Yesterday, 06:59 AM
Chapter II. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
The Christian Revelation was Given Once for All to the Apostles Exclusively. All Subsequent Developments are Non-Accretive, and Contained in the Original Deposit.
The Christian religion is in the strictest and most exclusive sense a Divine revelation, whereby — when in the fulness of time the Incarnate Word appeared — all the former revelations, which had been more or less partial and obscure, were made clear and perfected. So great was the flood of light poured forth by the preaching of the Gospel on the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Redemption of mankind through Jesus Christ, that it was as though these truths were then first revealed. Hence S. Gregory says, that "whereas under the Old Testament the mystery of the Trinity was unknown explicitly save to the more spiritual Fathers, and was hidden from the Jewish people generally; now under the New Testament the faith of the Trinity has grown up in the hearts of all the faithful, and all the nations are taught to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, in whose Name they are baptised." And in regard to the mystery of Redemption, S. Paul could speak of it as the mystery of Christ in other generations not known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets in the Spirit.¹
Besides this fuller revelation of the Trinity and the Incarnation — mysteries which are of the substance of the faith — there were brought to light with the New Dispensation many other truths accessory to the substance of faith, which had not been before revealed, relating especially to the Church of Christ and His law of grace.
The revelation of the whole body of Christian mysteries was made to the Apostles exclusively. To them it was delivered immediately by our Lord Himself, and by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, once for all, full and complete. With them it was closed.
The Apostles were commissioned by Jesus Christ to make known this revelation to the Church, and were at the same time empowered, by means of Divine inspiration, to set forth to others, in due expression and adequate statement, the heavenly truths which they had received. This entire body of revealed doctrine they deposited in the Church. Upon their successors in the office of teaching, who constituted the Ecclesia docens, devolved the duty of transmitting the Apostolic doctrine in its integrity and purity to those who should come after in every generation. To do this work effectually, they were given that special guidance and assistance of the Holy Ghost, which had been promised to them by Christ to continue in His Church until the end of time.
It hence follows that the doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church is always substantially identical with that of the Apostles. In other words, whatever articles the Church has at any time since defined to be of faith by Councils or otherwise, are but developments of truths revealed once for all to the Apostles and by them delivered to her keeping. Such developments, moreover, are made in the sense in which the Apostles themselves held the truths. For no subsequent doctrinal development of the Church is accretive to the original deposit.²
This conclusion holds good not only for all the successive definitions of faith, but also for all such doctrines and devotions as are taught and sanctioned by the Church through her ordinary Magisterium. Indeed, the very fact that a doctrine has been at any time held universally with the sanction of the Church, is of itself a proof, not only that such doctrine is infallibly true, but also in full accord with Apostolic teaching. Since, otherwise, the promise of Christ would be found to have failed, and the gates of hell be shown to have prevailed against His Church.
It is the special office of the Church, as a Divine teacher, to continually unfold, develop and illustrate (explicate, evolvere³) the doctrines contained in the deposit of revelation which she has received from Christ. This she does especially in her Councils by her definitions of faith. In these definitions the Church does not propose to the faithful any new truths, but — guided by the infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost — recalls more distinctly to their remembrance, and more fully explains certain portions of the original deposit. Hence it happens from time to time that certain truths which, because revealed, were always of faith, objectively, or regarded in themselves, being de fide quoad se, become subjectively, through the Church's definition and proposition, formal dogmas of Catholic faith — de fide quoad nos — and as such claim the belief of all Christians. In other words: certain truths — which, as forming part of the revealed deposit, and consequently of the integral Christian faith revealed to the Apostles — were always believed implicitly by the faithful, come in course of time to be believed by them explicitly.
The following quotation from a writer in the Dublin Review will serve to illustrate the matter treated of in this Chapter.
"All subsequent definitions of faith are simply the unravelling of matter given by the Apostles. Their state of mind was quite different from that of their successors. Theirs was what we may call inspiration; after them the teachers of the Church had only that special guidance of the Holy Spirit which was promised them by Christ. The Apostolic teaching, then, was not only the first link in a chain; it was that out of which all developments came, and in which all were implicitly contained. Hence it seems to follow that the Apostles must have had especially in their minds all the future definitions of faith, though not, of course, necessarily in the same terms. They must have so framed their teaching that it was capable of all subsequent developments. . . . Thus if the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady was a part of the original deposit given by Christ to His Apostles, it must have been clearly before the intellect of Peter. Furthermore, since there has been no subsequent revelation to the Church, that truth must have been transmitted to their successors at least in such a shape that without any extraordinary spiritual interposition it can be extracted from the propositions left with them. Besides this, these propositions must have in some way reached the understanding of the teaching body of the Church. In other words, the truth must have been really contained in the explicit teaching of the Apostles, and have been really known by their successors at least implicitly. All this seems to flow from the very primary notion of Christianity as a revelation given once for all."⁴
Appendix.
