Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE RELATION BETWEEN DIVINE TRADITION AND SCRIPTURE.

Ecclesiastical preaching is the supreme norm of interpretation of Holy Scripture.

« The Catholic understanding 1°. considered in the authentic judgment addressed to the universal Church, or manifested in the consenting doctrine of the apostolic succession, under the assistance of the Holy Spirit is the infallible interpreter of Holy Scripture; whence 2° such an authentic interpretation, insofar as it concerns particular texts of Scripture, must simply be held as the rule of understanding; 3° considered universally, ecclesiastical preaching is the canon of interpretation in the negative sense, that a sense contradicting it can never be true, and in the affirmative sense, that it generally guides and not a little helps toward finding or confirming the true sense. »

I. The truth of this thesis follows from all that we demonstrated in Section I concerning the conservation and explication of the whole of revealed doctrine through the authentic magisterium under the assistance of the Holy Spirit. When we are taught that the whole “discipline by which men are made Christians” is conserved and propagated in the perpetual succession of the guardians of the faith; that “into the Church as into a rich depository have been conferred all things that are of the truth, so that whoever wills may draw from her a draught of life”; that “in the Church as in a good vessel there is the excellent deposit of faith, ever made young by the Spirit of God and making the vessel itself young,” and that the principle of this ever-young life of faith is therefore the Holy Spirit: certainly there is understood not merely the conservation of words, formulas, and theorems considered materially; but there is understood the conservation and propagation of the sincere understanding of revealed truths, whose expression is contained in words, formulas, and theorems. Hence we saw that those appellations solemn among the Fathers are most excellent: Catholic understanding, ecclesiastical sense, the common consciousness of faith; for in these is admirably expressed the proper character of Tradition in the complex, that is, considered with its organ. Now to the deposit to be guarded by the Church belong also, and in the first place, the Scriptures, in which “Christian discipline and the things that are of the truth” have in part been consigned in words and sentences with the Holy Spirit as author. Therefore there is perpetually conserved in the Church by the Spirit of God not only the material word of Scripture, but the Catholic understanding of the truths contained in the words of Scripture, in this manner and to this end, that the authentic magisterium itself does not err in judging concerning the true sense of Scripture and in expounding it. Therefore the Church, equipped with this Catholic understanding, is the infallible interpreter of Scripture, which infallibility is ultimately traced back to the assistance and direction of the Holy Spirit.

These things need no further demonstration. For what we demonstrated in th. VIII concerning the conservation of the whole of revealed doctrine, and universally of the Catholic understanding, through the charism and operation of the Holy Spirit, in like manner demonstrates the conservation of the Catholic understanding as referred to the doctrine consigned in Scripture. In particular, that the conservation and handing down of the true understanding of Scripture in the apostolic succession is perpetual, we showed in th. X n. II from the common principles of the most ancient Fathers. Indeed, where the Fathers speak of the Catholic understanding, of the ecclesiastical sense, of ecclesiastical intelligence, they consider above all the understanding of the Church in relation to the interpretation of Scripture (see th. XI n. II).

For just as the whole doctrine flourishing in the communion and agreement of the whole Church is contained and conserved by the authentic magisterium, and nothing is ratified that is disjoined and dissenting, that is done privately ἴδιῳ, as Ignatius says (to the Magnesians n. 7); so Scripture is not of private interpretation (ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως), but the Spirit of truth who is its author, as St Peter argues (2 Pet. I. 20. 21.), is also its interpreter ¹, through that same ordinary public magisterium which, instituted by Christ, is universally the organ of the Holy Spirit for the conservation and explication of doctrine. “To those,” says Origen On Principles IV. n. 9, “who believe that the sacred books are not writings of men, but were written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the will of the Father of all things through Jesus Christ and have come down to us, we shall show the paths of understanding that present themselves, so that they may adhere to the rule of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to the apostolic succession” ². Theirs, therefore, with whom “the Spirit of truth abides forever,” and who through the charism of the Spirit guard the Tradition of the Apostles, is also the office of authentically declaring the true sense of Scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit and containing the doctrine and preaching of the Apostles. See the Council of Trent Sess. IV; cf. Melchior Cano bk XII. c. 7. first precept.

II. From what has been said it is therefore established that ecclesiastical preaching, whether proposed through agreement in the authentic magisterium or through definitive judgment, just as it generally is and is called the rule of faith, so also in particular is the rule of understanding Scripture, and the supreme canon of interpretation.

1°. If a definition or solemn judgment concerns a determinate place of Scripture, and has for its purpose to declare its sense authentically, it is certainly established that this is the true and genuine sense which the Holy Spirit willed to be expressed in inspiring the writing ³. Therefore such a definition or judgment is the supreme canon of interpretation, so that all other rules of interpreting drawn from grammar, philology, archaeology, the proximate and remote context, the scope of the author, the collation of other places, etc., are subordinated to it, that is, are to be directed by it alone and applied to this end, that the sense which is already certainly established to be true be also scientifically demonstrated to be true, and thus that it be shown why and how it is true. For what, pray, is the scope of any interpretation except that the true sense come to be understood? Since therefore what the true sense is already stands established from elsewhere, the aids of interpretation cannot rightly be applied except toward understanding that very sense as true. But if from the rules of merely human and scientific interpretation one were to arrive at a sense in any way contrary to it or even other than and diverse from it, by that very fact it would be established (on the hypothesis that there is only one sense of the passage) that the interpretation is fallacious, and thus that the aids applied were either not fit and sufficient or were not rightly applied. If therefore at any time the discipline of human interpretation should not attain its scope, the sense determined by ecclesiastical definition would not thereby be rendered less certain; but the defect of human science would be exposed, and science itself and reason well consulted would demand that we confess that something necessary for attaining the true understanding escapes us.

2°. It is further plain that it can be established concerning the Catholic understanding, to whose norm the “line of interpretation” is to be directed, not only by the solemn definition of Councils or of the Pontiff, but also from agreement otherwise discerned in a determinate sense of some passage. For just as it can be authentically defined by the Roman Pontiff or by a Council what the true sense of some passage is, so also the understanding of the Church manifests itself in the unanimous agreement of the Fathers, where they conspire in a certain and definite sentence in the interpretation of some passage pertaining to dogma or to the moral law, although by that former judgment the ecclesiastical sense becomes known more openly and easily than in this latter way. The Council of Trent in its decree of session IV established the agreement of the Church, both of the present and of preceding ages, as the supreme canon of interpretation: “No one, relying on his own prudence, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, twisting Holy Scripture to his own senses against that sense which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, whose it is to judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of Holy Scripture, or even against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers, shall dare to interpret Holy Scripture itself.” From what has been said it is established that by this decree nothing else was defined than what is already contained in the economy of handing down the faith instituted by Christ Himself, and, that being supposed, follows from the very natures of things. “The Council established nothing new,” says Pallavicino speaking of this decree, “nor willed to impose a new obligation, but willed to teach and confirm an obligation already existing, which our faith from its nature induces” Hist. of the Council of Trent bk VII. c. 18. n. 3. 6.

3°. It is no less evident that ecclesiastical preaching manifested whether by solemn judgment or by unanimous agreement, when referred to the determinate sense of individual texts, is not only the canon of interpretation in the negative sense, that is, so that it is forbidden to attribute to Scripture a sense contradicting the doctrine enunciated through the Catholic understanding; but is also the rule of understanding in the affirmative sense, that is, so that that very sense of the text of Scripture must be believed true which has been defined by the agreement of the Church or by solemn judgment to underlie it. For by such a definition it is declared not only that the enunciated doctrine is true and revealed, and it is taught not only what sense of Scripture does not underlie it; but it is also taught what sense does underlie it, namely that the enunciated doctrine is contained in that very determinate place of Scripture. But the Church through the charism of truth is no less infallible in explicating the sense of Scripture, in which the deposit of faith is consigned, than generally in guarding and explicating the deposit. Whence not only an interpretation contradictory or contrary to the sense defined by the Church, but also an explanation so diverse that the sense defined by the Church is denied to be contained in this determinate text, is convicted of being “against that sense which Holy Mother Church has held and holds.”

The Tridentine decree in negative form: “that no one dare interpret Holy Scripture against that sense... or the unanimous agreement...,” contains two things; namely a) that no one dare interpret Scripture in a sense repugnant to universal doctrine, even if the sense of the passage of Scripture called into question had not been positively defined by the Church, of which we shall speak presently. Thus the decree has a negative sense. But b) it directly and explicitly establishes that no one dare interpret Scripture against the sense defined by the Church. Thus the sense of the decree is equipollent to an affirmative one, that no one interpret Scripture except according to the sense of the Church, because, as we said, an interpretation which is not according to the defined sense is by that very fact against the same. Whence in the profession of faith prescribed by Pius IV the affirmative form is used. “I admit Holy Scripture according to that sense which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, whose it is to judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of Holy Scripture, nor will I ever receive and interpret it except according to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.”

Finally, this genuine sense of the Tridentine decree was solemnly declared by the holy ecumenical Vatican Council in the Constitution on the Catholic Faith c. 2. “We, renewing that same decree (of the Council of Trent), declare this to be its mind, that in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, that is to be held as the true sense of Holy Scripture which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, whose it is to judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of Holy Scripture; and that therefore it is lawful for no one to interpret Holy Scripture itself against this sense or even against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.”

Proscribed, therefore, is the view of certain recent critics, who said it was lawful to interpret such places of Scripture even in a diverse sense, and to deny that the sense which the Church understood in them, or even declared by solemn judgment, underlies those very places, provided no doctrine otherwise adverse to the Catholic faith be inferred, and that the Tridentine decree is to be taken in this negative sense alone. No less excluded is the opinion of those who acknowledged in that same decree only a certain disciplinary caution and not a dogmatic and irreformable declaration and doctrine. See the Most Illustrious Ranolder, Hermeneutics 2nd ed. P. III. §§. 56. 61.

