Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

The Apostolic Tradition concerning all the books of Scripture was declared by the Council of Trent.

« With the Catholic principles concerning divine Tradition supposed, the solemn definition of the Council of Trent, sess. IV, is of itself alone enough for all the books enumerated in the canon of that same synod to be demonstrated as handed down by the Apostles as belonging to Sacred Scripture and as divinely inspired; for it cannot be said with any show of truth — as someone has dared to assert — that, in the mind of the holy Council, a distinction can be supposed and admitted between the protocanonical books, as they are called, which are the same as inspired, and the deuterocanonical, which are ecclesiastical books of inferior authority. »

I. The demonstration of the first part of this thesis is contained, as we indicate in the very enunciation, in our whole Treatise on Tradition. We shall comprehend the recapitulation in a few words: in a general argument concerning handed-down doctrine, in which is included the doctrine defined by the Council concerning the inspired books, and in a special argument for the Tradition of this doctrine as defined by the Tridentine Fathers.

1°. The general argument is drawn from the established principles concerning Tradition. It has been demonstrated that the whole doctrine handed down by Christ and by the Apostles is preserved, by Christ's institution, by the apostolic succession; that therefore the infallible judgment, under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, both concerning the genuineness of Tradition and concerning the true sense of the handed-down doctrine, lies with that same apostolic succession; and finally, that the criterion of the assisting Holy Spirit, and hence of the consequent infallibility, is the agreement manifested either in another way or in a way clearer than the rest through a solemn judgment¹ (see on Tradition, especially th. V; VIII; XIV. n. I. 2°). But in the deposit of faith there is contained, as a part in the whole, also the divine testimony concerning the inspired books — how many and which they are (cf. on Tradition, th. XXI. n. II.). Therefore the custody of this testimony, and, once doubts have arisen, the infallible judgment concerning the genuineness of the Tradition by which it was transmitted, belongs to the function of the guardians and doctors of the faith in the apostolic succession under the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit; and accordingly, whether through agreement or through a solemn judgment — which is referred to that agreement as cause to effect — the divine testimony concerning the inspired books, and the genuineness of the Tradition by which it was transmitted, is infallibly manifested. But this solemn judgment was delivered in the Council of Trent; for that definition is not merely a disciplinary and changeable disposition, but an irreformable definition of faith, as is evidently established both from the nature of the matter and from the prefixed scope. Therefore, with the Catholic principles concerning Tradition now demonstrated, the Tridentine decree is of itself alone enough to lead us to the knowledge of the genuine Tradition concerning the inspired books.

2°. We can add the special argument. Although it was not always explored by all concerning all books whether they were really handed down by the Church as belonging to inspired Scripture, yet the very principle was always, everywhere, unshaken among all the sons of the Church: that from the Church herself must be learned which are the books of Scripture. « The true recognition is the doctrine of the Apostles ... which has come down to us through the successions of the bishops by the guileless guarding of the Scriptures. » « Every discourse will hold together for him, if he shall also have diligently read the Scriptures with those who are presbyters in the Church, with whom is the apostolic doctrine » — Irenaeus IV. ch. 32. n. 1; ch. 33. n. 8. See also Origen, Epistle to Africanus, n. 4.

Where Cyril of Jerusalem treats of the canonical books, he lays down the principle: « These alone (the books) meditate zealously, which we also read in the Church with certain persuasion ... thou, therefore, being a son of the Church, remove not the landmarks » (set by her) — Catecheses IV. n. 34. ff. Augustine declares it most expressly: « In the canonical Scriptures, he says, let (the keen inquirer) follow the authority of very many Catholic Churches, among which are indeed those which have merited to hold apostolic sees and to receive epistles. He will therefore hold this measure in the canonical Scriptures, that he prefer those which are received by all Catholic Churches to those which some do not receive, » etc. — On Christian Doctrine, bk. II. ch. 8. In general the Fathers lay down the criterion by which books certainly belonging to the inspired Scriptures are to be known and believed: that they are books acknowledged by all the Churches (ὁμολογούμενοι); whereas, on the contrary, so long as no solemn judgment of the Church had been pronounced, and hesitation still prevailed in some Churches concerning certain books, with inquiry by some Doctors, concerning these the matter was less settled, because the agreement was less manifest — and these were therefore called ἀμφιβαλλόμενοι, ἀντιλεγόμενοι, that is, books which are called into controversy or doubt by some². Origen in Eusebius VI. 25; Athanasius, Festal Epistle; Cyril of Jerusalem, l. c.; the Athanasian Synopsis; and expressly Eusebius III. 25. It is clear, therefore, that this was always the ratified principle: that the books of Scripture are to be learned from the agreement and judgment of the Church herself. Nothing else, then, did the Tridentine Fathers do but what was acknowledged in every age to belong first and foremost to the office and magisterium of the guardians of the faith under the charism of the Holy Spirit, when by a dogmatic definition they proposed the canon of the inspired books.

II. In the second part of the thesis we defend the true sense of the Tridentine decree against the false interpretation of Johann Jahn (Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament, vol. I, §. 30.). After narrating that some Fathers of the Council proposed that a twofold class of books be distinguished — the first, of those always received by all; the second, of those which had at some time been called into doubt — Jahn adds the following: « But the rest (of the Fathers of the Council) thought that the example of the ancient Councils should be followed, and the sacred books placed indiscriminately in one series; for they supposed the distinction between the twofold kind of books to be otherwise known, and consequently to be understood of itself in this decree no less than in the older Councils; whence all agreed to this opinion ... Therefore, by the very admission of the Tridentine Fathers, the distinction between the deuterocanonical and protocanonical books is not removed; nor could it be removed, as the Tridentine Fathers understood full well — just as neither could the fact itself on which that distinction is founded, namely, that the deuterocanonical books were not in antiquity received everywhere and by all. Hence Bernard Lamy concludes his treatment of this matter in his Biblical Apparatus, bk. II. ch. 5. p. 333. Lyon ed. 1723, with these words: therefore the books which are in the second canon, although joined with the rest of the first canon, are nevertheless not of the same authority »³. Thus Jahn, confidently appealing for the truth of his narrative to the History of Paolo Sarpi, bk. II, and of Cardinal Pallavicino, bk. VI.

But this whole narrative is composed of falsehoods, and the doctrine itself is evidently false. Both Pallavicino, bk. VI. ch. 11, and Sarpi himself, bk. II. pp. 149. 150. London ed. 1619, expressly testify⁴ that, among the opinions brought forward in the particular congregations, the opinion that prevailed, and was adopted in the general congregation and finally defined in the session, was that all the books without distinction should be held of the same authority. For which reason Sarpi, after his manner, constructs calumnies against the definition, as if it were contrary to the ancient doctrine; and Pallavicino says that the opinion which set up any distinction seemed to the Fathers of the Council not even probable, and was rejected. Indeed, let the Tridentine decree itself be inspected; for from it it is evidently established that the same character of Sacred Scripture and the same authority of the written word of God is asserted for all the books enumerated there.

1°. This is evidently established from what precedes the enumeration of the books. The synod says that it receives with equal piety and reverence all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament, as well as the Traditions themselves. To each object of the definition it adds the reason: for the Traditions, indeed, because they were dictated either by Christ or by the Holy Spirit and preserved in continuous succession; for all the books of the Old and New Testaments, because one God is the author of each Testament (cf. above, th. II.). Thus God is declared to be the author, not distinctly of some books and not of others, but without distinction of all the books.

2°. In the enumeration itself, the deuterocanonical books are intermingled with the protocanonical according to the order of matter or of time, without any distinction of dignity; then it is added: « but if anyone shall not receive these books themselves, with all their parts ... as sacred and canonical, let him be anathema. » Here it is altogether evident that the predicates by which the sacred and canonical books are defined neither have nor can have a different signification for different books — one always understood by all, the other, at least as regards the epithet canonical, never heard in the Church. Nay, if it were so, the whole definition would become void. For since the Council distinguishes in no way which books are canonical in the usual signification and which in that other supposed signification — namely, that they are books which, though not inspired, are yet useful for the edification of the faithful — by force of this definition doubt would not be excluded even concerning the individual protocanonical books, whether they are inspired; and thus the definition would at last come to this: that among all these books we believe some inspired and others only pious and useful, according as our erudition and our ingenuity may have persuaded us. Such a sense of a definition promulgated in an ecumenical Council cannot be supposed without enormous absurdity. 3°. The true sense of the decree appears, moreover, also from its scope. For the Fathers say in the decree itself that they wished to define Tradition, and Scripture as consisting of all the enumerated books, as principles of Christian knowledge and as channels by which the revelation long since promulgated has been derived down to us — and that they therefore prefixed this definition concerning Tradition and concerning all the books constituting canonical Scripture, so that « all may understand with which testimonies and guards before all (the holy synod) will make use in confirming dogmas and restoring morals in the Church. » By these words all the books without distinction are evidently constituted in the same authority of the infallible written word of God, and the testimonies from them all are declared irrefragable for the confirmation of dogmas. This very scope was declared by the first legate of the Pontiff in proposing the decree, that an enumeration of the individual books seemed necessary, so that Catholics might be rendered certain which books are divinely written and therefore the rule of faith⁵.

Without any doubt, therefore, it is proposed to be believed under pain of anathema that all the enumerated books are canonical, for the reason that they are divinely inspired books. Wherefore I confess that I do not understand how it seemed to Melchior Cano (On the Places, bk. II. ch. 9; bk. XII. ch. 7; Louvain ed. 1564. pp. 63. 718.) worthy of a less grave censure if one repudiates the book of Baruch than if one repudiates the other deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament — and again, if one denies that these Old Testament deuterocanonicals belong to the census of inspired Scriptures than if one denies it of the protocanonical or the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament. The sense of the Tridentine decree which we have stated has now been solemnly defined by the ecumenical Vatican Council in the Constitution Dei Filius, ch. II and can. IV.

Corollary. The distinction of the books of Scripture into protocanonical and deuterocanonical is quite convenient, and since the sixteenth century⁶ commonly employed by Catholic writers to indicate the history of the definition of the canon: namely, that there are some books concerning which no doubt ever arose in the Church that they belonged to the canon of the Scriptures, and others concerning which there was at some time doubt, and, after some hesitations, once the question was sifted, it began to be certainly established among all Catholics. But the same appellation and distinction becomes altogether false and intolerable if by it an interior distinction of the books and a diverse grade of authority is designated — so that a twofold canon is set up, the first in which the inspired books, the second in which other ecclesiastical books of inferior authority, are comprehended; to which signification we have seen those names to have been distorted by Johann Jahn and perhaps by Bernard Lamy.