Protestants, when controverting the doctrinal developments of the Catholic Church, are used to set much store by the well-known aphorism, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus. In order to show how ill this saying is often understood, and how much it is misapplied, we think it well to quote at some length from the Commonitorium of S. Vincent of Lerins in which it occurs, and thus let the Saint himself explain the meaning of his own words. We would first, however, say something about the author, the scope of his work, and the circumstances under which it was written.⁵
S. Vincent of Lerins was a monk and a simple priest who lived during the fifth century. After being engaged, as it appears, in the military service, he retired into a monastery, and devoted himself entirely to piety and the study of Divine things. He wrote his Commonitorium, not indeed with the view of laying down rules for the teaching body of the Church to follow when pronouncing decisions in matters of faith or morals, but for the security of his own faith, by recalling and having at hand the admonitions of holy men as to how private individuals and the simple faithful should behave in presence of prevalent heresies. The following are S. Vincent's own words:
"It is enough for me, in order to help my memory or rather my forgetfulness, to have gathered together the Commonitory, which however, by calling to mind what in past time I have learned, I will endeavour with God's grace daily to correct and make more perfect. And this I have thought good to premise, that should this work of mine chance to get abroad and fall into the hands of holy persons, they may not over-hastily find fault with what they see in it, and which I promise ere long with later correction to amend and improve."⁶
S. Vincent's object was to enable himself, a simple monk, to discern the truth from the false teaching of heretics, on points about which no decree of a General Council could be found. Only three General Councils had been held up to that time; the first at Nicaea in 325, the second at Constantinople in 381, and the third at Ephesus in 431. And these Councils had not intended to declare in detail all that had been revealed, but only to affirm certain truths against contemporary heretics. He thus continues:
"Whilst often making very earnest and diligent inquiries of many excellent, holy, and learned men, as to how and by what means I might securely — and by some, so to say, general and normal way — discern the truth of Catholic faith from the falsity of heretical pravity, I usually received this answer from them all, viz., that if I or any one else wished to find out the deceits of the heretics who were daily springing up, escape their snares, and remain safe and sound in the true faith, one must, with God's assistance, defend and preserve his faith in a twofold manner: first, by the authority of the Divine law, and secondly by the tradition of the Catholic Church. . . . But since by reason of the very profundity of Holy Scripture, all do not understand it in one and the same sense, but divers men diversely; one interpreting the same words this way, and another that; so that, to one's thinking, so many men, so many opinions may be gathered from it. . . . Consequently it is of all importance, in order not to be led away into the windings of every sort of error, to hold fast to the line of scriptural interpretation that is according to the rule of the ecclesiastical and Catholic sense. Within the Catholic Church itself, too, we should take great care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, and always, and by all (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est). For this is really and properly Catholic, as the very meaning of the words and reason show, and in a general way comprises everything. This, too, will be in fact the case, if we follow universality, antiquity, and common consent. Universality, then, we shall follow, if we confess that one faith as true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; Antiquity, if in no way we depart from those sentiments which it is manifest our holy elders and Fathers held and generally approved (celebrasse); Common consent, in fine, if we follow what were in antiquity the definitions and judgments (sententiae) of all, or, at any rate, nearly all the priests and teachers alike."⁷
Later on, in his Second Commonitory, he says:
"We have to pay most earnest heed to two things, unto which all those that will not be heretics, must of necessity cling fast. The first is to see what has been decreed in old time by all the priests of the Catholic Church with authority of a General Council. And secondly, should some new question arise, about which no decree is to be found, we must then have recourse to the judgments of the Holy Fathers," etc.⁸
Hence we see that S. Vincent when in doubt whether doctrines, not yet defined by the Church, were Catholic or not, made it his rule to consult the writings of the Fathers. If he found from their testimony that a certain doctrine had been believed in the Church ubique, that is, by faithful living in all parts of Christendom; semper, that is, from the Apostles' days to his own time; ab omnibus, that is, by all those generally who were regarded as sound Catholics, or rather, what was held by the great majority of bishops and doctors, he at once concluded that such a doctrine was undoubtedly a genuine doctrine of Christian revelation, since it had been believed everywhere, always, and by all.
But because all doctrines that have been believed, ubique, semper, et ab omnibus, are undoubtedly genuine Christian doctrines, it by no means follows that these are the only genuine Christian doctrines; nor, as we shall see, did S. Vincent himself thus conclude.
Moreover, he goes on to qualify this general and ordinary rule (quasi generalis et regularis via) that he had laid down. He supposes the case of heresy infecting not only some portion of the Church, but going about to corrupt the whole Church altogether; and of our seeing in antiquity that individual teachers, cities, and provinces have fallen into error. Here, he says, we must adhere to what the universal Church has in Council decreed.
"But," he asks, "what are we to do when it is some doctrine about which no such decree can be found? Then pains should be taken to consult and inquire as to what were the judgments and tenets, after collating them together, of the Fathers (Majorum), but of those only who, in different times and places, persevering in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, were regarded as approved teachers (Magistri probabiles extiterunt): and then whatever, we find, not one or two only, but all of them alike, with one and the same consent, openly, frequently, perseveringly, held and taught, this same we are to understand is to be believed by ourselves also without any further doubting."
S. Vincent then goes on to speak of the prevalence of the Donatist Schism in Africa, and of Arianism usurping the very place almost of the Catholic Church herself throughout Christendom, so that "the minds of nearly all the bishops of the Latin tongue were shrouded in darkness": and describes the action of those bishops who most manfully opposed the widespread heresy, as "restoring nearly the whole entire world from a new perfidy to the ancient faith, from the madness of novelty to ancient soundness, from the blindness of novelty to the ancient light." He then recalls how, in a more remote age, "Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory," and even "the most blessed Cyprian, that light of all saints, bishops, and martyrs," sanctioned the sacrilegious practice of re-baptising heretics, and thus gave occasion to Catholics of falling into error.
