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The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries
The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries.
With a Preface by His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.
London: Burns and Oates, Limited.
New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benziger Brothers.
1893.
By Thomas Livius, M.A., Priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Author of "S. Peter, Bishop of Rome," etc.
Dedication
To His Eminence Herbert Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Priest of the Title of San Gregorio on the Caelian Hill.
My Lord Cardinal,
I am very grateful to your Eminence for having permitted me to dedicate this book to you, and that you have so kindly promised to write for it some words of preface.
It struck me as a circumstance of happy omen that the publication of my volume on S. Peter's Roman Episcopate, should, after several years' labour, coincide with the Sacerdotal Jubilee of Our Holy Father Leo XIII., and be dedicated to the illustrious Cardinal Newman. And it now affords me increased encouragement that this Patristic work in testimony of Our Lady's privileges, should, at length, appear in the year of His Episcopal Jubilee, and be dedicated to your Eminence, who has, in conjunction with all the Bishops of the Province of Westminster, so recently made the solemn act of consecrating our country anew to the Blessed Virgin and S. Peter, at the initiation of the Supreme Pontiff, and after his explicit recognition of England's claim to her ancient and glorious Title of "The Dowry of Mary."
I remain,
My Lord Cardinal,
With much respect,
Your devoted Servant,
T. LIVIUS, C.SS.R.
Preface by His Eminence
This work, to which I gladly prefix a few words of preface, will become a standard book of reference. It was much needed. That which its author had already done for S. Peter, he has now successfully accomplished for the Blessed Virgin Mary. And I am not depreciating his former work by saying that his latter is by far the more important — the more important because, whereas many books have been published containing ample reference to the acknowledgment of S. Peter's authority in the primitive Church, none has hitherto been presented to the English public setting forth the copious testimonies of the writers of the first six centuries to the doctrinal position in the Church of the Blessed Mother of God. This is the task fulfilled in the volume, The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries.
This work is destined to render a double service: first, it will deepen and strengthen the devotion of Catholics to the Blessed Virgin, by setting before them the witness to her prerogatives and to her position, afforded by the earliest Fathers of the Church; it will teach them how closely they are united in sentiment as in faith with the Fathers and Christian writers of the first six centuries; it will supply them with spiritual food by opening to them a granary of golden and delicious corn, the door of which had hitherto been in great measure closed to them. Knowledge, instruction, meditation, piety, and love, concerning Mary, are all combined in rich proportions in the abundant harvest which F. Livius has gathered in from the writings of the early Fathers.
The second service rendered is second only in importance to the first. She, whose office it has been to "destroy all heresies," has ever been a stumbling-block in the way of non-Catholics. It could hardly be otherwise than that the Tower of David, the Ark of the Covenant, the Gate of Heaven should present a sensible and formidable obstacle to the progress of error. She, whose foot was destined to crush the serpent's head, must ever stand in her calm beauty and power as an enemy in the path of the seed of the serpent. But there is a vast multitude of non-Catholics whose souls are being drawn back from the errors they have inherited to the Church of Christ. It is not enough to show them the love which the present children of God bear to the Mother of God; it is not enough to point out to them the devotion and faith of England during a period of a thousand years. All this, in their ignorance and prejudice, they explain away as parasitical overgrowth, attributable, they say, to the distinguishing character of the middle ages, and to man's proclivity to corruption and superstition.
What is needed is to remount the stream of testimony to its source — to exhibit without apology or hesitation our own devotion to Mary — to set forth, as in the Dowry of Mary, the history of the devotion of our Catholic English ancestors to her, up to the seventh century — and then to gather together and display before the eyes of all men, who have eyes to see, the teaching of the primitive Church, as attested in the writings of the first six centuries, as to the position and the prerogatives of the Blessed Mother of God.
The obiter dicta and incidental expressions of those ancient writers on such a subject as Mary are as valuable and as clear an indication of the direction taken by the mind and heart of the Church, during its early youth, as the more developed and studied treatises by writers in modern times are of their own belief and of that of their co-religionists. The faith is the same. But the Church is neither a mechanical nor a petrified creation. She is a living Bride, the Bride of the Lamb. She, like Mary in the Gospel, is "ever pondering in her heart over the things she has heard" in the original revelation made to her by the Bridegroom. And as she gives utterance to the thoughts of her heart in the language and expression which become them, she is perpetually testifying to the truth, the fulness, the life and the joy of the things which she originally heard. Thus you will find in the teaching of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Augustine, the Gregorys, Ephrem, Ambrose and other writers of the first six centuries on Mary's position as the Second Eve, on her excellence, her sanctity, and her power, the teaching of S. Alphonsus and of Blessed Grignon de Montfort and others, who have in modern days popularised devotion to Mary. The truth is ever the same, all through the centuries, carefully guarded by the authority of the Church; but the language in which it is clothed, in which it is conveyed to the mind of the people, is the language of the day, the language which is spoken and understood. And the more the original seed of truth becomes triturated by the devout mind, generation after generation, the more pervasive becomes its fragrance.
I trust that this most valuable addition to our literature upon the Office of Mary in the work of our Redemption and sanctification, will meet with the cordial reception which it deserves from devout Catholics, on the one hand, and from sincere and earnest inquirers outside the Church, on the other.
It is a pleasing incident to record that it has been granted to two sons of S. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, to give to the English-speaking peoples two standard works on Mary, one dealing with the Devotion of England to Mary from the sixteenth century up to the time of the primitive Church, in his admirable volume, England, Our Lady's Dowry, and the other, completing the period of testimony, by exhaustively gathering together the witnesses, who still speak with no uncertain sound, as to the teaching of the Church about Mary, "the Second Eve," "the Mother of the living," during the first six centuries of the Christian era.
HERBERT CARD. VAUGHAN,
Archbishop of Westminster.
Octave of the Assumption, 1893.
Author's Preface
No one, I suppose, can entertain any doubt as to the general belief and cultus that prevailed amongst Catholics with regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary from the seventh and eighth centuries, through the middle ages, down to the period of the Protestant Reformation. For the numerous works that still survive of men eminent for their sanctity and theological science, as Ildephonsus, John Damascene, Anselm, Bernard, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and many more, who wrote so profusely in her honour and proclaimed her privileges with such great explicitness — as well as the numberless examples of public and private devotion to her to be found in religious biographies, general literature, and historical records of those times — make it quite evident that the attitude of the faithful to Our Lady was then much the same as that of Catholics in the present day. Those too who may be unacquainted with the works I have alluded to must share the same conviction. For we all have still before our very eyes material monuments which bear visible witness to that past faith and devotion. I mean, we have in our midst, whether yet standing or in ruins, so many old cathedrals and churches, monasteries and abbeys, that were raised to Our Lady's name, with their shrines and other memorials in her honour; whilst in countries abroad there are ancient images and pictures, which are still held in veneration by the faithful, and carry down with them a long record of her miraculous favours, and of the people's devotion. Then again, there are so many religious Orders of men and women that have handed down in unbroken succession the same spirit, belief, and devotional practices regarding Our Lady, as they received in their origin.
Herein is a sensible continuity of the past with the present, which forms in men's minds what we may call a veritable actual memory, and is an argument which brings home the truth more forcibly and distinctly than do any proofs derivable from ancient documents.
If aught more were needed, there is the living witness of the existing generations of Catholics here at home and abroad, that have inherited in direct line, and bear testimony to the belief and practices of their forefathers in the same religious faith. Whilst, on the other hand, the notorious fact of the Reformation, and that so many have followed its tenets even to the present day, serves of itself continually to keep alive the memory of what was held about the Blessed Virgin in those former ages, and of the veneration that was then paid to her; since it was the repudiation of this belief and devotion as superstitious, that formed in great part the very reason of the first origin of the Reformation, and of the continued existence of Protestantism as a religion.
I have thus endeavoured to account for the clear and distinct conviction that is universally held of the Blessed Virgin's prominence in Catholic faith and devotion during the Middle Ages, in order the better to illustrate, by way of contrast, the difference of view that is generally taken as to the place which Our Lady occupied in the minds and hearts of Christians during the first six centuries of the Church's history.
Here there is no unanimity, but great diversity of sentiment; people's opinions are for the most part only half-formed, or formed from very insufficient data, on this side or that, according to their religious bias. Some perhaps will go so far as to maintain that the practical exhibition of devotion to the Blessed Virgin was the same in those earlier centuries as in later times; whilst others persistently assert that there was nothing in the primitive Church at all similar or corresponding to the doctrinal system and cultus of Our Lady which have prevailed from medieval times until the present day. All this, they say, was an after-growth quite unknown to the older Fathers, which first began to show itself in the seventh and eighth centuries. Between these two extremes opinions vary with more or less vagueness.
There are many causes for this general diversity and indefiniteness of view on the matter.
First, in the case of the Early Church, we have none of what, for lack of a better term, I called sensible continuity, which serves so much to give us definite notions, and in some sort an actual memory of the real truth in medieval times. Having lost all the religious surroundings of those first centuries, and having no longer any direct results surviving from them, we can hardly picture them to our minds, and how things then happened — at least with any certainty that our picture rightly corresponds to the reality.
It seems to belong to our intellectual nature, that when we hear or read about something of past or distant occurrence, we at once form in our mind, at any rate implicitly, sensible images derived in some way from our experimental knowledge; and by clothing with this imagery the simple ideas presented to our intelligence, we give to what is abstract a concrete shape, and thus assimilate and bring home to our full consciousness the recorded event, realising it more or less vividly in its circumstances. And so far as the subjective images correspond to their objective realities, so also is our mental view of the occurrence accurate and true.
We are now, however, divided by so great an interval from those early centuries, that our break-off from all their ordinary associations is complete. The learned, no doubt, who have made a special study of the first ages of the Church, and are better acquainted with the circumstances that then surrounded the faith and religious life of Christians, will so far be able to gain a clearer view and to approximate to the truth with regard to the attitude of the faithful in those days towards the Blessed Virgin. But most people are not learned, and their ideas on the subject are very vague; or should they have formed for themselves any definite judgment, it is of no real value, being pretty sure to be wide of the truth.
I may be here allowed to apply to our subject two terms of which Cardinal Newman discourses so largely in his Grammar of Assent, and say that the knowledge generally possessed of the Blessed Virgin's place in Medieval religion is a real knowledge, whilst that obtainable of the same in the first six centuries is of a notional character. In making this distinction I would by no means imply that there is less of objective certainty in the latter than in the former kind of knowledge; or, in other words, that truth is less the object of, and actually attainable by notional knowledge than it is by real knowledge; but the difference, conveyed by the two terms, lies rather, as I conceive, in the mind's subjective conviction of truth, and in the means whereby subjective certainty is arrived at.
What, then, was the doctrine held concerning the Blessed Virgin, both in its nature and extent, together with the actual devotion paid to her during the first six centuries of Christianity, is not now to be learnt by any sensible aids — such as existing monuments of antiquity and surviving traditions — as is our knowledge of the same in later ages, but almost exclusively from contemporaneous documents of that period that are still extant.
But here is no easy task, as is evident from the following considerations:
1. Whilst many works of the early Fathers are lost, and of some we have only fragments; those that remain are in great number and very voluminous, treating of manifold topics with wide diversity, and written for the most part very discursively.
2. The Fathers did not treat of the Blessed Virgin ex professo. No formal treatise on her is to be found amongst their writings. There were other matters of a more pressing nature in those early times to engage their attention. [This clause is badly garbled in the scan and the exact wording can't be fully recovered — the surviving fragments suggest it named the primary truths of Christian revelation the Fathers had to set forth: the Nature of God, His Unity of Being and Trinity of Persons, the Incarnation and Divinity of the Word, the personality of the Holy Ghost, the Unity and Communion of Saints, and the doctrines of original sin and grace.]
They had at the same time to contend against and refute many subtle heresies that endangered the faith on all points, and with which heresiarchs from every quarter were continually assailing the Church. They were occupied in interpreting, and composing commentaries on, the Sacred Scriptures. There are, moreover, many patristic writings of an occasional sort, such as sermons and homilies, exhortations, epistles and poems, and besides these, historical works, and others of a moral and philosophical character.
