the force of punishment without sense of punishment; that the nature of the flesh in Christ was absorbed by the divinity, after the resurrection passed into the divinity (Treatise on the Incarnation). Further: that in good works we begin, grace follows; that it is necessary that we act according to what delights more; that man is moved by grace invincibly and insuperably (or inseparably). Further: that the word acceding to the element cleanses, not because it is said, but because it is believed; that to God alone it is necessary to confess sins; that communion of the Eucharist is necessary for infants, that they may enter eternal life; that in the Eucharist the nature of bread remains; that it is a sign of the body of Christ; that bishops are greater than presbyters more by custom than by the truth of the Lord's disposition.

Then: that sinners are not of the Church; that when Christ promised the building of the Church upon the rock, He promised the building upon Himself. All propositions of this kind, when put forward by heretics, are condemned or to be condemned, yet in the Fathers are expounded in a sound and Catholic sense from the contexts and from their clearer doctrine elsewhere.

Hence it is clear how absurd are the Jansenists, when they defend the propositions of Baius and Quesnel as immune from error for the reason that some of them are conceived almost in the words of St. Augustine. It is clear also how greatly deceived was that historian who in our time ³ on quite the same ground dared to defend that St. Augustine is the «parent of Jansenism.» Like the Jansenist is the cause of wellnigh all heretics — Arians, Monophysites, Pelagians, Socinians — who in defending their errors were wont to appeal to certain obscurer sayings of the holy Fathers.

Although these things are so, yet it is not to be denied that it could happen, and in fact happened, that in some head of doctrine some holy Fathers erred from the truth. The reason and condition, however, under which within the bounds of the Church diversity of opinions can have place, and under which therefore some dissension even of the holy Fathers could at some time prevail, is in general the obscurity of the question from defect of an antecedent solemn judgment. In particular, diversity of opinions was wont to arise from the mode in which a head of doctrine was still implicitly contained in another, not yet clearly and explicitly proposed in itself; or from the mode in which a dogma was contained more in practice and custom than in distinct and «insistent preaching.» On the other hand, such dissension itself is an index and argument of the question at that time not yet elicited and of the obscurity still prevailing.

But such obscurity at no time obtained in those fundamental revealed doctrines which were always to be known and believed explicitly by all, and therefore were contained in the public profession and symbol of faith; nor can it be admitted in any other revealed doctrines after a solemn and public definition. Therefore dissension even of individual holy Fathers from doctrines already in their age so elicited cannot be admitted, nor can it be composed with the principles by which they were ruled and with the authority by which they always excelled in the Church.

c) In those heads, finally, in which a real dissension of some individual Fathers from the universal agreement subsequently following can be shown, it can always also be demonstrated that those dissentient opinions are not derived from Tradition. In particular, their sources are wont to be wellnigh: α) a prejudiced interpretation of some place of Scripture (as in the opinion of those attributing bodies to angels; and of others, if any thought the beatific vision to be deferred until the resurrection, or who, opining a twofold resurrection, set up between the two a millenarian kingdom); β) conclusions wrongly deduced from the analogy of faith (as in the opinion of the rebaptizers of the third century, and in the opinion of those who in the second and third centuries reckoned the Shepherd of Hermas, the epistle of Barnabas, etc., among divine Scripture); γ) particular facts not rightly explained, or internal arguments wrongly applied (both of which happened in the hesitations of the third and fourth centuries concerning the canonical authority of some books of Scripture).

The opinion concerning the millennial kingdom of Christ among the Fathers before the fourth century, compared with the opposing agreement of the later Fathers.

« Although many Fathers down to the beginnings of the fourth century followed the view of a kingdom of Christ on earth for a thousand years before the universal resurrection of bodies, yet this was the private opinion of individuals, never a common agreement as in a doctrine of faith. This is established 1. from the subsequent contrary agreement; 2. from the certain principles by which apostolic Tradition is governed; 3. from the very origin and entire history of that opinion. »

It could sometimes happen that several Fathers adopted the private opinion of one man; whence it then comes about that, especially if this happened in the most ancient time, which through the lack of records is obscure to us, what flourished seems to have been, and is trumpeted by some as, the unanimous view of the earlier Fathers, against which nevertheless the contrary agreement of subsequent ages prevailed. But this subsequent contrary agreement, even taken by itself alone, suffices so that, from the theological principle, and also philosophically from the principles on which the Fathers always relied (th. VIII, IX), it is certain that that antecedent agreement cannot have been universal in a ratified and firm judgment, but was merely the opinion of individual teachers. For the rest, it will be the task of theologians to demonstrate this very thing historically as well.

To demonstrate the great difference between a private opinion however widely diffused and an agreement truly catholic, many examples would indeed be at hand, but none more apt to the present matter than the opinion of the chiliasts, whom Augustine (City of God XX. 7.) calls milliarii, who teach that before the universal resurrection the just are to be raised, who, with the city of Jerusalem restored, are to reign with Christ on earth for a thousand years. A diligent inquiry into the history of this opinion, of which even in our time mention not rarely occurs among good and learned men, ought not to be judged a digression from our present scope; for the manner in which that doctrine arose in the most ancient times, flourished, and perished, will excellently illustrate the character and marks of genuine Tradition as against spurious traditions.

I. The names of those who in the second and third centuries had embraced the view of that thousand-year kingdom interposed between the first resurrection of the just and the second universal resurrection can be heaped up: Papias (in Eusebius H. E. III. 39. and in Irenaeus V. 33.), Justin (Dialogue with Trypho n. 80.), Irenaeus (bk V. cc. 31-36.), Tertullian (Against Marcion bk III. c. 24.), Methodius (Banquet of the Virgins IX. n. 5.), Nepos the Egyptian bishop (in Eusebius bk VII. c. 24.), Victorinus of Pettau (on the testimony of Jerome On Illustrious Men c. 18. and on Ezekiel XXXVI.), Commodian (Instructive Lessons Against the Pagans cc. 43. 44. 80.), Lactantius (Institutes bk VII. cc. 24. 26.), Quintus Julius Hilarion (On the Duration of the World, Max. Bibl. vol. VI. p. 376.), Sulpicius Severus ¹.