"So great," he says, "was the ability and force of argument with which the heresy was supported, so powerful the eloquence, so large the number of its advocates, such its plausibility and appearance of truth, so many the passages of Holy Writ cited in its behalf — though clearly interpreted in a new and wrong sense" — that for himself he does not think the plot (conspiratio) could have been put down in any other way than by denouncing it with being a novelty. "And this," says S. Vincent, "Pope Stephen, the Bishop of the Apostolic See, most effectually did by the decree, Nihil novandum, nisi quod traditum est, contained in the Epistle which he sent to Africa. For, whilst taking counsel with his colleagues, the Pope felt himself bound as much to surpass all the other bishops in devotion to the faith, as he was above them all by the authority of his place."⁹
Here there was no General Council to define, and yet S. Vincent evidently looks upon the judgment of S. Stephen as final, and deciding what was the Catholic truth to be believed on the question at issue.
He speaks of the subsequent —
"African Council with its decree, as, God so granting it, being of no force, and the whole matter become in the end as though a dream, or a tale that is told, superfluous, done away, antiquated, trodden under foot."
In summing up what was done for the condemnation of Nestorianism, S. Vincent marks out the authority of the Roman Pontiff in the following words:
"All which things, though they were abundant for the overthrow and extinguishing of all the profane novelties, yet, lest aught should be lacking to such fulness, we add for a conclusion a twofold authority of the Apostolic See, the one of the holy Pope Sixtus, the venerable man who now adorns the Roman Church; the other of his predecessor of blessed memory, Pope Celestine, which we have thought necessary here to insert."¹⁰
Thus we see that, according to the teaching of S. Vincent, a doctrine may be thoroughly Catholic, and yet may not in every case (as that of not re-baptising heretics) have been held ubique, et ab omnibus.
But there remains the word semper. Those who hold to the interpretation and application of S. Vincent's rule, as it is commonly understood by non-Catholics, would maintain that all genuine doctrines of Christianity, originally contained in the revealed deposit, were believed in the same manner, that is to say, explicitly, at any rate, more or less so, in every age of Christianity from the beginning, at least by some few, and somewhere in the Church.
We would now, then, show that S. Vincent held that the teaching and belief of Christian doctrines was not always the same; or, in other words, that alongside of the principle, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus, there was, according to the Saint, a process of doctrinal development in the Church, whereby additions were made to Catholic teaching, and certain Christian truths that at one time had been believed only implicitly came in course of time to be believed explicitly.
For this purpose we shall simply give a lengthened quotation from the Commonitorium, thus leaving S. Vincent to explain his teaching on the matter in his own words:
"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words. . . .¹¹ Who at this day is Timothy, but either generally the universal Church, or especially the whole body of prelates, who ought either themselves to have a sound knowledge of Divine religion, or who ought to infuse it into others? . . . Depositum custodi. What is the deposit? It is that which has been entrusted to thee, not what has been found out by thee: what thou hast received, not what thou hast thought out; a matter not of ingenuity, but of learning; not of private adoption, but of public tradition; a thing brought to thee, not brought out by thee: wherein thou must be not an author, but a keeper, not an originator, but a pursuer: not leading, but following. Keep, he says, the deposit: preserve the talent of the Catholic faith inviolate and pure. Let what has been entrusted to thee remain with thee, be delivered by thee. Thou hast received gold, give back gold. I will not that thou offer me one thing for another, and have the face, instead of gold, to present me with lead, or cheat me with brass. I want not the appearance of gold, but its reality (naturam).
"O Timothy, O priest, O steward, O doctor, if the Divine gift has rendered thee fit, by thy wit, thy travail, thy doctrine — be the Beseleel of the spiritual tabernacle, engrave the precious gems of Divine dogma, faithfully set them, wisely adorn them, give them brightness, grace, and beauty. Make what was before believed more obscurely, by thy exposition, to be more clearly understood. Let posterity rejoice for coming to the intelligence of that, by thy means, which antiquity, without understanding it, had in veneration. Nevertheless, the things thou hast learned, the same teach in such sort, that albeit thou speakest after a new manner, thou speak not new things.
"But some one will perhaps say: Is there then no progress of religion in Christ's Church? Surely there is: yea, let us have progress even the greatest. For who would be so envious to men, so hateful to God, as to seek to hinder it? But yet of such sort it should be, as to be in good truth a progress of the faith, not a change thereof. It is of the nature of progress that the particular thing should itself be amplified, but of change that something should be turned from one thing into another. Therefore, the understanding, the science, the wisdom ought to increase, and make much and strenuous progress, as well of every man in particular as of all in common, as well in the successive stages of a man's life, as in the various ages and times of the whole Church; but yet, for all that, only in its own kind and nature, that is to say, in the same doctrines, in the same sense, in the same judgment. Here let the religion of our souls imitate the way of our bodies, which, although as years go by they develop and unfold their proportions, yet remain the same that they were. There is a great difference betwixt the flower of youth and the ripeness of age, yet the self-same men become old who once were young, so that although the state and condition of one and the self-same man be altered, yet one and the self-same nature, one and the self-same person still remain. Small are the limbs of infants, great of young men, yet they are the same. So many joints as young children have, so many have they when they are men: and if there are any parts that put forth in course of more mature age, these were already planted after the manner of seed, so that nothing in old men afterwards comes forth new, which did not already lie hid in them before, when they were children.
"In like manner also it befits the doctrine of the Christian religion to follow these rules of progress, so that it may thus be consolidated in course of years, developed by time, ennobled (sublimatur) by age, and still persevere incorrupt and pure; and in all the proportions of its several parts, and, so to say, in all its particular limbs and senses become full and perfect; and this without admitting aught of alteration, or sustaining any loss of what essentially belongs to it (nulla proprietatis dispendia), or any variation of definition.
