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PART THE FIRST.
PART I.—FAITH AND THE WORD OF GOD
"BLESSED are they who
hear the word of God, and keep it," says St. Luke (xi. 28). Blessed are
they indeed whose lives give testimony to the living faith which fills
their souls. Incomprehensible to the unbeliever, through the grace of God
it is in the heart of the believer more certain than the eternal
mountains.
"Faith is not a mere conviction in reason," says Cardinal
Newman. "It is a firm assent, it is a clear certainty, greater than any
other certainty; and this is wrought in the mind by the grace of God, and
by it alone. As, then, men may be convinced, and not act according to
their conviction, so may they be convinced and not believe according to
their conviction. They may confess that the argument is against them, and
that they have nothing to say for themselves, and that to believe is to be
happy; and yet, after all, they avow they can not believe, they do not
know why, but they can not; they acquiesce in unbelief, and they turn away
from God and His Church. Their reason is convinced, and their doubts are
moral ones, arising in their root from a fault of the will. In one word,
the arguments of religion do not compel any one to believe, just as
arguments for good conduct do not compel any one to obey. Obedience is
the consequence of willing to obey, and faith is the consequence of
willing to believe. We may see what is right, whether in matters of faith
or obedience, of ourselves, but we cannot will what is right without the
grace of God. Here is the difference between other exercises of reason
and arguments for the truth of religion. It requires no act of faith to
assent to the truth that two and two make four; we cannot help assenting
to it; and hence there is no merit in assenting to it; but there is merit
in believing that the Church is from God: for though there are abundant
reasons to prove it to us, yet we can, without an absurdity, quarrel with
this conclusion; we can complain that it is not clearer, we may suspend
our assent, we may doubt about it, if we will; and grace alone can turn a
bad will into a good one." (From Cardinal
Newman's "Discourses to Mixed Congregations on Faith and Doubt," No. xi.)
The substance of the Catholic faith is in the Apostles'
Creed. From time to time the Church has had to defend this deposit of
faith against heretics and infidels. Her definitions have been embodied
in different successive creeds, which are: The Nicene Creed, the
Constantinopolitan Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Creed of Pius IV, or
Tridentine Creed, and the Vatican Creed. Only the Apostles' Creed and the
Creed of Pius IV are subjoined, as they embody the whole doctrine as
expressed up to the present time.
The Apostles' Creed
1, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven
and earth;—2, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord;—3, who was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;—4, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified; died, and was buried;—5, He descended into
hell; the third day He arose again from the dead;—6, He ascended into
heaven; sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;—7, from
thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead—8, I believe in the
Holy Ghost;—9, the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints;—10, the
forgiveness of sins;—11, the resurrection of the body;—12, and the life
everlasting. Amen.
Creed of Pope Pius IV
(This Creed, an extension of the Nicene Creed, was
composed at the conclusion of the General Council of Trent (capital of the
Austrian Tyrol), held from the year of Our Lord 1545 to 1563, to meet the
errors of the first Protestants, Luther, Calvin, and others, then
spreading. A few supplementary words were added by Pope Pius IX,
referring to the supremacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff.)
I, (N. Christian name), with a firm faith, believe and
profess all and every one of those things which are contained in that
creed which the Holy Roman Church maketh use of. Namely: I believe in
one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things
visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten
Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God of God: Light of
light; true God of true God; begotten, not made, consubstantial to the
Father; by whom all things were made. Who, for us men, and for our
salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of
the Virgin Mary, and was made man. He was crucified also for us,
under Pontius Pilate, He suffered and was buried and the third day He rose
again according to the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth
at the right hand of the Father, and He shall come again with glory to
judge the living and the dead:—of whose kingdom there shall be no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Lifegiver, who proceedeth
from the Father and the Son, who together with the Father and the Son, is
adored and glorified; who spoke by the Prophets.
And, I believe One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I
confess one Baptism for the remission of sins: and I look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I most steadfastly admit and embrace the Apostolical and
Ecclesiastical Traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of
the same Church.
