Statements of the ancients regarding the perfection of Scripture.
Statements of the ancients regarding the perfection of Scripture.
§ 377. In vol. 1 of our Commonplaces, in the treatise On Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 1], § 53, we cited statements of the fathers in which they acknowledge with us the perfection of Scripture. To those we can add the following.
Dionysius the Areopagite, as quoted by Gerson, De exam. doctrin., part 2, consid. 1: “One dare not say anything regarding divine matters except what has been handed down to us by Holy Scripture.”
Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., p. 198: “Do not be disturbed, (you Jews). Rather, persevere to be keener hearers and searchers as you make light of the tradition of your teachers. You see, it is found that they do not understand the things that God has said by His prophetic Spirit, and they prefer to teach their own dogmas.” Page 207: “Christ Himself has ordered us to believe not human traditions and teachings but those things that the blessed prophets published and that Christ Himself taught.” In 
. 
., p. 294: “Among the children of the Church, one must arrange divine matters not according to human reason and thought; rather, oration and interpretation must be accommodated to the sense and will of the Spirit’s teaching.” Quaest. et resp. ad orthod., q. 31, p. 320: “Because what you bring up is not under the testimony of Holy Scripture, it is 
, not believable.”
Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 1, c. [8]: “Such is their system, which neither the prophets proclaimed nor the Lord taught nor the apostles handed down, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge, reading from what is unwritten and striving to weave ropes of sand.” Whoever argues beyond the Scriptures weaves ropes of sand. Book 3, c. 1, at the beginning: “The apostles put that Gospel that they preached into Scripture later by the will of God to be the foundation and pillar of our faith.” In the same book, c. 9, p. 179: “If we are indeed their (the prophets’ and apostles’) disciples, we must follow their testimonies that are such.” In the same book, c. 11, p. 186: “The pillar and foundation of the Church is the Gospel and the Spirit of life.” In the same book, c. 12, p. 192: “Peter at that time surely did not yet have a perfect knowledge (of God), which these later found out, did he? Therefore Peter was imperfect according to them, and the other apostles were also imperfect. When they have been raised again, they will have to be the disciples of them, that they themselves might become perfect. But this, too, is indeed ridiculous. They are arguing that they are not the disciples of the apostles but of their own bad opinion.” Book 4, c. 63, p. 292: “The true understanding is the teaching of the apostles and the ancient state of the Church in the entire world and by the character of the Body of Christ.” In the same book, c. 69, p. 300: “We follow God, the one and only true teacher, and we consider His words as the rule of truth. We always say the same things about them, all of us knowing one God, who is the Creator of this universe.”
Regarding the same Irenaeus, Eusebius mentions in Hist., bk. 5, c. 18, that in a letter to Florinus, Irenaeus tells that “while still a lad he was in Asia Minor with Polycarp, from whom he heard all things in harmony with Scripture.” He says: “I can remember the very place where the blessed Polycarp sat and spoke, his going out and his coming in, the character of his life and the appearance of his body, and finally the sermons that he delivered to the multitude and how he said that he had conversations with John and the others who had seen the Lord. And he remembered their words and what he heard about the Lord from them, and he recounted the Lord’s virtues, teachings, and commandments as if he was one of those who themselves had seen the Word of life; and he recounted all things in harmony with the Scriptures.”
** Tertullian, De resurrect. carnis, c. 3: “I do not accept what you bring in from your own resources outside of Scripture. If you are apostolic, think with the apostles.” **
Origen, preface to
, part 1, p. 665:
All who believe and are sure that grace and truth have been made through Jesus Christ and who know also that Christ is the truth—according to what He Himself said, “I am the truth”—they reach the knowledge that calls forth people to live well and blessedly from no other source than the words and teaching of Christ. When we say “the words of Christ,” we mean not only those that He taught when He became man and was put in the flesh, and also before (for Christ the Word of God was in Moses and the prophets, etc.), but also what He spoke in His apostles after His assumption into the heavens. Paul indicates this when he asks: “Do you seek the proof of Him who speaks in me, that is, of Christ?” [2 Cor. 13:3].
Book 3, commentary on Romans 3: “As is his custom, Paul wants to affirm what he had said from the Holy Scriptures, at the same time offering an example to the teachers of the Church that those things that they are saying to the people they are not setting out as things presumed by their own opinions but as things fortified with divine testimonies.”
Cyprian, De simplic. praelatorum, just after the middle: “The sons of Aaron who placed upon the altar an alien fire that the Lord had not commanded were immediately killed within the sight of an avenging God. These are imitated and followed by those who despise the tradition of God and seek alien teachings and who bring in the instructions of a human custom. The Lord rebukes and censures them in His Gospel and says, ‘You reject the mandate of God to establish your own tradition.’”
Athanasius, De incarnat. Domini, p. 546: “If you are disciples of the Gospels, do not speak iniquity against God but walk in the Scriptures. If you wish to fabricate diverse myths from the Scriptures, why do you debate with us who cannot bear to speak or hear that which is outside of them?” ** 
, “outside of those things that are written,” is in Greek. Later he writes: “What is that madness of your shameless-ness that you say things that have not been written and think up things that are alien to godliness?” **
Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 3, toward the end: “We should understand that, concerning God, only this is rightly believed: that of which He Himself is both the witness and author concerning what we are to believe about Him.”
