Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

Catholic Revelation Was Completed Through Jesus Christ and Through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles.

« Catholic revelation in the fullness of time must be held completed by Christ the Son of God through Himself and through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles, so that not only is the new economy of a more perfect order and ampler revelation of God, devised by sundry ancient and more recent heretics, excluded, but also, in the present economy, no objective increase of the deposit of Catholic faith comprised in the sacred Scriptures and apostolic Tradition is either to have taken place after the Apostles or still to be awaited in the Church militant. »

The revelation made by Christ the Son of God while He visibly conversed with men, and through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles, can be conceived as still to be completed in two ways. In the first way it was understood by the Montanists, the Manichaeans, several sects of the Middle Ages, such as the Fraticelli and the men of the eternal gospel (at least to some extent also Abbot Joachim), the countless sects of more recent times — Anabaptists, Swedenborgians, Irvingites, the men of the future church — or all those who await a new and more abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit (cf. p. 55). For all these, though in different ways, posited a third, more perfect economy of the Holy Spirit, standing in nearly the same relation to the second economy instituted by Christ the Son of God as this second stands to the first of the Old Testament, or the economy of the Father, as some of them called it. With this manifest heresy excluded, the progress of objective revelation could be conceived in a second way: that the Church of Christ on earth — which those heretics say is either destroyed or to be destroyed — should indeed, according to the divine promises, endure unto the consummation of the age; but that within the Church itself revelation should receive new increases day by day, just as in the Old Testament from the first beginning unto Christ and the Apostles new revelations were continually added to the old.

In the thesis we deny objective progress of revelation after the Apostles in either form. For the Catholic consummation of revelation through Christ and through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles is itself a head of doctrine expressed in the divine Scriptures and in Tradition, and manifested in manifold ways, theoretically and practically, in the apostolic succession and in the whole life of the Church.

I. As to the first point, that the present economy of the Church of Jesus Christ is the last and supreme state of the divine manifestation for this mortal condition of the human race is fully manifest from Christian revelation itself.

1°. In general, in the Scriptures the New Testament founded by Christ is compared with the Old as the perfect and consummate with the imperfect and inchoate, as the firm and immovable with what is to be perfected and transferred into this very state of perfection. For as the ancient Covenant is always exhibited as a beginning under the hope and expectation of a new economy by which it is to be perfected, so the further perfection of the divine manifestation proposed as to be awaited in the New Testament is none other than that faith should pass into vision face to face in the homeland. St Paul expressly sets forth the demonstration of this in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

a) The economy of the Mosaic law (so the Apostle argues) was imperfect and only a leading by the hand to the new and perfect economy of Christ; hence the priesthood under the old covenant was inefficacious and therefore to be abrogated, and consequently that whole economy too, insofar as it was imperfect, was to be abrogated, as is plain from the intimate connection of priesthood with religion as a whole. But there had to succeed it the priesthood of Christ, of a higher order, efficacious, eternal, and never to be abrogated; from which very fact it is established that the economy founded upon this eternal priesthood is eternal too. « If therefore perfection was by the Levitical priesthood ... what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchisedech? ... For the priesthood being translated, it is necessary that a translation also be made of the law (of the whole economy) ... There is indeed a setting aside (ἀθεσις, abolitio) of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness (διὰ τοῦ αὐτῆς ἀσθενεῶς καὶ ἀνωφελῶς, on account of inefficacy); for the law brought nothing to perfection; but there was the bringing in of a better hope, by which we draw nigh to God ... But He (Christ), because He continueth forever, hath an everlasting priesthood. Whereby He is able also to save forever them that come to God by Him » vii. 11ff. b) The Old Testament was a shadow and type of the New; therefore this perfect had to succeed that imperfect. The former had to cease precisely because of its imperfection; therefore no more perfect shall succeed the latter because of its perfection (supreme according to the actual providence of God). « For if that former had been free from fault (εἰ γὰρ ἦν ἀμεμπτος, had it been exempt from imperfection), there would not indeed have been a place sought for a second » viii. 5-13. c) The Apostle expressly declares from the history of the founding of the Old and New Testaments that this second is ultimate and immovable. For thus he interprets the prophecy, « yet once ¹, and I will move heaven and earth » Agg. ii. 7: « And that yet once saith the transferring of moveable things (μεταθεσιν) as of things that are made, that those things may remain which are immoveable. Therefore, receiving an immoveable kingdom, we have grace » xii. 27, 28. The Old Testament is that « which is made void »; the New, that « which remaineth » 2 Cor. iii. 11; cf. Rom. x. 4; Gal. iii. 23ff.; iv. 3, 4.

