I. The authority of the Fathers and their manner of writing. 5
Preparations for the Demonstration of the Problem Before I come to the confirmation of my position, I must necessarily give notice of three things, the better to clear the way for the defense ensuing. The first shall concern the authority of the fathers and their diverse manners of writing. The second shall discover their counterfeit works, and such as are doubted. The third shall explain the reasons why the apostles' religion is now so depraved.
I. The authority of the Fathers and their manner of writing The ancient writers do teach and defend that the canonical Scripture is of itself the perfect rule and standard in all controversies of faith.
Tertullian against Hermogenes: "I adore the fullness and perfection of the Scripture." Athanasius also in his Synopsis affirms that "those doctrines which are contained in the Scriptures are sufficient for faith." Basil in his treatise on faith: "It is a manifest offense of arrogance and infidelity, either to reject any part of that which is written, or to add any other thing which is not written." Augustine against Petilian's letters, book 3, chap. 46: "Whether it concerns
Christ, or His church, or any other thing belonging to our faith, or life, I will not say if we do preach, that even as the apostle himself says afterwards, if an angel comes from heaven with any other doctrine than that you have heard out of the legal and evangelical
Scriptures, let him be accursed." The same Augustine in his 49th tract on John: "Whereas our Savior Christ did many things, and yet all of them are not written: those things were chosen to be written
which were sufficient for the salvation of believers." Vincent of Lérins, chap. 41: "The Canon of Holy Scripture suffices for all things even abundantly." Salvian in his third book on providence says, "that the books of the gospel contain doctrine replete with all manner of perfection." Scotus likewise, in his prologue before the 1st book of Sentences, question 2, says, "It is evident that the Scripture sufficiently contains all things necessary for the pilgrimage" to heaven. Cameracensis on the Sentences: "We must have recourse only to the Scriptures, that we may obtain salvation." Bellarmine, on the unwritten word of God, book 4, chap. 11: "I say that all those things were written by the apostles which are necessary for all men, and which they publicly preached to all men."
The ancient writers will have their sayings and testimonies well examined, and so far only to be received as they agree with the rule of our faith, and the writings of the prophets and apostles. So speaks
Dionysius of Alexandria of Nepos: "In many other things I do embrace and love Nepos, but surely the truth is to be preferred and respected before all. If any man speaks well, we ought to give him his due praise and approbation without all envy, but if he speaks anything that is not sound, we must both examine it and try it thoroughly." So Saint Augustine also: "I will not bind you to my authority, that you should therefore think anything necessary to be believed because I affirm it." And again: "I have learned to give this honor and reverence to those books alone which are now called canonical, that I do infallibly believe that no author of them all, or any of them, ever erred in any of his writings. For others, I so read them that (however holy or learned they may be) I do not think this or that to be true because they so held it, but so far as they are able to persuade me, either by those canonical authors, or by probable reason, that it is not opposing the truth." Besides, "I am not tied to the authority of this epistle, because I do not hold Cyprian's letters
for canonical, but I examine them by canonical Scriptures: and whatever I find therein consenting to them, I approve with his praise; and whatever is opposite to them, by his leave I must reject."
And in another place: "In those parts of Scripture which are most plain, we found all those things that contain the rules of our faith and manner, namely, hope and charity." Chrysostom also says "that if a man affirms anything without authority of Scripture, his auditors do but slenderly respect it." Basil also teaches, "that it is not sufficient for us to believe the fathers and writers of the Church in matters of faith, unless they confirm their sayings by Scripture."
The fathers in many points of divinity have spoken very unsuitably.
First, when they were moved to do so in the heat of disputation. As Basil, speaking of Gregory of Neocaesarea: "They could not understand," he says, "that this (namely, that the Father and the Son are one in person) was spoken in the contention and controversy of disputation with Aelian, not positively, nor dogmatically." Second, because in their exhortation they often were too rhetorical, either to favor others or to affect their audience more. Saint Jerome confesses this of himself, excusing something that he had spoken unsuitably:
"We did play the rhetorician," he says, "and gave somewhat to our declamations." So Theodoret: "I do not account those things a rule of doctrines and decrees, which are flauntingly and rhetorically spoken in the church." This may far more truly be affirmed of the rabble of the canonists and schoolmen. Let one of them describe all the rest.
"One cries that all actions of inferiors shall be judged by the pope, but the popes only by God. Another says, that none can judge the chief chair. A third says, that God only can depose popes. A fourth is not ashamed to aver, that though the pope should carry heaps of souls to hell with him, yet no man ought to reprehend him. Thus these wretches never consider that these allegations that they clap so fast together are either of the popes' own coining, enlarging the
borders of their garments, or of some of those that made it their trade to flatter them."