After Lactantius at the beginning of the fourth century no further author of weight who is Catholic, down to the most recent age, made mention of this view without at the same time disapproving and rejecting it. They disapprove and reject it: Eusebius in the cited places; Basil ep. 265. al. 293. to Eulogius; Gregory Nazianzen bk II. poem 31. al. 133. v. 175. sq. vol. II. p. 876; Epiphanius heresy 77. n. 26. vol. I. p. 1031; Theodoret, Fables of Heretics bk III. c. 6; Nicephorus H. E. bk VI. c. 21; Jerome On Illustrious Men on Papias; on Isaiah XX. 23; XXV. 1. sq.; XXX. 26; XXXV. at the end; and in the Preface to bk XVIII. on Isaiah (cf. on Jeremiah XX. 10.); on Ezekiel XXXVI; ep. 120. q. 2. to Hedibia and elsewhere; Augustine City of God bk XX. c. 7; Philastrius heresy 59; Gennadius On Church Dogmas c. 25. (in the appendix to the Works of Augustine vol. VIII.). Hither belong those who in their commentaries on Apocalypse XX. interpreted the first resurrection and the thousand years there mentioned plainly against the explanation of the chiliasts with unanimous agreement: Andrew of Caesarea Max. Bibl. vol. V; Aretas ib. vol. IX.; Primasius ib. vol. X.; Ambrose Autpert ib. vol. XIII; Bede Works vol. V.; Berengaud in the Appendix to the works of St Ambrose; the Anselm of the common edition (who is not the Canterbury Anselm but probably the Laon one).

Now although some of the Fathers directly condemn the millennial kingdom as the heretics Cerinthus and, in the fourth century, Apollinaris asserted it, yet there is included the disapproval of the whole of this opinion, even under forms less absurd than the Cerinthians had devised. This is evident from this very fact, that the Fathers disapprove not only the manner but the thing itself, and most expressly join with the chiliasm of the heretics that assertion by certain ancient Catholics as accidentally, not in the thing itself, diverse. So almost always Jerome. « For we do not expect, according to the Jewish fables which they call δευτερωσεις ², a Jerusalem jeweled and golden from heaven, nor shall we again suffer the injury of circumcision, nor offer sacrifices of bulls and rams, nor sleep in the idleness of the Sabbath. Which (not indeed according to the same form of the Jewish ceremonies but as to the substance of the matter under another form) both many of ours promise, and especially Tertullian's book On the Hope of the Faithful (lost, but the third Against Marcion survives), and the seventh volume of Lactantius's Institutes, and the frequent expositions of Victorinus Bishop of Pettau, and lately our Severus in the dialogue entitled Gallus; and to name Greeks and join first and last, Irenaeus and Apollinaris » Jerome on Ezek. XXXVI. (vol. V. p. 422.). Augustine openly alludes to the manner of exposition of Papias and Irenaeus; Philastrius places universally among heretics the chilionetitae (millenarians), Gennadius expressly after the heretics names and rejects the opinion of Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Nepos; Eusebius, Theodoret, Nicephorus reprove, and the last two recount among heresies the opinion of Nepos, which as expounded by Dionysius of Alexandria (in Eusebius VII. 24.) seems to differ in nothing from that of Irenaeus ³.

Furthermore, what the common view was in subsequent time, we learn from the unanimous doctrine of the theologians. The Scholastics constantly, without contradiction, with certain affirmation and most in the gravest words reject the opinion of chiliasm. St Thomas says: « it must be said that on the occasion of those words (Apoc. XX. 4.), as Augustine relates in bk XX. of the City of God (c. 7.), certain heretics posited that the first resurrection of the dead would be such that they would reign with Christ a thousand years on earth (behold the substance of the opinion, which he says was that of heretics); whence they were called chiliasts, as millenarians, and Augustine there shows that those words are to be understood otherwise, namely of the spiritual resurrection » St Thomas 4. dist. 43. q. 1. a. 3. sol. 1. ad 4. St Bonaventure: « concerning the resurrection according to Catholic faith it must be held that all bodies of men will rise in the general judgment, with no distance existing in them (morally long, much less of a thousand years) as to the order of time, but rather as to the order of dignity » Bonaventure Centiloquium P. IV. sect. 2. cf. on 4. dist. 43. a. 1. q. 3; Breviloquium P. VII. c. 5. Dominic Soto has it thus: « seduced by those words of John (Apoc. XX.) Papias his disciple ⁴ devised two bodily resurrections; by which error Lactantius and others were afterwards stained... but this fable did not long persist in the Church » Soto 4. dist. 43. q. 2. a. 1. ad 3. Bellarmine, having related the opinion of Lactantius concerning the double resurrection, the former of the just, the latter of the reprobate, and concerning the millennial kingdom, adds: « this opinion was also that of many ancients, as Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Apollinaris... but it has now long been exploded as a proven error » Bellarmine On the Roman Pontiff bk III. c. 17. Suarez in On the Incarnation vol. II. disp. 50. with studied effort refutes that view in the whole of section 8. After commemorating the millenarian doctrine of Papias, Irenaeus, Justin and the rest, whose foundation they themselves placed in Apoc. XX. concerning the double resurrection, Suarez speaks thus. « It must be said, however, that the resurrection of the just will not be until the day of judgment, and on that day all men will rise; wherefore no great interval will intervene between the resurrection of the just and of the unjust. This assertion is certain, and insofar as it is opposed to the cited error (the millenarian), I judge it to be of faith. » We conclude with the words of Cornelius a Lapide on Apoc. XX. 2. « Here then, he says, is the error of the millenarians; I dare not call it heresy, because I do not have open Scriptures or decrees of Councils by which this view is condemned as heretical. Whence St Augustine also in the cited place (City XX. 7.) did not dare condemn it. Yet it is sufficiently convicted of error, and could be condemned by the Church as heretical, as our Father Salas and others condemn it... Finally the later Fathers and the sense of the Church reprobated this view, whence it now seems to have vanished. »

Therefore concerning the universal, constant and ratified agreement of the Fathers and doctors from at least the fifth century down to our own age in rejecting that opinion there can be no doubt; although the denial is not such that the disapproved opinion, before a definition of the Church intervenes, can be called heretical. But from this very fact, according to the principles so often demonstrated and declared by us, it is evident that that commentation of some Fathers of the second and third centuries is not a view handed down by the Apostles, nor can it display a universal agreement, or the « Catholic understanding » of the places of Scripture on which they relied; but it is the private understanding and interpretation of individual teachers of the doctrine whether written or handed down, in which private interpretation, destitute of agreement, they certainly could err and did err, as the subsequent universal sense and opposing agreement demonstrates.