** Hilary again, De Trinit., bk. 4: “I shall defend nothing that is outside of the Gospel.” Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. 4: “It is necessary that nothing be taught rashly without the Holy Scriptures. You should not simply believe me as I say these things without receiving proof of them from the sacred books.” Ibid.: “One must not teach even the smallest thing about the divine mysteries without the Holy Scriptures.” **
Cyril [of Alexandria], on Leviticus, bk. 6: “These are the two works of a pontiff: to learn from God by reading the Scriptures and pondering them often, and to teach the people. Also, he should teach those things that he himself has learned from God—not what has come from his own heart or from human opinion, but what the Spirit teaches.” ** De fide: “One must add nothing, not even that which looks good. For the woman added to ‘You shall not touch anything from it.’ At first glance, there was nothing offensive about it, yet that was the beginning of the fall.” **
Basil, Moral. summ., 26, c. 1: “One must confirm every word and matter with the testimony of Holy Scripture for the assurance and perfection of the good and for the confounding of the bad.” About the middle of Serm. contra Sabell. et Arium: “We urge you not in any way to ask for that which you are pleased to hear but to ask for that which pleases the Lord and is in agreement with the Scriptures.”
Vincent of Lérins, Advers. prof. vocum nov., c. 41: “The canon of Scripture is sufficiently sufficient for all things.”
Ambrose, De poenit., c. 4, vol. 1, p. 155: “We shall not repudiate the divine oracles and follow their opinions, shall we? God is to be considered not according to the assertions of others but according to His own words.” ** Hexaûm., bk. 3, c. 3, 6; De vocat. gent., bk. 2, c. 3: “I have omitted what I have not learned openly from the authority of Holy Scripture as if it were a secret. What the sequence of Scripture includes is sufficient for knowledge. Who will speak where Holy Scripture does not speak?” **
Jerome, on Hag. 1:11: “However, God’s sword also strikes down the other things that they freely discover and invent as if by apostolic tradition without the authority and testimony of the Scriptures.” In the beginning of his preface to all the Pauline Epistles: “In the Gospels all the examples and commandments for living have been explained to us fully.” In the introduction to his commentary on Ephesians: “All reason and speech is contained in the divine writings.” Adv. Helvid., vol. 3, f. 6: “As we do not deny those things that have been written, so we do refuse those things that have not been written.”
Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 9, bk. 9, c. 5: “Christian erudition is contained by Holy Scripture.” De civit. Dei, bk. 19, c. 18: “The heavenly city believes the Holy Scriptures, both old and new, which we call canonical, from which the faith is conceived by which the righteous lives and in which we walk without doubting while we are away from the Lord [2 Cor. 5:6]. As long as that faith remains safe and certain, we may blamelessly entertain doubt about some matters that we have perceived neither by sense nor by reason, things that have not been revealed to us by canonical Scripture and that have not come to our knowledge through witnesses whom it is ridiculous for us not to believe.” De pastorib., c. 14: “I am seeking the voice of the Shepherd. Read me this from the prophet. Recite this from the Law, recite this from the Gospel, recite this from the apostle!” ** De unitat. eccles., c. 6: “Read us these things from the Law, from the prophets, from the psalms, from the Gospel itself, from the apostolic letters, and we shall believe!” **
Chrysostom, Opus imperf. in Matth., homily 49: “Because seducers frequently go out into Christ’s churches, we must believe absolutely none of them unless they say or do those things that agree with the Scriptures.” De Spiritu s. adorando, homily 6: “Whatever is not written is not to be thought.” ** Chrysostom again, Orat. 24 on Genesis: “We have a kind Lord. When He has seen that we are concerned and have a great desire to understand the divine oracles, He does not allow us to lack anything. Rather, He illumines our understanding right away and bestows His illumination and—what is easy for His wisdom—plants that entire true teaching into our minds.” **
Theophylact, on John 10: “The thief is anyone who does not enter into the sheepfold through Scripture, and thus he is discovered through them, but he goes up in another way, that is, he prepares for himself a different and unaccustomed way, just as they have been corrupted. Such a one will be the Antichrist, for his testimonies are not from the Scriptures.” ** Theophylact again, commentary on 2 Timothy 3: “Correction and amendment come from the Scriptures so that the man of God may lack no good thing. Therefore if you wish to be perfect and healthy, always the same, neither crushed in tragic circumstances nor puffed up in good times (as generally happens to those who waver with an unstable mind), then keep these Scriptures as your counselors instead of me.” ** In his commentary on Acts 2, he quotes this beautiful statement from someone called Severianus: “Nothing else dissolves questions and doubts except the prophetic testimony. Therefore when a complex and inexplicable question arises, one should not flee to his own thoughts and reason, which are usually subverted. The divine voice, however, is by no means subverted.” He says: 
.
Charlemagne, in the Leges ecclesiasticae published in Paris in 1550, bk. 1, c. 19, asserts: “Only the canonical books are to be read in the Church.” Chapter 76: “Bishops and parsons are not to preach to their people the figments of man’s imagination nor anything from their own minds, but rather the pure Word of God. Let them see to it that they train themselves in the knowledge of the truth so that the Word of God may run, grow, and multiply, and so that superstitions, especially in funeral rites for the dead, may be eradicated.”
Nicephorus (Hist. eccles., bk. 4, c. 23) quotes the statement of Apollinaris at the beginning of his book Contra Alcibiaden: “Certainly whoever has decided that he must live his life in accord with the prescription of the Gospel neither adds anything nor takes anything from the evangelical books and the other books of the New Testament.”