"For example: our fathers sowed of old in the Church's field the seeds of wheaten faith; very unjust and improper would it be, that we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of wheat, should gather the counterfeit error of cockle. This rather is right and reasonable, that, without discrepancy between the first and the last, from the successive growths of the original wheat, we also should reap a harvest of wheaten doctrine; so that whilst there is some evolution in course of time from those first seminal principles (cum aliquid ex illis seminum primordiis accessu temporis evolvatur), and it is now fertilised and improved, yet nothing be changed from the nature of the germ: though there be added outward shape and appearance (species), form, distinction, yet the nature of each kind remain still the same. For God forbid that the rose-gardens of Catholic sense should be turned to thistles and thorns. God forbid, I say, that in this spiritual paradise, from shoots of cinnamon and balsam, should suddenly sprout forth darnel and wolf's-bane. Whatever then has been sown in the Church, the husbandry of God, by the faith of our fathers, let this same flourish and ripen, let this same make progress and be brought to perfection. For right it is that those pristine doctrines of heavenly philosophy should in process of time be worked up, finished, and polished; but it is most wrong that they should be changed about, most wrong that they should be maimed and mutilated. Let them, by all means, receive evidence, light, distinction, but they must keep their fulness, integrity, and what naturally belongs to them. . . .
"But the Church of Christ, a careful and wary keeper of the doctrines committed to her charge, never changes anything in them, diminishes nothing, adds nothing: what is necessary she takes not away, what is superfluous she puts not on, loses not her own, usurps not what belongs to others; but with all industry, takes pains about this one thing alone, viz., that by faithful and prudent handling of what is old — should there be some things of old time rough-cast and inchoate (si qua sunt illa antiquitus informata et inchoata), she may bestow care on, and polish them; if things are already expressed and enucleated, she may consolidate and strengthen them; if they are already confirmed and defined, she may guard them.
"What else, in fact, has the Church laboured for by the decrees of Councils, but that what before was simply believed, should later on be more carefully believed, that what was before more sluggishly preached, should later on be preached with greater instance; that what was before reverenced with too much unconcern, might later on be reverenced with more solicitude? This, I say, and nought else but this, has the Church, when stirred up by the novelties of heretics, effected through the decrees of Councils, namely, that what she had before received from those of old (a majoribus) by tradition alone, the same she has consigned, for those who came afterwards, in written forms also (etiam per scripturae chirographum), thus comprising a large sum of matters in few words of writing, and, for the most part, on account of the clearer light in which the doctrine was now understood, designating it — though in no new sense of faith — by a specific and new appellation (et plerumque propter intelligentiae lucem, non novum fidei sensum novae appellationis proprietate signando)."¹²
"If he (Tindale) will say that sometimes the doctors which we call holy saints have not agreed in one, but some have sometimes thought in some one thing otherwise than others have done, then his saying is nothing to the purpose. For God doth reveal His truths not always in one manner, but sometimes He showeth it out at once, as He will have it known, and men bound forthwith to believe it, as He showed Moses what He would have Pharao do. Sometimes He showeth it leisurely, suffering His flock to commune and dispute thereon, and in their treating of the matter suffereth them with good mind, and Scripture, and natural wisdom, with invocation of His spiritual help, to search and seek for the truth, and to vary for the while in their opinions, till that He reward their virtuous diligence with leading them secretly into the consent and concord, and belief of the truth by His Holy Spirit, qui facit unanimes in domo (Ps. lxvii. 7), 'which maketh His flocks in one mind in His House, that is, to wit, His Church.' So that in the meantime the variance is without sin, and maketh nothing against the evidence of the Church, except Tindale will say that he will neither believe S. Peter nor S. Paul in anything that they teach, because that once they varied in the manner of their doctrine as appeareth (Gal. ii. 11-14)."¹³
Footnotes
1. Ephes. iii. 5, 7.
2. The following from Endell Tyler shows how ill Protestants generally understand, and consequently misrepresent the teaching of Catholics on doctrinal development: "The Almighty, they [Catholics] allege, did not impart to mankind the whole truth in all its fulness at the first preaching of the Gospel, but bequeathed to His Church the privilege of deriving from Him and communicating to the world successive revelations of essential doctrine. Consequently (they proceed to argue), it is not enough to show that a tenet is not found in Scripture, nor even in the early Church, to warrant its rejection. It may, they say, have pleased God to reveal it in His own good time, and of the reality of that revelation the Church is the only judge: from her there is no appeal." — The Worship of the B.V.M. in the Church of Rome, etc., Introduction, p. xvi.
3. See the Bulls of Pius IX., Ineffabilis Deus and Aeterni Patris.
4. The Dublin Review, Jan. 1869.
5. See Change in Faith, or Development. A Critical Exposition of S. Vincent of Lerins's "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus," by C. Tondini de Quarengi, Barnabite. London, Hodges, 1881. From which we have here made some extracts.
6. Patr. Lat. tom. 60, p. 639.
7. Ib. ii. p. 649.
8. Ib. ii. 29, p. 677.
9. Ib. 4-6, pp. 641-646.
10. Ib. 32, p. 683.
11. 1 Tim. vi. 20.
12. Common., ii., Ib.
13. Blessed Thomas More, Confutation of Tindale, Works, 456. Wisdom and Wit, p. 108, by Rev. T. E. Bridgett, C.SS.R., Burns and Oates, 1892.