III. Ecclesiastical preaching considered universally, without being referred per se and explicitly to determining the sense of a singular place of Scripture, is nevertheless the canon of interpretation in the first place in the negative sense, so that no interpretation can be true which attributes to any text of Scripture whatever, as enunciated from the very mind of the sacred writer, a sense repugnant to the proximate rule of faith, because truth cannot be repugnant to truth. Moreover the same ecclesiastical preaching also helps positively toward understanding the sense of difficult passages more safely and fully. For to have the apostolic doctrine and understanding concerning some head of faith already discerned from elsewhere greatly helps interpretation, both universally in all places pertaining to that head, and above all in those texts which are indeed easily understood as able to be referred to that head of doctrine, yet are not so explicit that the sense can be determined from them alone considered per se without any ambiguity. For in such places the sacred writers themselves presuppose in their readers a fuller knowledge of doctrine for attaining the true sense (see above p. 60.). Compare e.g. the presupposed Catholic understanding concerning the sacrament of matrimony with Eph. V. 32. in the context of the whole passage vv. 23-32; concerning the sacramental character with 2 Cor. I. 22; Eph. I. 13. (see the Treatise on the Sacraments in general th. XII. n. II.); concerning the power left to the Church of granting indulgences with Matt. XVI. 19; concerning the Son of God begotten of the Father and subsisting in two natures with John X. 36; XIV. 28; concerning the perfection of the knowledge of Christ with Luke II. 53; concerning the perfection of sanctity in the immaculate Virgin with Luke I. 28. etc. In accordance with this Augustine concerning the value of baptism conferred by heretics confesses (On Baptism bk II. c. 4.): “we ourselves would not dare assert any such thing, unless strengthened by the authority of the universal Church”; strengthened by this, he both refutes the interpretations of texts of Scripture brought forward by St Cyprian and other Catholics and then by the Donatists against the value of such baptism, and himself undertakes to prove from various places of Scripture the truth already demonstrated by the authority and Tradition of the Church ⁴.

Anyone easily sees that the whole rationale of ecclesiastical preaching as the norm of interpreting Scripture, here declared in both the positive and the negative signification, is nothing else than what is commonly called the law of interpreting according to the analogy of faith. Its application is to be seen everywhere in the holy Fathers. Thus Augustine, even as to an ambiguous reading or punctuation, admonishes the interpreter to “consult the rule of faith, which he has received from the plainer places of Scripture and from the authority of the Church” On Christian Doctrine bk III. c. 2. Elsewhere he hands down the negative canon most distinctly. “I have learned,” he says, “that a man answering according to faith, which is to be answered to men who strive to calumniate the books of our salvation, is not stuck, so that whatever they shall have been able to demonstrate concerning the nature of things by truthful documents, we show not to be contrary to our writings. But whatever from any of their volumes they shall have brought forward contrary to these our writings, that is, to the Catholic faith, we either show by some means, or believe without any doubt to be most false ⁵. ... And when we read the divine books in so great a multitude of true understandings, which are drawn from a few words and are fortified by the soundness of the Catholic faith, let us choose above all what shall have appeared certain that he whom we read felt; but if this is hidden, at least what the circumstance of Scripture does not hinder and agrees with sound faith; but if even the circumstance of Scripture cannot be examined and discussed, at least only what sound faith prescribes. For it is one thing not to discern what the writer chiefly felt; another to err from the rule of piety” Literal Commentary on Genesis I. c. 21. n. 41; cf. on John tract. 18. n. 1. You see here the rule of faith commended as the necessary and universal canon both of any science whatever and of the interpretation of Scripture, if the canon is understood in the merely negative sense; yet it is not handed down universally as a canon in the positive sense and as a source from which either all truths of human science or the interpretations of all places of Scripture could be derived. The distinction between the rule of faith as it is a positive canon of interpretation and as it is a merely negative canon was excellently expressed by the same Augustine in bk III. On the Merits and Remission of Sinners c. 4. n. 9., where treating of Rom. V. 12. sqq. he says that the sense of only those words in which Adam is called “the figure of the future” remains ambiguous. “For we ourselves have at one time said one thing from it and perhaps shall say another, which nevertheless is not adverse to this understanding (of original sin) (you have the negative canon). But the rest that is said there, if diligently noted and treated...... even if through the very necessity of the matter it produces a somewhat obscure discourse, yet cannot have another sense than that through which it came about that from ancient times the universal Church retained that faithful infants obtained remission of original sin through the baptism of Christ” (you have in ecclesiastical preaching the positive canon of interpretation.) See Stapleton bk Xl. c. 3.

Corollary 1. Tradition insofar as it is the Catholic understanding of the doctrine of Scripture to be perpetually conserved in the apostolic succession, which some theologians call inherent and exegetical Tradition by distinction from (as they call it) constitutive Tradition, would be no less necessary even if the hypothesis of the Protestants were granted, that the whole of revelation is objectively contained in the divine books. But the Protestants by their principles are so far from admitting this Tradition, as some Catholic theologians deceived by the concessions of certain Protestants thought, that the controversy concerning it is by far the chief one, and with it legitimately settled all the rest have an easy solution, whereas before it is finished disputes with heretics seemed to the Fathers to involve much labor and little profit. Cf. Tertullian Prescription 17-19. and the rest cited in th. VIII. and th. X. n. II.

Corollary 2. The postulate of the Protestants, that the interpreter approach Scripture with a mind preoccupied by no dogma at all, follows indeed from their principles; but insofar as it excludes even the doctrine of faith preconceived under the authentic magisterium of the Church, it is evidently repugnant to the economy of handing down the faith which Christ instituted ⁶. Far other is the doctrine of the Fathers, who just as on the one hand they teach that the words of divine Scripture are rendered human words though retained materially the same, if one imports his own preconceived sense into Scripture and does not make the sense of Scripture his own; so on the other hand they require that one reading Scripture have the Catholic understanding in view, and be equipped with the rule of believing handed down to him by the Church, to which the sense of Scripture is to be conformed. See the Clementine Recognitions bk X. n. 42; Athanasius against the Arians or. III. n. 28; Hilary On the Trinity bk I. n. 18; to Constantius bk II. n. 9; Jerome on Gal. I. 11. (vol. VII. p. 386.); Augustine against Faustus bk XXXII. c. 19; to Consentius ep. 120. n. 13. with n. 17; Lérins cc. 36-38. (cf. above pp. 94-96.).

Corollary 3. What the Protestants against Catholics frequently keep repeating, that in the Catholic Church there can be no place for sacred hermeneutics and exegesis, or at least no progress, is a calumny altogether absurd and ridiculous. For from the fact that through ecclesiastical preaching and the handed-down word of God truths are known with which a repugnant sense cannot be true and therefore cannot underlie the written word of God, so that it is established concerning some sense that it is certainly not expressed in Scripture; and that moreover through the same it is certainly established what sense is expressed in some places “pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine”: from this presupposed certain knowledge and faith, I say, the science of interpretation is not only not impeded, but is also aided and promoted. For nothing can be more desirable for any scientific inquiry whatever than that it already be discerned from elsewhere what is not true, and therefore what errors are to be avoided; or even what is true, and whither therefore inquiries ought to be directed, and what is to be demonstrated by arguments. The whole cavil of the adversaries takes its origin from a twofold error.

The first error is dogmatic, that they hold ecclesiastical preaching and the judgment of the Church as an opinion to be examined and judged by individuals from Scripture itself. Certainly if a merely human opinion about the sense of Scripture is put forward, and it is said on the one hand to be examinable and judicable from Scripture itself whether it is true, and on the other hand is proposed as the norm according to which each one is bidden and bound by oath to interpret Scripture; this is an absurd contradiction and an intolerable tyranny, which for almost two centuries pleased Protestants alone and still pleases the so-called orthodox among them, while they swear to their symbolic books (above pp. 55. 56.); but by the Catholic Church it has always been exploded and condemned. But if with the same infallible certitude with which it is established that Scripture contains the word of God, it is at once established what sense does not underlie them or even what sense does underlie them; it is not only not tyranny and an intolerable yoke, but an obligation consequent from the nature of the matter and at once a most happy guidance toward embracing the true and spurning the false, toward demonstrating the former by arguments and refuting the latter. But this infallibility of the Church we demonstrate. For the rest, while they deny infallibility, the disputation has already devolved to another point; nor let them further repeat, on the hypothesis which for us is a most certain thesis, of the infallibility of the Church and, as they themselves say, in the Catholic system, that the progress and fruit of hermeneutical science is impeded.

The other error of the adversaries, on which the cavil rests, is scientific, that they do not advert that it is one thing to have certainly known from infallible authority what sense does not underlie or even what sense does underlie, and another to have understood the reasons and manner from text and context why and how such a sense is true and genuine. This second is the proper fruit of scientific interpretation, and thus in exegesis no less than in universal theology there is place for “faith seeking understanding.”

Corollary 4. It is evident per se that the Church is not called judge of the true sense whether of Scripture or of Traditions, as if she herself attributed to them the authority inherent in them. The word of God whether consigned in Scripture or standing in Traditions, which may also have been conserved through documents and monuments, has authority from itself, because it is the word of infinite truth; and is therefore the norm of believing for the universal Church. But the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit only discerns the word of God from what is not such, and authentically interprets its genuine sense. We do not therefore set the Church above the word of God, as the Protestants calumniously charge; but we say that the Church is directed by the word of God in believing, and is thus under the word of God; and that the same infallibly understands the genuine sense of the word and proposes it to individuals to be believed, and is thus above the private fallible understanding of individuals.

The sufficiency of the Scriptures preached by the holy Fathers without excluding but supposing Tradition and the ministry for the custody of the deposit.

« In the comparison of Scripture with Tradition these things are first of all to be held: 1°. Among the things clearly contained in the Scriptures, eminent is the very demonstration of the apostolic succession divinely instituted for the infallible custody and explication of the handed-down doctrine; 2°. although it be conceded that all those things which must be explicitly believed by all the faithful are contained explicitly in the Scriptures, yet they are not contained in such a way that controversies arisen about them could be settled from the Scriptures alone, independently of the authentic magisterium, to the grasp of all; nor therefore do the Scriptures alone suffice for preserving the unity of faith in catholicity; 3°. although it can always be demonstrated that the innovations of heretics are beside the Scriptures, and it can for the most part be demonstrated that those same innovations are against the Scriptures, yet neither is done independently of Tradition and without respect to the norm of the Catholic understanding. Whence 4°. not absolutely, but with this threefold restriction supposed, can the plenitude and sufficiency of the Scriptures be preached, and is preached by the holy Fathers. »

I. What we lay down as a foundation — that the revelation of a ministry divinely instituted for preserving and explicating the whole doctrine of faith is clearly contained in the Scriptures — has been demonstrated in th. IV. V. VII. And indeed, those who do not see this dogma in the Scriptures should rather affirm that no dogmas, than that all dogmas, are clearly contained in the Scriptures.

