The testimony of the Papists, councils, and fathers.
The testimony of the Papists, councils, and fathers.
§ 409. In c. 6-7 Bellarmine produces the testimonies of the Papists, councils, and fathers, to which we respond in general: (1) Some of these are spurious, namely, those that he takes from the decretal epistles of the popes, from Dionysius the Areopagite, Clement of Rome, etc., as will be demonstrated in the patrology.
** In this way Basil seems to equate traditions with the Gospel (De Spiritu sancto, bk. 1, c. 27). Erasmus, however, in his preface to this passage of Basil, doubts “whether these are the true and genuine words of Basil because I find a dissimilarity of style there.” In his book De confess. fidei, he attributes all things in matters of faith to Scripture, to which he wants nothing added. **
(2) Some of this evidence speaks about traditions set forth in Scripture, and these we do not reject. (3) Some of it speaks about free rites and ceremonies. (4) Some entrust to the Church a ministry of protecting and propagating doctrine and the canonical books, but by no means does it establish an authority for traditions equal to that of Scripture. (5) Some of it speaks indefinitely about traditions, that Christ and the apostles taught more than was written, but by no means does it speak about Papist traditions. (6) Some is opposed to the truth and to other testimonies of the fathers and even to Bellarmine himself. Thus Bellarmine tries to prove here from Theodoret, Histor. eccles., bk. 1, c. 8, that “the Council of Nicaea first condemned the Arian heresy on the basis of a doctrine that was not written.” He himself claims something contrary (De concil., bk. 2, c. 12, § Sic etiam): “When the Council of Nicaea defined that Christ was consubstantial with the Father, it drew its conclusion from the Scriptures, in which we find clearly that there is one God, that the Father is God, and that the Son is God. From these it necessarily follows that the Father and the Son are of the same substance and divinity.” When Augustine was about to debate in Contra Maximinum Arianum (bk. 3, c. 14), he wrote expressly: “I ought not bring up the Council of Nicaea, and you ought not bring up the Council of Ariminum, etc. Let matter vie with matter, cause with cause, reason with reason on the basis of the authorities of the Scriptures, not on the basis of witnesses proper to one side, but those that are common to both of us.”