These are the chief subjects of the writings of the Fathers during the first six centuries. In most of them, perhaps, there is something, more or less, said of the Blessed Virgin; but what mention or treatment is made of her is incidental, and introduced only as bearing upon the principal theme and the matter in hand. There are, indeed, some very few treatises that relate especially to Our Lady, as those of S. Jerome and S. Epiphanius, written in defence of her perpetual virginity, or against a blasphemous excess in showing her honour. These, however, deal only with some particular point regarding her, and are of an apologetic nature. There are too some fugitive pieces, as sermons on her Feasts and hymns and prayers entirely devoted to her, especially in the works of S. Ephrem.
I would not be supposed to deny that much, comparatively speaking, is to be found in the early Fathers on the Blessed Virgin; for some of their treatises are full of her, as for example those of S. Ambrose on virginity, and also many portions of their Scriptural exegesis. My voluminous extracts show this. Still, with the exceptions I have made they are fragmentary, and not written on her ex professo.
Nowhere, then, do the early Fathers treat in a formal and positive manner, or as a whole, of the place of Our Lady in revealed Christian doctrine, and of the mutual relations that exist between her and men in the Divine economy of Redemption. What was their general view on this matter must be gathered from the various passages scattered up and down their writings.
Or perhaps I should express myself otherwise, and say that the earliest Fathers of all, who wrote about Our Blessed Lady, viz., S. Justin, S. Irenaeus, and Tertullian, in their exposition of Mary as the Second Eve, give a very distinct view of what they held concerning her, and make most explicit though very brief statements as to her doctrinal position and relation to mankind, and that these are, in fact, so comprehensive as implicitly to contain whatever else any other Fathers of the first six centuries said afterwards in a desultory way about her.
3. What adds to the general impression of indefiniteness attaching to the Blessed Virgin's place in the early Church, is the frequent allegation that discrepant statements regarding her are found in the patristic works of that age. True it is that some few of the Fathers have said certain things respecting Our Lady contrary to the teaching of the greater number. Such instances, however, are after all, but very rare exceptions. They are to be found chiefly in their comments on those passages of the Gospels which bring her into public notice; and are certainly inconsistent with the idea of her absolute sinlessness, or at least of that entire perfection which the Church has of her, and the general teaching of the Fathers bears out.
Cardinal Newman has discussed this question, and the particular passages that have given rise to it, so ably and fully in his Letter to Dr. Pusey, that I have not thought it necessary to go over his ground again: though I have treated of the difficulty from another point of view, especially as regards S. Chrysostom, in the course of this work.
That there should be some discrepancies in the Fathers regarding Our Lady need not, however, excite surprise or cavil, when we find the same upon still graver matters. Thus certain Fathers of the third century, in high repute for their orthodoxy, express themselves on the Consubstantiality of the Son in terms that would be inadmissible after the definition of Nice. So too S. Athanasius and S. Basil speak of the knowledge of Our Lord's soul in a very different way from what S. Augustine and S. Maximus did, and Catholic theologians would now speak.¹
Great indeed is the authority of the Holy Fathers approved as such by the Church, even when taken individually, and especially of the more eminent amongst them who were Bishops, Saints, and Doctors of the Church.² But their chief authority consists in their being witnesses and expounders of the divine traditions that had come down from Christ and the Apostles, and of the Church's teaching at their own time. Hence it is that their unanimous consent on any doctrine pertaining to the Faith is regarded as tantamount to the infallible utterance of the Church herself. We may, moreover, well believe that the Holy Fathers, properly so called, received as individuals, special gifts of divine wisdom and knowledge to enable them to set forth in their purity and integrity the divine traditions and doctrines that had been handed down to them from the Apostles.
Still we are not to take an exaggerated view of the Fathers, as though they were infallible, and none of them could make a doctrinal misstatement, since it is undeniable, that at least some errors, greater or less, are to be found in the writings of individual Holy Fathers, even of those who have been approved of as such by the Church. But we must at the same time bear in mind that the Church has never on this account charged any Father, whom she has once thus approved, with heterodoxy, nor allowed others to do so.
In reading the Fathers, should one chance to come upon some doubtful or ambiguous statement in any of them, the general rule to be followed is, to explain his words as far as possible according to the common concordant sense of the other Fathers' teaching. But where a real discrepancy from the common teaching is discovered, it will be found on mature examination that such error has resulted from the obscurity of the subject-matter, on which nothing had as yet been defined,³ or which had not been sufficiently thrashed out by more prolonged discussion. On verities that are fundamental no real discrepancy of this kind will have place.⁴
Whilst all revealed truths contained in the divine deposit had their place in the primitive Church, they may be said in a certain sense to have been for a time more or less held in solution. To use a perhaps too homely metaphor, the age of the earlier Fathers was the time of churning. By means of the agitation of heretics, and the doctrinal discussions of the Fathers, the several truths of faith were going through the process of coagulation, that so they might be shaped into dogmas and fixed in conciliary definitions. Formal dogmatic definitions were few at that date. Certain broad lines for general guidance were well known, such as Tertullian's rule of Prescription, and those principles that find their expression in the dicta of S. Augustine and S. Vincent of Lerins, " Securus judicat orbis terrarum," " Roma locuta est, causa finita est," " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus"; or again, what first paved the way for the condemnation of Nestorius, the voice of the ecclesia discens, at Constantinople, whereby the old adage, " Vox populi, vox Dei," is illustrative of the Faithful in the Catholic Church.
But principles such as these, however true, were too broad for immediate practical application to every difficult question that might arise, and hence some divergency of longer or shorter continuance on certain points that were afterwards definitely settled, was the inevitable result.
4. Another difficulty in the works of the early Fathers is, that many of them are held to be spurious and unauthentic, whilst the genuineness of others is disputed. I leave the discussion in all cases to the judgment of learned critics. My general rule has been to make my quotations from writings the authenticity of which is commonly acknowledged. Sometimes, however, I have cited works of doubtful genuineness, or which, at any rate, were not written as we now have them by the Fathers to whom they are attributed, but whose date, as assigned to them by critics, falls within the first six centuries, to which period I confine myself. When I quote from a doubtful or unauthentic work, or depart exceptionally from this general rule, I note the fact.
Some modern writers appear to treat such unauthentic works as of no value at all, and even as though their doubtfulness or spuriousness of itself formed a positive argument against doctrines and practices to the existence of which they bear testimony: whereas the truth is, that regarded simply as witnesses their evidence on these matters is of an authority equal to that of any genuine writings with which they are coeval. But besides this: it is held as highly probable by the learned, that many even of those treatises and sermons, which, from intrinsic evidence of language and style, criticism has justly decided to be certainly unauthentic, were yet substantially the utterances of the Fathers whose names they bear, and were composed in their present form by disciples or admiring auditors from notes or memory. In any case it would be very difficult to account for the early and general acceptance of such writings as genuine, unless they really reflected and were in full accord with what was known to be the teaching of the Fathers who were credited with their authorship.
What has principally led me to compose this work is, because I had heard and read much of late years as to the very different view to be found in the writings of the early Fathers, regarding all that relates to the Blessed Virgin, from that which attaches to her in medieval and modern times; and because I knew well how very difficult it is — as in the preceding pages I have been at pains to show — to give a true, clear, full, and impartial exposition of what those Fathers really taught regarding her, and of the veneration or devotion that was paid to her in their days. I determined therefore to examine in detail what they had written on this subject, and to render into English numerous extracts from their writings, that people generally might read the Fathers' own words, and then judge for themselves.
For myself, endeavouring to be as impartial as possible, I have formed the clear conviction, that, saving a very few differences on points of lesser moment, the Fathers of the first six centuries unanimously held Our Blessed Lady in the same high appreciation, as she has been held in by Catholics of all subsequent ages; and that everything that the Church has at any time defined or sanctioned with regard to her privileges and the honour that is her due — together with all that saints and theologians of medieval and modern days have uttered in her praise — is to be found substantially, and at least in principle or germ, in the writings of the great Fathers and Doctors both of East and West, from the age of S. Justin the Martyr to that of S. Gregory the Great. Nay more, it will appear from passages which I quote from their writings, that many of the Fathers within that period were so explicit and profuse in their eulogies of the holy Mother of God, that they have left little for those who came after them to do, but to repeat their own words, and re-echo their praise.
It is to make this truth better known, and so to win some glory for the Virgin Mother, and to gain an increase of devotion to her from English-speaking people, whether Catholic or otherwise, that I have undertaken the task of translating so many passages in testimony of her greatness from the writings of the earlier Greek and Latin Fathers. For whatever value may be attached to this work is due entirely to the numerous patristic extracts which it contains. It has not been my general aim in it to prove or expound the various points of Catholic doctrine regarding Our Lady, which form the subject-matter of the several Chapters; but rather simply to show what were the views and teachings of the Fathers on them, and to produce their own words in witness. Hence the quotations from the Fathers should be looked upon as the principal part of this work, and what I have written of my own as but accessory, and intended to indicate and explain the drift of the patristic passages gathered under the separate headings. This takes the form of short Prolegomena. A few exceptions are made to this rule, in cases where a particular subject seemed to me to demand a larger treatment. These are the Chapters on Mary the Second Eve, on Intercession and Invocation, and on Our Lady's Assumption. The Introductory Chapters on Doctrinal Development also appeared to me necessary, in order to form a right and adequate view of patristic teaching on the Blessed Virgin during so long a period as the first six centuries.
The passages are generally appended to their several Chapters in the Chronological order of the writers.⁵ As many of them are of considerable length, and given with their full context, they will be sometimes found to contain, besides what is directly pertinent to the subject in hand, matters relating to the Blessed Virgin which more fitly belong to some other Chapter. This was unavoidable: for I often judged it better to present passages to the reader in their entirety, with their whole force and beauty, rather than in a curtailed and piecemeal form; and to refer to whatever was extraneous at the proper place.⁶
The edition which I have generally used is Migne's Patrologiae. My rule has been to give a very literal rather than fluent rendering of the original. This may be thought to have been carried sometimes to excess. I have, however, been led to aim at literalness at the expense of elegance, from the danger I constantly feel there is, especially in cases where the Author's meaning is obscure, or his words admit of more senses than one — and this is of frequent occurrence in the writings of the Fathers — lest a translator who aims much at fluency, should attach to a passage his own sense or colouring, and thus misrepresent the Author's mind, or at any rate deprive the reader of judging himself as to the signification of the original. In some few cases I have availed myself of others' translations.
With regard to the Syriac writings of S. Ephrem, I have followed implicitly the English translation of the Rev. J. B. Morris, and the Latin rendering of Canon Lamy. Whatever other extracts I have given from the Saint, that are not contained in their volumes, have been taken from the Roman edition published under Benedict XIV.
I have to acknowledge my obligation to several modern authors from whose works I have made copious extracts, and especially to learned writers in the Dublin Review, to whose articles on Development of doctrine and the Blessed Virgin I have sometimes been more indebted than appears from my direct quotations.
It will be seen that I have gathered in my pages not a few passages very similar to one another in sentiment and expression. This I have not done without design: since the very reiteration of the same praises of Mary from various parts of Christendom during so long a period is of itself a strong argument in favour of our general thesis, showing as it does, that the Fathers of the first six centuries had in common but one and the same appreciation of the great Mother of God; and also what in the mind of the early Church, and in the devotion of the faithful, was the place of her, concerning whom such things were continually being written.
Though my collection is a large one, and by some may be deemed cumbersome and excessive, it is by no means exhaustive. I have passed over many pages in the Fathers, where it appeared to me that there was nothing new, and which had not been said elsewhere; and very probably several important, and perhaps well-known, passages have escaped my notice. Moreover the recent discoveries of manuscripts of long-lost works of the Fathers lead us to expect with hope that many more hidden treasures will ere long be brought again to light, and that thus plentiful gleanings still remain for a yet richer harvest to Our Lady's praise.
S. Joseph's, Teignmouth,
Feast of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, 1893,
The Day of the Solemn Renewal of England's Dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to S. Peter, Prince of the Apostles.
