Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

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).