The Christian Revelation was Given Once for All to the Apostles Exclusively. All Subsequent Developments are Non-Accretive, and Contained in the Original Deposit.
The Christian religion is in the strictest and most exclusive sense a Divine revelation, whereby — when in the fulness of time the Incarnate Word appeared — all the former revelations, which had been more or less partial and obscure, were made clear and perfected. So great was the flood of light poured forth by the preaching of the Gospel on the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Redemption of mankind through Jesus Christ, that it was as though these truths were then first revealed. Hence S. Gregory says, that "whereas under the Old Testament the mystery of the Trinity was unknown explicitly save to the more spiritual Fathers, and was hidden from the Jewish people generally; now under the New Testament the faith of the Trinity has grown up in the hearts of all the faithful, and all the nations are taught to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, in whose Name they are baptised." And in regard to the mystery of Redemption, S. Paul could speak of it as the mystery of Christ in other generations not known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets in the Spirit.¹
Besides this fuller revelation of the Trinity and the Incarnation — mysteries which are of the substance of the faith — there were brought to light with the New Dispensation many other truths accessory to the substance of faith, which had not been before revealed, relating especially to the Church of Christ and His law of grace.
The revelation of the whole body of Christian mysteries was made to the Apostles exclusively. To them it was delivered immediately by our Lord Himself, and by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, once for all, full and complete. With them it was closed.
The Apostles were commissioned by Jesus Christ to make known this revelation to the Church, and were at the same time empowered, by means of Divine inspiration, to set forth to others, in due expression and adequate statement, the heavenly truths which they had received. This entire body of revealed doctrine they deposited in the Church. Upon their successors in the office of teaching, who constituted the Ecclesia docens, devolved the duty of transmitting the Apostolic doctrine in its integrity and purity to those who should come after in every generation. To do this work effectually, they were given that special guidance and assistance of the Holy Ghost, which had been promised to them by Christ to continue in His Church until the end of time.
It hence follows that the doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church is always substantially identical with that of the Apostles. In other words, whatever articles the Church has at any time since defined to be of faith by Councils or otherwise, are but developments of truths revealed once for all to the Apostles and by them delivered to her keeping. Such developments, moreover, are made in the sense in which the Apostles themselves held the truths. For no subsequent doctrinal development of the Church is accretive to the original deposit.²
This conclusion holds good not only for all the successive definitions of faith, but also for all such doctrines and devotions as are taught and sanctioned by the Church through her ordinary Magisterium. Indeed, the very fact that a doctrine has been at any time held universally with the sanction of the Church, is of itself a proof, not only that such doctrine is infallibly true, but also in full accord with Apostolic teaching. Since, otherwise, the promise of Christ would be found to have failed, and the gates of hell be shown to have prevailed against His Church.
It is the special office of the Church, as a Divine teacher, to continually unfold, develop and illustrate (explicate, evolvere³) the doctrines contained in the deposit of revelation which she has received from Christ. This she does especially in her Councils by her definitions of faith. In these definitions the Church does not propose to the faithful any new truths, but — guided by the infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost — recalls more distinctly to their remembrance, and more fully explains certain portions of the original deposit. Hence it happens from time to time that certain truths which, because revealed, were always of faith, objectively, or regarded in themselves, being de fide quoad se, become subjectively, through the Church's definition and proposition, formal dogmas of Catholic faith — de fide quoad nos — and as such claim the belief of all Christians. In other words: certain truths — which, as forming part of the revealed deposit, and consequently of the integral Christian faith revealed to the Apostles — were always believed implicitly by the faithful, come in course of time to be believed by them explicitly.
The following quotation from a writer in the Dublin Review will serve to illustrate the matter treated of in this Chapter.
"All subsequent definitions of faith are simply the unravelling of matter given by the Apostles. Their state of mind was quite different from that of their successors. Theirs was what we may call inspiration; after them the teachers of the Church had only that special guidance of the Holy Spirit which was promised them by Christ. The Apostolic teaching, then, was not only the first link in a chain; it was that out of which all developments came, and in which all were implicitly contained. Hence it seems to follow that the Apostles must have had especially in their minds all the future definitions of faith, though not, of course, necessarily in the same terms. They must have so framed their teaching that it was capable of all subsequent developments. . . . Thus if the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady was a part of the original deposit given by Christ to His Apostles, it must have been clearly before the intellect of Peter. Furthermore, since there has been no subsequent revelation to the Church, that truth must have been transmitted to their successors at least in such a shape that without any extraordinary spiritual interposition it can be extracted from the propositions left with them. Besides this, these propositions must have in some way reached the understanding of the teaching body of the Church. In other words, the truth must have been really contained in the explicit teaching of the Apostles, and have been really known by their successors at least implicitly. All this seems to flow from the very primary notion of Christianity as a revelation given once for all."⁴
Appendix.