II. Indeed if the state of the question be considered, and that view more widely diffused in the second and third centuries be compared with the contrary agreement gaining force in subsequent centuries, the very principles by which Tradition and the custody of the deposit are governed demonstrate that that view is not contained in the deposit of revelation, nor was derived from apostolic Tradition. Which assertion of ours is not only not weakened by the wider diffusion of that doctrine in the first centuries, by the authority of the Fathers who defended it, by the very clarity of the words of Scripture if understood in the immediate sense, but on the contrary these very reasons, compared with the subsequent contrary agreement, shed clearer light on the demonstration.

For let us suppose for a little what the chiliasts affirm, that the doctrine concerning that millennial kingdom is revealed by God and handed down by the Apostles to the Church, and contains the genuine understanding of the sense of Scripture, and let us see what follows thence. The written word of God taken in the obvious, first-presenting, immediate, that is, non-tropical sense most clearly exhibits this view. « And I saw an angel... and he laid hold of the dragon... who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years... and I saw seats... and the souls of those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not, till the thousand years be finished; this is the first resurrection, » and the rest which follow, Apoc. XX. 1-15. This glorious advent of Christ and this reign of His on earth with the resuscitated saints for a thousand years, or at least for a long time before the universal resurrection and the last judgment, is such that many oracles of the psalms, prophets, Gospels, apostolic epistles taken in the obvious and immediate sense seem to describe this very kingdom; whereas if it is not admitted, the interpretation is rendered more difficult, and a transferred sense must be substituted in very many places (for I grant the millenarians this). Further, on this hypothesis, Scripture to be understood in the obvious sense in so many places was handed down by the Apostles to the Church, and this same sense was expressed compendiously by the Apostles and the first faithful in the very Apostles' Creed in those words: « He will come to judge the living and the dead »; for so the revived millenarians assert. Certainly this (on the hypothesis) apostolic Tradition, and this sense of the Scriptures, the Catholic teachers of the second and third centuries most clearly held and expressed; whose number is ample enough that we may judge many of the faithful also to have thought according to the doctrine of those same Fathers. But from the time when the understanding of Christian doctrines and dogmas was most unfolded and cultivated, from the beginning of the fourth century and the fifth century in which nearly all the greatest teachers of the Church flourished, this supposed apostolic Tradition and the true obvious sense of the Scriptures, of the revealed doctrine itself and of the Creed⁵ would have been more and more not only obscured and consigned to oblivion, but impugned and rejected by all the teachers in whose surviving works any mention of this matter occurs. The teachers with unanimous accord would have conspired to twist Scripture, not in one or another place only but in many books of the Old and New Testament, whenever the last days are treated of, from the clear and obvious sense into more difficult, transferred and (on the hypothesis) false explanations; in the whole Church, whether in catecheses and instructions of the people or in schools, while the second advent of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment are explained, the truth handed down by the Apostles would constantly and everywhere from at least the fourth century have been hidden, and things would have been taught which cannot be reconciled with that truth. But how all these things can stand with the economy of Tradition and with the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit preserving the Catholic understanding from error and leading into all truth, no one may understand. There can without doubt be, and there are, truths which, handed down implicitly and more obscurely in the preaching of the Apostles, or embraced at first more by practical custom than by theoretical doctrine, were at some time called into controversy within the very bounds of the Church; but with this arisen, they were gradually unfolded and more lucidly declared, until they passed into the universal agreement of the whole Church, concerning which unfolding of revealed doctrine we shall speak elsewhere. But it never happened, nor from the economy of Tradition can it happen, that in inverted order an article of faith, first explicitly, embraced in a clear and obvious sense in ecclesiastical preaching and in the Catholic understanding, afterwards when controversy perchance arose should be wrapped in obscurity, pass into dissent, and at last an opposing and negating agreement should prevail against it, which negation should reign without contradiction in the whole Church of God through many centuries, through a thousand and five hundred years. Therefore from the very first principle of Catholic interpretation it is demonstrated that that clarity of the Scriptures boasted by the chiliasts is only apparent, but in reality beneath that very apparent clarity there lies in those places a great obscurity; and no less is demonstrated what we are presently treating, namely that that ancient doctrine before the fourth century was not a Catholic agreement.

III. But for us it does not suffice to have asked whether there was such an agreement; it must be demonstrated how there was not a Catholic agreement. Necessarily therefore we must inquire into the manner and origin of that ancient millenarian doctrine, so that it may also be historically established that its source is not apostolic Tradition but another.

1°. From the very manner of its defense and impugnation it appears that that view was never universal. Justin and Irenaeus in the cited places defend together two heads of doctrine, the resurrection of the dead and the kingdom of Christ on earth for a thousand years, but in a far different manner. Heretics who deny the resurrection, says Justin, are not Christians but atheists and impious; but the doctrine concerning the millennial kingdom he reckons not among certain dogmas but among free opinions. « I both confessed to you before that I myself and many others so think, as also (you Jews) altogether know that this will come to be ⁶; but I signified to you that many even of Christians who are of pure and pious judgment do not acknowledge this. So also the argumentation of Irenaeus bk V. c. 31. n. 1; c. 33. n. 4; c. 35. n. 1. must be understood. His view namely comes to this, that those denying the millennial kingdom he holds indeed in the number of Catholics, yet he judges that they furnish arms to heretics for denying the very resurrection of the dead. Further, in the third century chiliasm was so far from being approved in the Alexandrian Church that those who had adopted that opinion from Nepos the bishop lapsed into schism, and were reconciled again only when, at the persuasion of St Dionysius, it was rejected. The sum of the opinion proposed by Nepos and impugned by himself Dionysius reports in these words: « they bring forward a certain book of Nepos (those schismatics)... as though in it it were most certainly demonstrated that the kingdom of Christ will be on earth ». This very view he then signifies to be false and to be refuted. In the special characters also of this kingdom, as reported by Dionysius, there is nothing to show that the opinion of Nepos was diverse from that of Papias or Irenaeus. Nepos therefore did not depict the kingdom as filled with impure pleasures or Jewish ceremonies, as was done by heretics; for if so, Dionysius would not extol with such praises the « faith and zeal for the Scriptures » of this man, nor say that « he follows him with great reverence ». That very view, therefore, such as it was in Papias, Irenaeus, Justin, already in the third century in the Churches of Egypt did not seem tolerable; so far was it from being common in the Church. Indeed, precisely because the millenarians, and namely the Nepotians, so confidently appealed to the Apocalypse, this sacred book itself came with some Catholics, wrongly indeed as we shall say in its place, under suspicion of being a supposititious book — but by a manifest argument how greatly very many of the faithful abhorred the opinion of the chiliasts. Before Dionysius, Origen fought against the millenarians bk II. On Principles c. 11; Preface to the Canticle and elsewhere. That the opinion was ever admitted in the Roman Church, no vestige appears. The contrary can be shown from what Caius the presbyter disputed at Rome at the beginning of the third century against Cerinthus; for although Cerinthus had rendered the opinion more detestable by impure inventions, Caius nevertheless condemns not only these adjuncts but also does not acknowledge the thing itself of that kingdom. « Cerinthus, he says, introduces portents, affirming that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be on earth, and again the flesh at Jerusalem will serve lusts » etc. in Eusebius H. E. III. 28.