2°. As the New Testament is compared with the Old as the perfect succeeding the imperfect, so it is itself compared as imperfect with a succeeding perfect never except with the beatific vision: 1 Cor. xiii. 9-13, cf. 2 Cor. v. 7; 1 John iii. 2. Three states therefore correspond to one another and cohere by degrees: the shadow of the Old Testament, the image of the New, the reality of the blessed vision, as the Apostle indicates, Heb. x. 1: « having the shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things ». The old economy therefore stands to the Church of Christ on earth as the Church on earth stands to the heavenly Church; and thus the Church of Christ is the mean between the ancient shadow and the consummated possession of the promises. « The first tabernacle is the Synagogue, the second the Church, the third heaven ... The first was in shadow and figure, the second is in figure and in truth, the third in truth alone (var. in the hall of truth). In the first life is shown, in the second it is given, in the third it is possessed » St Bruno of Asti, hom. 34, Rome ed. 1791, vol. II, p. 409 (extant under the name of Eusebius Gallicanus in Bibl. Max., vol. VI, p. 721). Cf. St Ambrose on Ps. 38, n. 25; Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, ch. 5, n. 2.

3°. The same is demonstrated from the constant manner of speaking of Scripture, by which this present economy instituted by Christ is called the fullness of time: Gal. iv. 4; Eph. i. 10; and the revelation in Christ and through Christ is said to have been made in the last days: Heb. i. 1; Acts ii. 17; 1 Pet. i. 20 (cf. St Thomas, 2-2, q. 1, a. 7, ad 4).

II. The fancy of a revelation still to be completed in some third, more perfect economy, of which we spoke, will be excluded a fortiori by all the arguments by which we demonstrate that no new revelation pertaining to the increase of the Catholic deposit is any longer to be awaited even in this perpetual Church of Christ.

1°. Let there be considered the manner of speaking and the doctrine of the Scriptures concerning the consummation of revelation and its promulgation through the Apostles, and concerning the profession and preaching of the faith in their successors unto the consummation of the age.

a) In the last discourse, John xvi. 12-15, Christ the Lord has directly and immediately in view the Apostles personally, and promises them the whole of salutary truth to be revealed through the Holy Spirit — to be revealed, indeed, to them as Apostles, i.e. as His legates, not only for believing and knowing but for preaching and bearing witness. « I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth ². For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever things He shall hear He shall speak, and the things that are to come He shall show to you. He shall glorify Me, because He shall receive of Mine and shall show it to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine; therefore I said that He shall receive of Mine and shall show it to you. » α) What we say — that the Apostles personally are directly and immediately in view, not only in the present defect of infirmity but also in the future perfection of receiving the whole truth — is manifest from the parallel opposition in the first two clauses. For those who cannot bear now are personally those very men called to the apostolate; and to this condition in which they now are is opposed the other in which those same men shall be then, when the Spirit of truth shall come ³; to the infirmity by which they cannot bear is opposed the perfection by which those same men are taught all truth ⁴. β) The second thing we said — that to the Apostles thus personally in view there is promised the revelation of the whole of salutary truth — is established from the very express words. Infinite truth with relation outward, namely unto all truth to be revealed to the Church, is considered according to the order of communication in the three Persons of the Holy Trinity: in the Father, from the Father into the Son, from Father and Son into the Holy Spirit, who is therefore both called and is the Spirit of truth in Himself and inwardly by reason of the communication of infinite truth from Father and Son ⁵; the Spirit of truth outwardly, toward the Church, as the communicator of all truth to be revealed ⁶. The substantial Truth itself, therefore, the Holy Trinity, in its eternal counsels has no other truth to be revealed in time as the truth of the Church on earth besides this whole which the Spirit of truth is here said to teach. But this whole truth He is said to teach the Apostles themselves personally in view. Therefore the whole truth which is the truth of the Church on earth was revealed to the Apostles themselves by the Spirit of truth. γ) That this is the truth of the Church — that is, revealed to the Apostles not for themselves alone but for the Church and to be communicated to the Church — is manifest from the very end of Catholic revelation, from the office of the apostolate, from the express mandates of Christ the Founder of the Church. Hence I said that personally the Apostles themselves are directly and immediately in view; for finally indeed, in the doctrine of all truth which they are taught by the Spirit of truth, there is in view the whole Church, to be taught by the Apostles this whole Catholic truth.

