The statements of the fathers.
The statements of the fathers.
§ 446. Along with us the fathers teach the same thing. Justin, Exposit. rect. fid., p. 294: “The divine responses being constantly published to me, see in what order they teach that the Son and Holy Spirit are to be put, since among the children of the Church divine matters are not to be directed according to human reasonings and thoughts, but instead, speech and interpretation are to be adapted according to the sense and will of the teaching of the Spirit. And let not the prince instruct David … nor is it different with the divine Paul.”
Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 2, c. 2, p. 98: “Whom shall we believe concerning the creation of the world? Those aforementioned heretics who babble their foolish and fickle things, or the disciples of the Lord and that faithful servant of God, Moses, and the prophets?” In the same book, c. 3: “What sort of a thing is it for us to abandon the voices of the prophets, of the Lord, and of the apostles and to pay attention to those who have nothing sound to say?” Book 3, beginning of c. 1: “What the apostles first preached they later, by the will of God, put into the Scriptures, which would be the foundation and pillar of our faith.” Book 3, c. 15: “He says that the doctrine of the apostles is manifest and firm and takes away nothing.” In bk. 4, c. 69, he calls Scripture “the unmovable canon of truth.”
In Contra Herm., Tertullian calls Scripture “the rule of truth.”
In homily 5 on Leviticus, Origen teaches that whatever “pertains to divine matters and our religion must be sought in the Holy Scriptures and must be examined from them. From them, all knowledge of [divine] matters is to be taken.” Homily 9 on Numbers: “If we bring the words of heretics to God’s altar where the divine fire is, where the true preaching of faith is, the truth itself will shine more brightly from its comparison with the false.” Homily 1 on Jeremiah: “We must call Holy Scriptures to witness. Indeed, our senses have no trustworthiness without these witnesses.” On Matthew 13: “As in the mouth of two or three witnesses, or more, cited from Scripture, let us establish and confirm every word of God.”
Cyprian, Sermon de bapt.: “He will discover that the rules for all doctrines have emanated from it (Scripture) and that whatever ecclesiastical discipline contains is born from it and returns to it.”
Athanasius, Contra Arian., oration 2: “Heretics must be stoned with the arguments of the Holy Scriptures.” “In fact,” as he says in his Epistle ad Marcellin., “they are the teachers of virtue and of true faith.” He also says, “They are the anchors and supports written and explained by the very apostles of Christ” (Synopsis).
Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 4, p. 47: “I believe that with the witness of the evangelists and apostles we must respond to the perversity of heretics and refute all the foolish, death-dealing ideas they have established.”
Basil, Moral., rule 26: “Whatever we say or do ought to be confirmed with the testimony of Divine Writ, to confirm the faith of good people and to confound evil people.” In Contra Eunom., bk. 1, he calls Scripture “the canon of right and the norm of truth.” Epistle 80 ad Eustath. medicum: “Let the God-breathed Scripture be our arbiter. Whosesoever dogmas are found to be in harmony with the divine words, upon them he shall have, by all means, the vote of truth.”
Faustinus, De fid. contra Arian.: “The divine Scriptures were published for this reason: that we might direct our faith according to their meaning.”
Epiphanius, Haeres. 65, p. 275: “The discovery of questions, that is, knowing what to say to any question, we must seek not from our own reasonings but from the sequence of the Scriptures.”
Jerome (Adv. Helvid.) calls the sacred writings “the only fount of truth.”
Rufinus (Exposit. symb.) enumerates the canonical books of Holy Scripture and adds: “These are the books that the fathers included within the canon and from which they wanted the declarations of our faith to be established.” Later: “From these sources we must draw a drink of the divine Word.”
** Ambrose, De fid. ad Gratianum, bk. 1, c. 4: “I do not want you to believe the argument, holy emperor, and our interpretation. Let us ask the Scriptures, let us ask the apostles, let us ask the prophets, let us ask Christ.” **
Chrysostom, homily 12 on Genesis: “Therefore I pray and implore that we follow the canon of Holy Scripture with precision.” Homily 13 on 2 Corinthians: “We have a very exact scale, gnomon, and rule—the declaration, I say, of the divine laws. Therefore I implore and entreat you to abandon what seems best to this person or that and to seek out everything about these from Scripture.”