Protestants, when controverting the doctrinal developments of the Catholic Church, are used to set much store by the well-known aphorism, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus. In order to show how ill this saying is often understood, and how much it is misapplied, we think it well to quote at some length from the Commonitorium of S. Vincent of Lerins in which it occurs, and thus let the Saint himself explain the meaning of his own words. We would first, however, say something about the author, the scope of his work, and the circumstances under which it was written.⁵
S. Vincent of Lerins was a monk and a simple priest who lived during the fifth century. After being engaged, as it appears, in the military service, he retired into a monastery, and devoted himself entirely to piety and the study of Divine things. He wrote his Commonitorium, not indeed with the view of laying down rules for the teaching body of the Church to follow when pronouncing decisions in matters of faith or morals, but for the security of his own faith, by recalling and having at hand the admonitions of holy men as to how private individuals and the simple faithful should behave in presence of prevalent heresies. The following are S. Vincent's own words:
"It is enough for me, in order to help my memory or rather my forgetfulness, to have gathered together the Commonitory, which however, by calling to mind what in past time I have learned, I will endeavour with God's grace daily to correct and make more perfect. And this I have thought good to premise, that should this work of mine chance to get abroad and fall into the hands of holy persons, they may not over-hastily find fault with what they see in it, and which I promise ere long with later correction to amend and improve."⁶
S. Vincent's object was to enable himself, a simple monk, to discern the truth from the false teaching of heretics, on points about which no decree of a General Council could be found. Only three General Councils had been held up to that time; the first at Nicaea in 325, the second at Constantinople in 381, and the third at Ephesus in 431. And these Councils had not intended to declare in detail all that had been revealed, but only to affirm certain truths against contemporary heretics. He thus continues:
"Whilst often making very earnest and diligent inquiries of many excellent, holy, and learned men, as to how and by what means I might securely — and by some, so to say, general and normal way — discern the truth of Catholic faith from the falsity of heretical pravity, I usually received this answer from them all, viz., that if I or any one else wished to find out the deceits of the heretics who were daily springing up, escape their snares, and remain safe and sound in the true faith, one must, with God's assistance, defend and preserve his faith in a twofold manner: first, by the authority of the Divine law, and secondly by the tradition of the Catholic Church. . . . But since by reason of the very profundity of Holy Scripture, all do not understand it in one and the same sense, but divers men diversely; one interpreting the same words this way, and another that; so that, to one's thinking, so many men, so many opinions may be gathered from it. . . . Consequently it is of all importance, in order not to be led away into the windings of every sort of error, to hold fast to the line of scriptural interpretation that is according to the rule of the ecclesiastical and Catholic sense. Within the Catholic Church itself, too, we should take great care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, and always, and by all (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est). For this is really and properly Catholic, as the very meaning of the words and reason show, and in a general way comprises everything. This, too, will be in fact the case, if we follow universality, antiquity, and common consent. Universality, then, we shall follow, if we confess that one faith as true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; Antiquity, if in no way we depart from those sentiments which it is manifest our holy elders and Fathers held and generally approved (celebrasse); Common consent, in fine, if we follow what were in antiquity the definitions and judgments (sententiae) of all, or, at any rate, nearly all the priests and teachers alike."⁷
Later on, in his Second Commonitory, he says:
"We have to pay most earnest heed to two things, unto which all those that will not be heretics, must of necessity cling fast. The first is to see what has been decreed in old time by all the priests of the Catholic Church with authority of a General Council. And secondly, should some new question arise, about which no decree is to be found, we must then have recourse to the judgments of the Holy Fathers," etc.⁸
Hence we see that S. Vincent when in doubt whether doctrines, not yet defined by the Church, were Catholic or not, made it his rule to consult the writings of the Fathers. If he found from their testimony that a certain doctrine had been believed in the Church ubique, that is, by faithful living in all parts of Christendom; semper, that is, from the Apostles' days to his own time; ab omnibus, that is, by all those generally who were regarded as sound Catholics, or rather, what was held by the great majority of bishops and doctors, he at once concluded that such a doctrine was undoubtedly a genuine doctrine of Christian revelation, since it had been believed everywhere, always, and by all.
But because all doctrines that have been believed, ubique, semper, et ab omnibus, are undoubtedly genuine Christian doctrines, it by no means follows that these are the only genuine Christian doctrines; nor, as we shall see, did S. Vincent himself thus conclude.
Moreover, he goes on to qualify this general and ordinary rule (quasi generalis et regularis via) that he had laid down. He supposes the case of heresy infecting not only some portion of the Church, but going about to corrupt the whole Church altogether; and of our seeing in antiquity that individual teachers, cities, and provinces have fallen into error. Here, he says, we must adhere to what the universal Church has in Council decreed.
"But," he asks, "what are we to do when it is some doctrine about which no such decree can be found? Then pains should be taken to consult and inquire as to what were the judgments and tenets, after collating them together, of the Fathers (Majorum), but of those only who, in different times and places, persevering in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, were regarded as approved teachers (Magistri probabiles extiterunt): and then whatever, we find, not one or two only, but all of them alike, with one and the same consent, openly, frequently, perseveringly, held and taught, this same we are to understand is to be believed by ourselves also without any further doubting."
S. Vincent then goes on to speak of the prevalence of the Donatist Schism in Africa, and of Arianism usurping the very place almost of the Catholic Church herself throughout Christendom, so that "the minds of nearly all the bishops of the Latin tongue were shrouded in darkness": and describes the action of those bishops who most manfully opposed the widespread heresy, as "restoring nearly the whole entire world from a new perfidy to the ancient faith, from the madness of novelty to ancient soundness, from the blindness of novelty to the ancient light." He then recalls how, in a more remote age, "Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory," and even "the most blessed Cyprian, that light of all saints, bishops, and martyrs," sanctioned the sacrilegious practice of re-baptising heretics, and thus gave occasion to Catholics of falling into error.