At the beginning of this same discourse in which the Lord promises the Apostles the whole of salutary truth (πᾶσαν τὴν ἀληθειαν), He expounded this scope of which we spoke. « I will send you from the Father the Spirit of truth ... He shall give testimony of Me; and you shall give testimony of Me, because you are with Me from the beginning » (the divine-human testimony): John xv. 26, 27. And presently, at the end of the whole discourse, He prays for the sanctification of the Apostles in all that truth, and of all the faithful of all places and times who through the word of the Apostles — according to all that truth, of course — shall believe in Him. « Holy Father ... sanctify them in truth (ἐν τῃ ἀληθείᾳ); Thy word is truth; as Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world ... and not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe (without distinction of time) in Me » John xvii. 17-20. This word of the whole revealed truth to be preached He solemnly commits to the same men after His resurrection. « Going, teach ye all nations ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you » (whatsoever, namely, He commanded whether by visibly teaching or by invisibly sending the Spirit of truth, who receives from Him and speaks whatsoever He hears): Matt. xxviii. 20. This « whole truth which the Spirit of truth taught them, » these « all things whatsoever » the Son who is truth « commanded them, » are therefore the Gospel which they are bidden to preach to every creature in the whole world: Mark xvi. 15; and in which Gospel, by the power of the supervening Holy Spirit, they are constituted witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even unto the uttermost part of the earth: Acts i. 8. Hence, since what the Apostles received and preached is the whole Gospel, i.e. the whole truth to be announced to the Church, besides it « there is no other Gospel »: Gal. i. 6-9.

b) From these things it is now evident what office the successors of the Apostles shall discharge unto the consummation of the age, and what the objective faith (the object of faith which is believed) shall be in the Church unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ (Eph. iv. 13). The whole Gospel, the whole truth of faith was revealed to the Apostles for the Church, and consequently that same whole truth of faith was preached and transmitted by them to the Church. Besides that whole truth preached by the Apostles, therefore, there is given no other truth of the Church of Christ, that is, truth of Catholic faith. Equally widely, therefore, and no further extended can the truth of Catholic faith be understood than the truth of the apostolic preaching.

a) Hence the whole spiritual edifice of the Church — faith with all its divine institutions and virtues — is said to be built up as a holy temple in the Lord, and all the faithful are said to be « built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone » Eph. ii. 20. In the order of doctrine and institutions, therefore, the Church has no other foundation than the revelation of the Old Testament through the Prophets and the revelation of the New Testament consummated through the Apostles, whose beginning and end is Jesus Christ. The faithful therefore in all their faith rest upon the foundation of the apostolic preaching (in which, as in its consummation, the prophetic preaching is included). Nor indeed can this be deemed a merely temporary institution, perchance only for the primitive age of the Church. But as long as the foundation upon Christ Jesus the cornerstone — besides whom no man can lay another foundation (1 Cor. iii. 10) — remains essential for the Church of Christ, so long is this connection and foundation upon the cornerstone completed for that same Church of Christ only through « the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets. » Hence the holy city itself, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is built as of precious stones with all the elect of all times transferred from the meritorious stadium of faith to the glorious prize of faith, was symbolically shown to St John « having twelve foundations, and in them the twelve names of the twelve Apostles » Apoc. xxi. 14.

β) Since from what has been demonstrated the apostolate was instituted for the first founding of the Church through the preaching of the whole truth of faith, by this very fact the office of the successors cannot be the revelation of yet another truth; but the preservation and preaching, in its integrity and in its genuine sense, of that « whole truth » received from the Apostles. When therefore to the Apostles, as juridically representing their whole succession unto the consummation of the age, the precept was given: « teach all nations ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, » the imposed office of teaching the whole Catholic truth belongs equally to the perpetual apostolic succession and to the college of the Apostles themselves. But to the Apostles this magisterium belongs as to the first promulgators of the whole Catholic truth to be revealed; and consequently, on account of this totality of truth already promulgated by the Apostles themselves in virtue of their mission, to the successors the magisterium belongs as preachers of that same whole Catholic truth already revealed. The magisterium therefore, instituted by the incarnate Word with that testamentary mandate — « teach ... to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you » — as regards the object of doctrine extends just as widely for the whole apostolic succession as for the apostolic college itself; but in the Apostles it is the magisterium of the first promulgation as regards the whole doctrine to be revealed, in the successors the magisterium of the preaching of that same whole doctrine with revelation already completed (cf. th. V).