In this first sense, therefore, the sufficiency of Scripture for demonstrating all dogmas can be preached, and is sometimes preached by the Fathers. For Scripture, on the hypothesis that its divine authority is already admitted, most fully exhibits and demonstrates the authentic magisterium of the Church as the directing principle (or formal principle) by which one arrives at the knowledge of all truths of faith and by which all controversies are decided. The same can be said in other words: Scripture clearly contains this principle, that the apostolic succession is the divinely instituted guardian and teacher of the whole of revealed doctrine; but this principle contains implicitly all revealed truths, not indeed analytically (as a material principle, from whose analysis all truths are evolved), but directively (as a formal principle, by which we are directed to the knowledge of all truths). See above p. 5. 6. In this sense, therefore, Scripture can be said to contain implicitly all revealed dogmas.

To this belongs the doctrine of the Fathers expounded in th. VIII. n. I. 4°; th. X. n. II. Whence in this same sense the Fathers say that even those truths which they confess have been preserved to us by Tradition alone rest on the authority of the Scriptures. « Although, » says Augustine concerning the value of baptism conferred by heretics, « no example of this thing is certainly adduced from the canonical Scriptures, yet we hold even in this matter the truth of those same Scriptures, when we do what has already pleased the universal Church, which the authority of those same Scriptures commends » Aug. contra Crescon. l. I. c. 33. n. 39; de Unit. Ecclesiae c. 22. n. 63.

II. What in the second part of the thesis we concede, at least hypothetically, is conceded by theologians with Bellarmine De verbo Dei l. IV. c. 11. ad obiect. 1ᵃᵐ et 14ᵃᵐ; with the brothers de Walenburg Controv. general. Tract. VI. de Testimoniis c. 4. n. 14. 15. For the same reason the Fathers call the apostolic creed a compendium of the Scriptures, and therefore admonish the catechumens first that the faith itself comprehended in the creed must « be inscribed in the breadth of the heart, » and afterwards that « at the opportune time the assertion too of the several articles from the Scriptures is to be received » Cyrill. Hierosol. catech. V. n. 12; August. serm. de symbolo ad catechum. c. 1; Cassian. de Incarnat. l. VI. c. 3. What we affirm in this part, however, is this: that not even in those articles which must be explicitly believed by all is the understanding of Scripture independent of the authentic magisterium, as though individuals should compose for themselves the doctrine of faith from the Scriptures, and controversies that have arisen could be settled from the Scriptures alone, without the authority of the magisterium and of an authentic judge, to the grasp of all.

1°. The creed is not, nor is it called by the Fathers, a compendium of Scripture in the sense that individuals by their private understanding compose it for themselves from the Scriptures or could compose it; but on the contrary, in the reverse order, according to the ordinary economy instituted by Christ, individuals receive from the authentically teaching Church the creed and the foundations of Christian doctrine preached by the Apostles and committed as a deposit to their successors, and in this handed-down universal faith is constituted the rule and norm for understanding the Scriptures, in the manner demonstrated in th. X. n. II; th. XVIII. coll. th. XI.

2°. This itself is manifest from the proofs by which we have demonstrated that the Scriptures by their native character are not so constituted, and were therefore not given to that end, that individuals should construct faith for themselves from them independently of the authentic magisterium, but were given to be in the Church and under the authentic magisterium of the apostolic succession an instrument of doctrine: th. VII. n. II.

3°. The same is demonstrated most luminously from the history of heresies. For all heresies, even those against articles to be explicitly believed by all, have arisen and been defended from nothing else than that, as Augustine says, « the good Scriptures are understood not well, and what in them is not well understood is also rashly and boldly asserted » Aug. in Io. tract. 18. n. 1. But a controversy arisen about the true sense of Scripture cannot be settled except by the authority of the infallible magisterium, to which the obedience of faith must be rendered, or by scientific demonstration. For grasping and weighing this second way the greatest part of men, who are bound to believe, are unequal: cf. th. VI. n. I; therefore the security of the understanding of individuals necessarily depends on the authority of the infallible magisterium. Cf. Tertullian Praescript. c. 15. sqq. and the remaining Fathers whom we cited in th. X. n. II. and th. XVIII. Coroll. 1.

III. The first assertion of the third part is evident of itself: that it can always be demonstrated that the innovations of heretics are beside the Scriptures; for this is the same as saying that errors against faith are not contained in the word of faith.

The second assertion — that it can for the most part be demonstrated that the errors of heretics are against the Scriptures — is reduced to this other: that most dogmas of faith impugned by heretics, and generally speaking most revealed truths, are objectively contained in the Scriptures themselves. An indirect demonstration of this assertion is exhibited by all the works of the holy Fathers and all the disputations of theologians; for rare are the truths of faith which you would not find demonstrated by them from the Scriptures, rarest the controversies with heretics in which those same Fathers and theologians do not appeal to the Scriptures.

But the third assertion is this: that in interpreting the Scriptures individuals must keep before their eyes as the chief norm and rule of understanding the ecclesiastical preaching and the doctrine preserved through the ever-living apostolic succession and declared by the authentic magisterium. For even truths which are objectively contained in Scripture and are wont to be demonstrated from it by the Fathers and theologians, in the first place are not all clearly contained in it in such a way that they could be demonstrated without the testimony of Tradition; then those which are even clearly contained are not contained for all who are bound to believe in such a way that they could understand them from Scripture alone without the authority of the magisterium (abstraction being meanwhile made from the manner in which the authority of Scripture itself is known); finally they are not contained for the state of controversy in such a way that controversies arisen about the true sense could be settled to the grasp of all, and for preserving the unity of faith in catholicity, without the judgment of the authentic magisterium (cf. n. II.).

Although, therefore, most revealed truths are contained in Scripture more clearly or more obscurely, indeed although all dogmas to be believed were contained in the Scriptures, yet such is the relation of Scripture to be explicated to the ecclesiastical preaching and to the explication of the authentic magisterium that a) the ecclesiastical preaching and the authentic definition, insofar as it is referred to determining the sense of singular texts, is the norm of understanding simply; that b) the ecclesiastical preaching and the rule of faith, as it is preserved and explicated through the guardians of the deposit, taken universally, is held to be the norm in understanding the Scriptures at least in the negative sense; that c) even taken universally, the preaching is in many demonstrations to be drawn from Scripture the directing norm, positively aiding a secure and fuller understanding of the true sense (th. XVIII.).

Whence also, in truths comprehended in Scripture, the ultimate judgment concerning the true sense, and the definition of which dogmas and in what sense they are contained in Scripture, and the authentic termination, accommodated to the grasp of all, of a doubt that may have arisen concerning the true sense, are referred to the authority of the magisterium. The proximate norm of believing is accordingly constituted in this very judgment and in the consentient ecclesiastical preaching, which partly exhibits the Scriptures themselves explicated according to the true sense, partly supplies the directive norm of true explication.¹

IV. Now in this threefold sense the holy Fathers not rarely preach the sufficiency of the Scriptures: namely that a) the dogmas to be explicitly known by all, or certain special truths called into controversy by heretics, are objectively contained in the Scriptures; that b) with the magisterium of the Church and the Catholic understanding supposed, they can be known from the Scriptures and according to the Scriptures; that finally c) the very authority of the teaching Church is designated in the Scriptures as the universal norm for the reception and knowledge of faith.

1°. We shall illustrate these principles by some examples drawn from places of the Fathers where they seem most of all to preach the plenitude and sufficiency of Scripture.

The clearest example is exhibited by St Vincent of Lérins, Commonitor. c. 1. and 2. There it is said: « The canon of the Scriptures is perfect and sufficient for all things in itself more than enough. » But a) it is not a question absolutely of all heads of revealed doctrine, but of the doctrines then called into controversy by heretics, whom he recounts by name. Indeed Vincent there treats directly of the necessity of Tradition, but puts forward that sufficiency of Scripture obliquely by way of objection²; whence it was not necessary to declare it more distinctly, but he could simply admit the sufficiency of Scripture in the heads impugned by heretics, provided Tradition be presupposed as the norm of interpreting. Hence b) he expressly declares that faith must be fortified against those heretics too in a twofold way: « first by the authority of the divine law (Scripture), then by the Tradition of the Catholic Church. » c) The reason why Tradition is necessary even in those things which are contained in the written word he expounds in that most famous sentence: « because they do not all receive sacred Scripture, by reason of its very loftiness, in one and the same sense ... therefore it is greatly necessary, on account of so many windings of such varied error, that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed according to the norm of the ecclesiastical and Catholic sense. » Indeed d) no one doubts that Scripture both is and can be called absolutely sufficient, if « we interpret the divine canon according to the Tradition of the universal Church and after the rules of Catholic dogma, » as Vincent admonishes in the recapitulation, c. 38. The order exhibited here by Vincent is therefore plainly the opposite of the method of the Protestants. It is not a question of the sufficiency of Scripture such that from it each one should construct for himself the whole complex of things to be believed; but the integral faith and Catholic dogma is received from the magisterium of the universal Church. Scripture, moreover, explicated according to Tradition and after Catholic dogma, is sufficient as a divine instrument of doctrine for confirming and defending this very dogma; for either the divine Scripture, explicated according to the Catholic understanding, exhibits the dogma itself in itself, or at least it demonstrates the infallible magisterium of the Church, from which the dogma is to be received (cf. n. I.).