2°. If we consider the authors and origin of the opinion more carefully, the opinion never seems to have been most widely diffused or of great esteem. The source whence it flowed to Catholics is narrated by Eusebius bk III. c. 39. « Papias brings forward into the midst some other things, as though they had come to him from unwritten tradition, namely certain strange (ξενάσ) parables of the Saviour and His doctrines, and some other things nearer to fables (μυθικώτερα). Among which he also says that there will be a space of a thousand years after the resurrection from the dead, with the kingdom of Christ established bodily on this earth. These things I judge he himself supposed from apostolic narratives perversely understood, since he had not perceived what was mystically said by them in figures ⁷ . For he appears to have been of quite mediocre mind, as can be conjectured from his books. But he was also the author of the same opinion for very many ecclesiastical (writers) after him, who fortified themselves with the antiquity of the man, as for instance Irenaeus and if any other seemed to think the same. » From this explanation of Eusebius, therefore, Papias did not receive the very doctrine concerning the millennial kingdom from the presbyters or disciples of the Apostles; but he had heard from them, and indeed had read in the Scriptures, some things to be understood symbolically, from which, understood by himself in the proper and immediate sense, he fashioned his own opinion concerning the kingdom of Christ, which he then by his authority persuaded upon Irenaeus and others as though handed down from the presbyters. The revived millenarians explode this narration of Eusebius as calumny. But if the doctrine itself were apostolic, how did the distinguished Fathers of the fourth century and thereafter, how did all subsequent theologians either despise it or obliterate it by oblivion and by a contrary sense and agreement? For the rest, whoever shall have read the exposition of Papias in Irenaeus V. 33. will easily understand that Eusebius said nothing that is not most true. The presbyters, and with them or from them Papias, report these things there n. 3. as said by the Lord Himself. « There will come days in which vineyards will spring up, each having ten thousand shoots, and on one shoot ten thousand branches, and on one branch indeed ten thousand twigs, and on each twig ten thousand clusters (sic), and on each cluster ten thousand grapes, and each grape when pressed will give twenty-five measures of wine; and when any of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another cluster will cry out: I am better, take me and bless the Lord through me. » Similar things are said concerning ears and grains of wheat⁸. Now who does not see that these things are symbolic? Papias nevertheless accepted and handed them down as to be understood in the immediate and proper sense, as also those things which are said in the prophets concerning lions and other beasts tamed and feeding on grass and chaff.

It is therefore sufficiently established that the opinion, insofar as it was adopted by Catholics, had its origin in Asia Minor; for Papias was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. Hence we see that the Fathers of this opinion, whose authority is otherwise grave, almost all cohere with Asia Minor; Justin held the dialogue with Trypho, in which he asserts chiliasm, at Ephesus (Eusebius IV. 18.). Irenaeus was born and educated in the same province, Methodius had first been bishop of Olympus in Lycia. Of the rest who survive, the authority in this question is altogether none. Tertullian wrote the books against Marcion already lapsed into the sect of Montanus⁹ who certainly belongs to the chiliasts. Hence he expressly appeals for the millennial kingdom to the testimony of the new prophecy, by which name he is wont to designate the ravings of Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla (cf. Against Praxeas c. 1. 30; On Fasting c. 1; On the Resurrection of the Flesh c. 11.). « We confess, he says, that a kingdom is promised to us on earth... after the resurrection for a thousand years in the city of divine work, Jerusalem brought down from heaven.... This both Ezekiel knew, and John saw, and the word of the new prophecy which is with our faith testifies » ¹⁰ bk III. c. 24. Concerning Nepos, refuted by Dionysius of Alexandria, after what I said above nothing needs to be added. « The little works of Lactantius, of Posthumian and Gallus (i.e. the dialogue of Sulpicius Severus with Posthumian and Gallus), of Commodian, of Victorinus of Pettau, » as also « the little book called of Nepos » in the decree of Pope Gelasius published in the Roman Council of 70 bishops are all reckoned among the apocrypha, that is, which are not received into authority as writings of the holy Fathers (Mansi, Collection of Councils vol. VIII. p. 151. 170.)¹¹. There still remains Q. Julius Hilarion, an ignoble writer named by none of the ancients¹².

These things demonstrate that there is absolutely no Latin writer or Father of the Church received into authority who defended that opinion; that there are indeed three or four Greek Fathers asserting the millennium, but almost Asians or certainly cohering with Asians, so that this whole opinion appears to have drawn its origin chiefly from the false understanding of one most holy man, Papias. Which indeed not only Eusebius but also Jerome confirms. « He (Papias) is said to have published a Jewish δευτερωσιν of a thousand years, whom Irenaeus and Apollinaris and the rest followed, who say that after the resurrection the Lord will reign in the flesh with the saints » Jerome On Illustrious Men c. 18. Not only therefore was that view never in common agreement and the « Catholic understanding »; but indeed if compared with the multitude thinking and teaching otherwise, it must be said to have been of few; although taken in itself and above all in view of its falsity it can be said to have had many followers. In this sense St Jerome complains of many ancients, of many ecclesiastical men, of many of ours, who so thought, and of the very great multitude of ours who « in this point at least followed Apollinaris, » when that heretic revived the same opinion in the fourth century.