Wherefore the successors of the Apostles are everywhere exhibited as witnesses and teachers only of those things which they had received from the Apostles (th. V, n. III). For their office and duty is « to remain in the things which they have learned and which have been committed to them » by the Apostles, « knowing from whom they have learned »; the same things which they « received » from the Apostles « through many witnesses » they are bidden to « commend to faithful men who shall be fit to teach others also »; they are admonished to « hold the form of sound words which they heard from the Apostles in faith, » and to « keep the good deposit by the Holy Ghost » 2 Tim. i. 13, 14; ii. 2; iii. 14. All the faithful likewise are bidden to « contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints » Jude 3; to « walk in Christ, rooted and built up in Him and confirmed in the faith, as also they have learned » Col. ii. 7.

c) What we have hitherto demonstrated is reduced in compendium to these heads. α) To the extraordinary office of the apostolate belongs the first promulgation of the whole truth to be revealed, which they themselves received as revealed immediately from Christ or from the Holy Spirit. β) This charism belongs to the apostolate not only positively; but it is exclusively proper to it by the very fact that by the Spirit of truth they were taught « all truth » for the Church of the New Testament, or the whole truth of Catholic revelation. Whence it comes that the successors ordained by the Apostles themselves are bidden only to guard the deposit and to teach the things which they learned from the Apostles. Hence further γ) the whole Church in its faith and doctrine rests upon, and all the faithful are built upon, the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets; and therefore all the faithful are admonished to admit no other doctrine of faith except that derived from the Apostles. When therefore the faithful are inculcated: « mark them who make dissensions and offences besides the doctrine which you have learned ⁷, » Rom. xvi. 17 — sentences of this kind declare that whatever is proposed as revealed faith to be believed by all the faithful besides and beyond the doctrine handed down by the Apostles is against the doctrine of the Apostles. δ) Although therefore in the apostolic time, when the cited testimonies of the Scriptures were published, Catholic revelation had not yet been concluded, nevertheless no new revelation was to be received into the deposit of faith which had not been either promulgated or confirmed by the Apostles themselves. Hence is understood as belonging to the very magisterium proper to the apostolate what the ancients hand down: that the inspired books themselves — the Gospel of Mark by St Peter, the Gospel of Luke by St Paul — were approved and commended to the Church (Eusebius, H.E. II, ch. 15; III, ch. 4; Jerome, De viris illustr., ch. 7 and 8).

From all these things it is clear what we undertook to demonstrate. Since the extraordinary office of the apostolate was instituted by the divine Saviour for the first founding — completed in its foundation and very essence, namely in the doctrine of faith — of the Church, therefore the promised and sent Spirit of truth completed the revelation of the whole truth of Catholic faith in those first founders and planters themselves. No further Catholic revelation, therefore, is to be awaited in the militant Church of God.

2°. If any doubt could remain concerning the true sense of the adduced testimonies of Scripture considered in themselves, the matter itself is demonstrated from the express doctrine and practical manner of acting of the whole Church.

a) The express doctrine and preaching of the Church which we expounded in thesis VIII and following evidently demonstrates this very unchangeable completion of the whole of Catholic revelation, accomplished through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles, with which we are now dealing.

b) Always and everywhere in the Church the principle held good that the successors of the Apostles are the guardians of the apostolic doctrine, to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken away. « The rule of light is this: keep what thou hast received, neither adding anything nor taking away » St Barnabas, ep., n. 19. « Neither does he who can say much concerning the faith add thereto, nor does he who can say little diminish it » Irenaeus I, ch. 10, n. 2. « True knowledge is the doctrine of the Apostles and the ancient state of the Church » ibid. IV, ch. 33, n. 8. « We have no need of curiosity after Christ our leader, nor of inquiry after the Gospel; when we believe, we desire nothing further to believe; for this we first believe, that there is nothing further which we ought to believe ... First of all I lay this down, that one certain thing was instituted by Christ which the nations must needs believe in every way ... What is to be sought must be sought until it be found, and believed where it is found; and nothing further than to guard what thou hast believed, whilst thou believest moreover this, that nothing else is to be believed and therefore nothing else sought, once thou hast found and believed what was instituted by Him who mandates thee to inquire into nothing else than what He instituted » Tertullian, Praescript., chs. 8, 9. « What Cyprian admonishes (ep. to Pompey) — that we recur to the fount, that is, to apostolic Tradition, and thence direct the channel into our times — is excellent and without doubt to be done » Augustine, On Baptism against the Donatists V, ch. 26. « Nor has faith now begun, but it has come down to us from the Lord through the disciples » Athanasius, encyclical ep. to the Bishops, n. 1 (vol. I, p. 111). « We enjoin upon those who hope in Christ to inquire curiously into nothing beyond the ancient faith » Basil, ep. 175 (vol. III, p. 262). « I cannot sufficiently marvel at so great a ... lust of erring in certain men, that they are not content with the rule of believing handed down once for all and received from antiquity; but daily seek new and ever new things, and are ever agape to add something to religion, to change, to take away — as though the heavenly dogma were not such that once revealed it sufficeth » Vincent of Lérins, n. 26; cf. n. 27. See the rest in th. VIII, pp. 67-72.