Another example can be taken from St Augustine, de Doct. christ. l. II. c. 9. n. 14. « Among the things openly set down in the Scriptures, » he says, « are found all those things which contain faith and morals of living; » namely hope and charity, of which we treated in the preceding book. But now a) by the name of faith Augustine does not comprehend whatever is contained in the revealed word; but he understands the truths comprehended in the apostolic creed and in the public and explicit profession of all; and by morals of living he understands not all precepts of morals, but universally the hope of eternal goods and the love of God and neighbor, as is manifest from Book I, to which he appeals. b) For understanding even these things from the Scriptures Augustine supposes Tradition and the Christian instruction received from the magisterium of the Church. For in this book he instructs the Christian how he can arrive at « the grade of science, » which supposes faith. For acquiring this science, the holy Doctor admonishes, one must first know and receive the canonical books from the Tradition of the Church; then some general knowledge of the things the books contain is to be acquired. Then, distinguishing between the things openly set down and the more obscure, « those things which in them (the Scriptures) are openly set down, » he says, « whether precepts of living or rules of believing, are to be investigated more shrewdly and diligently; » finally also « the things that are obscure are to be opened up and discussed. » When therefore Augustine says that « all things which contain faith and morals of living are openly set down in the Scriptures, » by these words he signifies neither that all revealed things are contained in the Scriptures, and much less does he exclude the necessity of Tradition and of the authentic magisterium. For the rest, what Augustine thought of Tradition is sufficiently established from almost all his books, and namely from the disputations on the value of baptism conferred by heretics. He most clearly enunciates both the formal principle of Tradition — that apostolic Tradition is guarded through the magisterium and ministry of the Church — and the material principle — that the handed-down doctrine extends more widely than the Scriptures — of which latter we shall speak more distinctly in the following thesis. « The custom (of not rebaptizing those baptized by heretics) I believe to come from apostolic Tradition, even as many things which are not found in their writings nor in the Councils of their successors, and yet, because they are guarded throughout the universal Church, are believed to have been handed down and commended by none but them » Aug. de Baptism. l. II. c. 7. n. 2.

Another example, not very dissimilar, is found in Chrysostom, hom. 3. in 2. Thess. n. 4. (T. XI. p. 318.). « What need is there of a homily? All things are clear and right which are in the divine Scriptures; manifest are whatsoever things are necessary. » But the scope of Chrysostom is to exhort his hearers not only to come together in church for the sermon of the orator, but also diligently to hear the reading of the prophets, the epistles, and the Gospel, which is done by the lector and the deacon. Thus a) he supposes hearers instructed in the faith according to the ordinary economy of the Church; nor did that clarity of the Scriptures, fabricated by the Deformers of the sixteenth century — as though from them each one should compose for himself creed and faith independently of the magisterium of the Church — come into his mind. b) « All those necessary things, both manifest and in the Scriptures » in Chrysostom are not all revealed things, indeed not even those things which must be explicitly believed by all; for he does not speak of these necessary things. But by those words he signifies all the conditions necessary for the faithful to be able to reap fruit from hearing the reading unto pious edification; because, as he says, they can at least understand the histories, or at least understand some things, « so that concerning the things that are obscure they may ask. » Therefore c) the clarity of Scripture in Chrysostom is not opposed to the necessity of Tradition and of the authority of the Church in teaching, but to the excuse of the hearers who wished to palliate their sloth in hearing the divine lection with the pretext of the obscurity of Scripture. If you seek in Chrysostom the comparison of Scripture with Traditions, you have it in the following hom. 4. in 2. Thess. n. 2. (p. 532.). « It is perspicuous, » he says, « that not all things did (the Apostles) hand down by epistle, but many things also unwritten (ἀγράφως); yet these and those are alike worthy of faith; therefore let us also deem the Tradition of the Church worthy of faith: it is Tradition, seek nothing further. »

2°. As everywhere, so also here, if the genuine sense of the holy Fathers is to be attained, the contexts of their discourses must be kept before one's eyes.

a) When they extol with magnificent praises the supreme and divine authority of the Scriptures, the excellence and abundance of doctrine, in these there is nothing which all Catholics do not feel and embrace, or which calls into doubt the institution of the magisterium for the authentic declaration of the true sense of the Scriptures, or the divine Traditions, even those not explicitly contained in the Scriptures.

b) When the Fathers preach the plenitude and sufficiency of the Scriptures in affirmative locutions, they do not exclude but suppose both the magisterium of the apostolic succession demonstrated in the Scriptures as the directing principle for knowing the whole of revelation (n. I.), and objective Tradition and ecclesiastical preaching as the rule for interpreting the true sense of Scripture. They treat, therefore, of the objective plenitude of Scripture to be explicated. This objective plenitude itself they never deemed absolute and as to each and every truth, but relative either to the principal truths impugned by heretics (as Lirinensis l. c., and Cyril of Jerusalem cat. IV. n. 17.), or to certain singular and special heads. Thus Athanasius orat. cont. gent. n. 1. says that for indicating faith in Christ « the holy Scriptures are sufficient; » but, he adds, there exist many books of our masters, « which if anyone reads, he will in some measure understand the interpretation of the Scriptures and will be able to attain the knowledge he desires. » Thus Tertullian contr. Hermogen. c. 22. concerning the history of the creation of heaven and earth, Gen. I. 1: « I adore, » he says, « the plenitude of Scripture, by which it manifests to me both the Maker and the things made »³

c) When the Fathers preach the sufficiency of Scripture in exclusive locutions, so as to seem to say that nothing is divine, nothing (pertaining to religion) true, nothing to be believed, which is not written, the exclusion is not referred to Tradition but to spurious founts and to the argumentations of heretics, from which they deduced doctrines contrary to the Scriptures or diverse from the whole, far and wide as it extends, of revelation. For the heretics appealed either to philosophy and deductions of reason, as the Sabellians, the Arians especially of the Eunomian faction, the Nestorians and most others; or to certain particular human facts, as the Donatists; or to apocryphal books, to feigned prophecies and traditions, as the Montanists and Manichaeans. Hence the Fathers appealed from the fallacious ratiocinations of philosophers and from apocryphal founts to the Scriptures. Likewise when the heretics, to defend their cause, brought in questions about certain particular facts which could be enwrapped in quirks and obscurity — e.g. of what authority the Councils of Arian bishops are (cf. Augustin. contra Maximin. l. III. c. 14.); whether Felix of Aptungi, the ordainer of Caecilian, was a traditor; whether miracles were wrought in the churches of the Donatists (cf. August. contra Petilian. de unico Baptism. c. 17; de unit. Ecclesiae c. 3. n. 5. 6; c. 18. n. 48; c. 19. n. 49.) — the Fathers, most wisely setting aside facts of this kind, adduced the Scriptures for proving those special heads of doctrine impugned by heretics, because these the heretics too acknowledged as a fount common with Catholics.⁴ To the Scriptures alone, however, they appealed only insofar as they forbade α) anything to be brought forward from apocryphal founts; or β) anything to be urged against the Scriptures from human inventions and sophistic argumentations; or γ) that to be held as revealed which some individuals without authority put forward.

3°. According to these principles you will easily attain the sense of the texts which the Protestants have heaped together from the holy Fathers, and which you have collected in Bellarmine De verbo Dei l. IV. c. 11. and in others. When Basil says: « it is a proof of unbelief to wish to superinduce anything of the things that are not written » (or. de Fide n. 1. 2.), the holy Doctor himself explains there (n. 2.) that there are understood those things which are « foreign to the doctrine of the Lord » — ἀλλοτρια της του κυριου διδασκαλιας (cf. the doctrine of Basil on Tradition cited above p. 16.). When others say that « the thought of the hearer limps if anything is said without the Scriptures and from mere ratiocination of mind; » that « it must not be asked what seems to this one or that, but the Scriptures must be consulted; » that « one must not speak (in the business of faith) from one's own ratiocinations but from the consequence of the Scriptures: » it is sufficiently clear that the authority of Scripture is opposed to human inventions resting on no sufficient authority, and that there is no talk of the exclusion of Tradition. Thus Theophilus of Alexandria against the Origenists denying the eternal kingdom of Christ says that « it is of a demoniac spirit to deem anything divine apart from the authority of the Scriptures, » in opposition to human commentaries, as Theophilus himself declares; for there he accuses Origen of « having mixed the subtleties of philosophers with his own treatises ... not knowing that it is the instinct of a demoniac spirit to follow the sophisms of human minds and to deem anything divine apart from the authority of the Scriptures » (ep. paschal. n. 6. Galland. T. VII. p. 617.). Likewise when Origen says that the two Testaments suffice, « from which it is permitted to draw all knowledge of things, and that no other third Scripture ought to be received for the authority of knowledge » (in Lev. hom. 5. n. 9.), this is understood of the sufficiency of Scripture as an instrument of doctrine for Christian faithful, to the exclusion of apocryphal books. Then that saying of Jerome: « what without the authority and testimonies of the Scriptures they find and feign of themselves, as though by apostolic Tradition, the sword of God strikes down » on Agg. I. 11, was said of « the conventicles of heretics, » and the testimonies of the Scriptures are opposed to exclude feigned traditions.

The Protestants err therefore in manifold ways when they ascribe to the Fathers their own opinion by which they maintain that all dogmas must be demonstrated from the Scriptures, in order to infringe the authority of Tradition. For a) in general, what the Fathers say of the Scriptures with the authentic magisterium and the Catholic understanding presupposed, they twist to exclude that same magisterium.⁵ In particular b) what the Fathers deny the heretics — the founts of profane novelties — they transfer to denying Tradition; and finally c) what the Fathers affirm of the sufficiency of Scripture under certain conditions and in certain heads of doctrine, they take absolutely and universally as to the whole of revelation proposed for belief.

Consult Bellarmine l. c.; Gregor. de Valentia Analys. fidei l. VIII. c. 6; Stapleton l. XII. c. 11; Card. Du Perron contra Regem Angl. l. III; Wierceburgens. de Tradit. n. 67. 69. 71; P. Perrone de Tradit. n. 381. sqq.

Scholion 1. The passages which the Protestants are wont to bring forward from the Scriptures themselves for the exclusion of Traditions are scarcely worthy of mention. For what, pray, do you infer against the necessity or existence of divine Traditions from the fact that « all Scripture divinely inspired is said to be useful for teaching etc. »? 2. Tim. III. 16. For a) the affirmation whether of the utility or of the necessity of one means to some end is not the exclusion of the necessity of another means. b) There it is not a question of Scripture as the sole fount in which revelation is contained and from which knowledge of revelation is to be drawn, but of an instrument of doctrine by which the man of God, already instructed in faith, is perfected. c) The utility of which there is question is enunciated not only of the whole of Scripture taken complexively but of each Scripture taken distributively, i.e. at least of any book pertaining to Scripture and to which this name of Scripture belongs; for the subject is not the whole of Scripture — πᾶσα ἡ γραφή — but every Scripture, i.e. any Scripture — πᾶσα γραφή. But who ever said that any book of Scripture comprehends each and every truth of faith?