Constantine the Great said to the fathers of the Council of Nicaea (as we have it in Theodoret, Hist., bk. 1, c. 7; Gelasius of Cyzicus, Act. syn. Nicen., c. 5; the Tripart., bk. 2, c. 5): “The books of the evangelists and the oracles of the ancient prophets are extant, which clearly teach us what decision we must reach concerning a divine matter. Let us, then, have no discord that breeds nothing but strife, and let us take answers to questions from writings that are divinely inspired.”
From Augustine’s Epistle 163, at the end, it appears that, in debates over controverted articles of religion, Holy Writ was “the moderator of the debates” and that from it all controversies were judged. ** He says to the Donatists, “Let us see to it that the canonical codices are at hand, even if in any way documents can be brought forth from each side, so that we may put aside everything else and bring so important a matter, undertaken with a good spirit, to the end of the inquiry.” ** De viduitat., c. 1: “Holy Scripture fixes the rule for our teaching, lest we dare to think beyond what is necessary to think. Rather, let us think, as the apostle says, ‘with sober judgment, just as God has assigned a measure of faith to each.’ Therefore let it happen that I teach you nothing else except to explain the words of the Teacher and to discuss what the Lord has given concerning them.” Contra Donatistas, bk. 2, c. 6: “Let us bring to the examination not deceitful scales on which to weigh whatever we wish, as we wish, according to our choice, saying, ‘This is heavy; this is light.’ Instead, let us bring the divine scales of Holy Scripture as the testaments of the Lord. On it let us weigh whatever is serious. Or, rather, let us not weigh, but recognize that it has been weighed by the Lord.” (Here Augustine has expressed beautifully the reason why Scripture is called “canon.” The 
, you see, is that part on a set of scales that is put in the middle of the scales, like a little tongue, and shows balance or excess or lack.) Contra Cresconium, bk. 2, c. 31: “It was not without cause that the canon of the Church was established with such careful diligence, to which the sure books of the prophets and apostles belong. We must not dare to judge these books at all, but according to them we pass judgment on all other books, either of the faithful or of the faithless.” Contra Faust., bk. 11, c. 5: “The excellence of the canonical authority of the Old and New Testaments is distinct from the books of later writers (the ecclesiastical writers). This canonical authority was confirmed at the time of the apostles and has been established as on a lofty throne by successions of bishops and by the spreading of churches. Let every faithful and devout intellect be in service to it, etc. But in the case of the works of later writers that are contained in countless books, but which are by no means equal to the canonical excellence of the Holy Scriptures, we judge that in some of them, too, the same truth is found. Nevertheless the authority is far different.” De unit. eccles., c. 3: “Surely there are books of the Lord with whose authority we both agree, whose authority we both trust and serve. Let us seek the Church there. There let us shatter our cross.” Chapter 6: “Read this to us from the Law, from the prophets, from the Psalms, from the Gospel itself and the writings of the apostles. Read, and we shall believe.” Tractate 2 on the Epist. Joh.: “Against insidious errors, God wanted to lay a foundation in the Scriptures against which no man should dare speak who wants himself to appear somehow to be a Christian.”
In Dial., bk. 4, Cyril calls Scripture “the correct and perfect canon of faith.”
Leo, Epistle 10 ad Flav.: “To learn the truth in obscure matters we must hurry to the words of the prophets, to the writings of the apostles, to the Gospel authorities.”
Gregory, Moral., bk. 18, c. 14: “Whoever prepares himself for the words of true preaching must take the origins of causes from the sacred pages, so that he may call back everything that is said to the foundation of divine authority and establish the structure of his own speaking on it.”
Charlemagne, in the Leges ecclesiasticae published in Paris in 1550, rules that “only the canonical books of the Bible should be read in the churches” and that “the bishops should not preach the inventions of men or anything from their own mind but should preach the pure Word of God.”
Nicephorus calls the canonical writings “the eternal principles and elements of our piety” (Eccles. hist., bk. 2, c. 46).