I also admit the Holy Scriptures, according to that sense
which our holy Mother the Church has held, and does hold, to which it
belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures:
neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to
the unanimous consent of the Fathers.
I also profess that there are truly and properly seven
sacraments of the New Law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and
necessary for the salvation of mankind, although not all of them necessary
for every one. Namely, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance,
Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony; and that they confer grace; and
that of these, Baptism, Confirmation, and Order, cannot be repeated
without the sin of sacrilege. I also receive and admit the received and
approved ceremonies of the Catholic Church used in the solemn
administration of the aforesaid sacraments.
I embrace and receive all and every one of the things which
have been defined and declared in the holy Council of Trent, concerning
original sin and justification.
I profess likewise, that in the Mass there is offered to God a
true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. And
that in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly, really,
and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity,
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is made a conversion of the whole
substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the
wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic Church calls
Transubstantiation. I also confess that, under either kind alone, Christ
is received whole and entire, and a true sacrament.
I steadfastly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the
souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful.
Likewise that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be honored
and invocated, and that they offer prayers to God for us, and that their
relics are to be held in veneration.
I most firmly assert that the images of Christ, of the Mother of God, ever
Virgin, and also of other saints ought to be had and retained, and that
due honor and veneration are to be given them.
I also affirm that the power of granting indulgences was left
by Christ in the Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to
Christian people.\
I acknowledge the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church for
the mother and mistress of all churches, and I promise true obedience to
the Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and
Vicar of Jesus Christ.
I likewise undoubtedly receive and profess all other things
which the Sacred Canons and General Councils, and particularly the holy
Council of Trent and the Ecumenical Vatican Council, have delivered,
defined, and declared, and in particular, about the supremacy and
infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff. And I condemn, reject and
anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies which the
Church has condemned, rejected, and anathematized.
I (Christian name) do at this present feely profess and
sincerely hold this true Catholic faith, out of which no one can be
saved. And I promise most constantly to retain and confess the same,
entire and unsustained, with God's assistance, to the end of my life.
(This condemns the opinion of some, that
for salvation it is enough to believe the Catholic faith only inwardly;
for, not professing habitually the religion of Christ is equivalent to
being ashamed of Christ; and regarding those who are ashamed of Him,
Christ declared He would be ashamed of them when He shall come in the
glory of His Father. (Mark viii. 38, and Luke ix. 26) St. Paul
declares, "with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation." (Rom. x. 10) From the moment that
one is convinced that the Catholic faith is the true faith, and the
Catholic Church the true Church of Christ, it is his duty to become a
member of it, and be added to it also exteriorly by an outward
reception; as otherwise he would belong neither implicitly nor explicitly
to it, that is, neither to the soul nor to the body of the Church. Not to
the soul, because that is the privilege only of a person in good faith.
Not to the body, because, as we suppose, he refuses to join it outwardly
in the manner appointed by the Church. Thus it was not enough for St.
Paul or for Cornelius the centurion to believe inwardly, though
enlightened by a supernatural light, but the former had, by God's
direction, to apply for that purpose to the priest Ananias, and Cornelius
to St. Peter.)
The Holy Bible, the Written Word of
God
THAT part of divine
Revelation which has been committed to writing by persons inspired by the
Holy Ghost, is called Holy Scripture, or the Holy Bible, the Book of
books.
Holy Scripture is composed not only of all the books received
by Protestants as divinely inspired, but also of some other books which
were written after the Jewish list or Canon of Scripture was made, but
which nevertheless are held in great veneration by the Jewish synagogue,
and by many Protestants themselves.
Such are the books of Tobias, Judith, Esther, Wisdom,
Ecclesiasticus (or the Son of Sirach), Prophecy of Baruch, and the two
first books of Machabees. These books, though not registered in the
Jewish Canon, were nevertheless held by many Fathers of the early
centuries as canonical and forming a part of the deposit of revealed
truths entrusted to the Church
In the schismatic Greek Church, and in other separated
Churches of the East, the Canon, or authorized list of the books of
Scripture, agrees with that of the Roman Catholic Church. The efforts
made by early Protestants to induce the Greek Church to reject that
inspired portion of Scripture called by the Catholic Church deutero-canonical,
and by Protestants the Apocrypha, only served to call forth repeatedly
from the Greeks assembled in council new synonical declarations that those
books are inspired.