When Moses in his last testament, Deut. IV. 2, admonishes the people: « you shall not add to the word which I speak to you, nor take away from it; keep the commandments of the Lord your God » — i.e. when he commands the law given by God to be kept inviolate, and forbids adding human precepts as though divine — this, just as it does not universally deny the future increase of revelation, which was completed not through Moses but, after continuous progress in the old law, at length by the incarnate Son of God and through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles, nor does it exclude new inspired Scriptures to be added to the Mosaic books, so neither does it exclude divine Traditions. Likewise the threat of St John, Apoc. XXII. 18. 19: « if anyone shall add to these things ... and if anyone shall diminish from the words of the book of this prophecy, » contains nothing else than the prohibition of corrupting either the sense or the very text of the divine book.

That finally they have not blushed to appeal to the words of Christ, where a) He teaches that the traditions and δευτεροεις introduced by the experts of the law should have been put after the mandate of God, or were even void; and b) He absolutely reprobates those traditions and interpretations of the scribes which twisted the law of God into an alien sense, Matth. XV. 2. sqq.; Marc. VII. 5. sqq.; then the appeal to the admonition of the Apostle, Coloss. II. 8, that the faithful beware of that philosophy and those traditions of men which seem to have been the seeds and beginnings of the Gnostic fables of which Irenaeus and other Fathers of the second century treat — such appeals, I say, prove nothing else than that a bad cause is defended by the worst and most inept patrons.

Scholion 2. What we said in the thesis n. II — that it is conceded by Catholic theologians that all things which must necessarily be explicitly known and believed by all are objectively contained in the Scriptures — has a far different sense from the doctrine of the Protestants, which they profess under oath: « Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation, so that whatever is not read therein nor can be proved thereby ought not to be required of anyone to be believed as an article of faith or deemed necessary to salvation » (thus the Anglican article VI). For apart from the diverse mode of authentic proof from the Scriptures which Christ instituted in His Church and for which the Protestants have plainly substituted another — of which we have already often spoken — as to the objective comprehension itself: a) while Catholics concede that there are contained in the Scriptures all things which no one may be ignorant of, they do not therefore also concede that there are contained in the Scriptures all things necessarily to be believed in the Church. b) They do not concede that the reason why explicit knowledge and faith of some article is not required of all is that such an article is not contained in the Scriptures. c) They do not concede that faith in articles not contained in Scripture can by anyone be denied without heresy and defection from the Church, if, that is, they are sufficiently proposed to him by the authentic magisterium as contained in divine Tradition. But the Protestants affirm all these things in that sworn profession of theirs: namely that all things necessarily to be believed by the Church herself are contained and can be proved (independently of the authority of the magisterium) from the Scriptures; that doctrine, by the very fact that it is not contained in the Scriptures, is not necessarily to be believed; and that, accordingly, such doctrine as is not contained in the Scriptures and to be proved from the Scriptures alone can never and in no way be proposed to anyone so as to be necessarily believed. That concession of Catholics, therefore, has nothing in common with this heresy of the Protestants.

On the existence of divine Traditions which are not contained in the Scriptures.

« As regards the very fact of the existence of Traditions which are not written; 1°. it is evidently established that neither from the natures of things nor from the order of divine providence manifested in the history of revelation is this required, as a condition for exacting the obedience of faith, that the truth to be believed be consigned in the Scriptures; 2°. once the formal principle of Tradition is demonstrated — concerning the divinely instituted apostolic succession, namely, for preserving entire the deposit of faith — the Catholic material principle cannot be denied, that even after the completion of the canon of the Scriptures the word of God preserved by Tradition, and the object of Christian faith, extends more widely than the written word of God; 3°. the Protestants cannot defend their principle, as expressed in their own symbolic books and confessions, that the word of God to be believed extends no more widely than the written word of God, without manifest contradiction. »

I. What we assert in the first assertion scarcely needs demonstration. For from the nature of the matter it is evident that the same obedience of faith is owed to the infinite truth whenever it is certain that some revelation has been made, or whenever the word of God is sufficiently proposed, whether the proposal be made through the divine Scripture or in any other way. The very revelation which stands in the Scriptures is traced back to the immediate revelation first made without Scriptures to the patriarchs, the prophets, the Apostles. Indeed, the Protestants themselves do not doubt this; but they assert that a sufficient proposal of mediated revelation, in the present order at least, long after the first promulgation, cannot be made except through the Scriptures. But as God could render, and did render, His first legates worthy of faith for the first promulgation of revelation by motives of credibility, so surely through all future time He can constitute His legates for preserving and preaching the revelation first made, and exhibit and show them to be trustworthy and infallible witnesses, partly by motives of credibility repeated and continuously permanent immediately in themselves, and partly and above all through their connection with those first legates and through the promises of infallibility made to them in this connection. In this hypothesis, surely, there is the same obligation to give faith to these legates preserving and attesting the truth long since revealed, whether they propose it in the Scriptures or without the Scriptures, as there was an obligation to give faith to the first legates attesting the revelation made to them even without Scripture. As long, therefore, as the question is only of the natures of things, this alone is established: that God owes it to Himself (if He wills to reveal something and to require faith for all future time) both to render the first revelation worthy of faith and to choose some way of preserving entire, and always worthy of faith as the word of God, the same revelation. And so, if the way of preservation is Scripture, it is required that at every time there be present sufficient motives of credibility that the sincere and uncorrupt word of God is contained in it; if the way of preservation is the authority of witnesses discharging a legation for God without Scripture, it is required that there always be present sufficient motives of credibility that through their attestation the sincere and uncorrupt word of God is proposed. Whichever is posited, surely the same obedience of faith is owed to the word of God whether written or unwritten; with this difference, however, that the authority of witnesses by which the word of God is proposed as credible and to be believed without the Scriptures is easily understood, whereas the credible authority of the Scriptures without witnesses cannot become known and be preserved. But of this matter elsewhere.

Now the question is of what our second assertion holds in the first part of the thesis. For although from the inner natures of things it is not required that the word to be believed be a written word, nevertheless the providence of the revealing God could have willed never to propose mediated revelation to be believed unless written. If this could be shown from the history of revelation, it would not indeed demonstrate an absolute necessity of Scripture from the natures of things; but it would demonstrate that it is some condition without which God, by His free choice in the present order of the human race, would not propose revelation. On the contrary, if it can be shown from the history of revelation that, at least down to that time about which the controversy is raised, a true religion revealed by God never existed without, by divine disposition, comprising some revealed truths not written and transmitted by Tradition alone; and if it can further be shown that, even after the completion of the canon of the divine books, the persuasion of the same economy of Christian revelation always endured most certain, theoretically and practically, in the very Christian society derived from the Apostles: this, considered in itself, is a certain argument — considered polemically, at least a most grave presumption — that the deposit of Christian revelation also contains truths to be believed which are not consigned in the Scriptures. But both of these are certainly established from the history of revelation. Therefore, by an argument certain in itself, and polemically by a most grave presumption, it is proved from the history of revelation that, according to the disposition of divine providence, even in the present order comprehension in the Scriptures is not required for something to belong to the word of God to be believed; but rather, as before it always extended more widely, so too after the completion of the canon of the Scriptures the word of God to be believed extends more widely than the written word of God.

Indeed it is evidently established that the people of God, from the origin of the human race down to the heresy of the sixteenth century, always had in its faith and profession some dogmas as divinely handed down which were not contained in the Scriptures.

1°. From the origin of the human race down to Moses the revelation first given concerning God the creator and sanctifier, concerning divine worship and the divine law, concerning the future life, concerning the good and evil angels, and above all concerning the future restorer of the human race, was preserved without any Scripture, at least among those who, down to the time of the well-nigh universal depravation, were ruled by the Spirit of God and were distinguished under the name of sons of God from the sons of men (Gen. VI. 2. 3.), just as afterwards « the people of God, the people peculiar to God, the just people and the seed without blemish, » to whom « the oracles of God were entrusted, » was distinguished from the nations (cf. Wis. X. 15; Rom. III. 2; IX. 4.). Now the primitive revelation was preserved partly by the ordinary ministry through the succession of the patriarchs, partly by the extraordinary ministry through the charism of the prophetic Spirit, by which provision was made both for the preservation and for the explication and ever-advancing growth of revelation (cf. Council of Trent, sess. VI. ch. 2.).