β) The universal principle ever held good: that whatever is new does not pertain to faith but to heresy, if it be confounded with the deposit of faith. Hence apostolicity is a necessary character of the doctrine of faith. See th. IX, n. I.

γ) Hence the appellations « apostolic faith » and « faith of the Church » were ever held synonymous: Clement of Alexandria, Strom. VII, p. 763; Pamphilus, Apology for Origen, ch. 1. Namely, as St Irenaeus says, III. 1: « we have learned the disposition of our salvation through no others than those through whom the Gospel came down to us. »

b) Let the manner of acting in the Church be considered. As often as any head of doctrine was defined as pertaining to Catholic faith, that was ever understood to be altogether the same as to have defined that that revealed doctrine came down to us from the Apostles whether in divine Scripture or in unwritten Tradition. « Concerning the faith they (the Nicene Fathers) said by no means “it is decreed”; but “so believes the Catholic Church”; that they might declare their sentence to be not more recent but apostolic » Athanasius, De Synod., n. 6. Cf. the Council of Antioch (Mansi, vol. I, p. 1033); the Council of Ephesus (apud Lirinensis, Commonitor., ch. 42); the Seventh Council (Hardouin IV, pp. 479, 482); Trent, sess. IV. Hence every inquiry was ever reduced to this one thing: whether the doctrine was contained in the Scriptures or in apostolic Tradition; which indeed the acts of all Councils and the history of all definitions of faith evidently demonstrate.

3°. This very principle — that nothing can pertain to revelation to be believed with Catholic faith which is not contained in the Scriptures or in apostolic Tradition — is both supposed by all theologians in their demonstrations and expressly declared by them too, on 3, dist. 25, and on 2-2, q. 1, or in the Treatise on Faith. Consult St Thomas, 1, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2; 2-2, q. 1, a. 7, ad 4; q. 174, a. 6, ad 3; Cano, De locis, bk. V, ch. 5, q. 3, ad ultimum; bk. XII, ch. 3, concl. 3; Bellarmine, De verbo Dei, bk. IV, ch. 9, rules 1 and 2; Gregory de Valencia in 2-2, disp. I, q. 1, punct. 6; Suarez, De fide, disp. II, sect. 6, nn. 15ff.; Cardinal de Lugo, De fide, disp. III, sect. 5, nn. 69ff.; Benedict XIV, On the Canonization of Saints, bk. III, ch. 53, nn. 2, 15.

Corollary. The revelations and prophecies which occurred after the Apostles, still occur and shall occur in the Church, do not pertain to the deposit of Catholic faith committed to the Church to be guarded, preached, and explicated. The reason is that revelations of this kind are not directed to the universal Church but to private persons. They are called private precisely because they are not constituted by God as legates to His Church, as were of old the prophets and the Apostles and the holy men of God inspired to write the divine books; but they receive revelation either for their own private direction or even for the private direction and profit of others. And so of themselves private revelations do not pertain to promoting the explication of the deposit of Catholic faith, for which Christ the Lord instituted the ordinary ministry in the visible head of the Church, as the principle and foundation of the unity of faith, and in the apostolic succession united to the head, under the promise of infallible assistance, but not under direction through new revelations. Hence it is that among the reasons on account of which private revelations may seem suspect, according to Benedict XIV (On the Canonization of Saints, bk. III, ch. 53, n. 8), there is reckoned this one: « if that be said to have been revealed which is still under the judgment of the Church. »

For the rest, it is surely not repugnant that God should reveal to someone the true sense of some truth contained in the objective apostolic revelation and not yet defined by the Church nor sufficiently proposed to all. Whence God could also at times manifest the true sense of a dogma through a private revelation made to the Pontiff or to more or fewer Fathers of a Council; but this would be an extraordinary mode toward the explication of the dogma, wherein the infallibility of the definition and proposition for the faithful would be derived not from such a private revelation but always from the promised ordinary assistance of the Holy Spirit, because this assistance — and not private revelation — was promised by God and is infallibly certain to the universal Church. To such an extraordinary mode of explicating a dogma may perhaps be referred what St Augustine has in On Baptism VII, n. 102 ⁸.