"So great," he says, "was the ability and force of argument with which the heresy was supported, so powerful the eloquence, so large the number of its advocates, such its plausibility and appearance of truth, so many the passages of Holy Writ cited in its behalf — though clearly interpreted in a new and wrong sense" — that for himself he does not think the plot (conspiratio) could have been put down in any other way than by denouncing it with being a novelty. "And this," says S. Vincent, "Pope Stephen, the Bishop of the Apostolic See, most effectually did by the decree, Nihil novandum, nisi quod traditum est, contained in the Epistle which he sent to Africa. For, whilst taking counsel with his colleagues, the Pope felt himself bound as much to surpass all the other bishops in devotion to the faith, as he was above them all by the authority of his place."⁹
Here there was no General Council to define, and yet S. Vincent evidently looks upon the judgment of S. Stephen as final, and deciding what was the Catholic truth to be believed on the question at issue.
He speaks of the subsequent —
"African Council with its decree, as, God so granting it, being of no force, and the whole matter become in the end as though a dream, or a tale that is told, superfluous, done away, antiquated, trodden under foot."
In summing up what was done for the condemnation of Nestorianism, S. Vincent marks out the authority of the Roman Pontiff in the following words:
"All which things, though they were abundant for the overthrow and extinguishing of all the profane novelties, yet, lest aught should be lacking to such fulness, we add for a conclusion a twofold authority of the Apostolic See, the one of the holy Pope Sixtus, the venerable man who now adorns the Roman Church; the other of his predecessor of blessed memory, Pope Celestine, which we have thought necessary here to insert."¹⁰
Thus we see that, according to the teaching of S. Vincent, a doctrine may be thoroughly Catholic, and yet may not in every case (as that of not re-baptising heretics) have been held ubique, et ab omnibus.
But there remains the word semper. Those who hold to the interpretation and application of S. Vincent's rule, as it is commonly understood by non-Catholics, would maintain that all genuine doctrines of Christianity, originally contained in the revealed deposit, were believed in the same manner, that is to say, explicitly, at any rate, more or less so, in every age of Christianity from the beginning, at least by some few, and somewhere in the Church.
We would now, then, show that S. Vincent held that the teaching and belief of Christian doctrines was not always the same; or, in other words, that alongside of the principle, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus, there was, according to the Saint, a process of doctrinal development in the Church, whereby additions were made to Catholic teaching, and certain Christian truths that at one time had been believed only implicitly came in course of time to be believed explicitly.
For this purpose we shall simply give a lengthened quotation from the Commonitorium, thus leaving S. Vincent to explain his teaching on the matter in his own words:
"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words. . . .¹¹ Who at this day is Timothy, but either generally the universal Church, or especially the whole body of prelates, who ought either themselves to have a sound knowledge of Divine religion, or who ought to infuse it into others? . . . Depositum custodi. What is the deposit? It is that which has been entrusted to thee, not what has been found out by thee: what thou hast received, not what thou hast thought out; a matter not of ingenuity, but of learning; not of private adoption, but of public tradition; a thing brought to thee, not brought out by thee: wherein thou must be not an author, but a keeper, not an originator, but a pursuer: not leading, but following. Keep, he says, the deposit: preserve the talent of the Catholic faith inviolate and pure. Let what has been entrusted to thee remain with thee, be delivered by thee. Thou hast received gold, give back gold. I will not that thou offer me one thing for another, and have the face, instead of gold, to present me with lead, or cheat me with brass. I want not the appearance of gold, but its reality (naturam).
"O Timothy, O priest, O steward, O doctor, if the Divine gift has rendered thee fit, by thy wit, thy travail, thy doctrine — be the Beseleel of the spiritual tabernacle, engrave the precious gems of Divine dogma, faithfully set them, wisely adorn them, give them brightness, grace, and beauty. Make what was before believed more obscurely, by thy exposition, to be more clearly understood. Let posterity rejoice for coming to the intelligence of that, by thy means, which antiquity, without understanding it, had in veneration. Nevertheless, the things thou hast learned, the same teach in such sort, that albeit thou speakest after a new manner, thou speak not new things.
"But some one will perhaps say: Is there then no progress of religion in Christ's Church? Surely there is: yea, let us have progress even the greatest. For who would be so envious to men, so hateful to God, as to seek to hinder it? But yet of such sort it should be, as to be in good truth a progress of the faith, not a change thereof. It is of the nature of progress that the particular thing should itself be amplified, but of change that something should be turned from one thing into another. Therefore, the understanding, the science, the wisdom ought to increase, and make much and strenuous progress, as well of every man in particular as of all in common, as well in the successive stages of a man's life, as in the various ages and times of the whole Church; but yet, for all that, only in its own kind and nature, that is to say, in the same doctrines, in the same sense, in the same judgment. Here let the religion of our souls imitate the way of our bodies, which, although as years go by they develop and unfold their proportions, yet remain the same that they were. There is a great difference betwixt the flower of youth and the ripeness of age, yet the self-same men become old who once were young, so that although the state and condition of one and the self-same man be altered, yet one and the self-same nature, one and the self-same person still remain. Small are the limbs of infants, great of young men, yet they are the same. So many joints as young children have, so many have they when they are men: and if there are any parts that put forth in course of more mature age, these were already planted after the manner of seed, so that nothing in old men afterwards comes forth new, which did not already lie hid in them before, when they were children.
"In like manner also it befits the doctrine of the Christian religion to follow these rules of progress, so that it may thus be consolidated in course of years, developed by time, ennobled (sublimatur) by age, and still persevere incorrupt and pure; and in all the proportions of its several parts, and, so to say, in all its particular limbs and senses become full and perfect; and this without admitting aught of alteration, or sustaining any loss of what essentially belongs to it (nulla proprietatis dispendia), or any variation of definition.