Of the patriarchs before the flood we know very little indeed; for what is indicated of them in Scripture after the revelation made to Adam is reduced to nearly these points. Of Enos the son of Seth it is said according to the Vulgate version: « he began to call upon the name of the Lord » Gen. IV. 26; or as it stands in the Hebrew text: « then it was begun to call upon the name of the Lord » ¹, which must be understood not of the first institution (already made in Adam, Abel, Seth) but of the propagation and preaching of public worship and religion. « Enoch, the seventh from Adam, » is said to have prophesied, Jude 14. ². Irenaeus (bk. IV. ch. 16. n. 2.) exhibits the same Enoch as God's legate, although he falsely thought he discharged a legation to the angels, confusing, namely, with other ancients deceived by the LXX version, the sons of God of Gen. VI. 2. with the fallen angels. Of Noe it is written: « God, bringing the flood upon the world of the impious, preserved the eighth person, Noe, the herald of justice » ³ 2 Pet. II. 5. If we insist on the grammatical form of the words, Noe would here be called the eighth herald of justice; whence the whole series of patriarchs from Enos, who began to call upon the name of the Lord — Enos, Cainan, Malaleel, Jared, Enoch, Mathusala, Lamech, Noe — would be called heralds of justice, and thus guardians and preachers of religion. So the words of Peter were interpreted, among the older writers by Mauclerus (Monarchia ecclesiast. vol. I. p. 226.), among recent ones by the most illustrious Haneberg (Hist. revelat. sect. I. ch. 4.), Phillips (Ius ecclesiast. vol. II. p. 347.), and others. In this sense, if Josephus, Antiquities bk. I. ch. 3. n. 1, be so understood, the Jews would seem to have been accustomed to consider the antediluvian Tradition through these eight generations above all, not counting Adam and his son Seth. The words of Josephus are: « And these (the posterity of Seth) through seven generations (down to Noe) persevered, acknowledging God as Lord of all things and regarding virtue in all things. Then in process of time (under Noe the eighth) they were changed for the worse from the institutions of their fathers » (ἐκ τῶν πατρίων ἐθισμῶν). But there is no need to insist either on that interpretation of the words of St Peter or on this persuasion of the Jews from the testimony of Josephus. For Josephus can be explained in another way, and the words of St Peter, admitting a rather unusual manner of speaking, are more simply understood as calling Noe the eighth among those preserved in the ark (cf. 1 Pet. III. 20.). It remains nonetheless that in those most brief notices the patriarchs Enos, Enoch, Noe are expressly exhibited as guardians of religion and heralds of justice. For the rest, since the religious revelation and the promises made to the human race in its progenitor Adam were always preserved down to the flood, it is evident of itself that they were propagated only through Tradition. The manner, however, was surely not different from that which, as it obtained in the patriarchal age after the flood, is described to us more distinctly ⁴. « I know, » says the Lord of Abraham, « that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord and to do judgment and justice » Gen. XVIII. 19. Moses says of the most ancient times from the division of the peoples: « Remember the days of old, think upon every generation, ask thy father and he will declare to thee, thy elders and they will tell thee; when the Most High divided the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He appointed the bounds of peoples according to the number of the children of Israel (He had in His providence a special regard for the children of Israel, and adapted the bounds of peoples to the good of this people yet to come, and destined a land congruous to its number) » Deut. XXXII. 7. 8. The same manner of Tradition universally considered is exhibited also outside the family of Abraham, Job VIII. 9-12.

We have said elsewhere (cf. th. XII. n. I.) that a distinction must be made between the eternal, spiritual and universal covenant constituted by God with the human race immediately after the fall, and the temporary, typical, particular covenant with the one people of Israel. The former was propagated in the patriarchal age down to Moses by Tradition alone, and thereafter is propagated by Tradition together with Scripture, as we shall presently say. The other, particular covenant was contained in the written law. This matter the excellent Suarez perceived very well. « The law properly so taken did not promise eternal rewards ... and nevertheless it is most true that men constituted under the law had the promise of eternal life and of spiritual goods, and faith in them ... Nor is this latter incompatible with the former, for the Jews did not have this promise from the law, but from the fathers, so to speak, namely through their Tradition; for from the beginning of the Church it was made to faithful men, and in them through Tradition the faith thereof remained, and in Abraham it was recalled and made more express. ... Thus therefore it reached the Israelite people, and afterwards was written through the prophets, not as new but as ancient. All of which is sufficiently proved by the testimony of Paul, Heb. XI., where, beginning from Abel and proceeding through the patriarchs down to the prophets, he says that all had this promise. The law therefore added no spiritual promise to this ancient one » Suarez, De legibus bk. IX. ch. 6. n. 21.

2°. From the time of Moses, when now some divine books were written, there was instituted by God Himself in the first place the ordinary ministry of exegetical Tradition and of authentic interpretation in the priesthood. « The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth, because he is the angel (legate) of the Lord of hosts » ⁵ Mal. II. 7. Read the institution, Deut. XVII. 8-12; cf. Ps. XLIII. 2; LXXVII. 5; Ecclus. VIII. 9-12. The extraordinary ministry was given in the succession of the prophets, whose mission was referred not only to promulgating new revelations but also to the custody and explication of the revelation and law received. But the Tradition was not only exegetical, of which we do not now treat; but through the same ministry in its complex — as composed, namely, of the ordinary ministry of the priesthood and the extraordinary ministry of the succession of prophets — without doubt divine truths, even unwritten ones, were preserved, or truths obscurely indicated in the Scriptures were clearly taught in Tradition, above all from those things which, preserved of old by Tradition alone, pertained to the spiritual and universal covenant. Even among the δευτερωσεις or the many traditions which the Jews from ancient times referred to Moses, given to them on Mount Sinai together with the written law, it is not improbable that some were genuine ⁶. But whatever be the case with these, certainly the doctrine concerning the canon, the authority and the divinity of the sacred books themselves was transmitted only by Tradition, which indeed is evident of itself, and is also understood from the distinction made by the Jews as regards the books about which the Tradition was more obscure. Thus Josephus (Against Apion bk. I. n. 8.), after he had indicated the written books down to Artaxerxes according to the division customary among the Jews into the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, says of the other later writings: « they have not been received in equal faith with the former, because the succession of the prophets was not exact. » Then concerning the certain faith with which the Jews receive and guard these books, he testifies: « though so many centuries have now elapsed ... it is implanted in all Jews at once from their very birth to believe these to be the doctrines of God. » This faith of the Jews is furthermore evident from the doctrine and the manner of teaching of Christ and the Apostles, and was preserved in no other way than through Tradition.

3°. That the Church of Christ was constituted in its beginning and received the doctrine of faith by the preaching of Christ and the Apostles, while the consigning of doctrine in the Scripture of the New Testament gradually followed Churches already constituted far and wide, and that therefore the primitive Church believed many things which were contained in no written but only in handed-down word of God, no Christian can deny (see th. IV.). Therefore at least down to that time about which the Protestants raise the controversy — namely down to the time of the Christian Church already grown after the death of the Apostles — a revealed religion never existed without comprising some truths to be believed consigned in no divine Scriptures.

Wherefore if it were true that in the Christian religion after the apostolic age there exist no revealed truths which are not written, this would not be from an intrinsic necessity nor from the accustomed order of divine providence manifested in the history of revelation; but it would be a fact outside the order of providence by which God from the beginning provided for the promulgation and preservation of His revelation. Indeed, if the proper character and form of the New Testament be compared with the Old Testament, that hypothesis seems repugnant to the very perfection of the New Testament, in which far ampler promises were made to the ever-living magisterium for the preservation and explication of revealed doctrine than to the priesthood of the old law (cf. th. IV. ff.), so much so that as the proper and distinguishing character of the new law there is exhibited the writing by the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Church (in the Catholic mind) in contrast to the old law written on tables of stone and traced in letters, 2 Cor. III. 2. 3. 6. 7. 8. (cf. th. XII. n. I.). Certainly that singular hypothesis of the Protestants, since it is not congruous but rather repugnant to the nature and congruity of things, could be proved in no other way than a posteriori — namely by instituting a comparison between the faith and doctrine of the Church derived from the Apostles and the Scriptures themselves, and by evidently demonstrating that there is nothing in the doctrine of the Church which is not also in Scripture — so that, contrary to the analogy of all preceding ages and contrary to the form implanted by Christ in His Church, the revealed word of God to be believed would now, as it were fortuitously and per accidens, extend no more widely than the written word of God. But

4°. The Church derived from the Apostles, which, by the very confession of the adversaries, in its origin in the time of Christ and the Apostles believed with divine faith many unwritten dogmas, even after the Apostles and after the completion of the divine books constantly preserved and manifested, both theoretically and practically, this principle: namely, not only that it is not necessary for a truth to be believed to be contained in the Scriptures, but that in fact there are some revealed truths to be believed and believed by the Church which are not written.

Of this faith of the Church, in the first place theoretically and as a general principle, all the ancient Fathers and doctors testify, among whom are to be named Ignatius throughout Asia (in Eusebius III. 36.); Clement of Alexandria (On the Pasch, in Eusebius VI. 33.); Tertullian in Africa (On the Crown chs. 3. 4.); Eusebius in Palestine (Evangelical Demonstration bk. I. ch. 8.); Basil in Pontus (On the Holy Spirit ch. 27. n. 67; ch. 29. n. 71.); Epiphanius of Cyprus (Heresy 61. n. 6.); Chrysostom at Antioch and Constantinople (On 2 Thess. hom. 4. n. 2.); Jerome in East and West (Dialogue against the Luciferians n. 4.); Augustine in the name of the whole Church (On Baptism bk. II. n. 12. and often elsewhere). Cf. Bellarmine, On the Word of God bk. IV. ch. 7. The one sentence of them all comes to this: « that they deemed it necessary for security's sake to consign even to writing the Traditions received; that not all things to be observed and believed are written; that the Apostles handed down some things in writings, others without writings, and that both are of equal authority; that when it is established that something is in Tradition, nothing further is to be sought; that many things which the universal Church observes were handed down by the Apostles, though they are not found written. » This same principle the Church declared by solemn definitions in Councils. Thus in the Seventh Council, Act VII., many splendid things stand on this matter, of which this is the sum. « East and west and north and south, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we agree in one ... receiving all things whatsoever the holy Catholic Church has received of old, written and unwritten » (Hardouin vol. IV. pp. 478. 479.). « If anyone makes void ecclesiastical Tradition, whether written or unwritten, let him be anathema » (ibid. p. 471.). Cf. Eighth Council, Act X. can. 1. (Hard. vol. V. p. 1098.).

