Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

On the way in which the doctrine of faith could at some time be proposed more obscurely, to be afterwards explicated and declared.

« With a distinction first rightly constituted, by which revealed truths differ among themselves both by reason of the material object and by the diverse mode of the apostolic preaching and of Tradition, it must be affirmed that there can be and are in the deposit of objective revelation truths which 1°. were not always and everywhere contained explicitly in the Catholic understanding and in the manifest ecclesiastical preaching; which therefore 2°. at some time could within the very bounds of the Church be called into controversy without the crime of heresy; and so 3°. that some revealed truths can at some time be obscure, yet can never be obscured in such a way that an opposed and negating consensus should prevail against them. »

I. The reason on account of which a thing is believed, and by which the formal object of faith is constituted, is in all revealed truths one, namely the authority of God speaking, or the utterance of God sufficiently proposed; the reason for believing is not, however, drawn from the greater dignity of the truth believed, its inherent necessity and connection with the last end; for all these belong to the properties of the material object, or the thing which is believed, not to the motive and reason on account of which it is believed. Hence the distinction introduced by the Protestants after Hunn and George Calixtus between fundamental and non-fundamental articles, or ἀδιάφοροι, is absurd. For in that distinction it is laid down that consensus in non-fundamental articles is indifferent and not necessary, so that such articles, however proposed, may without loss of the integrity of faith and of ecclesiastical communion be not believed and even denied, on account of their inherent lesser dignity and necessity, provided consensus be preserved in fundamental articles of greater dignity and necessity. These are without doubt false and heretical figments; but it is most true that among the material objects of faith there is a difference, inasmuch as the necessity is not equal for all that they be known explicitly and in themselves by all the faithful, and so be explicitly believed. « Some things are believable, as St Thomas says, of which there is faith in themselves; but some things are believable of which there is not faith in themselves, but only in relation to other things... Those things pertain to faith of themselves which directly order us to eternal life, as are the three persons of omnipotent God, the mystery of the incarnation of Christ, and other things of this kind » 2. 2. q. 1. a. 6. ad 1. cf. a. 8. These therefore are to be known and believed explicitly and in themselves by all, because their knowledge is either of itself absolutely necessary for ordering man using reason to the supernatural end (necessity of means), or at least they so constitute the foundation of the Christian religion that it is the duty of every Christian to know them (necessity of precept). Hence too at every time they were contained in the public profession of the Christian faithful. Many other things are contained in revelation which pertain « to the manifestation of the aforesaid, » as St Thomas says l. c.; to a more perfect and ampler knowledge of revealed truth, namely, intensive and extensive, and to the defense of that same faith, which ampler knowledge is neither of itself and absolutely nor by reason of any precept necessary to all Christians nor morally possible. Hence neither is it necessary that all revealed things be explicitly proposed to all to be believed; but just as with respect to some things implicit faith ¹ suffices, so too does implicit proposition and preaching suffice.

The declared distinction of revealed truths according to the object a) itself is gathered from the Scriptures 1 Cor. II. 2. 6; III. 1. 2. 10; Heb. V. 11, VI. 1; 1 Thess. III. 10. b) The same is demonstrated from the difference always acknowledged in the Church between the simple faith necessary to all and γνῶσιν and Christian wisdom, which not only intensively knows the same truths more expressly and clearly which are known more confusedly by the simple faithful, but also extensively embraces with explicit knowledge more truths which it suffices for others to believe implicitly. Cf. Iren. I. c. 10. n. 3; Clem. Alexand. Strom. V. p. 545; VI. p. 645. 676. 679; VII. p. 731. 755; Orig. contra Cels. III. n. 44. 45; de Princip. Praefat. et l. IV. n. 9; Euseb. Demonstr. Evang. I. c. 8. p. 29; Basil. de Spiritu Sancto c. 27. c) The same distinction is evident from the prudent economy always employed in the instruction of catechumens and of the Christian people. Read the 98th tract of Augustine on John.

II. With this difference of revealed truths supposed, there comes into consideration the diversity which exists in the very mode of the apostolic preaching and of Tradition. From the preceding thesis it is established that nothing belongs to the deposit of the Catholic faith which was not already contained in the preaching and in the instruments handed down to the Church by Christ sojourning on earth and by the Holy Spirit through the Apostles. Yet from the difference of revealed truths explained a little above in this thesis it is understood that it is neither necessary nor to be expected that all truths be contained in one and the same way in the primitive preaching and in the Tradition obtaining at every time. For those things which must be explicitly known and believed by all the faithful were without doubt in every age contained explicitly in the apostolic doctrine and in Tradition, clearly as much as the circumstances of the times demanded, expressly, i.e. by diligent and urgent preaching. On the contrary, among those things which pertain to the explication, understanding, and further declaration of objective faith, there can be some which were contained in the apostolic preaching itself implicitly only, and which therefore were also for at least some time handed down through Tradition as implicit in other explicit doctrines; there can be others proposed in Tradition more obscurely and with a less express and less urgent preaching, until the circumstances of affairs and controversies demand, and the direction of the Holy Spirit through the authentic magisterium effects the explication of the implicit, the declaration and polishing of the obscure, the express and urgent preaching or definition of the less express.