The Church established the canonical authority of certain
books in the celebrated Council of Hippo in Africa, in the year 393,
attended by all the bishops of Africa, at which also the great Doctor and
Father of the Church, St. Augustine, was present.
In Statute XXXVI of this Council (393) it was decreed: "That
nothing be read in the Church under the name of Divine Scripture, except
the Canonical Scriptures," and the Canonical Scriptures are:
| Genesis. |
Daniel. |
| Exodus. |
Tobias. |
| Leviticus. |
Judith. |
| Numbers. |
Esther. |
| Deuteronomy. |
Two books of
Esdras
(Ezra and Nehemias). |
| Josue. |
Two books of
Machabees. |
| Judges. |
|
| Ruth. |
AND OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT |
| Four books of
Kingdoms. |
Four books of
the Gospel. |
| Two books of
Paralipomenon. |
One book of
the Acts of the Apostles. |
| Job. |
Thirteen
letters of Paul the Apostle. |
| The Psalter of
David. |
One letter of
the same to the Hebrews. |
| Five books of
Solomon. |
Two of Peter
the Apostle. |
| The books of
the Twelve (Minor) Prophets. |
Two of John. |
| Isaias. |
One of the
Apostle Jude. |
| Jeremias. |
One of James. |
| Ezechiel. |
One book of
the Apocalypse of John. |
This list of canonical books issued by this great Council
agrees in substance with the list of divinely inspired books held by
Catholics at the present day. This any one can see by comparing the list
with that prefixed to the English Catholic Bible, called the Douay Bible,
and with that of the old Latin Vulgate, or any other Catholic version of
Holy Scripture, and likewise with the Canon of Scripture given by the
Ecumenical Councils of Florence and of Trent.
The Council of Hippo in 393, and the third of Carthage in 397,
was followed by the sixth Council of Carthage in 419, attended by two
hundred and eighteen bishops, and by two Legates sent by the Roman
Pontiff. The list or Canon of Books of Scripture decreed in the 29th
decree of this Council agrees with the list given by the two previous
Councils just mentioned, and ends with these words: "Because we have
received from the Fathers that these are the books to be read in the
Church."
These words should not be passed unnoticed by those who allow
themselves to be led astray by the assertion that "in the name of Holy
Scripture we do understand those books of whose authority there was never
any doubt in the Church." Let such persons consider what an assumption it
is to suppose that they themselves are, or that their leaders in the
sixteenth century were, more competent to judge of the Tradition of the
Church of the first four centuries than the Council of Hippo and the third
of Carthage, both held in the fourth century, and the sixth Council of
Carthage, held in the beginning of the fifth century; and better judges
than all the bishops of Christendom of that age; for the above list of
canonical books sanctioned by these three Councils was thenceforward
received by the whole of Christendom.
About the importance, and, indeed, the necessity of a decision
of the Catholic Church to establish the inspiration, canonicity, and
authenticity of Holy Scripture, the saying of the great Doctor of the
Church, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, is well known: "For my part, I
should not believe the Gospel (meaning the written Gospel), were I not
moved thereto by the authority of the Catholic Church."
The Interpretation and the Reading of
the Holy Scriptures
THE Holy Scriptures are
the Word of God, but it is clear that if the Scriptures are wrongly
interpreted, they become the word of man. For, as the Protestant Bishop
Walton says: "The Word of God does not consist in mere letters, whether
written or printed, but in the true sense of it." This is what St. Jerome
had said ages before: "Let us be persuaded that the Gospel consists not
in the words, but in the sense. A wrong explanation turns the Word of God
into the word of man, and, what is worse, into the word of the devil; for
the devil himself could quote the text of Scripture;" and he did so when
he tempted Our Lord in the desert. (Matt. iv. 6)
Protestants should consider well this point, especially those
who so confidently and plausibly boast that they stand by the Bible alone,
and imagine that to stand by the Bible alone means that they rely not upon
human authority, but upon the Word of God.