Footnotes
1. "Even on so fundamental a dogma as the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, S. Gregory Nazianzen says: 'The New Testament did but obscurely indicate the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. . . . For it was not safe . . . when the Son's Divinity was not yet (clearly) admitted, that the Holy Ghost should be imposed on us as a sort of heavy burden, so to speak.' Petavius quotes to the same effect S. Epiphanius, S. Augustine, S. Chrysostom, and other Fathers." Dublin Review, April, 1876, p. 294.
2. Although all early Christian writers conspicuous for their learning or antiquity, as v.g. Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Lactantius and Eusebius, are commonly called Holy Fathers, yet properly speaking, those only can claim the title who have been approved as such by the Church, and whom she has declared to be genuine and well-qualified witnesses, teachers, and judges, from their erudition and sanctity, of her doctrine as handed down to her from Christ and His Apostles. The other early authors are more properly called Christian or ecclesiastical writers.
3. "We must regard it," says Fr. Perrone, "as having happened, not without a special Providence, that very many (plurima) truths do but lie hid implexly and adumbratively in the revealed word: viz., in order that the faithful might thence more feel the necessity of the Church's living and infallible magisterium." Treatise on the definableness of the Immac. Conception of the B. V. M. Part ii., ch. i.
4. See Fessler, Institutiones Patrologiae. Ed. Jungmann. Tom. i., pp. 35-47.
5. Except in the Chapter on Scriptural Exegesis, where in the Old Testament the Biblical order is kept, and in the New that of certain mysteries and events of Our Lord's Life. It will be observed that I have taken the term, Exegesis, in a very wide sense.
6. In the Index at the end of the volume, reference is given under various headings to the pages where particular matters find mention throughout the work.
Contents
Introductory Chapters on Doctrinal Development
Chapter I. General Notions.
Accretive or Objective, and Non-Accretive or Subjective Development. Revealed Truths of the Substance of Faith, and Accessory to its Substance. Explicit and Implicit Faith.
Chapter II. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
The Christian Revelation was given once for all to the Apostles exclusively. All subsequent developments are non-accretive, and contained in the original Deposit.
Appendix: S. Vincent of Lerins; B. Thomas More.
Chapter III. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
Causes of Development of Christian Doctrine in the Church.
Chapter IV. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
Its Process examined.
Appendix: From Rev. J. B. Morris.
The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries
Chapter I.
The Primitive Patristic Idea of Mary as the Second Eve.
Chapter II. The Blessed Virgin in the Scriptural Exegesis of the Fathers of the First Six Centuries.
Prolegomena.
Part I. The Old Testament.
Part II. The New Testament.
§ 1. The Annunciation and Incarnation.
§ 2. The Visitation.
§ 3. The Purification, and Presentation in the Temple.
§ 4. Egypt — The Finding in the Temple — Nazareth.
§ 5. The Marriage Feast at Cana — John ii. 1-11.
§ 6. Mary on Calvary.
§ 7. Mary at the Resurrection.
§ 8. Exegesis on some other passages of the New Testament.
§ 9. Some doctrinal passages.
Chapter III. The Dignity and Sanctity of the Blessed Virgin.
Habitual Grace and Holiness.
Chapter IV. The Sanctity of the Blessed Virgin (Continued). Mary's entire Sinlessness.
Some explanatory Notes. — Appendix.
Chapter V. The Sanctity of the Blessed Virgin (Continued). Mary's acquired Sanctity, Practice of Virtues, Holy Virginity.
Chapter VI. The Blessed Virgin and the Church.
Chapter VII. Intercession and Invocation.
Chapter VIII. Examples of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints — of invoking them — and of miracles and graces obtained through their Intercession.
Chapter IX. The Assumption.
Appendix: 1. Poem of S. Fortunatus. 2. From S. John Damascene. 3. From the Epistle, under S. Jerome's name, on the Assumption. 4. From the Chronicle of Eusebius. 5. From S. Willibald. 6. Apocryphal Writings.
Chapter X. Devotional.
The Blessed Virgin's place in the Christian life, and as our spiritual Mother.
Chapter XI. Hymns of S. Ephrem.
Prolegomena. — The Feasts of the Annunciation and Purification.
Hymns.
Chapter XII. Hymns and Poems.
Chapter XIII. An Æthiopic Hymn.
Index of Subjects.
Index of Authors.
[Note from The Catacombs - It is our understanding that a formal imprimatur/ nihil obstat as a standard requirement for all Catholic books came with the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Before that, many works — especially ones like this, carrying a cardinal’s own dedication and preface, which functioned as a form of implicit episcopal endorsement — were published without a separate censorship notice.]
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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Chapter I. General Notions.
Accretive or Objective, and Non-Accretive or Subjective Development. Revealed Truths of the Substance of Faith, and Accessory to Its Substance. Explicit and Implicit Faith.
Theologians distinguish two kinds of doctrinal development¹: the first, development simply so called (simpliciter dictum); the other, development in a qualified or relative sense (secundum quid). The first would have place, should a revelation be made of some truth that had not been before revealed, and consequently could not be believed except by means of this new revelation. The second would be, if some truth that had been before revealed, were, without any fresh revelation, more fully and distinctly explained and more clearly understood, so that what, from its having been previously revealed, was already of Divine faith quoad se, that is, regarded objectively in itself, should now come to be explicitly of faith quoad nos, that is to say, subjectively for us.² The first kind of development we may call accretive, or objective; the second, non-accretive, or subjective.
In the matter of Divine revelation we must, moreover, distinguish between those revealed truths which are said to belong to the substance of faith, and such as are termed accessory to, or connected with, its substance.
To the substance of faith belong first of all the two articles called general, regarding the existence of God, and His providential care for man's salvation. In these two, as being the primary truths of faith, are, according to the teaching of S. Thomas,³ implicitly contained all the other articles. For they are so contained, either by reason of the very nature of God, or by a positive act of His good pleasure. Thus all the articles on the Perfections of God, His Unity of Essence and Trinity of Persons are, by reason of the Divine Nature, contained in the truth of God's Existence and Being; and all the other revealed truths are, by a positive act of His good pleasure, contained in the article, that He has a providential care for man's salvation. Hence, whoever expressly believes as a truth of revelation in the existence of God, is held to believe implicitly that He is One in Essence and Three in Persons. In like manner he who expressly believes that God has a providential care for men, is held to believe implicitly in all those particular means, whereby He has of His own good pleasure decreed to lead man to salvation.
The mysteries of the Trinity, and Redemption through the Incarnate Word, are the two revealed articles called particular. These also belong to the substance of faith, though not in so strict a sense as the two general articles.
The other truths contained in the deposit of revelation are considered as accessory to the substance of faith and connected with it.
With regard to the two general articles, viz., the existence of God, and His providential care for man's salvation, which belong to the substance of faith, the common teaching of theologians is, that faith in these truths was at all times from the beginning of the world precisely the same as it is now in the Christian Dispensation, and that an explicit belief of these two truths was always obligatory as a necessary means of salvation. For, since all men, from the beginning of the world, were destined for the same beatitude as ourselves, they all had necessarily to tend towards that beatitude by means of hope; but this they could not do, unless, in a true sense, they had, at least substantially, the self-same faith with us in God, and a like hope in Him, through belief in His promise of salvation.⁴
As to the two particular articles, also belonging to the substance of faith, theology teaches that belief in Divine Redemption was, in some sense, always the same. For the revelation of this mystery was contained in the promise made by God to our first parents, was handed down by tradition even amongst the Gentiles, and was from time to time renewed with more full explanation in the written Law and the Prophets. But as this truth was not so clearly revealed before the coming of Christ, we may hold that, whilst it was believed explicitly by the patriarchs and chief teachers of the Jews, it was, for the most part, but imperfectly apprehended and only implicitly believed by the mass of the Jewish people. The same may be said generally of the mystery of the Trinity.⁵
Of revealed truths accessory to the substance of faith, there was during the Old Testament Dispensation, from time to time an objective or accretive development; that is to say, certain truths were successively revealed, which either had no way been revealed before, or, at any rate, could not be explicitly believed by all without a new revelation.
The distinction between explicit and implicit faith is thus explained according to the teaching of Suarez: Anything is believed explicitly, when it is itself the object on which the assent of faith immediately and directly falls. What is implicitly believed is not itself the immediate object of the assent of faith, but is believed only indirectly and mediately, as being contained in something else which is the immediate and direct object of the assent of faith. What is thus implicitly believed is not itself actually known at all; since the intellect does not form any special concept of a proposition said to be implicitly believed, but of that other one alone in which it is contained.
Any difference there may be in explicit faith is only one of degree. Thus it may be more or less explicit, according as the concept of a mystery is more or less clearly and perfectly formed; or, again, so far as the points known about the truth believed are many or few. But rightly considered, the difference consists in the greater or less number of actual assents, whereby the several truths belonging to one and the same mystery and article of faith are explicitly and directly believed. Or should the more or less clearness of conception be with regard to but one single integral truth, the difference then lies rather in the apprehension of the truth than in the actual assent of faith. And this clearer apprehension may be due to human industry, viz., be the result of knowledge acquired by more scientific study, wider learning, and a better understanding.
The other mode of believing, that is to say, by implicit faith, is based on various principles. First, by reason of an explicit belief of one revealed truth others are said to be believed implicitly on account of the formal object of faith, namely, the veracity of God who reveals; whereby all the truths of revelation are so connected together that it is impossible for any one to believe one article because God has revealed it, without being at once prepared to believe all other articles of His revelation when they are sufficiently proposed. And this is to believe implicitly. Whereas to deny one article of faith is implicitly to deny all, because we cannot give the adhesion of faith to the rest should we withhold it from one. Just as whoever detests one sin for God's sake, must virtually and implicitly detest all.
Secondly, a man may believe with implicit faith from his relation to others who believe explicitly. It is in this way the simple faithful are said to believe all things that the Church believes, or the Apostles taught, though they do not know actually what all these things are.
Thirdly, there may be this implicit faith by reason of some truth that is believed explicitly, and that in many ways. For example, because one proposition is contained in some other, as a conclusion in a principle from which it may be evidently drawn. Thus, he who believes that Christ is man, believes implicitly that He is visible. Or, because one proposition is connected with another in reality, or by actual identity, even though such connection cannot be known without faith. Thus he who believes that God is infinite, believes implicitly that He is Three in Persons. Or again, the particular is known in the universal, as is self-evident. And lastly, the circumstances of a revealed mystery are said to be known implicitly in its substance. Thus he who believes that Christ is the Redeemer of the world, believes implicitly that He died for the salvation of men. And such like.⁶
Footnotes
1. "From defect of our language the word development is used both for the process of development and for the result." — Newman's Development, p. 41.
2. Mazzella, De Virtutibus Infusis, p. 284.
3. S. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 1. a. 7.
4. Heb. xi. 1, 6, 13; 2 Cor. iv. 13.
5. Suarez, Disp. ii. Sect. vi. 7, 11; De Lugo, Disp. xii. n. 87.
6. Suarez, Disp. ii. sect. vi. n. 2.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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Chapter II. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
The Christian Revelation was Given Once for All to the Apostles Exclusively. All Subsequent Developments are Non-Accretive, and Contained in the Original Deposit.
The Christian religion is in the strictest and most exclusive sense a Divine revelation, whereby — when in the fulness of time the Incarnate Word appeared — all the former revelations, which had been more or less partial and obscure, were made clear and perfected. So great was the flood of light poured forth by the preaching of the Gospel on the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Redemption of mankind through Jesus Christ, that it was as though these truths were then first revealed. Hence S. Gregory says, that "whereas under the Old Testament the mystery of the Trinity was unknown explicitly save to the more spiritual Fathers, and was hidden from the Jewish people generally; now under the New Testament the faith of the Trinity has grown up in the hearts of all the faithful, and all the nations are taught to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, in whose Name they are baptised." And in regard to the mystery of Redemption, S. Paul could speak of it as the mystery of Christ in other generations not known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets in the Spirit.¹
Besides this fuller revelation of the Trinity and the Incarnation — mysteries which are of the substance of the faith — there were brought to light with the New Dispensation many other truths accessory to the substance of faith, which had not been before revealed, relating especially to the Church of Christ and His law of grace.