According to this threefold mode St Vincent of Lérins in those most celebrated passages of his Commonitorium declares the diversity with which ecclesiastical preaching and Tradition in the antecedent time stands in comparison with subsequent progress. « Let the religion of souls imitate the course of bodies, which though in process of years they unfold and explicate their numbers, yet remain the same as they were... It is right and consequent that, first and last not disagreeing with each other, we reap from the increments of wheaten instruction the fruit of wheaten dogma too; so that when something from those first seeds of grain is unfolded in course of time, and is now gladdened (nourished) and cultivated, yet nothing of the property of the germ be changed... The Church of Christ, the sedulous and cautious guardian of the dogmas deposited with her, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds... but with all industry studies this one thing: faithfully and wisely treating old things, if there be any things of old inform and begun, to render them accurate and polished; if any already confirmed and defined, to guard them. » These and many other things concerning the explication of implicit things nn. 27-32. Many things he has in the same place concerning the declaration of those things which were obscure. « Let what was before believed more obscurely be understood by thy exposition, O industrious one; let posterity rejoice to have understood what antiquity venerated without understanding; yet teach the same things thou hast learned, so that when thou sayest newly, thou sayest not new things » n. 27. Lastly he treats of the urgent and express preaching of those things which before were handed down less expressly. « What else, finally, has (the Church) ever striven for by the decrees of Councils, but that what before was believed simply should afterwards be believed more diligently; what before was preached more slowly should afterwards be preached more urgently; what before was cultivated more securely should afterwards be cultivated more solicitously? » n. 32.

So therefore must we hold concerning this difference in the mode of Tradition. Since divine dogmas, the deeper they are, are the more fruitful, and have relations well-nigh infinite to the exigencies of all times, and oppositions to the most diverse errors which human infirmity or perversity can devise, it is evident that it neither was done nor morally could have been done that the several dogmas be explicitly proposed and enunciated by the Apostles according to all those respects. And this was the less necessary because, together with the dogma, the charism of truth for applying and explicating the dogma to the necessity of the several ages was also propagated to the successors of the Apostles from the promise and institution of Christ. Hence a) in the apostolic preaching there could be proposed certain universals in which were implicitly contained the particulars to be explicated in progress of time, doubts having arisen, through the magisterium of the Church; thus the doctrine of the necessity of grace for every good work in the way of salvation sufficed, that afterwards against the Semipelagians the same necessity for the beginning of faith be defined. There could be contained complexes from which the constituent elements were to be explicated: Christ is God and man, whence, necessity having arisen, many things concerning each nature could be defined; supreme is the power of Peter as the visible foundation of the Church and the center of unity, whence many rights and duties in particular were to be explicated. b) There could be contained certain things first understood by the faithful more obscurely and only confusedly, which in progress of time were to be applied to particulars and understood more distinctly, of which sort are many predictions concerning future things, e.g. concerning the glorification of the Church still militant on earth, and concerning many other things which, contained in the Apocalypse, will perhaps not be distinctly understood before their fulfillment. There could be contained certain things enunciated more simply, whose stricter declaration in direct opposition to a certain definite form of errors the heresies afterwards arisen rendered necessary; hence the mode of speaking defined by the Fathers and Councils and the ecclesiastical formulae laid down as tokens of faith. c) Lastly, certain dogmas could have been proposed more by practical use and the custom of the Churches than by express doctrine and urgent preaching, whose express preaching or solemn definition would in progress of time become necessary; of which sort luculent examples stand forth in the controversy concerning the power of validly conferring sacraments outside the Church, and in the history of the canon of the sacred books, of which we shall speak afterwards. Cf. Suarez de Fide disp. II. sect. 6. n. 16-18; Lugo de Fide disp. III. sect. 5. n. 70-73; disp. I. sect. 13. §. 1. n. 270-274; §. 3. n. 302-304.