Certainly nothing can be better than to stand by the Word of
God. The question is whether what is called standing by the Bible alone
be to stand by the Word of God.
Let us observe, first, that the Bible, though divinely
inspired, is but a written document, and a written document often so
obscure, that St. Augustine, though so great a scholar, and a Doctor of
the Church, confessed that there were more things in the Bible he did not
understand than things he did understand.
Let us consider, second, that the Bible, because a written
document, remains always silent unless interpreted, that is, unless some
meaning is affixed to the words by some one.
Therefore, when a Protestant says, "I stand by the Bible
alone," he does not mean that he stands by the Bible uninterpreted, for in
such case the Bible is mute. He does not mean that he stands by the Bible
as interpreted by the Church, for that would not be the Protestant, but
the Catholic principle. Nor does he mean that he stands by the Bible as
interpreted by somebody else, as that would be, according to his notion,
to give up his right of private interpretation. But he means that he
stands by the Bible alone as interpreted by himself, and that the sense in
which he himself understands it is the Word of God.
He who has eyes may see how shallow is this principle of
standing by the Bible alone.
The Bible in the original language, or when truthfully
translated, is indeed in itself the Word of God, and infallible; but the
Bible is not the Word of God, nor infallible, with regard to us, unless
rightly interpreted, that is, interpreted with authority, certainty, and
infallibility. For if the interpretation be wrong, the Bible ceases to
be, with regard to the reader, the Word of God; and if the interpretation
be unauthorized, doubtful, fallible, the Bible becomes, with regard to the
reader, unbinding, doubtful, fallible.
St. Peter condemns private interpretation of Scripture,
saying: "No prophecy (or explanation) of Scripture is made by private
interpretation." (2 Peter i. 20.) Those who refuse to hear and to follow
the legitimate interpretation, and the faith of the Church, instead of the
Word of God, that is, what God really meant in Holy Scripture, have often
only their own inventions and errors, and these they mistake for the Word
of God.
These persons consequently fall into a maze of perplexities
and often change their interpretation. They are, as St. Paul expresses
it, "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine."
(Eph. iv. 14.) St. Peter warns us of this danger when, referring
especially to St. Paul's Epistles, he says: "In which are certain things
hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do
also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter iii. 16.)
Hence it appears how rash and dangerous is the principle of
private interpretation, which emboldens every individual to prefer his own
private view of any passage of Scripture to the solemn interpretation and
decision of the whole body of Catholic bishops of past and present time
united to the See of Peter. Persons actuated by such pride cannot expect
to be led by God unto truth.
Objectors say that to submit to the teaching of the Church is
to give up our reason. But if it could not be called a surrender of
reason for the early Christians to submit to the teaching of the apostles,
because it was a submission to the messengers of Christ, to the witnesses
and authorized expounders of Revelation as long as the apostles lived,
surely it cannot be considered a surrender of reason,, but a high exercise
of reason and a most reasonable act, for other Christians to conform
themselves to the teaching of the Catholic Church, that is, to the body of
the Catholic bishops, with the Roman Pontiff at their head, who are the
lawful messengers of God, the legitimate successors of the apostles, the
witnesses and authorized expounders of Revelation; for they, in an
uninterrupted succession, keep up that apostolic office, which, according
to Christ's declaration, and through the promised special assistance of
the Holy Spirit, was to last to the end of time.
Objectors say that every one has the assistance of the Holy
Spirit to interpret the Bible rightly. But if this were so, people would
agree and would not contradict each other in their interpretation of
Scripture.
This principle of private interpretation of Holy Scripture,
during the three centuries since Luther's time, has given rise to hundreds
of sects among Protestants, and this in spite of the efforts of several of
the civil governments to prevent such subdivisions. Had this principle
been adopted in the beginning of Christianity, and gone on working
throughout the Christian world for eighteen centuries, unrestrained by the
civil power, the sects would probably by this time have enormously
increased, or Christianity would have disappeared entirely.