But the veneration toward those holy Fathers and martyrs must not be judged approval of the doctrine, when Jerome in one place (on Jeremiah XX. 10.) says: « we cannot condemn, because many ecclesiastical men and martyrs said these things; and let each abound in his own sense, and let all things be reserved to the judgment of the Lord. » For in many other places he everywhere calls that very thing which those ecclesiastical men had said « a Jewish error, a Jewish dogma, a Jewish fable, dreams, the doctrine of Judaizers. » For the rest, that opinion, on account of the contrary sense and agreement of all theologians down to this most recent age, is now without doubt in a far worse condition than it had been in the fourth and fifth centuries in the time of Jerome and Augustine.

Yet I would not have all these things, perhaps disputed by us at rather great length, so understood as though I thought it lawful for me to brand with any censure the opinion of the recent millenarians (for that is not ours); but all things aim at this, that what in this matter is the agreement or disagreement of the Fathers, and thence the historical and theological state of the question, may be known, lest by the trumpeted authority of the ancient Fathers we suffer ourselves to be deceived. I conclude with the most modest words of Alfonso Muzzarelli (Selected Dissertations, diss. 3. on the Millennial Kingdom p. 324.): « I answer that I do not traduce the tempered view of the millenarians as heretical, but I contend that in the present time it is at minimum improbable, because on the one hand it is destitute of all grave authority, and on the other it has against it authorities most grave and ineluctable. »

Perhaps someone will object that concerning the chief authority to which the millenarians appeal, and which, if it contains their view, alone suffices — concerning the testimonies of Scripture, I say — nothing has here been said, and so the whole difficulty remains unsolved. I answer: a) the scope proposed to us and the matter we directly treat neither demands nor permits an exegesis of the places of Scripture which they abuse. Yet b) he who demonstrates the Catholic understanding concerning some head of revealed doctrine has thereby demonstrated, at least negatively, that the sense of Scripture cannot be that which contradicts this Catholic understanding. Whence c) we could confess that we do not know what is signified singly and in ultimate determination by certain prophecies of Scripture not yet fulfilled, and namely Apocalypse XX, and at the same time affirm that we know what those prophecies according to « the authority of ecclesiastical understanding » do not signify. For the rest, according to the same Catholic understanding, which is the chief canon of the interpretation of the Scriptures, we know sufficiently also positively, as regards the sum of the matter, what genuine sense underlies those prophecies and namely Apocalypse XX. Read Augustine City of God XX. 7. sqq. and the other interpreters cited above. And so d) to the millenarians asserting that they have sacred Scripture for their view, we answer by distinguishing: you have the letter of Scripture to be explained, we grant; you have the sense of Scripture explained according to the chief rule of Catholic interpretation, we deny. Cf. Suarez On the Incarnation vol. II. disp. 50. sect. 8; Le Nourry, Apparatus to the Max. Bibl. of the Fathers vol. I. bk II. diss. 1. c. 2; Muzzarelli in the cited place.

On the way in which the consensus of the schools can exhibit divine Tradition.

« From the monuments which immediately exhibit the authentic judgment or the agreeing doctrine of the apostolic succession must be distinguished the documents of private authority, which can mediately lead to the knowledge of the doctrine handed down in the Church. Hence it must be asserted that the unanimous and constant opinion of the theologians of the school concerning some doctrine as pertaining to faith mediately exhibits the very testimony of the apostolic succession, and thus is a legitimate witness of divine Tradition. Nor do certain theological opinions, which are said to have at some time subsequently become obsolete among theologians generally, detract anything from this assertion. »

I. Monuments of doctrine can have proceeded from the very guardians of the deposit, insofar as, whether in Councils or outside Councils, they discharge the office of witnesses of Tradition and of authentic teachers, so that in those same monuments there is exhibited either a solemn judgment or in another way a sufficient consensus for proposing a doctrine of faith authentically to the whole Church. It is manifest that in monuments of this kind there is immediately presented the testimony of the apostolic succession (whether in the unity of the body of the guardians of the deposit with its head, or in the head for preserving the unity of faith in the body) under that aspect and condition under which the « sure charism of truth » was promised by Christ (th. VIII. IX. XIII. XIV.). There is therefore in them a divine-human testimony, namely the testimony of the Holy Spirit assisting and preserving from error through the pastors and teachers divinely appointed.

But whatever the consensus in the documents of those who do not belong to the witnesses preordained by God (Acts X. 41.), in those documents considered in themselves and according to their own authority there is not contained testimony authentic in the sense stated. Yet they exhibit sufficient testimony concerning the very doctrine of the Church, so that, if the necessary conditions are present, from them we come to the knowledge of the mind of the authentic guardians and of the whole Church; and thus testimonies which in themselves and immediately do not exceed human or historical authority mediately present to us a human-divine authority. In nearly this way Augustine, Against Julian bk I. n. 34; bk II. nn. 33. 36., distinguishes the testimony of Jerome the priest from the testimonies of the Bishops, and stresses the point that Jerome, most learned, knew best the faith of the Churches of east and west. After enumerating the unanimous opinions of the Bishops, he adds: « nor should you think St Jerome to be despised because he was a priest... who read all or nearly all who before him had written anything from either part of the world concerning ecclesiastical doctrine, and held and brought forth no other opinion on this matter » ¹

From these principles it is now clear what is and what is not the authority of the agreeing schools and of Catholic theologians.

1°. The Catholic schools from the twelfth century down to the middle of the eighteenth century, taken universally, and much more the theological schools of which we treat, were under the guardianship and solicitous providence of the Church. I speak advisedly of the older schools, because in them the relations of which I am about to speak are more evident as to right and fact; in the more recent ones, however, although the fundamental right cannot be changed, the fact has nevertheless not always and everywhere shone with equal evidence, on account of the violation of right by which the civil power strove to tear even the theological schools away from the authority of the Church and from intimate union with her. Whatever therefore be the case concerning the consensus of these most recent schools, their ecclesiastical character, and their kinship with the Catholic understanding of the Church herself; the older Academies were all certainly legitimate and esteemed legitimate by no other than the authority of the Apostolic See. Erected and fortified by the diploma of the Pontiff, placed under the continual vigilance of the Apostolic See itself, they derived all their right, their privileges, their authority in teaching from the Church. Further, in accordance with this intimate connection and relation with the Church, the theological schools and the whole colleges of doctors had as their fixed aim the sincere exposition, explanation, and defense of the very doctrine and discipline of the Church. If any of the doctors seemed to decline toward dangerous opinions, they were at once restrained, whether by the Academies themselves with as it were subdelegated authority through the proscription of propositions and learned censures, or by the proper authority of the Bishops, and finally by the supreme magisterium of the Pontiff himself. Conversely, from the schools thus constituted as from fostering mothers there came forth at least the greatest part of the Bishops themselves and all the chief men in the whole Clergy, for whom certainly the formation received in the schools was the human element for the understanding of the doctrine and discipline by which they instructed and ruled the Christian people. Moreover, those same Bishops both singly, and the Pontiffs themselves, and the Councils, in declaring and defining doctrine employed the Academies and the doctors of the schools as counselors, so that the common doctrine of the schools was as it were a certain preparation for the authentic definition of the Pontiffs and Councils ².

