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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.
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