Third, because they speak more carelessly while controversies were not raised. As Augustine acknowledges, that while the Pelagians did not stir, the ancient fathers spoke more negligently about original sin and free will. His words are these: "He (meaning Chrysostom) disputing in the Catholic Church, did think his words would be no otherwise conceived: there was then no such question made concerning this thing, you had not as yet raised your contention, and therefore he spoke more carelessly." Bellarmine himself confesses that "the writers speak sometimes properly and warily, and sometimes unsuitably and heedlessly."
Fourth, because they often borrowed their forms of speech from the vulgar, and therefore have written in many places accordingly.
Melchior Cano shall be a witness. "We cannot deny," says he, "that even the gravest authors, especially in describing the miracles of the saints, have both heeded flying reports and also delivered them in writing unto posterity. Wherein truly (if I might judge) they either indulged themselves or the rude and vulgar sort of the faithful too greatly; because they knew that the common sort did not only easily believe all those miracles but also desired most earnestly to hear of them. And they thought it the more tolerable because they knew that the most famous authors hold that it is the true law of a history to write such things as common report confirms to be true, which things I may perhaps both rightly and truly affirm of Gregory and Bede." After this manner in the books of antiquity, that is often termed by the names of catholic and apostolic which was so esteemed by the vulgar sort of the faithful.
Fifth, because the fathers, being overcome by the multitude, were now and then carried into superstitions, as the force of the tide violently carries away boats. And hereupon it ensued that they concealed some things for fear. "There are many such faults as this," says one, "which I dare not so freely reprove, for fear of offending some other holy, or perhaps, turbulent persons."
Sixth, because sometimes they speak of things historically and in the form of rehearsal, not positively, and by way of assertion. Witness
Saint Jerome: "The ancient fathers are sometimes forced to speak against their own thoughts, only because they must be feigned to affirm so against the positions of the brethren." Again, it is one thing to speak scholastically or disputatively, and another thing to speak dogmatically or doctrinally. So also a later writer: "We must mark how authors do speak, whether out of opinion, or out of assertion, or out of the vehemency of sorrow, comforting themselves." And so he proceeds expounding the saying of Saint Ambrose, spoken of Valentinian dying without baptism: "the grace which he entreated for, he did not lose." So Abbot Joachim: "A man may speak what he thinks out of conjectures, but not as though he understood certainly anything thereby." And those testimonies of antiquity which say that Enoch and Elijah are the two witnesses, he calls them "opinions fallible, no knowledge or understanding." So Bartolus the civilian is said to defend Pope Clement I, his institution concerning the pope's power over kings, "rather triflingly and for fashion's sake, than truly and out of his own conscience, because he is wholly uncertain, and never affirms one flat position one way or other; and also because his place of abode was under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome."
Hear another: "We must not hold all the pope's opinative allegations (being not decretally spoken) to be of the same value with their express determinations, as they themselves do testify. For Innocent himself upon the Chap. Literas, etc. (when there was a question
made, concerning which the final sentence of Pope Clement was alleged) held not Clement's judgment for a determination, neither would he himself determine thereof. For it were too hard a matter, and not to be borne, that the judgment of the learned should be tied to every answer and opinative allegation of the popes, for they have not always the assistance of the Spirit." Bellarmine speaking of Celestine and Innocent teaching express contraries, says, "that neither of them decreed any certainty in that controversy, but both spoke out of their judgment to the greatest probability. And that there are many things in the decretal epistles, which imply not any matter of faith, but only discover the pope's opinions concerning these things." Why therefore may not we avouch the same of the fathers?
Therefore, the fathers of later ages oftentimes expounded the sayings of their predecessors out of the Holy Scriptures or else did flatly reject them. Witness hereof Saint Augustine in the controversies with the Pelagians: "Julian did cite Basil: Sin is not a substance, but an accident, therefore easily removed out of the will, so that no scar or token thereof remain." Saint Augustine expounds this place according to the analogy of faith: "It is easy not to man's will, but unto God's mercy." And this sufficed against the Manichees, who held that it was impossible, and whereas some fathers, viz.,
"Irenaeus, Justin, Clement, and Tertullian held, the law of nature had power to save the Gentiles without Christ," Saint Augustine expressly confutes them all. Nay, which is more, the fathers themselves would either plainly retract and call in again such things as they had unfitly committed to others' ears, or else they would correct them by writing the contrary in another place.
The fathers have errors, yea, and that sometimes very gross ones; they themselves acknowledge it very plainly. "In the doctors' books,"