(Luther, in his letter to the Christians
of Antwerp exclaimed with bitterness: "One rejects Baptism; another the
Eucharist; another constructs a new world between the present and that
which will arise after the Last Judgment; some deny the divinity of
Christ. One says this; the other that; there are as many sects as
there are heads. Everybody imagines himself inspired by the Holy
Ghost and wants to be a prophet." Cardinal Hosius enumerated in the
sixteenth century 270 different sects that originated from the principle
of private interpretation. Janssen, the historian, relates some practical
Scripture interpretations of Luther's followers, about the year 1524. In
St. Gall a number of men suddenly awoke to the significance of the divine
percept, "Go into the whole world and preach the gospel." Accordingly
they met in the town, and by mutual agreement rushed through the city
gates toward the four quarters of the earth. In Appenzell twelve thousand
persons assembled according to the text: "Do not care of what you shall
eat," and abstained from food until hunger compelled them to disperse.
Some climbed upon the roofs of houses and preached from their exalted
stations because Christ had said: "That which you hear in the ear, preach
ye upon the house tops." Others again threw the Bible into the fire
according to their interpretation of the divine word: "The letter killeth;
the spirit vivifieth."—Spiritual Pepper and Salt, by Rt. Rev. Wm. Stang,
D.D.)
The Bible, without an authorized, divinely appointed
interpreter, could not condemn any heresy, nor could any of the Christian
sects adjudge any individual or any other sect as guilty of heresy,
without abdicating its own principle of private interpretation for all.
Even Tertullian, a Father of the second century, could say: "Wherefore
the Scriptures cannot be the test (speaking of controversy), nor can they
decide the conflict; since, with regard to them, the victory must remain
in suspense." In all centuries those persons who maintained and taught
their own private interpretations in opposition to that of the
Church, have been regarded by all the Fathers, Saints, and Doctors of the
Church as heretics, and were condemned as such by the Church.
However, "They who solicitously seek for truth, ready to
disown their errors as soon as the truth is discovered, are by no means to
be numbered among heretics," says St. Augustine. This is also the opinion
of all Catholic theologians. Such persons are material, not formal,
heretics.
Catholics do well to read and study the Holy Scriptures for
their greater instruction and edification, but always in a spirit of
submission to the Catholic Church, so as never to prefer their own private
view to the known interpretation and teaching of "the Church of the living
God, the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim. iii. 15.)
Before Luther's innovations the Catholic Church did not forbid
the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue to the laity, except in France in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was the unheard-of system of private
interpretation, brought in by the Reformers in disparagement of that of
the Church, that caused her to put in general some restrictions on private
reading. In Catholic seminaries, the study of Scripture is looked upon as
the most important course in theology.
The approved Catholic version of the Holy Scriptures, in
English or any other tongue, with notes, although not indiscriminately
circulated, is not withheld from the faithful, and the reverent reading of
it is encouraged by the Church. It is well known that new and cheap
editions of Holy Scripture are frequently issued, both in the United and
abroad, by Catholic booksellers with the approval of the Bishops. To most
editions is prefixed a letter of Pope Pius VI, in the year 1778, to the
Most Rev. Antony Martini, of Turin, Archbishop of Florence, in which His
Holiness praises him for opportunely "publishing the sacred writings in
the language of his country, suitable to every one's capacity," and
encourages the pious reading and studying of Holy Scripture by the
faithful. Leo XIII, granted an indulgence for the daily reading of the
Holy Bible, and appointed a special Commission in 1902, to defend the Book
of books against the attacks of modern Protestant skepticism, disguised
under the name of the "Higher Criticism."
Catholics themselves sometimes come to think that there must
be some truth in the ever reiterated assertion that Luther gave the Bible
to the people. Let it be borne in mind that the art of printing was
invented only eighty years before the Reformation. Before that, books of
all kinds, and Bibles as well, were necessarily very costly. The first
book printed, however, was a Bible. Up to the year 1500, the Latin Bible
had been printed more than a hundred times. Latin was then almost
universally known and spoken. Fifteen versions in High German and five in
Low German existed before Luther began his translation. According to Sir
Thomas More, the Bible was read in English before Wyclif's time.
The author of "The History of the Reformation of the Church of
England," Rev. J. H. Blunt, a Protestant clergyman, says: "There has been
much wild and foolish writing about the scarcity of the Bible in the ages
preceding the Reformation. The facts are that the clergy and monks were
daily reading large portions of the Bible, and had them stored up in their
memory by constant recitation; that they made free use of Holy Scripture
in preaching, so that even a modern Bible-reader is astonished at the
number of quotations and references contained in medieval sermons; that
countless copies of the Bible were written out by the surprising industry
of cloistered scribes; that many glosses, or commentaries, were written,
which are still to be seen, full of pious and wise thoughts; that all
laymen who could read were, as a rule, provided with their gospels, their
psalter, or other devotional portions of the Bible. Men did, in fact,
take a vast amount of trouble with respect to the production of copies of
the Holy Scriptures, and accomplished by head, hands, and heart what is
now chiefly done by paid workmen and machinery. The clergy studied the
word of God and made it known to the laity; and those few among the laity
who could read had abundant opportunity of reading the Bible, either in
Latin or in English, up to the Reformation period."
Catholics say with Dante: "Either Testament, the Old and New
is ours, and for our guide The Shepherd of the Church. Le tthis suffice
to save us."
Tradition, the Unwritten Word of God
BESIDES the written
Word of God, Catholics believe also in the unwritten Word, called in Holy
Scripture: "the Word of God spoken" (Acts iv. 31.), "The Word of Faith
preached" (Rom. x. 8.), "The Gospel heard and preached" (Col. i. 23.),
"The Word of God received, heard, believed" (1 Thess. Ii. 13.); and "The
Word of Christ heard" (Rom. x. 17.). Whenever in the New Testament the
Word of God revealed by Christ or through His apostles is spoken of before
it was committed to writing, it always refers to the unwritten Word of
God.
Even after the Word of God was in part committed to writing,
some passages evidently refer to the Word of God unwritten; as for
instance, where St. Peter says: "But the word of the Lord endureth
forever, and this is the word which hath been preached unto you." (1
Peter i. 25.) Therefore, whenever the Word of God, without any
qualification, is mentioned in Holy Scripture, it should not be taken as
referring exclusively to the written Word, for it generally refers both to
the written and unwritten Word of God.
The Vatican Council, held in 1870, put the doctrine of the
Church in concise words, when it declared: "The supernatural revelation,
according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained in the
written books, and in the unwritten traditions which have come to us as
received orally from Christ Himself by the apostles, or handed down from
the apostles taught by the Holy Ghost."
By Tradition we do not mean, therefore, a mere report, a
hearsay, wanting sufficient evidence to deserve belief; or a local
tradition started by men, and therefore merely human, as were those
traditions of the Pharisees condemned by Our Lord; but we mean a tradition
first coming from God, continually taught, recorded, and in all desirable
ways kept alive by a body of trustworthy men successively chosen in a
divine or divinely appointed manner, well instructed, and who are, as a
body, protected by God from teaching what is wrong or handing down
unfaithfully to others the doctrine committed to them.
St. Paul gives us an idea of how this tradition should be
handed down when he says: "For I delivered unto you first of all, which I
also received." (1 Cor. xv. 3.) And again, when writing to Timothy, he
says: "The things which thou hast heard of me by many witnesses the same
commend to the faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others also." (2
Tim. ii. 2.)
Holy Scripture and the Tradition just described are both the
Word of God: the first written out by persons inspired by God; the other,
taught by His own divine lips, or inspired by the Holy Spirit in the mind
of one man or body of men, to be continually handed down successively
under His divine protection to their legitimate successors; neither,
therefore, of these divine Words can be rejected without the guilt of
unbelief.
