Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

1. The locution which is now proposed as divine, and whose divinity is to be known from inward reasons in the way we have said in the whole preceding chapter IV. — this locution, I say, now proposed, did not now first proceed from God, but, having set forth from God many centuries ago, has been preserved even to us. Whence to know this word (e. g. «God is one and triune») as divine is the same as to know that this word which is now proposed, long ago revealed by God, has been preserved even to us. But now the organ instituted by God for the promulgation, propagation and preservation of the whole revelation is the teaching Church, i. e. the Apostles constituted by Christ and their perennial successors. Hence God by things and facts rendered the Apostles first knowable as His legates in promulgating the revelation. «Going into the whole world preach the Gospel to every creature... But they going forth preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs that followed» Mark XVI. 20.; Heb. II. 4. etc. The successors are joined in unbroken series immediately with the Apostles themselves, and, united among themselves in communion and doctrine throughout the whole world, reach even to us as one body. From the connection with the Apostles and with Christ Himself, those things and facts of Christ and the Apostles pertain to the whole subsequent Church, which itself moreover is distinguished in every age by new things and facts as seals demonstrating its divine institution and connection with Christ and the Apostles. For the things and facts indicated above (p. 671. sq.) all pertain to the Church, and cohere with the Church, whether as its efficient and constituting principles or as effects and, if it is lawful so to speak, as its vital acts, by which the Church herself is manifested as a divinely instituted and supernatural society. Read the admirable letter 137 of St. Augustine, n. 15. sqq. to Volusian, and the booklet on the profit of believing n. 32. 35.

Thus therefore the Church, the body with Christ as head, from the origin of the human race even to us is exhibited as morally one great divine fact, in which Christ, historically knowable in His life, His miracles, the fulfilled prophecies, the sanctity and sublimity of His doctrine, His manner of teaching, His death and resurrection and glorification, is the principle and the end, the Alpha and the Omega; while the manifold series of antecedent and consequent facts, which are the manifestations of the Church herself, proceed from Christ and converge to Christ as rays to a centre, whether as preparations or as effects, and partly demonstrate Christ Himself as their supernatural cause, partly are more perfectly understood from Christ known in Himself, just as generally a cause is known from its effects and in turn effects from their cause. As therefore Christ the Lord Himself, and then the Apostles, exhibited themselves by things and facts as knowable divine legates, so the Church, both through her very connection with Christ as head and founder and with the Apostles as her first planters, waterers and members, and through new and perpetual series of things and facts, exhibits herself as the continuation of the legation of Christ and the Apostles. Cf. Tract. de Traditione th. IV. sqq.

2. Hence it already appears how the Church, viewed according to the things and facts by which her divine institution and mission is rendered knowable, is as it were an element composing the divine locution perpetually enduring and perpetually knowable. The preaching and first promulgation of the revelation — speaking now of the New Testament — accomplished by Christ and the Apostles was composed of words and things, and through the things the locution was knowable as divine, «the Lord giving testimony to the word of His grace, granting signs» Acts XIV. 3.; that is, the revelation composed of words and things was from its ingrained reason knowable as divine, demanding assent to this truth: that such a locution (which is the subject) is a divine locution (which is the predicate). See above p. 672. in the note. In the same way therefore the revelation which is now proposed by the Church as revelation derived from Christ and the Apostles consists not only of words but also of the whole series of things and facts by which the Church is exhibited as divinely instituted and as discharging a legation for Christ for the preservation and preaching of doctrine. Therefore not only in the personal preaching of Christ and the Apostles, but also perpetually in the Church, those things and facts — namely the connection of the Church with Christ and the Apostles, the wondrous propagation and preservation, the agreement, the supernatural charisms manifesting themselves, the constancy in the faith received, the martyrdoms, the whole manifested spiritual life of the Church, all those things namely which we have called the Church viewed according to things and facts — compose the divine locution itself, insofar as it stands composed of the twofold element of words and things.

3. But here sedulous attention must be paid to the threefold diverse consideration of things and facts which we declared above at p. 680., lest anyone be deceived in so grave a matter, or give occasion of erring by his manner of speaking. As we have often said, the formal motive of faith is solely the authority of God speaking. Whence if things and facts be viewed in themselves and apart, they are in relation to the divine locution signs manifesting its divinity to the intellect, in relation to the thing to be believed signs manifesting its credibility, and thus in each way they are motives of credibility. Only when considered in the third way — that God composes His locution and His divine eloquence, according to the saying of Augustine, of words and facts — do the facts enter into the divine locution itself to be known from its inward reasons, and in this way enter into the formal motive itself. Thus when a king speaks through his legate, the formal motive of believing the royal word with due faith is the authority of the king speaking, not the royal diploma and seal or the retinue with which the legate appears. But if those things be considered as an element composing with the words one royal locution, which thus viewed in the complex is knowable from itself, in this way those things enter into the formal motive itself.