These things being posited — namely the principles by which the Catholic schools are governed and their relation and connection with the supreme pastors and with the whole Church being considered, the aim and the whole scientific and moral character of the doctors being considered if they are taken universally and in the complex, the authority with which their common doctrine is held among Bishops, Pontiffs, in Councils and in the whole Church being considered — it evidently appears that the head of doctrine on which all the schools agree with a ratified and constant opinion as on a doctrine of faith is doctrine comprehended in the « Catholic understanding » and in the « conscience of the common faith » of the apostolic succession itself and of the whole Church. This is what the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX. taught in his letter to the Archbishop of Munich (21 Dec. 1863.). « Even if it were a question of that subjection which is to be rendered by an act of divine faith, it would nevertheless have to be limited not to those things which have been defined by the express decrees of the ecumenical Councils or of the Roman Pontiffs and of this Apostolic See; but to be extended also to those things which are handed down by the ordinary magisterium of the whole Church dispersed throughout the world as divinely revealed, and therefore by universal and constant consensus are held by Catholic theologians to pertain to faith. » Although therefore the schools and the theologians of the schools are not the organ instituted by Christ for preserving revealed doctrine under the assistance of the Spirit of truth, yet from their unanimous and constant opinion in matters of faith, when they teach something not only as true but as to be believed with Catholic faith, we are led to the knowledge of the Catholic understanding and doctrine which the apostolic succession itself, as authentic guardian and interpreter of revelation, preserves and hands down ³.

2°. I have distinguished the unanimous opinion of the school concerning something as of faith, and the opinion concerning a thing as true; from the former we are led to certain knowledge of the doctrine of the whole Church, as has been said; in the latter we concede there to be that authority from which, on account of that connection of the school with the teaching Church of which we have spoken, the gravest weight accrues, nor is it lawful to depart from such common and constant doctrine.

The whole school must namely be regarded nearly in the way in which above, th. XII., we demonstrated the Christian people or the learning Church is to be regarded; for, as regards doctrine, the whole theological school (as long as it remains truly theological and in due subordination to the teaching Church) is a distinguished part of the learning Church. Hence further must be distinguished the supernatural element or charism of truth and the human element. The charism of truth and infallibility is not promised to the school immediately in itself; but through the successors of the Apostles « who with the succession of the episcopate received the sure charism of truth, » the integrity of the doctrine of faith is preserved in the school taken universally. Insofar therefore as it unanimously agrees on some doctrine as to be believed with faith, just as the Christian people so the whole theological school does not err from a supernatural cause, because the Holy Spirit through the ministry and magisterium of the apostolic succession, to which it adheres and is subjected through the obedience of faith, preserves in it the integrity of faith ⁴.

But when the doctors of the school by inquiry, human study, and human learning propose their opinions concerning revealed doctrine, and their deductions from the sources of revelation as true by unanimous consensus, yet not as believed with Catholic faith by the Church and to be believed; an authority from the principles posited above is indeed to be acknowledged as grave, which no one may dare contradict without at least the note of temerity; indeed this consensus of the schools is a certain preparation and human element of which the infallible magisterium itself always takes account, and which under the direction of the Holy Spirit it is wont to use and be aided by for authentic declarations and definitions. Yet we cannot say that the school itself in its inquiry and its human study is immediately under the infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit, by which it would come about that under the hypothesis of consensus it could not err; for this assistance in the manner declared above is promised immediately to the successors of the Apostles alone considered in unity and agreement, and to the origin of unity, the successor of Peter, by Christ. Hence grave doctors everywhere affirm theological opinions even deduced solely from revealed principles to be certain on account of the consensus of all the Scholastics, yet deny that the same are of faith; and accordingly they say that to fight against such unanimous opinion would be at least temerarious, yet not heretical. So e.g. Vasquez in 3. q. 6. disp. 41. teaches « that in Christ there is habitual grace and charity (namely infused habits) and that this is to be asserted without doubt according to the common opinion of the Scholastics, and cannot be denied without the note of temerity. » At the same time, however, he contends against Suarez that this doctrine, although without any controversy common among the Scholastics, does not pertain to faith in such a way that its denial could be called an error in faith. De Lugo, Maeratius and others agree with Vasquez. Suarez himself speaks in nearly the same way concerning the doctrine common in all the schools asserting the beatific vision of the soul of Christ from the beginning of its existence. « You will ask with what certitude this doctrine is to be held. Some think it is simply of faith. But it does not seem so, because the testimonies of Scripture are not so express but that they can be explained in other ways; and there is also no definition of the Church on this matter, nor is Tradition sufficiently open; for although the theologians agree in asserting this truth, yet they do not affirm it as a dogma of faith, and the holy Fathers speak nearly in the same way; and therefore others say only that it is an opinion so true that to hold the contrary would be temerarious. And this is the mildest censure of all that can be given; for I judge the contrary opinion to be even erroneous » ⁵ Suarez in 3. q. 9. disp. 25. sect. 1. cf. Cano bk XII. c. 7. precept 8. In nearly the same way must we judge, and the Scholastics themselves judge, as regards the common and theologically certain doctrine concerning the procession of the Word and of the Holy Spirit by the formal ratio of intellect and love, of which we have treated at length in the Treatise on the Trinity th. XXVI.