The revelation of the whole body of Christian mysteries was made to the Apostles exclusively. To them it was delivered immediately by our Lord Himself, and by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, once for all, full and complete. With them it was closed.
The Apostles were commissioned by Jesus Christ to make known this revelation to the Church, and were at the same time empowered, by means of Divine inspiration, to set forth to others, in due expression and adequate statement, the heavenly truths which they had received. This entire body of revealed doctrine they deposited in the Church. Upon their successors in the office of teaching, who constituted the Ecclesia docens, devolved the duty of transmitting the Apostolic doctrine in its integrity and purity to those who should come after in every generation. To do this work effectually, they were given that special guidance and assistance of the Holy Ghost, which had been promised to them by Christ to continue in His Church until the end of time.
It hence follows that the doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church is always substantially identical with that of the Apostles. In other words, whatever articles the Church has at any time since defined to be of faith by Councils or otherwise, are but developments of truths revealed once for all to the Apostles and by them delivered to her keeping. Such developments, moreover, are made in the sense in which the Apostles themselves held the truths. For no subsequent doctrinal development of the Church is accretive to the original deposit.²
This conclusion holds good not only for all the successive definitions of faith, but also for all such doctrines and devotions as are taught and sanctioned by the Church through her ordinary Magisterium. Indeed, the very fact that a doctrine has been at any time held universally with the sanction of the Church, is of itself a proof, not only that such doctrine is infallibly true, but also in full accord with Apostolic teaching. Since, otherwise, the promise of Christ would be found to have failed, and the gates of hell be shown to have prevailed against His Church.
It is the special office of the Church, as a Divine teacher, to continually unfold, develop and illustrate (explicate, evolvere³) the doctrines contained in the deposit of revelation which she has received from Christ. This she does especially in her Councils by her definitions of faith. In these definitions the Church does not propose to the faithful any new truths, but — guided by the infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost — recalls more distinctly to their remembrance, and more fully explains certain portions of the original deposit. Hence it happens from time to time that certain truths which, because revealed, were always of faith, objectively, or regarded in themselves, being de fide quoad se, become subjectively, through the Church's definition and proposition, formal dogmas of Catholic faith — de fide quoad nos — and as such claim the belief of all Christians. In other words: certain truths — which, as forming part of the revealed deposit, and consequently of the integral Christian faith revealed to the Apostles — were always believed implicitly by the faithful, come in course of time to be believed by them explicitly.
The following quotation from a writer in the Dublin Review will serve to illustrate the matter treated of in this Chapter.
"All subsequent definitions of faith are simply the unravelling of matter given by the Apostles. Their state of mind was quite different from that of their successors. Theirs was what we may call inspiration; after them the teachers of the Church had only that special guidance of the Holy Spirit which was promised them by Christ. The Apostolic teaching, then, was not only the first link in a chain; it was that out of which all developments came, and in which all were implicitly contained. Hence it seems to follow that the Apostles must have had especially in their minds all the future definitions of faith, though not, of course, necessarily in the same terms. They must have so framed their teaching that it was capable of all subsequent developments. . . . Thus if the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady was a part of the original deposit given by Christ to His Apostles, it must have been clearly before the intellect of Peter. Furthermore, since there has been no subsequent revelation to the Church, that truth must have been transmitted to their successors at least in such a shape that without any extraordinary spiritual interposition it can be extracted from the propositions left with them. Besides this, these propositions must have in some way reached the understanding of the teaching body of the Church. In other words, the truth must have been really contained in the explicit teaching of the Apostles, and have been really known by their successors at least implicitly. All this seems to flow from the very primary notion of Christianity as a revelation given once for all."⁴
Appendix.
Protestants, when controverting the doctrinal developments of the Catholic Church, are used to set much store by the well-known aphorism, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus. In order to show how ill this saying is often understood, and how much it is misapplied, we think it well to quote at some length from the Commonitorium of S. Vincent of Lerins in which it occurs, and thus let the Saint himself explain the meaning of his own words. We would first, however, say something about the author, the scope of his work, and the circumstances under which it was written.⁵
S. Vincent of Lerins was a monk and a simple priest who lived during the fifth century. After being engaged, as it appears, in the military service, he retired into a monastery, and devoted himself entirely to piety and the study of Divine things. He wrote his Commonitorium, not indeed with the view of laying down rules for the teaching body of the Church to follow when pronouncing decisions in matters of faith or morals, but for the security of his own faith, by recalling and having at hand the admonitions of holy men as to how private individuals and the simple faithful should behave in presence of prevalent heresies. The following are S. Vincent's own words:
"It is enough for me, in order to help my memory or rather my forgetfulness, to have gathered together the Commonitory, which however, by calling to mind what in past time I have learned, I will endeavour with God's grace daily to correct and make more perfect. And this I have thought good to premise, that should this work of mine chance to get abroad and fall into the hands of holy persons, they may not over-hastily find fault with what they see in it, and which I promise ere long with later correction to amend and improve."⁶
S. Vincent's object was to enable himself, a simple monk, to discern the truth from the false teaching of heretics, on points about which no decree of a General Council could be found. Only three General Councils had been held up to that time; the first at Nicaea in 325, the second at Constantinople in 381, and the third at Ephesus in 431. And these Councils had not intended to declare in detail all that had been revealed, but only to affirm certain truths against contemporary heretics. He thus continues:
"Whilst often making very earnest and diligent inquiries of many excellent, holy, and learned men, as to how and by what means I might securely — and by some, so to say, general and normal way — discern the truth of Catholic faith from the falsity of heretical pravity, I usually received this answer from them all, viz., that if I or any one else wished to find out the deceits of the heretics who were daily springing up, escape their snares, and remain safe and sound in the true faith, one must, with God's assistance, defend and preserve his faith in a twofold manner: first, by the authority of the Divine law, and secondly by the tradition of the Catholic Church. . . . But since by reason of the very profundity of Holy Scripture, all do not understand it in one and the same sense, but divers men diversely; one interpreting the same words this way, and another that; so that, to one's thinking, so many men, so many opinions may be gathered from it. . . . Consequently it is of all importance, in order not to be led away into the windings of every sort of error, to hold fast to the line of scriptural interpretation that is according to the rule of the ecclesiastical and Catholic sense. Within the Catholic Church itself, too, we should take great care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, and always, and by all (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est). For this is really and properly Catholic, as the very meaning of the words and reason show, and in a general way comprises everything. This, too, will be in fact the case, if we follow universality, antiquity, and common consent. Universality, then, we shall follow, if we confess that one faith as true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; Antiquity, if in no way we depart from those sentiments which it is manifest our holy elders and Fathers held and generally approved (celebrasse); Common consent, in fine, if we follow what were in antiquity the definitions and judgments (sententiae) of all, or, at any rate, nearly all the priests and teachers alike."⁷
Later on, in his Second Commonitory, he says:
"We have to pay most earnest heed to two things, unto which all those that will not be heretics, must of necessity cling fast. The first is to see what has been decreed in old time by all the priests of the Catholic Church with authority of a General Council. And secondly, should some new question arise, about which no decree is to be found, we must then have recourse to the judgments of the Holy Fathers," etc.⁸
Hence we see that S. Vincent when in doubt whether doctrines, not yet defined by the Church, were Catholic or not, made it his rule to consult the writings of the Fathers. If he found from their testimony that a certain doctrine had been believed in the Church ubique, that is, by faithful living in all parts of Christendom; semper, that is, from the Apostles' days to his own time; ab omnibus, that is, by all those generally who were regarded as sound Catholics, or rather, what was held by the great majority of bishops and doctors, he at once concluded that such a doctrine was undoubtedly a genuine doctrine of Christian revelation, since it had been believed everywhere, always, and by all.
But because all doctrines that have been believed, ubique, semper, et ab omnibus, are undoubtedly genuine Christian doctrines, it by no means follows that these are the only genuine Christian doctrines; nor, as we shall see, did S. Vincent himself thus conclude.
Moreover, he goes on to qualify this general and ordinary rule (quasi generalis et regularis via) that he had laid down. He supposes the case of heresy infecting not only some portion of the Church, but going about to corrupt the whole Church altogether; and of our seeing in antiquity that individual teachers, cities, and provinces have fallen into error. Here, he says, we must adhere to what the universal Church has in Council decreed.
"But," he asks, "what are we to do when it is some doctrine about which no such decree can be found? Then pains should be taken to consult and inquire as to what were the judgments and tenets, after collating them together, of the Fathers (Majorum), but of those only who, in different times and places, persevering in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, were regarded as approved teachers (Magistri probabiles extiterunt): and then whatever, we find, not one or two only, but all of them alike, with one and the same consent, openly, frequently, perseveringly, held and taught, this same we are to understand is to be believed by ourselves also without any further doubting."
S. Vincent then goes on to speak of the prevalence of the Donatist Schism in Africa, and of Arianism usurping the very place almost of the Catholic Church herself throughout Christendom, so that "the minds of nearly all the bishops of the Latin tongue were shrouded in darkness": and describes the action of those bishops who most manfully opposed the widespread heresy, as "restoring nearly the whole entire world from a new perfidy to the ancient faith, from the madness of novelty to ancient soundness, from the blindness of novelty to the ancient light." He then recalls how, in a more remote age, "Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory," and even "the most blessed Cyprian, that light of all saints, bishops, and martyrs," sanctioned the sacrilegious practice of re-baptising heretics, and thus gave occasion to Catholics of falling into error.
"So great," he says, "was the ability and force of argument with which the heresy was supported, so powerful the eloquence, so large the number of its advocates, such its plausibility and appearance of truth, so many the passages of Holy Writ cited in its behalf — though clearly interpreted in a new and wrong sense" — that for himself he does not think the plot (conspiratio) could have been put down in any other way than by denouncing it with being a novelty. "And this," says S. Vincent, "Pope Stephen, the Bishop of the Apostolic See, most effectually did by the decree, Nihil novandum, nisi quod traditum est, contained in the Epistle which he sent to Africa. For, whilst taking counsel with his colleagues, the Pope felt himself bound as much to surpass all the other bishops in devotion to the faith, as he was above them all by the authority of his place."⁹
Here there was no General Council to define, and yet S. Vincent evidently looks upon the judgment of S. Stephen as final, and deciding what was the Catholic truth to be believed on the question at issue.
He speaks of the subsequent —
"African Council with its decree, as, God so granting it, being of no force, and the whole matter become in the end as though a dream, or a tale that is told, superfluous, done away, antiquated, trodden under foot."
In summing up what was done for the condemnation of Nestorianism, S. Vincent marks out the authority of the Roman Pontiff in the following words:
"All which things, though they were abundant for the overthrow and extinguishing of all the profane novelties, yet, lest aught should be lacking to such fulness, we add for a conclusion a twofold authority of the Apostolic See, the one of the holy Pope Sixtus, the venerable man who now adorns the Roman Church; the other of his predecessor of blessed memory, Pope Celestine, which we have thought necessary here to insert."¹⁰
Thus we see that, according to the teaching of S. Vincent, a doctrine may be thoroughly Catholic, and yet may not in every case (as that of not re-baptising heretics) have been held ubique, et ab omnibus.
But there remains the word semper. Those who hold to the interpretation and application of S. Vincent's rule, as it is commonly understood by non-Catholics, would maintain that all genuine doctrines of Christianity, originally contained in the revealed deposit, were believed in the same manner, that is to say, explicitly, at any rate, more or less so, in every age of Christianity from the beginning, at least by some few, and somewhere in the Church.
We would now, then, show that S. Vincent held that the teaching and belief of Christian doctrines was not always the same; or, in other words, that alongside of the principle, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus, there was, according to the Saint, a process of doctrinal development in the Church, whereby additions were made to Catholic teaching, and certain Christian truths that at one time had been believed only implicitly came in course of time to be believed explicitly.