Lyra, preface to Tobit: “Just as in the philosophical disciplines the truth is recognized by a reduction to self-evident first principles, so in the Scriptures handed down by Catholic teachers, the truth is recognized, so far as concerns those things that are to be held in faith, by a reduction to the canonical Scriptures, which we have by divine revelation, in which there can by no means be anything false.”
§ 447. We can supply some statements in support of this position even from our opponents. Gratian, in dist. 3, c. Canon, from Isidore’s Etymolog., bk. 6, c. 16: “That which is called ‘canon’ in Greek and ‘rule’ in Latin is so called because it leads straightly and never draws one away into another direction.” In dist. 9, c. Ego solis, a statement of Augustine is cited: “I have learned to offer this respect and honor only to those books of Scripture that are now called ‘canonical,’ so that I believe strongly that no author of them erred in writing anything. But I read other books in such a way that, regardless of the sanctity and doctrine with which they excel, I do not think they are true because they are of such an opinion but because they were able to persuade me by those canonical authors or by probable logic that is not inconsistent with the truth.” In dist. 37, c. Relatum, from the fifth letter of Clement: “One must grasp the meaning of truth from the Scriptures themselves.” Later: “Because everyone receives from the divine Scriptures the complete and firm rule of faith, it will not be absurd for him also to compare anything from common erudition and liberal studies that he perhaps learned even in boyhood to the declaration of true dogma. Yet he should do this in such a way that, where he has learned true things, he may shun the false and pretended.” In [causa] 24, q. 1, c. Non afferamus, Augustine’s statement is quoted: “Let us not bring deceitful scales,” etc.76 Thomas Aquinas, lection 1 on 1 Timothy 6: “The doctrine of the prophets and apostles is called ‘canonical’ because it is like a rule for our intellect.”
Tostatus, on Genesis 4, p. 16: “Because among all truth, divine truth is more certain and more immutable, all other truths ought to be regulated by it. They are true to the extent that they conform to it. To the extent that they deviate from it, they deviate from the nature of truth.” Tostatus again: “Firm faith must be applied to Holy Scripture alone and not to something else” (Ind. 177, f. b).
Durandus, Sent., bk. 3, dist. 25, q. 2: “Holy Scripture is the rule of faith. One is not permitted to add anything to it nor take anything from it.”
Gerson, De examin. doctrin., part 2, no. 17: “Holy Scripture has been handed down to us as the sufficient and infallible rule for ruling all the body and members of the Church until the end of time.”
The author of the book Onus eccles., c. 18, § 13, rebukes those “who do not rely on the text of the Bible as on the stable foundation or unshakable truth of certain doctrine but who construct dogmas on the sand that are soon ruined, who pass by the kernel of divine wisdom that offers itself in holy and authentic Scripture and who rely on unique doctrines.”
In De eccles., bk. 4, c. 7, near the beginning, Andreas Fricius is angry with those who “compare Scripture to a wax nose that can be bent in both directions.” He asserts that, when they do this, they are detracting from the authority of Scripture and obscuring the majesty of the divine oracles.
Johannes Ferus, Exam. ordinand.: “Scripture is called ‘canonical,’ that is, rulelike, because it is the rule of life and truth that God has given us by which we are to test all things and according to which we are to live.”
In Defens. concil. Trident., bk. 3, Jac. Payva Andrada writes: “I am not at all displeased with the opinion of those who claim that the books of Scripture are called ‘canonical’ because they contain the canon of piety, faith, and religion, that is, the complete rule and norm that God in His great goodness has sent down to us from heaven.”
Matthias Bredenbachius says, “God has given His Church the Scripture according to which, as a straightedge—or as we are in the habit of saying, ‘as a touchstone’—it is proper to measure and examine the life and faith and doctrine of all people” (De dissidiis ecclesiae componendis, letter G, 6).
In De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 1-2, Bellarmine confirms with many arguments that “the prophetic and apostolic books are the sure and stable rule of faith.” If he wanted to make the exception that he means a partial rule, we set against him Basil’s statement in Contra Eunom., bk. 1: “Wherever a rule and straightedge may be imperfect, they have not received these names rightly.”