3°. But where a constant and agreeing doctrine does not obtain but grave theologians go off into diverse views, and much more where they propose a matter not with ratified opinion but in the manner of opining, there authority is indeed not at once null; but the dissent itself shows that the matter cannot be settled by authority, but we must stand by reasons, so that we embrace what seems more consonant with the analogy of faith, namely with the doctrine of Scripture, the explanations of the Fathers, ecclesiastical preaching, the sense and consensus of the Church (for we speak of opinions truly theological, not of mere opinions of philosophy). This inquiry is necessary for a truly theological treatment not only in such ambiguous matters but everywhere, so that it may be established not only whether the doctrine in question pertains to the deposit of revelation, but also how it is contained in it and pertains to it. But once this examination is rightly undertaken, it will become clear that the doctrine of the princes of the school — of Lombard, of Alexander of Hales, of St Bonaventure and above all of St Thomas — in their constant and common opinions is nothing but a compendium and sum of the doctrine of the Fathers ⁶, and of ecclesiastical preaching; and then that even in those heads which are more ambiguous and posited in opinion, a more or less close agreement and connection with that same ecclesiastical preaching is not lacking. At the same time it will then become plain that among those great masters of the school, free from party zeal, there is indeed diversity, yet rarely in matters of greater moment strife and dissent properly so called. On account of this intimate connection with the doctrine of the Fathers and with the Catholic understanding universally, the authority of the princes of the school and above the rest of St Thomas, taken by itself alone, is indeed not irrefragable, yet venerable and among private doctors preeminent. Further, a fruit never to be regretted of that examination of which we spoke will also be this, that we better attain the genuine sense of the masters of the school, and understand more distinctly not only what they teach, but also the reasons why they so teach and why it is so to be taught. Nor yet is it therefore lawful in such matters, where grave and learned men opine diversely, so to insist on the opinions of one way, as they say, and on those things which seem to you true or more probable, as if by the authority of the whole school, indeed even of the whole Church, those things were proved true, or because you have named some one of the great Scholastics, all dissent from your opinion were already intolerable. « The testimony of scholastic theologians, says Melchior Cano, even of many, if other learned men fight on the contrary side, avails no more for producing faith than either their reason or even graver authority shall have confirmed. Namely in scholastic disputation the authority of the greater number ought not to overwhelm the theologian, but if he has with him a few men provided they be grave (namely resting on grave reasons), he can certainly stand against very many; for these things are judged not by number but by weight... In which place those Scholastics are indeed to be blamed who from prejudices of the opinions they received in the school brand other Catholic men with graver notes, and with such facility that they are deservedly laughed at... Other are the opinions of the school, of which we shall speak presently (those namely in which there is a constant and unanimous consensus, as has been declared by us a little above), other are the precepts of a party, of which we now speak. Things dissenting from the former have a note; things dissenting from the latter have none. For it is not the case that if anything is contrary to what either Scotists or Thomists have pronounced, it is at once an error » Cano bk VIII. c. 4. concl. 1.

Of all the things we have so far disputed, this is the sum. a) From the writings of the scholastic theologians it can be certainly established concerning the revelation of some doctrine and divine Tradition, when with unanimous and constant opinion there is found in them doctrine proposed as pertaining to Catholic faith, because from the agreeing testimony it is certainly established concerning the Catholic understanding of the apostolic succession itself and of the whole Church. b) Where the proposition and deduction of some theological doctrine in those same writings of theologians is proposed with ratified and unanimous opinion as true and legitimate, it is not lawful to dissent from it without at least the note of temerity or even of error, because such agreeing authority both is in itself most grave, and by the Church herself the common doctrine of theologians both in Councils and universally outside Councils is highly esteemed, and is considered as a certain element of preparation for solemn definitions. These things, however, are to be so taken that they hold of the very truth of doctrine, but not of the manner of explaining and proving it; of doctrines truly theological pertaining to matters of faith and morals, but not of merely philosophical opinions ⁷; of ratified and firm opinions cohering with the doctrine of Scripture or of the holy Fathers, but not of theorems proposed in the manner of opining; of the consensus not of one age much less of one or another school, but of the constant and common consensus of grave theologians which with the progress of time has not ceased. It certainly is not repugnant that some opinion for some time common among theologians should afterwards, with arguments and documents better understood, cease to be common, or even become obsolete. Such a change is itself an argument that that antecedent agreement was not a ratified and firm opinion resting on secure and immutable foundations, but only an opinion probable for the antecedent state of the question. « That opinion, says Cardinal de Lugo, which in this age is most frequent in the schools and is defended by nearly all, in the next age, with the matter better examined and new foundations appearing, will be retained by few. It is therefore not repugnant that for some time the greater part of the Scholastics should embrace some opinion as more probable which in reality is false » Lugo On Faith disp. 20. sect. 3. n. 128. c) When there is diversity of sentences and opinions among grave theologians, certitude cannot be had from their authority; but with the weightier authority pondered, and much more with reasons deduced from the sources of theology, it must be determined what is true or liker the truth.

Finally, if it is necessary, I warn that in this whole declaration of ours there is question solely of the authority of the school considered in itself. For if the reasons by which they confirm doctrine be considered, it is easily plain that these, even when proposed by few, can be such as to demonstrate doctrine either to pertain to the deposit of revealed faith, or at least to be theologically certain.

II. It remains to satisfy the difficulty which can be moved against the declared authority of the theologians of the school, and indeed is wont to be moved by certain recent writers. The Scholastics, they say, taught with common consensus several opinions which are now held by theologians to be either false or less probable. So e.g. from their opinions one would have to believe the minor Orders to be sacraments, which doctrine is now by a nearly equally common consensus rejected as false. Likewise they unanimously taught that the matter in the sacrament of Order is the handing over of the instruments, which now, after the inquiries of Morinus, Martène and others into the ancient monuments, is denied without temerity by not a few, indeed by perhaps the greater part of theologians. With similar agreement they are said to have taught that the sinner already justified by contrition must approach the sacrament of penance, and that the power of the keys does not extend to absolving from guilt; but that God immediately apart from the ministry of the priest remits guilt to the penitent, and the priest absolves only from punishment; concerning the falsity of which doctrine at least after the Council of Trent there is agreement.