For this purpose we shall simply give a lengthened quotation from the Commonitorium, thus leaving S. Vincent to explain his teaching on the matter in his own words:
"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words. . . .¹¹ Who at this day is Timothy, but either generally the universal Church, or especially the whole body of prelates, who ought either themselves to have a sound knowledge of Divine religion, or who ought to infuse it into others? . . . Depositum custodi. What is the deposit? It is that which has been entrusted to thee, not what has been found out by thee: what thou hast received, not what thou hast thought out; a matter not of ingenuity, but of learning; not of private adoption, but of public tradition; a thing brought to thee, not brought out by thee: wherein thou must be not an author, but a keeper, not an originator, but a pursuer: not leading, but following. Keep, he says, the deposit: preserve the talent of the Catholic faith inviolate and pure. Let what has been entrusted to thee remain with thee, be delivered by thee. Thou hast received gold, give back gold. I will not that thou offer me one thing for another, and have the face, instead of gold, to present me with lead, or cheat me with brass. I want not the appearance of gold, but its reality (naturam).
"O Timothy, O priest, O steward, O doctor, if the Divine gift has rendered thee fit, by thy wit, thy travail, thy doctrine — be the Beseleel of the spiritual tabernacle, engrave the precious gems of Divine dogma, faithfully set them, wisely adorn them, give them brightness, grace, and beauty. Make what was before believed more obscurely, by thy exposition, to be more clearly understood. Let posterity rejoice for coming to the intelligence of that, by thy means, which antiquity, without understanding it, had in veneration. Nevertheless, the things thou hast learned, the same teach in such sort, that albeit thou speakest after a new manner, thou speak not new things.
"But some one will perhaps say: Is there then no progress of religion in Christ's Church? Surely there is: yea, let us have progress even the greatest. For who would be so envious to men, so hateful to God, as to seek to hinder it? But yet of such sort it should be, as to be in good truth a progress of the faith, not a change thereof. It is of the nature of progress that the particular thing should itself be amplified, but of change that something should be turned from one thing into another. Therefore, the understanding, the science, the wisdom ought to increase, and make much and strenuous progress, as well of every man in particular as of all in common, as well in the successive stages of a man's life, as in the various ages and times of the whole Church; but yet, for all that, only in its own kind and nature, that is to say, in the same doctrines, in the same sense, in the same judgment. Here let the religion of our souls imitate the way of our bodies, which, although as years go by they develop and unfold their proportions, yet remain the same that they were. There is a great difference betwixt the flower of youth and the ripeness of age, yet the self-same men become old who once were young, so that although the state and condition of one and the self-same man be altered, yet one and the self-same nature, one and the self-same person still remain. Small are the limbs of infants, great of young men, yet they are the same. So many joints as young children have, so many have they when they are men: and if there are any parts that put forth in course of more mature age, these were already planted after the manner of seed, so that nothing in old men afterwards comes forth new, which did not already lie hid in them before, when they were children.
"In like manner also it befits the doctrine of the Christian religion to follow these rules of progress, so that it may thus be consolidated in course of years, developed by time, ennobled (sublimatur) by age, and still persevere incorrupt and pure; and in all the proportions of its several parts, and, so to say, in all its particular limbs and senses become full and perfect; and this without admitting aught of alteration, or sustaining any loss of what essentially belongs to it (nulla proprietatis dispendia), or any variation of definition.
"For example: our fathers sowed of old in the Church's field the seeds of wheaten faith; very unjust and improper would it be, that we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of wheat, should gather the counterfeit error of cockle. This rather is right and reasonable, that, without discrepancy between the first and the last, from the successive growths of the original wheat, we also should reap a harvest of wheaten doctrine; so that whilst there is some evolution in course of time from those first seminal principles (cum aliquid ex illis seminum primordiis accessu temporis evolvatur), and it is now fertilised and improved, yet nothing be changed from the nature of the germ: though there be added outward shape and appearance (species), form, distinction, yet the nature of each kind remain still the same. For God forbid that the rose-gardens of Catholic sense should be turned to thistles and thorns. God forbid, I say, that in this spiritual paradise, from shoots of cinnamon and balsam, should suddenly sprout forth darnel and wolf's-bane. Whatever then has been sown in the Church, the husbandry of God, by the faith of our fathers, let this same flourish and ripen, let this same make progress and be brought to perfection. For right it is that those pristine doctrines of heavenly philosophy should in process of time be worked up, finished, and polished; but it is most wrong that they should be changed about, most wrong that they should be maimed and mutilated. Let them, by all means, receive evidence, light, distinction, but they must keep their fulness, integrity, and what naturally belongs to them. . . .
"But the Church of Christ, a careful and wary keeper of the doctrines committed to her charge, never changes anything in them, diminishes nothing, adds nothing: what is necessary she takes not away, what is superfluous she puts not on, loses not her own, usurps not what belongs to others; but with all industry, takes pains about this one thing alone, viz., that by faithful and prudent handling of what is old — should there be some things of old time rough-cast and inchoate (si qua sunt illa antiquitus informata et inchoata), she may bestow care on, and polish them; if things are already expressed and enucleated, she may consolidate and strengthen them; if they are already confirmed and defined, she may guard them.
"What else, in fact, has the Church laboured for by the decrees of Councils, but that what before was simply believed, should later on be more carefully believed, that what was before more sluggishly preached, should later on be preached with greater instance; that what was before reverenced with too much unconcern, might later on be reverenced with more solicitude? This, I say, and nought else but this, has the Church, when stirred up by the novelties of heretics, effected through the decrees of Councils, namely, that what she had before received from those of old (a majoribus) by tradition alone, the same she has consigned, for those who came afterwards, in written forms also (etiam per scripturae chirographum), thus comprising a large sum of matters in few words of writing, and, for the most part, on account of the clearer light in which the doctrine was now understood, designating it — though in no new sense of faith — by a specific and new appellation (et plerumque propter intelligentiae lucem, non novum fidei sensum novae appellationis proprietate signando)."¹²
"If he (Tindale) will say that sometimes the doctors which we call holy saints have not agreed in one, but some have sometimes thought in some one thing otherwise than others have done, then his saying is nothing to the purpose. For God doth reveal His truths not always in one manner, but sometimes He showeth it out at once, as He will have it known, and men bound forthwith to believe it, as He showed Moses what He would have Pharao do. Sometimes He showeth it leisurely, suffering His flock to commune and dispute thereon, and in their treating of the matter suffereth them with good mind, and Scripture, and natural wisdom, with invocation of His spiritual help, to search and seek for the truth, and to vary for the while in their opinions, till that He reward their virtuous diligence with leading them secretly into the consent and concord, and belief of the truth by His Holy Spirit, qui facit unanimes in domo (Ps. lxvii. 7), 'which maketh His flocks in one mind in His House, that is, to wit, His Church.' So that in the meantime the variance is without sin, and maketh nothing against the evidence of the Church, except Tindale will say that he will neither believe S. Peter nor S. Paul in anything that they teach, because that once they varied in the manner of their doctrine as appeareth (Gal. ii. 11-14)."¹³
Footnotes
1. Ephes. iii. 5, 7.
2. The following from Endell Tyler shows how ill Protestants generally understand, and consequently misrepresent the teaching of Catholics on doctrinal development: "The Almighty, they [Catholics] allege, did not impart to mankind the whole truth in all its fulness at the first preaching of the Gospel, but bequeathed to His Church the privilege of deriving from Him and communicating to the world successive revelations of essential doctrine. Consequently (they proceed to argue), it is not enough to show that a tenet is not found in Scripture, nor even in the early Church, to warrant its rejection. It may, they say, have pleased God to reveal it in His own good time, and of the reality of that revelation the Church is the only judge: from her there is no appeal." — The Worship of the B.V.M. in the Church of Rome, etc., Introduction, p. xvi.
3. See the Bulls of Pius IX., Ineffabilis Deus and Aeterni Patris.
4. The Dublin Review, Jan. 1869.
5. See Change in Faith, or Development. A Critical Exposition of S. Vincent of Lerins's "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus," by C. Tondini de Quarengi, Barnabite. London, Hodges, 1881. From which we have here made some extracts.
6. Patr. Lat. tom. 60, p. 639.
7. Ib. ii. p. 649.
8. Ib. ii. 29, p. 677.
9. Ib. 4-6, pp. 641-646.
10. Ib. 32, p. 683.
11. 1 Tim. vi. 20.
12. Common., ii., Ib.
13. Blessed Thomas More, Confutation of Tindale, Works, 456. Wisdom and Wit, p. 108, by Rev. T. E. Bridgett, C.SS.R., Burns and Oates, 1892.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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Chapter III. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
Causes of Development of Christian Doctrine in the Church.
We saw in the last chapter that the entire revelation of Christian doctrine was given once for all exclusively to the Apostles, and by them deposited in the Church, which was constituted by Christ to be for all time the sure guardian and infallible organ of Divine truth. It hence follows that the theology of the Catholic Church must be ever substantially the same as that of the Apostles. Consequently in the Church's progressive teaching no development can have place that is what we termed objective, or accretive to Apostolic doctrine; but *[the scan is badly garbled here; the sense appears to be:]* whatever development is discoverable must be such only as is subjective, and non-accretive to the original Deposit. Development of this latter sort there has certainly been both in Christian doctrine and worship. This is plain to every one who reads the page of the Church's history during her well-nigh nineteen centuries of existence. Development in this sense is, indeed, so prominently marked, as to appear to many who look only on the surface, as though it were a real change and variation from the original type. Thus we know that certain doctrines now stand in a very different relation as regards the faithful from that which they once held; so that what were formerly considered to be matters of theological opinion, and more or less open to discussion, have been since defined to be revealed articles of Catholic faith. Doctrines and religious practices, moreover, which, so far at least as extant ancient records bear witness, were but little noticed or entirely unknown in earlier times, have, under new aspects, been since brought into prominence with large expansion, and, having obtained fresh motives and sanctions, are now universally embraced by the people's faith and devotion.
The fact, then, of such doctrinal development being conceded, the question arises: How is it to be accounted for? What are its causes? Why, in other words, should there have been any such development at all? Why, rather, should not the exhibition of Christian doctrine and devotion have appeared uniformly one and the same at all times from the beginning?
Many reasons might be adduced to account, in part at least, for a certain reserve during the first centuries of Christianity and also for a subsequent corresponding development in religious teaching. Of these we shall notice what appear to us to be the principal.
1. There was in primitive times what was called the discipline of the secret (disciplina arcani), whereby, especially for the sake of reverence, a reserve was practised in the public teaching of the faith, and certain portions of the Church's system were held back, lest by their publicity holy things should be profaned by the heathen, and catechumens be prematurely initiated in the more sacred Christian mysteries. This reserve, as time went on, became neither useful nor practicable; and hence the Christian religion showed itself later on in a more developed form.¹
2. It was simply impossible to explain fully and set forth in detail the whole circle of revealed truths all at once from the beginning. Considerable time was necessary for such exhibition. *[the scan is badly garbled here; the sense appears to be:]* The Apostles and those who succeeded them, from an unwillingness to burden new converts, would in their preaching and instruction propose and insist upon those truths first of all which were most essential, as belonging to the substance of the Christian faith, and most important for practice; whilst they would touch lightly on accessory truths as being less necessary to be explicitly known, or would hold them in reserve for some more favourable occasion. They would on the other hand, where special circumstances required it, dwell on certain secondary points of doctrine with greater stress and more at length than their intrinsic importance might seem to demand.
3. We must hold that wherever the Apostles preached, they instructed their converts sufficiently in the faith by their oral teaching, and left *[the scan is badly garbled here; the sense appears to be:]* an adequate deposit of doctrine in the several churches they founded. Still, we can see from S. Paul's Epistles how much had remained to be supplemented, and how the implicit teaching that he had imparted on various points of doctrine needed to be afterwards explained and further developed. The Apostle is frequently led to dwell in his Epistles upon certain matters which the circumstances of those to whom he wrote made it more needful to explain. He solves their objections and difficulties, and answers the questions they had raised. But how many more inquiries might they not have proposed had their doctrinal investigation been more extended, and their theological science more profound. And how many other things might he not have said by way of more fully explaining those revealed truths which he had taught them less explicitly in his oral instructions. Now this is precisely what the Church has been continually doing by her definitions of faith, the teaching of her doctors and theologians, and through her ordinary Magisterium.
