Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

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.