Furthermore, practically and as regards certain special dogmas, the universal Church has always professed the same unanimous sentence. For just as dogmas consigned in the Scriptures were always both declared to the faithful and defended against heretics by appealing to both founts, of Scripture and of Tradition, so the Fathers, both singly and assembled in Councils, confess concerning certain heads of Christian doctrine that they cannot be demonstrated from the Scriptures, and yet no less maintain that they belong to the deposit of faith from Tradition alone. This is true not only of the unwritten words which were sanctioned as solemn formulae for the stricter declaration and definition of dogmas, such as the formulae: one nature, three persons; persons consubstantial; union according to hypostasis; the efficacy of the Sacraments ex opere operato; transubstantiation, and many others. For definitions of this kind prove not so much the existence of the Traditions of which we now speak, as the formal principle of Tradition — treated of above — namely that the successors of the Apostles are the guardians and authentic teachers of the whole of revealed doctrine. But in the manner we have described, they acknowledge and defend from Tradition alone also unwritten dogmas. Thus they defend, to a man, all who have disputed anything on this matter, the divinity and integrity of the canon of the sacred books, as will appear from the treatment of the Scriptures to be held below. Thus likewise they defend baptism to be conferred on infants, e.g. Origen on the Epistle to the Romans bk. V. n. 9. vol. IV. p. 565. « The Church has received from the Apostles the Tradition to give baptism even to little ones. » Cf. hom. VIII. n. 3. on Leviticus vol. II. p. 230; hom. IX. n. 4. on Joshua ibid. p. 420. Augustine concerning the efficacy of baptism in infants has from the Scriptures nothing but a « conjecture » drawn from circumcision; but the convincing argument — « if anyone in this matter seeks divine authority » — the holy Doctor draws from this principle: « what the universal Church holds, and was not instituted by Councils but has always been retained, is most rightly believed to have been handed down by none but apostolic authority, » On Baptism bk. IV. ch. 24. To this Tradition alone he appeals again for the same matter. « That infants are to be baptized even (the Pelagians themselves) concede, who cannot come against the authority of the universal Church, handed down without doubt through the Lord and the Apostles, » On the Merits and Remission of Sinners bk. I. ch. 26; cf. ibid. bk. III. ch. 2; Serm. 294. nn. 14. 17; On Genesis to the Letter bk. X. ch. 23. ⁷ In the same way, or even more luminously, he disputes concerning Tradition as regards the dogma of the validity of baptism conferred by heretics (On Baptism against the Donatists bk. II. ch. 7. n. 12; bk. IV. ch. 6; bk. V. nn. 30. 31; On the Unity of the Church ch. 22. n. 63; Against Cresconius bk. I. chs. 32. 33.). In all these places he repeats in different words the one sentence which he has in On Baptism bk. V. ch. 1. What Cyprian and others of his colleagues thought on this matter « is in no way to be preferred against the confession of the whole Catholic Church, whose members they rejoiced to be, and from which neither did they cut themselves off, nor did they suffer those who thought differently to be cut off, until at length, in the Lord's will, through a plenary Council, though after many years, it should be sifted out what was more right, with no novelty instituted but antiquity confirmed ... But the Apostles prescribed nothing thereof (in Scripture); but that custom which was opposed to Cyprian is to be believed to have taken its beginning from their Tradition, just as there are many things which the universal Church holds, and for this reason are well believed to have been prescribed by the Apostles, although they are not found written. » Cf. Jerome, Dialogue against Lucifer n. 23. 26. Indeed, to the manifold testimonies of the Scriptures from which Cyprian and the African bishops tried to deduce the truth of their sentence, there is no response more efficacious than that of Pope Stephen: « let nothing be innovated, except what has been handed down, » Lirinens. chs. 9. 10. Cf. Card. Du Perron against the King of England bk. III. chs. 7. 8. 13.

As therefore the people of God from the beginning down to Moses, and from Moses down to Christ, and in the time of Christ and the Apostles, had in its faith and profession also unwritten truths, so no less after the Apostles and after the completion of the inspired books did the Church propagated from the Apostles always profess, theoretically and practically, certain truths as divinely revealed which it had received not in the Scriptures but by Tradition alone.

In the whole history of revelation, therefore, there is not only nothing to suggest that all truths to be believed are written truths; but from it there is also shown: a) that comprehension in the Scriptures is not a necessary condition of an article of faith; b) that divine providence never followed this order in proposing revelation, at least down to the time about which there is controversy; c) that as in the antecedent time, so also in the time after the Apostles about which there is dispute, the Church propagated from the Apostles always had in its profession some unwritten truths. The word of God to be believed cannot therefore be denied to extend more widely than the written word without contradicting the whole history of revelation, and without most shamelessly saying that the universal Church always, down to the new Apostles of the sixteenth century, was wrongly constituted, wrongly believed, and wrongly discharged the ministry of preaching.

II. With these premises the second part of the thesis too must be judged demonstrated. We say that, once the formal principle of Tradition is demonstrated and admitted, the truth of the material principle follows, by which it is asserted that the word of God to be believed extends more widely than the written word. For from the formal principle of Tradition, as we demonstrated above, the agreement of the apostolic succession divinely instituted for the custody of the whole of revealed doctrine exhibits an authentic and infallible testimony concerning revealed dogmas. But at the time when the Protestants made schism from the Church, there had for at least many centuries been a universal agreement on many dogmas as divinely revealed which yet are not contained in the Scriptures, or at least not so contained that they could be proved from them alone — this the Protestants themselves not only concede but even contend. Therefore these dogmas cannot be denied to be divinely revealed except by denying the authenticity of the consentient testimony, i.e. by denying the formal principle of Tradition. Once this is admitted, it must necessarily be admitted that those dogmas belong to the deposit of faith preserved and handed down through the apostolic succession, and consequently it must be admitted that the word of God to be believed extends more widely than the written word of God. The controversy with the Protestants (as I have often already warned) is therefore not to be reduced to a disputation about certain singular heads of doctrine, whether they are revealed and divinely handed down; but the principal controversy must be brought back to the formal principle of Tradition itself, from whose truth there spontaneously follows the truth of « all Christian Traditions, » and whose denial is the foundation of all the other denials of Protestantism. See above th. III. and Coroll. 1. to th. IX.

III. In the third part of the thesis we say that the principle of the Protestants, as they propose it in the symbolic books, and as it was pretended to be the foundation and chief reason of the so-called Reformation, cannot be defended without manifest contradiction.

1°. The profession of the Protestants, proposed as foundational in the symbolic books to show the necessity and justice of their secession from the evidently apostolic Church, was conceived in these words. « We believe, confess and teach that the sole rule and norm according to which all dogmas and all teachers ought to be esteemed and judged is none other at all ⁸ than the prophetic and apostolic writings of both the Old and the New Testament, » Formula of Concord, Epitome §. 1. It is a question of the profession of divine faith, and with this faith they say they believe: a) (affirmatively) that all and only the books of the Old and New Testament which they have received in their canon are sacred books containing the sincere word of God to be believed; for unless they believed with faith that all of them are sacred and divine, they could not hold all of them as the norm of the dogmas to be believed with faith; and unless they believed that they alone are sacred and divine, there could still be dogmas to be believed in other books perhaps, and consequently they could not believe those which they have to be the sole norm of all dogmas to be believed. b) They believe (negatively) that there is no other word of God to be believed and no doctrine of faith which is not contained in those books and cannot be proved from them; this their faith they explicitly express when they solemnly profess: we believe that there is none other rule and norm at all. c) They believe (affirmatively and negatively) that individuals are sufficient interpreters for themselves of the true sense of this divine word, and that the Church is not the authentic interpreter or judge of the true sense; but that each one's own interpretation ought to be for him the norm for judging the interpretation of the Church and for judging all dogmas proposed by the Church. For they believe with that same faith that Scripture is the sole rule according to which all dogmas and all teachers ought to be esteemed and judged; but whoever admitted an authentic interpretation of the Church or of any judge would no longer judge all teachers according to the sole rule (see above pp. 7-9.). But of these three assertions, which they profess to believe as foundational, none is contained in the Scriptures. Therefore by the very fact that they posit the principle that nothing is to be believed which is not written, they believe and posit as foundationally to be believed several things as their own peculiar dogmas which are not written. In the very enunciation of the principle, therefore, by which they deny that anything unwritten is to be believed, they at once affirm that something unwritten is to be believed — which is an evident contradiction.

2°. Besides these things, all communions of the Christian name, and the chief fellowships of the Protestants which still profess something of Christian doctrine, and the first Reformers themselves (« men of God, » as they love to be called), to whom they owe their origin through scission from the Catholic Church, a) have retained and retain in their profession and practice some things which, transmitted through the Tradition alone of the Catholic Church, they received as consigned in no Scriptures. They believed, and (not yet lapsed into rationalism or atheism) still profess to believe, that the single books of Scripture, which they received from nowhere else than from the Catholic Church, are inspired or at least books divine in a peculiar manner; that baptism can validly be conferred by heretics and infidels; that infants are to be baptized; that not the Sabbath but the following day is to be celebrated; that for grave causes an oath is licit for Christians; that it is not necessary to abstain from things strangled and from blood — and other things which stand by Tradition alone and by the authority of the magisterium of the Catholic Church, but are nowhere written; indeed, concerning the last three the contrary seems to be written (Exod. XX. 10. 11. coll. Matt. XXIV. 20; ibid. V. 33-37; Acts XV. 28. 29.), unless the words be interpreted according to the line of Catholic understanding and Tradition. b) Positively and negatively, against the faith of the Catholic Church, they believe many things which are not written; among these the very twofold fundamental principle of the whole system: the one which they call the formal principle, that Scripture alone is the rule of faith, about which enough has now been said; the other which they call the material principle, namely that man is justified by faith alone ⁹ (i.e. by trust and certain persuasion that God does not regard our sins but only the merits of Christ). Furthermore, where, I ask, is written the distinction between fundamental articles of faith, necessarily to be believed, and non-fundamental articles, which, however proposed, can be denied without one thereby falling from faith and the communion of the Church? Where is it written which those fundamental articles are? Of the negations, moreover, which they oppose to Catholic doctrine, none at all is contained in the Scriptures. Cf. Hadrian and Peter de Walenburch, « Examination of the Principles of Faith, » Examination I., the Augustinian method, Part II.; On Testimonies, Proof 5. Such, then, is that fundamental principle of the Protestants as enunciated in the symbolic books: both self-contradictory and repugnant to the rest of their doctrine.

Tradition precedes Scripture in manifold ways.

« If a comparison be instituted universally between Tradition and Scripture, Tradition must be judged to precede both in chronological order, and in logical order and that of knowledge according to the economy instituted by Christ, and in order of comprehension and amplitude, in that Tradition can be regarded as the whole containing under itself, as it were a part, the doctrine » of Scripture and concerning Scripture. »

It is plain that here the question is not, in the sense of the two preceding theses, of Traditions insofar as they are not written; but that by the name of Tradition is signified the whole revealed doctrine and discipline, insofar as there is regarded as the medium or instrument of its preservation not the written letter of the sacred books but the perpetual series of witnesses and guardians of the faith through whom the deposit of revelation has been preserved entire and transmitted from its first promulgation down to us. For although there exist heads of revealed doctrine not written, which were transmitted through Tradition alone (th. XIX. XX.), yet there exists no written doctrine which has not also been preserved through Tradition, since the Scriptures themselves, and consequently the contents in the Scriptures, have come down to us through Tradition. Whence abstraction can be made from Scripture as a partial instrument of preservation, or rather Scripture itself can be regarded as a thing handed down, and thus the whole revealed doctrine can be considered insofar as it is Tradition (see th. I. and II.). So the Fathers call the whole doctrine, although in part consigned in the Scriptures, abstraction being made from the mode of preservation through the Scriptures, Tradition in the proper sense. « But what, » says Irenaeus, bk. III. ch. 4, « if the Apostles had not even left us the Scriptures, ought we not to follow the order of Tradition which they handed down to those to whom they committed the Churches? To which appointment assent many nations of barbarians ... having salvation written in their hearts without paper and ink, and diligently guarding the ancient Tradition. » In this declared sense, therefore, we compare divine Tradition with divine Scripture.