We should hold that the Apostles had the fullest knowledge both extensively and intensively of Christian truth. No theologian to the end of time will ever know more than they did. To affirm that any in after time could have a more explicit faith than the Apostles, would, as Suarez teaches, be temerarious.²
4. We should bear in mind that Christianity is not some abstract philosophy, the truth of which may be passively accepted by a merely intellectual assent; but that its doctrines — even those accounted the more speculative — become, when appropriated by the mind and heart, principles of moral energy, and a vital force, which entering into all manner of human action have power to influence man's will and direct his conduct, not only personally as an individual, but also in all his relations, domestic, social, and political.³ The Christian religion is, moreover, intended for the whole world, to be universal as to place and time, and is hence capable of application to all mankind under every variety of circumstance and condition, whether of age, country, or civilisation; and this variety is to go on increasing and multiplying until the end of time. Hence Christianity will, in a manner, appear outwardly diverse, as it is viewed under different aspects, and seen clothed with various accidental forms. But, in truth, "it changes with them in order to remain the same." Whatever change there may be, is not of Christianity itself, but one of appearance only, through the application of its original doctrines and principles to new cases. Development here there is, but it is not accretive.
We might, indeed, allow that there is here an accretive development in such sense, that the fresh cases and new circumstances for application must first achieve their actual existence, and be brought into direct contact with the doctrines and principles of Christianity, before these can be really operative, and attain their natural result. In order to test the force and extension of any great principle — that it may have fair play, and show its normal development — it must have an adequate sphere for its operation, together with such events and circumstances in the passage of time as shall call it into proper action, and duly test its power. Thus the Primacy conferred by Christ upon S. Peter and his successors was unable to attain its normal exercise, nor could the fulness and extent of its power be adequately gauged and verified in the life-time of the prince of the Apostles, or under the Popes during the age of persecution. To show itself normally, and in full development, it needed for its exercise a field of operation in some way proportioned to its universal jurisdiction, where it might bear influence on the world at large, and measure its supernatural force with human opposition of every kind, whether arising from the jealousy of secular Christian princes, the rivalry of ambitious prelates, the wily deceits of heresy and false philosophy, or the resistance of disobedient Catholics.
5. There is order in all things that exist. This principle holds good for the supernatural mysteries of revelation, as well as for the truths that fall naturally within the range of human reason. For any series of objective verities to become subjective truth to us, that is to say, that they may be adequately apprehended by the intelligence, assimilated to the mind, and recognised by us as true, due order must be observed in their proposition, conception, and discussion. What is of a prior order will claim to be proposed, accepted, weighed, analysed, and settled, before what comes after in order. Hence certain truths and principles must appear first in the field, to be worked out in their details, and verified in their results, before others. They will consequently be seen in full development earlier than others. For as in objective truths themselves there is a gradation of ontological order, so also in the subjective process of their intellectual development, and of their outward manifestation, there is a subordination of logical sequence.
This principle is strikingly exemplified by the history of doctrinal development in the Catholic Church. Thus the controversies and dogmatic definitions, which stand out first and most prominently in the early centuries of Christianity, are such as bear upon the primary truths of the origin and nature of good and evil, Creation, the Nature of God, His Trinity in Unity, the Eternal Godhead and twofold Nature of the Incarnate Word, the Divine Personality of the Holy Ghost, and the grace of Redemption. These primary mysteries were the first to receive explicit development. Many other revealed truths, accessory to the Faith, had long to bide their time for their more full elucidation: and, meanwhile, their teaching remained more or less implicit. Amongst these was the Church's complete doctrinal teaching concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary.
6. But quite apart from this intrinsic principle of order, there were also extrinsic reasons why the first teachers of Christianity had to use reserve in setting forth certain doctrines and practices, which, later on, were explicitly taught, and universally sanctioned by the Church.
We mean: there were some points of the New Testament revelation, which — relatively to the circumstances of those to whom the faith was preached in the first ages of the Church — it did not consist with Christian prudence, to bring all at once into prominence, and to insist upon explicitly in detail everywhere, and at all times. These were, of course, truths accessory to the faith, and not such as belonged to its substance. Amongst them were especially, certain doctrinal results and practical consequences flowing from the whole mystery of the Incarnation, and the glorified Humanity of the Eternal Word: for example, the dignity and prerogatives of Mary, His ever-Virgin Mother; the honour and devotion due to her, to the Angels and Saints; the power of their intercession; the practice of venerating and invoking them; the religious use of images and pictures representing the Word Incarnate, and the Saints in glory.
Here we should take into account the gross ideas and materialistic habits of thought with regard to all things religious that were everywhere prevalent, and which must have had a strong hold on those to whom the Gospel was first preached. Heathen mythology, idolatry, the worship of heroes and demigods, sceptical philosophy, sensual literature, and general corruption of morals, all combined to foster this depraved state of thought. Evidently, then, the first duty and work of the Christian teacher was to disenthral souls from their mental bondage, to purify, enlighten, refine, and elevate their spiritual sense, by indoctrinating them first of all with the supernaturalness, and distinctive spirituality of the Christian Faith. All the world, at that period needed to be converted from its degraded notions of the divinity into which it had sunk, to the idea of the One true God; as self-existing from eternity, of an infinitely glorious nature and being — a pure Spirit, incorporeal, absolutely perfect, All Holy, Almighty, All-wise, All-good, the Creator, Sustainer, and Sovereign Lord of all things visible and invisible; the Source and Reason of all created being, goodness, beauty and truth; the Supreme Lord, most just Lawgiver, Judge and Recompenser of all men, and also their most Merciful Father, their Last End, and All-sufficient Saviour.
We should also bear in mind that the early converts to Christianity were still surrounded by their former co-religionists, on the one hand, Jews, inheriting all the exclusive traditions of their race and nation; Gentiles, on the other, cleaving to their Pagan superstitions: and that it was from these two elements alike fresh accessions to the Faith were hoped to be made.
If, then, it was a duty of charity to consult largely the prejudices of those who had always been accustomed to the restrictive enactments of the Mosaic law, as we know the Apostles did, it was none the less clearly incumbent upon all those who were responsible for preserving untainted the religion of Jesus Christ, to guard it from the risk of any admixture of the anthropomorphic tendencies so rife in the ancient Pagan world. Hence, obviously, it would not have been consistent with Christian prudence to set forth very prominently before the first Christians the cultus of the Saints, or to tolerate — much less to encourage — generally, the use of Images in public worship, while there was any appreciable danger of such representations of Christ and His Saints being abused by half-instructed neophytes. And so also in other cognate matters.
7. We remark, moreover, that religious devotions and pious practices, which afterwards became popular and were sanctioned by the Church, did not show themselves with any prominence in early times until the dogmas upon which they were based had been themselves set forth explicitly, and authoritatively defined. A doctrine must first be adequately apprehended, and distinctly believed, before the religious practice or devotion to which it gives rise will gain a hold on and become familiar to the faithful. This will explain what is noticeable in the Fathers, that whereas they dwell frequently on the glory and intercessory power of the Saints in heaven, hardly anything is to be found in their earlier writings on the duty or practice of praying to them, and very few examples are recorded by them of such invocation. For that matter, the same might be said as a general rule, even of prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ, and still more, to the Holy Ghost.
Cardinal Newman in stating an argument of the Anglican bishop, Butler, which is of force here, writes as follows:
"As principles imply applications, and general propositions include particulars, so Butler tells us, do certain relations imply correlative duties, and certain objects demand certain acts and feelings. He observes that even though we were not enjoined to pay Divine honours to the Second and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity, what is predicated of Them in Scripture would be an abundant warrant, an indirect command, nay, a ground in reason for doing so. 'Does not,' he asks, 'the duty of religious regards to both these Divine Persons as immediately arise to the view of reason out of the very nature of their offices and relations, as the inward good-will and kind intention which we owe to our fellow-creatures, arises out of the common relations between us and them?' He proceeds to say that he is speaking of the inward religious regards of reverence, honour, love, trust, gratitude, fear, hope. 'In what external manner this inward worship is to be expressed, is a matter of pure revealed command; but the worship, the internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost, is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they stand in to us are matter of pure revelation; for, the relations being known the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of reason, arising out of those relations themselves.' Here is a development of doctrine into worship, of which parallel instances are obviously to be found in the Church of Rome."⁴
The Cardinal says later on:
"Worship, then, is the necessary correlative of glory: and in the same sense in which created natures can share in the Creator's incommunicable glory, are they also allowed a share of that worship which is His property alone."⁵
8. We should not fail to remember all along, as we pursue our inquiry, that the doctrinal and devotional development in the first centuries of which we can now take any note, must not be put down for certain as precisely that which then actually had place amongst the faithful, but is such only as we can now discover from the extant records of antiquity. The works of the Fathers that have come down to us are comparatively few. Many of them have perished. Those that survive are not generally of such a character and scope, as would lead us to expect that we should find in them much information on details of popular devotion and piety. They deal for the most part with larger topics, the refutation of heresies and the vindication of the orthodox doctrine, Scriptural exegesis; or it is sermons preached on greater occasions, or discourses and treatises on special subjects, moral and religious. It is rare to find in them anything that bears directly on the devout habits and pious practices of the faithful, or that would portray and illustrate the ordinary Christian in the family and society. Here or there something to the point appears in the writings of one or other Father: but it is an isolated trait, or a passing allusion, suggestive, rather than enlightening. The monuments and inscriptions in the Catacombs throw, perhaps, more light on the modes of religious thought, devotions and practices of piety in fashion amongst the early Christians, than all the patristic works of the first three or four centuries. S. Ephrem may be said to stand alone in this respect, amongst all the Fathers of that period whose writings have come down to us. He was a zealous and successful missionary preacher, whose fervid eloquence was in its matter and style at touch with the people. In his popular sermons, prayers are frequently addressed to the Saints, and exhortations to his hearers to invoke them. But we must wait for the writings of John Moschus, and S. Gregory of Tours, at the close of the sixth century, before we can find stories and anecdotes in any number that serve to illustrate the popular faith and practical devotion of the primitive Church in this matter. We say, in any number, for one or other is related by earlier Fathers. Here, however, we should not omit to take account of the Apocryphal writings belonging to the third or fourth centuries — some of them, perhaps, even to the second — which doubtless represent in great measure the popular sentiment, and are its outcome; as well as other records, such as the Acts of the early Martyrs, which, though drawn up in their present form at a later date, were derived in great part, at any rate, from original coeval documents, or from very ancient sources, that were still extant at the time of their compilation.
Chapter IV. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
Its Process Examined.
The reasons hitherto adduced to account for the development of Christian doctrine have been in the main extrinsic, derived from the special circumstances and influences that surrounded the preaching of the Faith in the first ages of the Church. What we are now to deal with is, rather, intrinsic and psychological, being drawn from a consideration of objective ideas in their contact with the intelligence, and their relation to mental cognition; and how, so far as they are thus assimilated to the human mind, they form the matter of its subjective thought, and are capable of intellectual development.
We may define such intellectual development of an idea to be a process of reflection, whereby what has been received and apprehended implicitly by the thought is unfolded, and becomes explicitly known to the mind.
Hence, it would seem to be an essential condition for any true development that the object on which it is exercised should be previously so presented to, and really seized by the intellect, as to form a distinct idea in the mind on which it may work. In proportion to the completeness and force of the subjective idea, and its correspondence with the objective truth, or the object which it represents, so far will it contain matter for and be capable of genuine intellectual development.
The implicit idea we have of any object is, of its nature, a totality or single whole, being commensurate with the object so far as it has been apprehended. Such an idea may be shadowy and imperfect, or it may be clear and full; but in any case it is simple, and holds a definite place of its own in the mind. We may, if we will, leave it alone as it is; or we may reflect upon it, analyse it, and thus begin to develop it. In this process we go, so to say, round and about it, examining it from different points of view and in varying lights; comparing its several parts and aspects one with another, and these again with the integral whole; we bring in other cognate ideas and knowledge from outside, for comparison and contrast, to aid us in our survey; and take note of such results as we have found obviously to flow from the whole idea and the various views we have taken of it. In this way we have formed in our mind a number of concepts arising out of the simple idea, and on them we must pass some judgment. Thus, on the one hand, the idea remains present to our mind as it was originally, a simple whole, corresponding to our first implicit apprehension of the object; whilst, on the other hand, it appears broken up into its integral parts, that is to say, into a number of particular concepts. These concepts, even of one and the same idea, as also the judgments that may be passed on them, will vary in different minds, according to the more or less true and adequate apprehension that was first formed of the object, the amount of reflection and intelligence brought to bear on the idea, the aspects in which it was viewed, as well as the character or bias of individual minds.
This analysis, or resolution of an idea into its component parts or concepts, is the first stage in the process of development. The other is synthetical,⁶ and consists first in the verification of the concepts, as really belonging to, and normally evolved from the original implicit idea; then, in passing judgment upon them, determining their relative place and importance; and in fitting them together again in harmony one with another and with the whole original idea as an integral unity.
Let us apply this to development of Christian doctrine. All truths of Christianity, so far as they are of Catholic faith, have their source in the exposition that was first given of them by the Apostles to whom they were originally and exclusively revealed. That exposition was definite, as also was the knowledge of revealed doctrines which the Church thence received. This faith once for all delivered to the Saints⁷ can admit of no addition or diminution. It hence follows that all subsequent definitions of faith must have been really contained in the explicit teaching of the Apostles, whether oral or written, and were really and adequately known by their successors, at least implicitly. This means that the several verities of faith were given in their totality or whole, and that their integral parts were from the first either explicitly taught, or were held implicitly, as being really contained in the whole. So also were they apprehended and delivered in their totality by the Apostles' successors, and handed down by Tradition.
But because such apprehension was implicit, no argument can thence be drawn that it was small.
"The Apostles having received their knowledge of these doctrines by immediate inspiration, apprehended them with immeasurably greater fulness and keenness than are obtainable by an ordinary uninspired Catholic of that or any later period."⁸
"That the later doctors of the Church," says Suarez, "were wiser than the Apostles in faith, or possessed more explicit faith than the Apostles . . . is a proposition commonly reprobated by theologians as even temerarious. For to them especially it was that Jesus Christ promised: He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you; and, again, All things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you. . . .⁹ This is plain from reason also: for they were the teachers of the faith of the New Testament, and, therefore, the Church's faith is said to be founded on that of the Apostles. This faith cannot, consequently, be greater in the Church than it was in them."¹⁰
"We may distinguish," continues Suarez, "a twofold order of propositions, which, in course of time, came to be explicitly believed. Thus, some belong, so to say, to the substance of the mysteries: as, for example, in the mystery of the Incarnation, that Christ had two wills; and in the mystery of the Eucharist, that the substance of bread does not remain after the consecration. Truths of this sort, we must believe, were known by the Apostles, not implicitly only, but explicitly: since they had excellent understanding of the Scriptures, and of all mysteries appertaining to the tradition of faith. But there are other contingent propositions which, in the Apostles' time, had never come to pass, as, for instance, that this is the true Pontiff, that this is a true Council, and the like. Now it was not necessary that propositions of this kind should be known to the Apostles explicitly. It was enough that they should be known to them in general; for there was no need that all future things should be revealed to them."¹¹
"Some writers use terms which imply that the first steps in the process of doctrinal development must be despicably small. Of course, such expressions as germs and seeds are perfectly allowable; but, if they are employed to exaggerate the imperfection of Christian theology, they are dangerous and false. The very peculiarity of Christian development is, that the stream is broadest at its source. No theologian to the end will know more than the Apostles. Nay, there is nothing in the nature of the case to prevent the knowledge possessed by their immediate successors from being better in kind than that of subsequent theologians. This is historically borne out by the facts of the progress of Christian dogma. The enunciations of the earliest writers on our Lord's Godhead are more downright and unequivocal than those of the Fathers who followed them. Who ever found fault with S. Clement and S. Ignatius? It is with the Apologists that the difficulties begin. So it is with our Lady. The doctrine of S. Irenaeus and of the author of the Second Epistle to Diognetus is far higher than that of Origen."¹²
"Doctrines," writes Fr. Dalgairns, "were delivered whole, and their growth is a process of evolution by which the hidden harmony of the parts is rendered visible, though all those parts were previously taught or implicitly held. The development consists in bringing to light by reflection what was spontaneously believed before. It is the unfolding of an idea, which was given whole. Christian truths were thus planted whole like the trees in paradise; they grew, they unfolded blossoms, and they developed into fruit, but they never sprang from seed. If the principle is to be of any scientific use, we must not be content with indistinct germs, any more than we could hope to satisfy a man who asked for an oak, by showing him an acorn."¹³
Here a difficulty at once arises. How are we to account for the fact, that individual Fathers, some of them of great name and weight, have expressed themselves on certain points of doctrine — now believed as of faith, and consequently from the beginning forming part of the revealed deposit — in terms quite inconsistent with subsequent definitions of the Church? For thus did not only suspected writers like S. Hippolytus and Origen, but even S. Dionysius of Alexandria, with regard to the Consubstantiality of the Divine Word, and, later on, S. Bernard and S. Thomas, with regard to the Immaculate Conception.
Our explanation is, that the hesitations and conflicting statements of such Fathers were scientific; that is to say, they arose not from a false idea of the truth of faith as a whole, but from a difficulty in harmonising a certain mode of conceiving it — or the concept they had formed on some point of it — with some other concept, or portion of the whole. Thus S. Dionysius denied the ὁμοούσιον as the mode of conceiving truly, and as a term rightly expressing the idea of faith, viz., the Godhead of the Divine Word, though, as such, it was afterwards solemnly defined by the Church. Here his scientific theology was at fault, not his implicit faith in the mystery as a whole. He did not see how the concept of Consubstantiality could accord with the real distinction between the Father and the Son, and with the whole idea of the Divine Truth of the Trinity. In like manner the hesitation of S. Thomas was scientific: he could not understand how Mary's Immaculate Conception could be reconciled with her real redemption.
The great primary truths of Christian revelation delivered by the Apostles would at first, we conceive, hold their place in the Church, and be impressed on the minds and hearts of the faithful, as simple whole ideas in broad outline, and thus, too, would be set forth by the earliest teachers. In this shape they were, with the aid of supernatural faith, adequately apprehended, and were expressed very much in the general terms used by the Apostles. As, however, each mystery came in turn to be meditated and reflected upon, new thoughts began to open out, fresh aspects of the truth to present themselves, so that what before was conceived as a whole and simple, now appeared manifold. Then, the various emerging doctrinal views were discussed and put to the proof of scientific analysis by theologians; their mutual coherence, their bearing one upon another, and their orthodoxy were tested; whilst, to meet difficulties and discrepancies that arose, differing opinions and judgments were hazarded, together with divers methods for combination and agreement. Thus, it is easy to understand how individual Fathers, whilst still retaining their implicit hold of a revealed truth in its orthodox sense as a whole, might be led to form wrong judgments and make erroneous statements on this or that particular point of it which had not yet been formally settled by the Church.
In the case of the early Fathers we have, moreover, to take account of circumstances of time and country, and the bias they might have received, whether from some influential school of philosophy, or from their opposition to certain prevalent errors.
This, too, will explain how Fathers, in whose writings are found erroneous or imperfect statements on certain doctrines which have since been defined to be dogmas of faith, were not on that account ranked as unorthodox or heretical; and have not lost the otherwise high repute in which they were held by the Church. But here we should remark that when any particular Father thus erred, his doctrinal view was opposed to the general current of Catholic tradition, to the more common religious sense of the faithful, and especially to the uniform teaching of the Roman Church.
It is, indeed, very noteworthy, that in the various controversies that have successively arisen within the Catholic Church — whether between particular Churches, or amongst theologians — e.g., on the Paschal question, heretical baptism, and penance, the ὁμοούσιον, the Filioque, the Immaculate Conception, and Papal Infallibility, Rome has uniformly proposed and defended that view of the question, which in course of time has with universal sanction been approved as the truth, or has been so decided by a General Council. With regard to other particular Churches, one portion of Apostolic teaching might survive in vigour, but not another; whereas in Rome the entire original tradition of faith ever remained intact. Hence, when speaking of the doctrinal authority of Rome, Tertullian exclaims:
"That Church, how happy! into which the Apostles poured out all their doctrine together with their blood."¹⁴
The doctrinal judgments of individual Fathers and Doctors arrived at by theological discussion and scientific analysis, are of themselves fallible. The Church alone, through the voice of her chief Pastor, or in General Council, can pronounce infallibly a definitive sentence as to their truth, and on their relation to the deposit of faith. These judgments she sifts, some of them she approves and accepts, others she condemns and rejects. In this way the former make part of that normal and true doctrinal development which must necessarily have place in the teaching of a living moral body, such as the Catholic Church is.
An authoritative definition of some particular scientific analysis of a doctrine, that is to say, of the right mode of scientific thought on a theological truth, as, for example, the ὁμοούσιον, or the Immaculate Conception, is no new dogma in an accretive sense. It is to be regarded as an infallible exposition of an already divinely revealed truth, necessary for its protection from erroneous teaching, and inseparable from its right mode of belief. Whilst it is an addition to the knowledge of very many Christians, it is no addition to the original deposit of faith. This was delivered entire to the Apostles, and has never changed. What the Church does by her progressive teaching, is to elucidate its contents, as occasion demands, for the profit of the faithful. For such authoritative development on the part of the Church, the opinions, discussions, controversies and teachings of Fathers, doctors and theologians prepare the way. When the Church has once given her decision on the point in dispute, the matter is set at rest for ever and can never again be brought into question. All the diverse views of particular doctors, and the fluctuating judgments of individual theologians are then at an end. The doctrine is removed from the sphere of theological opinion to be a dogma of faith. The infallible Church of Christ can never reverse her ruling. Her negative can never become an affirmative: what she has once affirmed cannot again be denied. Thus through her definition there is made a formal accession to doctrinal development, and to the explicit faith of Catholics. That such development is her own proper office, and has been from the beginning her constant care, is expressly declared in the Bulls, Ineffabilis, which defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the Aeterni Patris, which summoned the Vatican Council.
If, then, we regard the development of Christian doctrine as a result, progressively realised in the more explicit teaching and belief of divinely revealed truths, it may be defined to be an aggregate of judgments normally evolved out of ideas that were conveyed as integral unities by the teaching of the Apostles, and which judgments have been guaranteed as infallibly true by the Divine authority of the Catholic Church.
Appendix.
The following from the pen of the Rev. J. B. Morris very appositely illustrates the matter treated of in the foregoing chapter:
"If the parts of so vast a system as that of the Gospel is, appeared, after all the pains which reason enlightened by faith could bestow upon it, still to be inconsistent, even then such inconsistency would not be a sufficient ground for rejecting it. A system professing, as that of the Church's teaching does, to come from God, if rejected, must not be rejected for what to weak mortals appeared internal inconsistencies, but for want of sufficient external evidences.
"But as the case at present stands, there is the greatest internal consistency in the Catholic system to the patient and close observer of it; and especially between the doctrine of the Incarnation and the veneration we pay to the Mother of God. Now though internal consistency when bereft of external proof may be worth very little, as certain systems of philosophy may perhaps prove, still it can scarce be made a question that when there is some sort of external proof, the internal consistency will to the generality form an additional proof. For people would not object to a system, 'that it is inconsistent,' if they did not feel that consistency was some sort of proof. . . . If it appears that a correct (though partial) idea of our doctrine of the Incarnation paves the way to our doctrine and practice in regard to our Lady, then the internal connection between the two will be seen and acknowledged. What I am insisting on here is, that the former paves the way to the latter, to which I wish to draw particular attention, for reasons I shall now proceed to state.