III. From what has been said it is evident that there can be truths objectively comprehended in the deposit of faith which yet were not always proposed in the manifest ecclesiastical preaching sufficiently for the obligation of explicit Catholic faith. That there are in fact some such truths is demonstrated from all those definitions of Councils or Pontiffs which declared as truths of faith those doctrines concerning which before the definition Catholic doctors without loss of faith and communion followed diverse opinions, agreeing moreover in this, that they confessed those doctrines not yet to pertain to the deposit of faith sufficiently manifested and necessarily to be believed. The same is gathered also from this, that even now there are many theological questions by no means defined and knowingly and willingly left unresolved by the Roman Pontiffs and Councils, which yet turn upon the sense of sundry heads of revealed doctrine, in such a way that they seem capable of being solved from the analysis of that same revealed doctrine and so of being defined by the infallible magisterium.

Hence are found among the Fathers distinctions between « the substance of faith (ὑποθεσιν τῆς πίστεως) which is one among all, and questions of profounder understanding » Iren. I. c. 10. n. 2. 3; between those things « which are most manifestly preached in the Churches, which are defined in the ecclesiastical preaching, concerning which there is one opinion of the whole Church, and other things which are still to be inquired into from sacred Scripture and to be investigated by sagacious inquiry, which are not manifestly discerned, which are not distinguished by a sufficiently manifest preaching, which are not evident in the ecclesiastical preaching » Origen. de Princip. in praefatione. There is distinguished in Christian doctrine between « the rule of faith which among us has no questions, and that which, the rule of faith being safe, can come into question » Tertull. Praescrip. c. 13. One thing is « what pertains to the very foundations of faith, and other are those things in which among themselves sometimes even the most learned and best defenders of the Catholic rule, the structure of faith being safe, do not agree, and one says of one thing something better and truer than another » August. contr. Iulian. I. c. 6. n. 22. There is distinguished « error to be borne in questions not diligently digested, not yet confirmed by the full authority of the Church, and error not to be borne, which labors to shake the very firmament of the Church » Id. serm. 294. n. 4. (T. V. p. 832.) cf. de Baptism. I. c. 7. n. 9; VII. c. 53. n. 102. There is distinguished finally « some small portion of our faith less lucidly clear, and that which the Lord willed no one in His Church to be ignorant of » St Leo ep. 30. c. 2. ad Pulcheriam Augustam (ed. Ballerini); ep. 31. c. 4. cf. ep. 60.

If there can be and are contained in objective revelation (Scripture and Tradition) heads of doctrine which have not always and everywhere been sufficiently proposed by ecclesiastical preaching as revealed — or, what is the same, if there are contained truths in the remote rule of faith which have not always and everywhere been sufficiently applied through the proximate rule of faith — by that very fact it is established that there can be and are doctrines in objective revelation which could at some time be called into controversy or even denied by Catholic doctors without loss of faith and communion. For the unity of faith is preserved intact as long as there is no dissent from the proximate rule of faith. An example among very many others is in the error of the rebaptizers. « O wondrous conversion of affairs! the authors of the same opinion are judged Catholics, but the followers heretics; the masters are absolved, the disciples condemned; the writers of the books shall be sons of the kingdom, but hell shall receive their assertors » Vincent. Lirin. n. 11. Cf. August. de Baptism. l. II. n. 6. and elsewhere.

IV. For a clearer understanding of this matter — how it can come about that concerning certain truths comprehended in revelation there is at some time not sufficient certainty even in the Church herself — a threefold, as it were, stage of the explication of certain dogmas is to be considered, as already most lucidly distinguished by the Fathers, and namely by St Augustine. The first stage is when, no controversy as yet pressing nor the question as yet diligently digested, some head of doctrine is held either implicitly in the profession of a more universal proposition (e.g. as before the definition was held the doctrine, how far the all-encompassing holiness of the Mother of God, how far the necessity of supernatural aid of grace extends; cf. Aug. de Praedest. SS. n. 2. 7. 27.); or is held by use and practice rather than by theoretical and distinct proposition and urgent preaching (cf. Aug. de dono Perseverant. n. 63. 65.) ², of which sort thou hast an example in the doctrine concerning baptism conferred by heretics down to the times of Agrippinus at the beginning of the third century, concerning the canon of the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament down to the waning third or beginning fourth century. The second stage is when such a head of doctrine begins to be called into controversy, and therefore to be examined and inquired into more diligently. Controversy having arisen and enduring, without doubt some fluctuation is induced, and among some a greater obscurity than had existed before the controversy, until gradually by the inquiry itself, under the assistance and direction of the Holy Spirit, the matter is brought to clarity. « For how, says Augustine concerning the commemorated controversy in the time of Cyprian, could this affair, enwrapped in such great clouds of altercations, have been brought to the luculent illustration and confirmation of a plenary Council, unless it had first for a long time through the regions of the world been treated of by many disputations and collations of bishops on either side? » de Baptism. II. n. 5. There follows therefore the third stage, when by the solemn judgment of the authentic magisterium or otherwise, consensus gaining strength, it is now certain concerning the revelation of the dogma, and, the question being sifted, it passes into the explicit Catholic understanding and into the manifest ecclesiastical preaching. But with this manifest consensus and explicit and express preaching posited, neither dissent nor obscuration of the dogma can any longer have place within the bounds of the Church. Hence in the Bull Auctorem fidei the heretical proposition of the Pistoians n. 1. was condemned, in which they affirmed: « that in these last ages there has been spread a general obscuration over truths of greater moment pertaining to religion, and which are the basis of the faith and moral doctrine of Jesus Christ. »