I. Tradition precedes the Scriptures in chronological order. No one surely understands this as if first the whole revelation had been completed and propagated through Tradition, and then the truths handed down had also been consigned in the Scriptures; for long before the completion of revelation some Scriptures already existed — indeed, in the progress of revelation the antecedent Scriptures were presupposed and appealed to, as was most frequently done by Christ Himself and by the Apostles. Nor is this the sense of the proposition, that every revelation was always first handed down by preaching without the Scriptures and only afterwards written in the sacred code; this indeed often, but not always, happened thus (cf. Jer. XXXVI. 32; Apoc. I. 3. 19; XXII. 7. 10. 19, to say nothing of the psalms and certain other books both moral and historical). The sense, then, is that first indeed, in the old economy, revelation — which in its own way implicitly contained the whole revelation gradually to be explicated and completed (St Thomas 2. 2. q. 1. a. 7.) — preceded, preserved down to Moses by Tradition alone; and that only in its further explication were holy men of God inspired to write books. Moreover, also in the New Testament the institution and formation through handed-down faith of the Church of Jesus Christ took place through preaching before any book of the New Testament was written; but in progress of time we know the doctrine was in part also written, and to the same Church, long since constituted and imbued through apostolic preaching with the mysteries of faith, the Scriptures of the New Testament together with the books of the Old Testament were handed down as an instrument of doctrine « profitable for teaching, for reproving, for correcting, for instructing in justice, » 2 Tim. III. 16. These things are established from the above, th. VII. n. II.; th. XX. n. I.

II. We said in the second place that Tradition precedes as regards us in the order of knowledge according to the economy instituted by Christ. Here must be distinguished Tradition regarded as merely historical, insofar as it is the foundation of critical and philosophical demonstration, and Tradition in the theological sense, formally as religious and divine. It is of this divine Tradition that we speak. In the other term of the comparison, on the other hand, we distinguish knowledge concerning Scripture as a monument preserved to us, and knowledge of the doctrine which is in Scripture. Each of these knowledges, we say, depends in some sense, according to the Christian economy, on divine Tradition, and thus Tradition is prior to the Scriptures in logical order.

1°. In knowledge concerning Scripture there can be regarded genuineness, integrity, veracity, divinity of doctrine, inspiration of the sacred books.

Genuineness is here understood as the origin of a work from the writer to whom it is attributed, or at least (if the writer is perhaps not ascertained) that the work was written at the time (broadly taken) and in the circumstances in which it is asserted to have been. This genuineness can now, at least for most books of Scripture, be fully demonstrated historically and critically from tradition, which we called merely historical, no otherwise than the genuineness of other ancient books is demonstrated. I said that this can be demonstrated at least for most books, not because I deny that it can be done for all, but because in some cases the difficulties are greater as long as Tradition is regarded in the non-theological but merely historical sense.

Integrity, if not as regards every several point, at least as regards the substance of the matter, can be demonstrated in the same way.

Veracity follows from demonstrated genuineness in most cases, and divinity of doctrine from veracity in some. For when, e.g., the genuineness of the books of Moses, of most of the historical books, of the Gospels, the Acts, the apostolic epistles, is established, then likewise veracity will also be established, at least as regards all the chief points. Moreover, from the veracity, e.g., of the Gospels, the divinity of the person will be established, and consequently the divinity of the doctrine and promises of Christ which are read in the Gospels; and from this divinity of the doctrine and promises of Christ there will follow, at least as regards the substance of the matter, the divinity of the doctrine of the Apostles consigned in their epistles.

But veracity, and much more divinity of doctrine, as regards each and every point cannot be demonstrated except from the inspiration of the books (or at least from the charism of infallibility in the writing of each and every sentence).

Inspiration (and the same would have to be said of infallibility) cannot become known certainly and as it ought except through divine testimony. This testimony, however, although concerning the inspiration of some books it is also preserved to us in the apostolic Scripture, yet as regards the whole complex of books which are to be believed inspired was transmitted by Tradition alone. But this Tradition of the divine testimony is not merely historical, but is the Christian Tradition preserved and defined through the divinely instituted ministry and through consentient ecclesiastical preaching; of these there will be a more distinct place to speak below.

These things had to be premised that it may be understood how our knowledge concerning the Scriptures depends, and how it does not depend, on Tradition taken in the theological sense. We say, then, that genuineness, integrity, veracity, divinity of doctrine in the books of Scripture can indeed, abstraction being made from authentic Tradition understood in the Christian sense, be demonstrated historically and critically, but not as regards all the texts of Scripture which are to be believed distinguished by these properties; not for all who are bound to believe, since the greatest part of men are not fit sufficiently to grasp such a demonstration; not for the state of controversy, so that once controversy is raised it could be settled historically and critically to the grasp of all. Likewise the inspiration of the sacred books, and the consequent absolute veracity and divinity of doctrine, can indeed also be demonstrated by the testimony comprised in the apostolic Scripture, but under the same threefold limitation: not as regards all books, not sufficiently for all, and especially not to the grasp of all for the state of controversy (cf. above th. XVIII. XIX.).

Moreover this scientific demonstration, pertaining to the apologetic discipline, without doubt contributes and is hypothetically necessary for the defense of the faith; but it is certainly not that economy immediately instituted by Christ Himself for safely and without danger of error preserving the integral faith, and namely the doctrine concerning the instruments of faith as regards each of their parts, for all, for every condition. For Christ and the Holy Spirit through the Apostles, just as they handed down the whole revealed doctrine, so also handed down these instruments of doctrine, together with the revelation concerning their inspiration, to the apostolic succession to be preserved and employed in such a way that their preservation, and the authentic judgment and definition concerning genuineness, integrity, inspiration, pertain to the very ministry and magisterium of the apostolic succession under the assistance and direction of the Spirit of truth, just as there pertains to the same magisterium universally the custody, explication and definition of the deposit of faith, and of all things necessary for the custody of the deposit. Therefore, according to the economy instituted by Christ, the principle of the knowledge concerning the Scriptures to be had and had in the Church is this very custody and authentic preaching under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and this principle, one and alone, is universal, accommodated to all, as regards all books and parts of books, for settling all controversies according to Christ's institution to the grasp of all, as far as is needed for the end of the Church. No other demonstration is here required besides that by which we showed the whole revealed doctrine to have been committed to the custody of the apostolic succession; since the doctrine concerning the Scriptures is but a part in the whole handed-down doctrine. See especially th. V. VIII. XI. n. II. But that custody of the deposit and perpetual ecclesiastical preaching under the direction of the Holy Spirit is Tradition in the most proper theological sense (th. XI.). Therefore, according to the ordinary economy instituted by Christ, Christian knowledge concerning the Scriptures — universal as to subject (as regards the universality of the faithful) and universal as to object (as regards all the books), but especially knowledge concerning the Scriptures formally as divinely inspired — depends on Tradition, and consequently the latter is logically prior, in the order of knowledge.

2°. In what order of knowledge the doctrine in the Scriptures and Tradition follow upon each other is established from thesis XVIII., collated with theses VII. n. II; X. n. II; XIX. Ecclesiastical preaching, namely, is the norm for understanding the doctrine in the Scriptures, in the sense demonstrated in those theses. But it has also been declared that this character of norm is not to be so taken as if, abstraction being made from Christian Tradition, nothing certain could be understood concerning the Scriptures, or the true sense in the Scriptures could nowhere be defined with hermeneutical certainty.

But for this reason — because, abstraction being made from Christian Tradition and from the authentic magisterium, many things can be understood concerning the divine authority of at least some books and concerning the true sense in the Scriptures, or because polemically the divine authority and even the inspiration of the Scriptures can be supposed from the concession of the adversary — for this reason, I say, and under this respect, Scripture can be assumed as logically prior in the order of knowledge, and thus from the Scriptures themselves the authority and the other properties both of the Church and of Tradition are demonstrated.

But a) in that abstraction from Christian Tradition, the knowledge concerning the Scriptures resting on merely historical and critical supports will itself be historical rather than properly theological. b) When the inspiration of the Scriptures is polemically assumed from what the adversary concedes — the second thing we mentioned — this is not an absolute logical priority of Scripture from the objective order of things, but from a certain hypothesis. c) Neither in this polemical hypothesis is assumed, nor in that abstraction from Christian Tradition of which we spoke, can there be obtained as it were an antecedent knowledge of the authority, and much less of the inspiration, of all the books, and of the true sense of the whole doctrine which is in the Scriptures; but either from historical demonstration there is presupposed, or from the concession of the adversary there is assumed as prior, the knowledge of the divine authority of some books, and the demonstrable true sense of some particular heads of doctrine which are clearly consigned in the Scriptures. Thus, without begging the question and without thereby subverting the logical priority of Tradition established in this thesis, we have in the foregoing used the authority of Scripture to demonstrate the authority of Tradition. See the Scholion to th. VII.

III. The last part of the thesis, where we say that the doctrine concerning Scripture and the doctrine which is in Scripture are comprised by Tradition as by a whole, as a part, is established from the very definition of Tradition. For the whole revealed doctrine — and consequently both unwritten doctrine and written doctrine — is also preserved through the ever-living magisterium and through the preaching of the apostolic succession ¹. Now doctrine regarded according to this mode of custody and propagation through the course of ages is and is called Tradition in the proper sense. Since, therefore, the doctrine concerning the Scriptures and the doctrine consigned in the Scriptures (th. XX.) are a part of this whole doctrine thus propagated down to us, we rightly say that in the order of comprehension Tradition is the whole, and the doctrine concerning the Scriptures and in the Scriptures is the part of the whole.