If it is asked with what faith revelations of this kind are to be believed, the answer of the theologians is this. First a distinction is to be made between objective faith, or the material object of faith, and subjective faith, or the habit and act of faith. To divine faith objectively considered pertains whatever has been revealed by God; to objective Catholic faith pertains whatever has been revealed by God to be believed by the universal Church. Hence the object of divine faith is wider than that of Catholic faith. If now it please to distinguish subjective faith too, from its object, into divine and Catholic faith, the name of divine faith does not designate a habit or act specifically diverse; but the same habit and the same act in species is called divine faith insofar as it regards whatever object revealed by God and believed on account of the authority of God revealing; but it is called Catholic faith insofar as it regards an object comprised in the deposit of Catholic revelation. Hence a private revelation made by God can — and at least by him to whom or for whom it is made, must, if evident motives of credibility be present — be believed with divine faith; yet that faith is not called Catholic. This is the more common opinion, and it seems to us true, although those theologians oppose it who think that for the object of divine faith it is required that it be contained in Scripture or apostolic Tradition, or even proposed by the Church to be believed; who consequently judge that private revelations of this kind can never be believed with divine faith, but can only be held by an act of counsel and Christian prudence (see the Salmanticenses, Treatise on Faith, disp. I, dub. 4, §§ 1, 2). I said it can, and at least by him to whom or for whom the revelation was made must, be believed with divine faith, if evident motives of credibility be present. From this necessary condition of evident credibility seems to have arisen that diversity of opinions among theologians which I recalled. Some, namely, seem to deny that private revelations can ever be believed — and much more must be believed — with divine faith, because in them there are never motives of credibility sufficient for such faith. But that God can render even His private revelations evidently credible as divine, no otherwise than those made to the patriarchs and prophets, surely cannot be denied. If God can do this, I do not see by what reasoning it could be established that in act He has never made, or will never make, revelations of this kind so credible — at least for those in whose mind God works by revealing — as unto those saints who (as is handed down concerning St Ignatius) offered themselves prepared even unto the testimony of blood for the truth of things manifested to them by private revelation. But if God in reality manifested Himself as revealer with such motives, surely the obligation of believing on account of the infinite authority of God revealing — i.e. with divine faith — could not be called into doubt. But revelations thus proposed are certainly altogether rare, as is established from the biographies of the saints and from the whole of history; and perhaps a private revelation is never furnished with such external motives of credibility that others can or altogether must believe with faith properly so called divine.

As regards the judgment of the Church by which private revelations of this kind are sometimes approved, it does not tend to this: that the revelations be proposed to the faithful to be believed with divine faith; but that it be declared: a) that in them there is nothing adverse to Catholic faith, good morals, and Christian discipline; b) that there are sufficient indications of truth for revelations of this kind to be believed with human faith piously and prudently and without superstition, and to be read by the faithful unto edification. « In instituting a discourse concerning their approbation, » says Benedict XIV, On the Canonization of Saints, bk. II, ch. 32, n. 11, « it is to be known that that approbation is nothing else than a permission that they be published for the instruction and utility of the faithful after mature examination »; and as Cardinal Torquemada speaks, apud Benedict himself, bk. III, ch. 53, n. 15: « that they may be read in the Church of God in the manner in which the books of many other doctors and the histories and legends of the saints are licensed to be read by the faithful. » c) After such approbation of the Church — or even if, with no judgment yet delivered, there be weighty reasons for genuineness — it is surely not lawful to contemn such revelations (cf. Benedict XIV, ibid., bk. III, ch. 53, n. 15; Vasquez in 3rd Part, vol. II, disp. 117, ch. 6, n. 77).

See St Thomas, 2-2, q. 174, a. 6, ad 3; Cano, bk. XII, ch. 3, concl. 3; de Valencia, vol. III, q. 1, punct. 1, § 5; Suarez, De fide, disp. III, sect. 10; de Lugo, De fide, disp. I, sect. 11; Benedict XIV, On the Canonization of Saints, bk. II, ch. 32, nn. 11, 12; bk. III, ch. 53.