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[4.] I have often then inquired earnestly and
attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what
sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of
Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and
in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or
any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics
as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must,
the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of
the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.
[5.] But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is
complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient,
what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation?
For this reason,—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not
accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way,
another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as
there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another,
Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris,
Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius
another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of
such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets
and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical
and Catholic interpretation.
[6.] Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken,
that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For
that is truly and in the strictest sense “Catholic,” which, as the name itself
and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we
shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow
universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church
throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those
interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors
and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the
consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all
priests and doctors.
[7.] What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church
have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but
prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and
corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an
insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to
cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud
of novelty.
[8.] But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or
three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province? Then it will be his
care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient
General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few. But what, if some error
should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear? Then he must collate
and consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who,
though living in divers times and places, yet continuing in the communion and
faith of the one Catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved
authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written,
taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent,
openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also
is to believe without any doubt or hesitation…….
[54.] But some one will say, perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in
Christ’s Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so
envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on
condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress
requires that the subject be enlarged in itself, alteration, that it be
transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the
wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole
Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much
and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same
doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning…….
[57b.] Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this
husbandry of God’s Church, the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by
the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same
ought to advance and go forward to perfection. For it is right that those
ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should, as time goes on, be cared for,
smoothed, polished; but not that they should be changed, not that they should be
maimed, not that they should be mutilated. They may receive proof, illustration,
definiteness; but they must retain withal their completeness, their integrity,
their characteristic properties…….
[58.] For if once this license of impious fraud be admitted, I dread to say in
how great danger religion will be of being utterly destroyed and annihilated.
For if any one part of Catholic truth be given up, another, and another, and
another will thenceforward be given up as a matter of course, and the several
individual portions having been rejected, what will follow in the end but the
rejection of the whole? On the other hand, if what is new begins to be mingled
with what is old, foreign with domestic, profane with sacred, the custom will of
necessity creep on universally, till at last the Church will have nothing left
untampered with, nothing unadulterated, nothing sound, nothing pure; but where
formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward
there will be a brothel of impious and base errors. May God’s mercy avert this
wickedness from the minds of his servants; be it rather the frenzy of the
ungodly.
[59.] But the Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the
doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never
diminishes, never adds, does not cut off what is necessary, does not add what is
superfluous, does not lose her own, does not appropriate what is another’s, but
while dealing faithfully and judiciously with ancient doctrine, keeps this one
object carefully in view,—if there be anything which antiquity has left
shapeless and rudimentary, to fashion and polish it, if anything already reduced
to shape and developed, to consolidate and strengthen it, if any already
ratified and defined, to keep and guard it. Finally, what other object have
Councils ever aimed at in their decrees, than to provide that what was before
believed in simplicity should in future be believed intelligently, that what was
before preached coldly should in future be preached earnestly, that what was
before practised negligently should thenceforward be practised with double
solicitude? This, I say, is what the Catholic Church, roused by the novelties of
heretics, has accomplished by the decrees of her Councils,—this, and nothing
else,—she has thenceforward consigned to posterity in writing what she had
received from those of olden times only by tradition, comprising a great amount
of matter in a few words, and often, for the better understanding, designating
an old article of the faith by the characteristic of a new name.
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