It is not our purpose to examine the genuine opinion of the individual Scholastics concerning these heads of doctrine; only now we deny that the consensus concerning them, whatever it was, bears those characters under which we said the authority of the Scholastics holds for the full demonstration of a doctrine of faith or of theological certitude. For a) in none of the heads mentioned did there ever exist a consensus of the schools as on a doctrine believed and to be believed with Catholic faith, nor even as on a doctrine to be held among Catholic doctors as certain and without controversy; but the consensus, if any existed, was a certain common opinion. That I say nothing of the others, this is manifest from this very fact, that b) the consensus was not universal; but doctors of great authority, once these questions were moved and somewhat aired, went off into diverse opinions, without therefore being judged to contradict either the common faith or certain doctrine in a matter of such weight, and without ever being accused of the crime of violated faith or of grave error. c) If a consensus for some time could be demonstrated, certainly it was not constant, which we said is itself an argument that the preceding consensus, if there was one, was not of a firm and ratified opinion but of opinion. Certainly already in the time of St Thomas, when after the first beginnings the genius, doctrine, glory of the school received its increase, as regards the first two heads we mentioned there was diversity of opinions; as regards the last, at least that doctrine began to be more common which in a later age, more lucidly explained in the schools, obtained confirmation in the Council of Trent itself.

1°. As regards the minor Orders, that they were not instituted by Christ but in process of time « the Church constituted them for herself, » Hugh of St Victor, Lombard, Gratian already taught before the age of St Thomas; from which ecclesiastical institution it follows that they are not sacraments in the true sense. After the times of St Thomas, long before the inquiries of Morinus, Durandus, Cajetan, Navarrus, Dominic Soto expressly affirmed and undertook to prove that the minor Orders are not sacraments; the latter of whom conjectures that St Thomas, had he in the Summa reached this place, would have changed the opinion handed down in 4. dist. 24., and would have denied to these Orders the character of sacrament. Which conjecture shows nothing else than that in the time of Soto (one of the theologians of the Council of Trent) it was established that among the old Scholastics this whole matter was posited not as a settled judgment, but as opinion, and disputed back and forth ⁸. Concerning these doctors see Vasquez in 3rd Part disp. 237. c. 2. From the sixteenth century this denying opinion began to become most frequent and more common among doctors. Concerning the diverse opinions whether the episcopate is an Order and a sacrament, see Vasquez ib. disp. 240.

2°. I come to what is said concerning the matter of the sacrament of Order. In this head the case is nearly the same as in the preceding; different men opined diversely. By far the more common opinion was certainly, and still now is that of many, that which in practice and use is always to be held, namely that the handing over of the instruments is in the Latin Church a necessary part of the matter of the sacrament. St Bonaventure, however, defended that in the sacred Orders the essential matter is the imposition of hands alone: « just as every instrument or armor is in the power of the hand, so also through the imposition of hands, where such (instruments) are lacking, they can be signed; whence.... in the imposition of hands in the primitive Church the other Orders were implied » 4. dist. 24. P. 2. a. 1. q. 4. St Thomas indeed held « that through the imposition of hands is given the fullness of grace by which they may be fit for great offices... in the very giving of the chalice under a determinate form of words the sacerdotal character is imprinted » 4. dist. 24. q. 2. a. 3. Others explained the matter in another way, so that it is manifest that all indeed held that in practice the whole rite is to be accurately observed, but in the theoretical determination of the essential matter and form there was no universal consensus in one opinion either as to be believed with faith or as theologically certain without controversy (Vasquez l.c. disp. 239.).

3°. As to the last point concerning the power of the keys for absolving from guilt, those who seem to have denied this power could be so explained that they denied in ministers not ministerial and instrumental power but power as of a principal cause, and in this sense said that God alone and not the priest remits guilt. So certainly St Thomas explained Master Lombard. The doctrine of the Master 4. dist. 18. was this. « Various things are handed down by doctors concerning these matters, and in such great variety what is to be held? This indeed we can say and hold, that God alone dismisses sins and retains; and yet He conferred on the Church the power of binding and loosing. But He Himself looses and binds in one way, the Church in another. For He Himself by Himself alone dismisses sin, because He both cleanses the soul from the interior stain and looses from the debt of eternal death. But this He did not concede to priests, to whom nevertheless He gave the power of loosing and binding, that is, of showing men bound or loosed. » St Thomas on this place 4. dist. 18. q. 1. a. 3. sol. 1. ad 1. thus comments. « As the Master says in the letter, to priests is committed the power of remitting sins, not that they remit by their own power, because this is God's; but that they show the operation of God remitting as ministers. But this happens in three ways. In one way so that they show it not present, but promise it future.... thus the sacraments of the old law signified the operation of God.... In another way so that they signify it present, and effect nothing toward it; and thus some say that the sacraments of the new law signify the collation of grace... In a third way so that they signify the divine operation in the remission of guilt as present, and effect something toward it dispositively and instrumentally; and thus according to the other opinion, which is more commonly held, the sacraments of the New Law show the cleansing divinely effected, and in this way also the priest of the New Testament shows men absolved from guilt. » (This doctrine, not indeed concerning dispositive operation, but concerning the true instrumental efficacy of the sacraments, which for his time St Thomas calls more common, was already defined by the Council of Trent sess. VII. can. 6-8; sess. XIV. c. 9. Cf. Treatise on the Sacraments th. X. XI.). More expressly and assertively St Thomas treats of this very remission of guilt through the absolution of the priest as through an instrumental cause in 3. q. 84. a. 3. ad 3. and in Opusc. V. ed. de Rubeis al. XXII. On the Form of Absolution. Richard of St Victor, contemporary of Lombard, in the Treatise on the power of binding and loosing c. 12. thus speaks. « There stands forth, of certain men, concerning the power of binding and loosing, an opinion so frivolous that it seems rather to be laughed at than refuted. For they think and preach that priests do not have the power of binding and loosing, but of showing men to be loosed or bound... They say that apostolic men do not have the power of remitting or retaining sins, when the Lord says this; they say that they have only the power of showing either, when the Lord does not say this. »

Further, whatever the sense of the Master and of some Scholastics of that time may have been, from the very manner in which Lombard speaks, and from the express words of St Thomas and of others, it is established that that doctrine was neither ever common nor of firm opinion but of mere opinion, and already in the time of St Thomas was becoming obsolete, so that with the question clarified the opposite truth is now in the universal agreement and profession of the whole Church. The doctrine of the Scholastics from the twelfth to the seventeenth century on this matter, described in their very words, you have in the dissertation of Charles Du Plessis d'Argentré: « On contrition and the power of the keys, various opinions of the Scholastics » Paris 1712. Cf. Morinus On Penance bk VIII. and On Contrition and Attrition Part I., in which places this author also treats of the opinion of the Scholastics.