All those three conditions and forms of the questions of which we treat St Augustine commemorates and clearly designates de Baptism. II. 12-14. « Do not therefore oppose to us the authority of Cyprian for the repetition of baptism... For that question of baptism had not yet been diligently treated, but yet the Church held a most salutary custom of correcting in schismatics too and heretics what is depraved, not iterating what is given. Which custom I believe to have come from apostolic Tradition, as many things which are not found in their writings. » Thou hast the first stage, where, no controversy having arisen, Tradition is in custom and practice rather than in express and urgent preaching. There follows the description of the second stage in Augustine. « This most salutary custom, then, through Agrippinus his predecessor, St Cyprian says had as it were begun to be corrected... So great a question thus rushing in, when... a reason was with difficulty rendered, and there preceded the authority of Agrippinus and of some who had consented with him, men failing in this question... plausible reasons rushed into the eyes of the soul and shut the way of searching out the truth... When the wearied (Cyprian) was met by the authority of the preceding Council, which had been held through Agrippinus, he preferred to defend as a discovery the opinion of his predecessors (in the Carthaginian see from Agrippinus on) rather than to labor further in inquiring. » Thou seest in this second state of the question controversies moved and some obscurity induced. But let the issue of the matter be heard. « Afterwards, however, while among many on either side it is treated and inquired into, was not only found (the truth) but was also brought to the authority and strength of a plenary Council ³, after indeed the passion of Cyprian (in the year 258), but before we were born » (in the year 353.). This is the last state of the question now sifted and of the fullest consensus in the Catholic Church, which because the Donatists opposed, they were schismatics and heretics. Nearly the same description of the threefold stage is found in Augustine ibid. l. I. n. 9; l. II. n. 5. 6. 20; l. IV. n. 12.

If from the second stage of inquiry and fluctuation there is passage to the third stage of full consensus, that this very consensus in a doctrine as revealed is a certain and infallible criterion of divine Tradition, and so that a negating consensus can never prevail against that which is objectively contained in revelation, has been demonstrated in the foregoing th. VIII. n. I; Coroll. 1. and 2. to th. IX.

Scholion. Care must be taken lest what we have said concerning certain truths implicit in the apostolic preaching and concerning the necessary further declaration through the ecclesiastical magisterium against the various forms of errors arising in course of time be perversely transferred to the understanding of the Apostles themselves, and the understanding of faith be thought to have been less perfect in the Apostles themselves than in the Fathers and in later doctors, which Günther according to his false notion of Tradition dared to assert. Far different is it that the Apostles did not propose the dogmas under all the forms under which they can be enunciated as directly opposed to manifold errors, and that therefore definitions of those same dogmas in other terms and modes of speaking and with new explications accommodated to the exigencies of the times, with analogous rational ideas too employed, were necessary for later ages ⁴; and different is it that the Apostles themselves knew the dogmas of faith less distinctly according to their whole intimate reason, with infused knowledge (for it is of this, not of knowledge acquired by human studies, that we speak), than subsequent doctors. This second thing Catholic theologians commonly reprobate even as temerarious, says Suarez (de Fide disp. II. sect. 6. n. 10.), or some say even erroneous, as Valentia (T. III. disp. I. q. 1. puncto 6.). Nevertheless as to the explicit understanding of the Apostles, Suarez l. c. n. 18; de Lugo (de Fide disp. III. sect. 5. n. 71. 72.) wisely distinguish between the proper sense itself of the dogma, which the Apostles with infused faith knew explicitly and, as was fitting for the first promulgators of the Christian religion, perfectly, and between the contingent particulars to which that very thing which is proposed in revealed doctrine was in its time to be applied. These particulars — e.g. the several comprehended in the series of the successors of Peter, to whom pertain the words « upon this rock I will build my Church » — and many other things of this kind God in His revelation indeed comprehended distinctly; but the Apostles are to be said to have understood them only confusedly and in general, unless without any reason we feign that all future things were revealed to them.