"For example: our fathers sowed of old in the Church's field the seeds of wheaten faith; very unjust and improper would it be, that we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of wheat, should gather the counterfeit error of cockle. This rather is right and reasonable, that, without discrepancy between the first and the last, from the successive growths of the original wheat, we also should reap a harvest of wheaten doctrine; so that whilst there is some evolution in course of time from those first seminal principles (cum aliquid ex illis seminum primordiis accessu temporis evolvatur), and it is now fertilised and improved, yet nothing be changed from the nature of the germ: though there be added outward shape and appearance (species), form, distinction, yet the nature of each kind remain still the same. For God forbid that the rose-gardens of Catholic sense should be turned to thistles and thorns. God forbid, I say, that in this spiritual paradise, from shoots of cinnamon and balsam, should suddenly sprout forth darnel and wolf's-bane. Whatever then has been sown in the Church, the husbandry of God, by the faith of our fathers, let this same flourish and ripen, let this same make progress and be brought to perfection. For right it is that those pristine doctrines of heavenly philosophy should in process of time be worked up, finished, and polished; but it is most wrong that they should be changed about, most wrong that they should be maimed and mutilated. Let them, by all means, receive evidence, light, distinction, but they must keep their fulness, integrity, and what naturally belongs to them. . . .
"But the Church of Christ, a careful and wary keeper of the doctrines committed to her charge, never changes anything in them, diminishes nothing, adds nothing: what is necessary she takes not away, what is superfluous she puts not on, loses not her own, usurps not what belongs to others; but with all industry, takes pains about this one thing alone, viz., that by faithful and prudent handling of what is old — should there be some things of old time rough-cast and inchoate (si qua sunt illa antiquitus informata et inchoata), she may bestow care on, and polish them; if things are already expressed and enucleated, she may consolidate and strengthen them; if they are already confirmed and defined, she may guard them.
"What else, in fact, has the Church laboured for by the decrees of Councils, but that what before was simply believed, should later on be more carefully believed, that what was before more sluggishly preached, should later on be preached with greater instance; that what was before reverenced with too much unconcern, might later on be reverenced with more solicitude? This, I say, and nought else but this, has the Church, when stirred up by the novelties of heretics, effected through the decrees of Councils, namely, that what she had before received from those of old (a majoribus) by tradition alone, the same she has consigned, for those who came afterwards, in written forms also (etiam per scripturae chirographum), thus comprising a large sum of matters in few words of writing, and, for the most part, on account of the clearer light in which the doctrine was now understood, designating it — though in no new sense of faith — by a specific and new appellation (et plerumque propter intelligentiae lucem, non novum fidei sensum novae appellationis proprietate signando)."¹²
"If he (Tindale) will say that sometimes the doctors which we call holy saints have not agreed in one, but some have sometimes thought in some one thing otherwise than others have done, then his saying is nothing to the purpose. For God doth reveal His truths not always in one manner, but sometimes He showeth it out at once, as He will have it known, and men bound forthwith to believe it, as He showed Moses what He would have Pharao do. Sometimes He showeth it leisurely, suffering His flock to commune and dispute thereon, and in their treating of the matter suffereth them with good mind, and Scripture, and natural wisdom, with invocation of His spiritual help, to search and seek for the truth, and to vary for the while in their opinions, till that He reward their virtuous diligence with leading them secretly into the consent and concord, and belief of the truth by His Holy Spirit, qui facit unanimes in domo (Ps. lxvii. 7), 'which maketh His flocks in one mind in His House, that is, to wit, His Church.' So that in the meantime the variance is without sin, and maketh nothing against the evidence of the Church, except Tindale will say that he will neither believe S. Peter nor S. Paul in anything that they teach, because that once they varied in the manner of their doctrine as appeareth (Gal. ii. 11-14)."¹³
Footnotes
1. Ephes. iii. 5, 7.
2. The following from Endell Tyler shows how ill Protestants generally understand, and consequently misrepresent the teaching of Catholics on doctrinal development: "The Almighty, they [Catholics] allege, did not impart to mankind the whole truth in all its fulness at the first preaching of the Gospel, but bequeathed to His Church the privilege of deriving from Him and communicating to the world successive revelations of essential doctrine. Consequently (they proceed to argue), it is not enough to show that a tenet is not found in Scripture, nor even in the early Church, to warrant its rejection. It may, they say, have pleased God to reveal it in His own good time, and of the reality of that revelation the Church is the only judge: from her there is no appeal." — The Worship of the B.V.M. in the Church of Rome, etc., Introduction, p. xvi.
3. See the Bulls of Pius IX., Ineffabilis Deus and Aeterni Patris.
4. The Dublin Review, Jan. 1869.
5. See Change in Faith, or Development. A Critical Exposition of S. Vincent of Lerins's "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus," by C. Tondini de Quarengi, Barnabite. London, Hodges, 1881. From which we have here made some extracts.
6. Patr. Lat. tom. 60, p. 639.
7. Ib. ii. p. 649.
8. Ib. ii. 29, p. 677.
9. Ib. 4-6, pp. 641-646.
10. Ib. 32, p. 683.
11. 1 Tim. vi. 20.
12. Common., ii., Ib.
13. Blessed Thomas More, Confutation of Tindale, Works, 456. Wisdom and Wit, p. 108, by Rev. T. E. Bridgett, C.SS.R., Burns and Oates, 1892.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre