Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura
Johannes Baptist Franzelin (1816–1886)
First published 1882
Franzelin's Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura (Romae, Ex Typographia Polyglotta S.C. de Propaganda Fide, 1882, editio tertia): the prolegomenon, the treatise on divine tradition with the scholion, the treatise on Scripture, and the dogmatic appendix. Latin from the 1882 edition, with a new English translation.
Prolegomenon: On the Objective Principles of Christian Knowledge and of Theology in General
Treatise on Divine Tradition
§ I: Section I
Caput I: Chapter I
The manifold notion of tradition is explained
On the stricter meaning of tradition, by which it is distinguished from doctrines handed down through Sacred Scripture
On the order between tradition actively considered and objective tradition in the method of treatment
On the mode and organ of propagating doctrine according to the divinely instituted Christian economy
The living magisterium is shown to be the perpetual organ of Christian tradition from the express evangelical and apostolic words
On the intimate connection of the principle of tradition with the necessary properties of the Christian religion
On the unchangeable perdurance of the same economy after the books of the New Testament were written
Caput II: Chapter II
The formal nature of tradition is demonstrated from the constitution and principles of the Church
On the visible constitution of the organ of tradition, most suited to the office enjoined on it
On the distinction between historical and dogmatic authority in the attestation of tradition
By synthesis from what precedes, the proper concept of tradition is gathered and confirmed from the sayings of the Fathers
On how the consensus of the faithful in the doctrine of faith is a criterion of divine tradition
Scholion I: Principles on the subject and object of the infallible magisterium
Scholion II: On the meaning of the various censures by which propositions are wont to be condemned
§ II: Section II
Caput I: Chapter I
On the monuments of tradition insofar as they exhibit the consensus of the guardians of the deposit, and insofar as they are instruments of doctrine for them
On the direct or indirect demonstration of consensus from the documents of antiquity
Caput II: Chapter II
On the authority of the holy Fathers taken singly
The opinion on the millennial kingdom of Christ among the Fathers before the fourth century compared with the opposite consensus of later Fathers
On how the consensus of the schools can exhibit divine tradition
§ III: Section III
Ecclesiastical preaching is the supreme norm of the interpretation of Sacred Scripture
The sufficiency of Scripture is preached by the holy Fathers not by excluding but by presupposing tradition and the ministry for guarding the deposit
On the existence of divine traditions not contained in Scripture
In manifold ways tradition precedes Scripture
§ IV: Section IV
Catholic revelation was completed through Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles
On how the doctrine of faith could at some time be proposed more obscurely, to be later explained and declared
On the true sense of the Vincentian canon
On the conjoined office of the guardians and teachers of the faith and on the mode of explaining the deposit
On the different way of explaining the deposit of faith before and after completed revelation
Dogmatic Treatise on the Divine Scriptures
§ I: Section I
Caput I: Chapter I
From the divine tradition of the Old Testament and from the doctrine of Christ himself and the Apostles, all the books and parts of books pertaining to Sacred Scripture must be believed with equal divine authority
The books of Scripture are inspired in such a way that God is the author of the books
The notion of inspiration is more distinctly declared through analysis of the dogmatic formula: God is the author of the books of Sacred Scripture
The notion of inspiration by mere divine assistance, called subsequent inspiration, is refuted
Caput II: Chapter II
On the inefficacy of internal arguments for demonstrating the inspiration of the books
On the necessity of the testimony by which inspiration becomes known
On the twofold way the divine testimony on the inspired books has been preserved to us
The principles of Protestantism are repugnant to the proof of the canon of Scripture retained by the Reformers
§ II: Section II
Caput I: Chapter I
The apostolic tradition on all the books of Scripture was declared by the Council of Trent
The apostolic tradition on the canon of the sacred books is demonstrated from the constant and universal use of the Church
The canons and express doctrine of Christian antiquity exhibit the apostolic tradition on all the divine books of the Old Testament
On the origin of the controversy on the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament
The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries exhibit deficient catalogues of the books of Scripture not as closed canons but as to be supplemented
The difficulties wont to be drawn from writers of a later age are resolved
Caput II: Chapter II
All the canonical books of the New Testament were handed down by the Apostles
The origin of doubts on the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament is explained
What Saint Jerome said on the custom of not receiving the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse is explained
§ III: Section III
On the notion of authenticity and on the dogmatic declaration of an authentic edition of Scripture
On the extension of the authenticity of the Vulgate edition declared by the Council of Trent
Contribution I: The novel and false doctrine of the dissertation
Contribution II: The fallacy of the arguments for the new doctrine
Appendix: On the Relation of Human Reason to Divine Faith
Caput I: Chapter I
On truth
- Truth is commonly defined as « the assimilation of thing and intellect. » Truth can therefore be considered in things or objects, and in the intellect.
Truth as it is in objects is their relation to intellect insofar as, as they are, they can be known, or it is their cognoscibility. Whatever has the character of being is knowable before some intellect; and conversely whatever is knowable has the character of being. This truth therefore extends as widely as the character of being; whence being and true are convertible.
Because the character of being and consequently the relation of being to intellect transcends all the categories, this truth is called transcendental.
Because cognoscibility is not formally but only fundamentally an assimilation of thing and intellect, this truth is also called fundamental.
Truth as it is in the intellect, i. e. in the act of understanding or in cognition, consists in the conformity of cognition with the object or with fundamental truth. This conformity is formal truth, which is set forth in the definition placed at the beginning.
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If a knower manifests his cognition, the conformity of the manifestation with the cognition is moral truth or truthfulness, which pertains more to the will than to the intellect. With formal truth in the intellect presupposed, in the manifestation of cognition there is also conformity with the object. This conformity of the manifestation with the object is truth of manifestation simply, which arises from formal truth in the intellect and from moral truth or truthfulness pertaining to the will.
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God, insofar as He is infinite and necessary Being (ὁ ὢν), infinitely knowable, on whom as on principle and end every character of being essentially depends, is the first fundamental truth. Insofar as He is the infinite intellect identified with the infinite essence, and therefore the substantial intellection of the infinite true and in it of all truth, and likewise insofar as under this character of infinite intellection He is the exemplar, fount and origin of all participated intellectual light, God is substantially the first formal truth. Insofar as He is rectitude itself, the norm, exemplar, principle and end of all rectitude, God is the first moral truth. For this reason every manifestation of God, every word of God, is necessarily true with moral truth and with truth of manifestation in the unqualified sense. God is truth (ἡ ἀλήθεια). By appropriation the Father could be called the first fundamental truth, the Word the first formal truth, the Holy Spirit the first truth of rectitude or holiness. See Tract. de Deo th. XXVIII. XXXVI. seqq.
The created intellect 1 is not truth itself; yet it is the natural image of God, insofar as by its nature it is made for truth, which it possesses by knowing, and through which from potency (i. e. possibility and ordination to further connatural perfection) it comes into act (i. e. into its own proper perfection). Truth is therefore the proper good of the intellect, and the greater, the nobler the truth; whence the supreme truth, i. e. God objectively, and the possession of God through cognition subjectively, is the ultimate end of the intellect 2.
Corollary 1. Formal truth is in a certain measure also in the simple apprehension of the object. For simple apprehension is conformed, and indeed always, to its object; whence no simple perception, whether of the senses or of the imagination or of the intellect, can in itself be false, although it can furnish the occasion of a false judgment. Since, however, such simple representation is rather the beginning and element of human cognition than cognition, which is only completed through judgment, it is therefore sometimes said that in simple perception there is neither truth nor falsity. Cognition, then, in the more proper sense in our present condition is perfected through composition and division or through judgment, when we compare one concept with another, and thus judge one to agree or not to agree with the other. In judgment there can be conformity or difformity of the intellect with the object, i. e. there can be formal truth or falsity. This conformity of judgment, therefore, more properly than the conformity of simple perception, is and is called formal truth. « Our intellect, says St. Thomas, has a twofold operation. One by which it forms the simple quiddities of things, as what man is (το τι ἦν εἶναι), or what animal is; in which operation indeed the true is not found of itself, nor the false, just as neither in incomplex utterances. The other operation of the intellect is that according to which it composes and divides by affirming and denying, and in this the true and the false are already found, as also in complex utterance (enunciation or sentence), which is its sign » S. Th. de Veritat. q. 14. a. 1. Θ.
Corollary. 2. Truth in things, as we have said, is their relation to intellect; whence it is clear what falsity can and what cannot underlie things. In relation to the divine ideas and to the divine practical intellect, the truth of things is their conformity with the divine intellect, which (as practical) is either efficient or precept-giving. Difformity from the divine efficient ideas is repugnant (λόγοι οὐσιοποιοί Dionys. div. nomin. c. 5. n. 8). But with free created will supposed, there can be in the moral order difformity from the divine precept-giving reason and from the divine norm of rectitude. Whence in the Scriptures every sin is called a lie. In relation to the ideas of the created intellect, even the practical, there can be and often is difformity in things depending on that practical intellect. In relation to the speculative intellect, whether divine or human, no falsity properly so called can underlie things themselves, although they can be the occasion of falsity in the created intellect. In relation to the divine intellect what we say is evident of itself; for He is by His inmost essence and perfection determined to comprehend all truth. In relation also to the created intellect what we have affirmed is easily understood. For truth in things is the cognoscibility of being, to which falsity is opposed not contradictorily but contrarily. The negation of cognoscibility, therefore, would not yet be falsity; then too this negation itself is not in the object, but arises from the imperfection of the created intellect; for being in itself is knowable only insofar as it is being. A falsity contrary to truth, however, would be such a relation arising from the very nature of being that it would elicit a false judgment from a rightly knowing intellect; but this is evidently absurd. No falsity, therefore, can be in things according to their relation to the speculative intellect. Many things, however, can be and are so constituted as easily and frequently to furnish occasion to an imperfect intellect of attributing to them predicates which in reality do not belong to them, or conversely of denying those which do belong. Those to which other and especially nobler predicates than befit them are attributed, if they easily furnish occasion for erring thus, are denominated by those who know by that predicate as false which is attributed to them by the erring as true: false gods, false friends, false virtue, false gold.