Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

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.