"The Catholic belief on either point may be regarded either as a thing felt in the heart of Christians from the first, or as a thing systematically treated of by polemical divines. It is plain that the first of these must have existed before the last. What Protestants suppose is, that if the first really existed, it must in the course of five centuries have shown itself visibly and unmistakably in the latter. What our divines often reply is, that so many documents are lost, that we cannot estimate the contents of the mind of the Church from the contents of those which remain. It might be added, that if God, who can show the unknown future in a vision, were in a vision to show us the unknown past, we should find early Christians devout to Mary, as well as Christians of this day. This is what I suppose both parties to feel in the matter. Now to take away in limine an objection, which may be felt to taking the Catholic theory, where, from defect of documents, all is guess-work, let the following observations be attended to.
"The doctrine of the Church, like its subject-matter, stands alone and without parallel in the world. Therefore all illustrations of it will necessarily be imperfect; still the following shall be hazarded. A person who is master of a language, knows what the genius of that language requires by a perception indistinguishable from intuition. This perception he shares with others who knew the same language hundreds of years before him. Neither they nor he could communicate it to persons external to that language. In order to do this, recourse must be had to grammar rules and other subsequent inventions, calculated indeed to convey some idea of that language to others, but wholly inadequate to transferring to the mind of a foreigner that delicate sense of what the genius of each language requires which belongs to a native. Hence most persons have heard narrow-minded persons extol in turns every language of Europe as the finest language in the world, according as these last happen from birth or habituation to have gained an insight into the genius of any particular language. But suppose a person to have found that the grammarians of any nation had remodelled their statements, introduced by degrees rules entirely new, and in appearance contradictory to the positive assertions of their predecessors; suppose that these grammarians even differed materially with one another as to the right mode of stating things, and that in consequence the person spoken of should complain that the language had entirely changed its genius since the time of the former grammarians, a native would reply to him that the genius of the language to his eyes was as palpably as possible the very same it had always been, but that he (who complained), having only such a crude idea of it as grammars and dictionaries could give him, could not possibly have that delicate sense implied by speaking of 'entering into the genius of a language.' It was this [intuitive sense], the native would say — and not those [grammars and dictionaries] — which enabled himself to identify the genius of the language even in the earliest authors. Nevertheless, he might frankly admit that, though its personal identity remained full and entire, the philosophical labours of the philologian had had a certain reflex action on its entirety.
"Apply this to the Catholic religion: if there are early traces of identity of belief, they may be invisible, except to the eye of a Catholic, but perfectly clear to him. For an immense number of minute expressions, observations, and practices prove to him, that the genius of his faith is what it always was. It subsisted antecedently to the polemical and dogmatical works in which it is stated, and independently of them. Whatever influence they have exerted on it, has been that of a favoured slave, not of a master, or equal. If you cannot find the same language about the Incarnation in the four first centuries, as was found in the four subsequent ones, so neither can you find in the three first centuries the same language about the Trinity as was issued in the fourth century. If it is absurd to assume that, in spite of difficulties, the same doctrine was held by Gregory Nyssen about the human wisdom of our Lord, as was held by Gregory the Great, then it is absurd to assume that Clement of Alexandria had the same idea of a hypostasis in the Trinity as Basil had. A Brahmin, if he were to study Christian doctrine historically, would be nearly sure to think the Trinity, of which the name rarely occurs in early writers, a novelty of the third century; and, if he argued as Protestants do, would conclude that the thing was new also. If he looked to the consistency of the thing, he might see that the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century paved the way to the doctrine of the Incarnation in the fifth, and this again to the veneration of Mary. . . .
"In Christian doctrine there is this most remarkable and probably wholly unparalleled phenomenon. The writers of the eighteenth century hold everything positive which was held by the writers of the sixteenth, and these again all that was held by those before them, and so on as far as any documents will carry us. One century after another deduced its own conclusions from premisses unwittingly supplied it by its predecessor. Now, supposing the Church to have the whole sum of doctrine before her at the first, this is intelligible: supposing her not to have had it (as Protestants assert), then it does not appear that this coherence or consistency of doctrine could be brought about by anything but design; such design cannot be denied without denying in principle final causes altogether. Either Almighty God, who knew, in the fifth century, what would be wanted in subsequent ones, so taught His Church the Incarnation as to pave the way to the recognition of Mary's privileges, or the Church did it by chance. Either God is a liar, when He promises to be with His Church to the end of days; or, let God be true, and men are liars when they deny this evidence of a wise designer. When the Church, in making statements about the Trinity, paved the way to her subsequent teaching about the Incarnation or Double Procession, and laid down principles admirably suited to the proof of these, she acted, we say, by a Divine instinct. But when, with the same appearance of foresight, in discussing the Incarnation, Predestination, or Grace, she laid down principles admirably suited to prove the Immaculate Conception and dignity of Mary, she acted, you [Protestants] ought to say, by a diabolical delusion. An unprejudiced philosopher would regard the one as much as the other as an instance either of organic growth of doctrine, or gradual display of things secretly known. 'The faith,' says Leo, 'which is but one, cannot be in anything unlike itself.'¹⁵
"Neither is this altogether a novel view of things, as will appear from the following passage from one of Pope Gelasius's Letters, written in the fifth century: 'Whatever our Catholic ancestors and learned bishops, in the case of every heresy that came up on each occasion, once sanctioned in a Council in defence of the Catholic and Apostolic truth and communion, following the track of Scripture and the preaching of their ancestors, that they would have ever after to continue unshaken and settled; nor did they, upon one and the same subject, allow that points, before fixed, should, on the score of any novel presumption, be handled over again; most wisely foreseeing, that, if anybody and everybody had leave to retrace things once soberly decreed, the Church would have no fixed constitution against any single error whatever, and every sound definition would be perpetually liable to disturbance from the recurrence of the same phrensies. For, however clear the truth might be made, there is never wanting a something for mischievous falsehood to bring forward, deficient though it may be in reasons or authorities, yet through mere contentiousness, refusing to give in. And this our ancestors, by Divine inspiration beholding, necessarily took precaution that what the synod, collected against each heresy, had promulgated in behalf of the faith, that they would not allow to be mutilated afterwards by being handled over again.'¹⁶ And what is here said of Councils, extends to particular Fathers. If Basil or Athanasius seem in places, when treating of the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, to gainsay subsequent teaching about the wisdom of Christ's soul, still the positions they established about the Consubstantiality remain fixed for ever after. Cyril, Augustine, Leo, or Maximus take them for granted, and reason from them when discussing the Incarnation. In the same way, later writers take the principles of these last for granted, when they reason about the Blessed Virgin. Heretical doctrines, on the contrary, stultify the principles of preceding ages. Thus the doctrine of the single Procession renders the formulas elicited in controversy for expressing the doctrine of the Trinity null and void.
"This kind of argument admits, perhaps, of being worked out at great length: but this book will exhibit it in the single instance of Mary's privileges, considered as flowing from the Incarnation. What is intended is, not to assert that the present devotion to Mary existed in the early ages; that may be so or not: but that the principle on which it is based naturally led to it, and may be assumed to have been intended by God to lead to it. If Protestants allow that it existed, we and Protestants need not be at variance: if we point to proofs of it, they will not see them with our eyes, and, therefore, they shall not be insisted on here. But what is insisted on is, the marvellous consistency between the principles of the Trinitarian controversialists with those of the authors of the fifth and following centuries who wrote on the Incarnation. If the former prophetically supplied the Church with what she wanted, why suppose the latter deprived of the same prophetic gift? God declares that He will pour out doctrine, as prophecy, and the prophets did not know for whom or what they ministered many things.¹⁷ You say, the Fathers knew not Mary: we will grant it, but we insist on your explaining by any human principles, how they paved the way to our teaching upon the subject. We hold all that you can prove they held, and something involved in it, which you cannot prove that they did not hold. You have seen the oracles the Church prophetically uttered of old: why not trust her then to be from God, and believe her in other things to be intended for your guide? If natural religion found an oracle that foretold many things truly, it would make that oracle its practical guide in all.¹⁸ Why then give us ground to think that Protestantism has discarded the religion of nature?"¹⁹
Footnotes
1. "There was a time when Christians only, and not even catechumens, knew what is present on our altars. By degrees, heretics also knew what the Church believed thereon. Now any rationalist philosopher can tell you what is believed by a Catholic when he talks of the Real Presence. Here an order is observed: God taught His Church from the first, what at the last all the world has come to know. God let the awful secret escape, so to speak, by degrees. First, men dreamt a child was slaughtered in the rites of Christians; by degrees they knew something more was there, and of a more mysterious kind; now all men know that we believe that the Flesh and Blood and Soul of God the Son is present on our altars. In a similar way, the body of her from whom He took that flesh was first thought to have been defiled by adultery; then she was thought to have fallen as low as to have other children after God; then she was proclaimed Mother of God; then other titles of honour came before the world; and now heretics and heathens can learn, that we claim for the soul and body of Mary absolute immunity from sin." — J. B. Morris, Jesus, the Son of Mary, vol. ii. p. 365, 1851.
2. Disp. ii. sect. vi. 13: "The Apostles' apprehension of doctrine was keener, more definite, more precise, than any which human words can possibly convey; it was the Holy Ghost's direct impress on their intellect and their heart. They expressed it, however, in words, as best it could be expressed. . . . In communicating the doctrine to their immediate disciples, they would (as all good teachers do) pay special attention to the antecedents, circumstances, acquirements and temperament of those disciples. It is one question, what form of words is in itself the more appropriate, the less inadequate, to convey some sacred idea; it is quite another question, what words would most effectively convey it to this or that particular disciple or body of disciples." — Dublin Review, October, 1865, p. 341.
3. See Newman's Development, pp. 36, 40: "Doctrines expand variously according to the mind, individual or social into which they are received; and the peculiarities of the recipient are the regulating power, the law, the organisation, or, as it may be called, the form of their development. The life of doctrines may be said to consist in the law or principle which they embody" (p. 178).
4. Development, p. 49. The author thus continues: "A development converse to that which Butler speaks of, must next be mentioned. As certain objects excite certain emotions and sentiments, so do sentiments imply objects and duties. Thus conscience, the existence of which we cannot deny, is a proof of the doctrine of a Moral Governor, which alone gives it a meaning and a scope: that is, the doctrine of a Judge and Judgment to come is a development of conscience. . . . And the usage of prayers for the dead implies certain circumstances of their state upon which such devotions bear."
5. Ib., p. 142.
6. "The movement of the inner dialectics by which the mind coins ideas into concepts is essentially one of three stages, thesis, antithesis and synthesis. First comes the rude apprehension of the idea, which is positive; then comes a negative stage, when the judgment analyses its view, sees contradictions in it, and struggles to harmonise them; lastly comes the final harmony, which brings back the confusion to its original unity." — Dublin Review, July, 1869, p. 62.
7. Jude 3.
8. Dublin Review, October, 1866, p. 333.
9. John xiv. 26; xv. 15.
10. De Fide, Disp. ii., sect. 6, n. 10.
11. Ib., n. 18.
12. Dublin Review, Jan., 1869, p. 38.
13. Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, Introduction, p. xlix.
14. De Praescript. 36.
15. Epist. 29, 1.
16. Harduin, ii., p. 906. A passage to the same purpose may be added here from Montagne, alias Tournely, De Gratia, p. 149, ed. Migne: "It is quite possible that matters which were not before proposed to be believed explicitly, should afterwards be so proposed: but the Church's firmness and immobility in her decrees does not permit that she should at one time have required faith of some mystery, and expelled from her bosom those who hold otherwise, and then afterwards allow the same faith to be wiped out."
17. Ecclus. xxiv. 46; 1 Pet. i. 10-12.
18. *[The Greek epigraph here is too badly garbled in the scan to reconstruct reliably.]* The accompanying translation given in the text reads: "Now thou persuadest me: for well I see / Thee many truths divinely uttering, / Nor prophesying falsely. Prithee, then, / Tell me my duty, what I ought to do." — Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, 1516.
19. Jesus, the Son of Mary, etc., by the Rev. John Brande Morris, M.A., 1851, p. i. ch. i. pp. 25-88.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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