St. Basil says: "Of the dogmas and teachings preserved in the
Church, we have some from the doctrine committed to writing, and some we
have received transmitted to us in a secret manner from the Traditions of
the Apostles; both these have the same force in forming sound doctrine,
and no one who has the least experience of ecclesiastical laws will
gainsay either of these. For should we attempt to reject, as not having
great authority, those customs that are unwritten, we should be betrayed
into injuring the gospel even in primary matters, or rather in
circumscribing the gospel to a mere man." (Vol. Iii., De Spiritu Sanct.
cxxvii.)
This divine Tradition is not liable to failure either from
human fraud or infirmity, because it has the security of divine
guardianship, that is to say, because those whose office it is to keep
alive this Tradition, are divinely protected from teaching what is false.
This appears from that passage of Isaias, which even Protestants admit
refers to the Church, and in which God says: "This is My covenant with
them: My Spirit that is in thee, and My words that I have put in thy
mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy
seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, from henceforth and
forever. (lix. 21.) This appears also from those passages of St. John
where it is recorded that Christ said: "And I will ask the Father, and He
shall give you another Paraclete (or Comforter), that He may abide
with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. . . But when He, the Spirit of
Truth, is come, He will teach you all truth." (xiv. 16, 17 and xvi. 13.)
The necessity of believing the unwritten living Word of God
appears also from the fact that the fundamental virtue of faith, without
which no adult is a Christian, is an assent to the Word of God preached by
men sent by Him, and charged to preach the truths revealed to them by Him
who is infinite knowledge and truth, and who can neither deceive nor be
deceived.
Hence St. Paul says: "Faith cometh by hearing" (Rom. x. 17.),
and therefore by the Word of God preached by the Apostles, or by their
legitimate successors to the persons who hear and believe it. Hence the
same Apostle also says: "And how shall they hear without a preacher? And
how shall they preach unless they be sent?" (Rom. x. 14, 15.) And to be
sent by legitimate, divinely established authority is to be sent by God.
(Acts xiii. 4.)
So long as there are nations to be taught, the command of
Christ to His apostles to teach "all nations," indeed, "every creature,"
will never cease to be in force; and divinely authorized teaching will
never cease to be the Word of God. Whether this Word is preached without
being committed to inspired writing, as was the case during the twelve
years which elapsed between the Ascension of Our Lord and the writing of
the first Gospel, the Gospel of St. Matthew—whether preached by the
apostles and their successors during the progressive formation of the New
Testament up to the year of Our Lord 99, when the Gospel of St. John, the
last inspired book of the New Testament, was written—whether preached
after the death of St. John (101), that is, in the second, third, and
fourth centuries, when only very few possessed all the books of the Old
and New Testament, and the inspiration of some of them was
uncertain—whether preached after the fourth century for the space of a
thousand years, during which time no printed Bible existed, but only
Bibles written by hand, which consequently were very voluminous, costly,
and rare—or whether preached after the year 1450, when the art of printing
began to come into use, and printed Bibles could be obtained; that Word of
Christ, I say, entrusted by Him with His own divine lips, or by
inspiration, to the apostles, and by the apostles transmitted in a
divinely appointed manner to the whole chain of their legitimate
successors, is always the Word of God, firmly to be believed by every
Christian.
Hence St. Paul, in his second epistle to the Thessalonians
(ii. 14.), could say: "Brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions (that
is to say, the entrusted Word of God), which you have learnt, whether by
word (that is, by my preaching) or by our epistle" (that is, by my
inspired writings).
When Jesus Christ said to the apostles: "He that heareth you,
heareth Me" (Luke x. 16.), He did not limit this duty of hearing the
apostles even as Himself to the time when the inspired writings of the New
Testament did not exist, but extended it to all times; and the duty of
preaching applies not only to the twelve apostles, but also to their
legitimate successors, for through their successors alone were the
apostles to teach all nations, and their apostolic office was to last
until the end of the world. And no one is exempt from the duty of
believing their teaching, for Christ subjoined: "He that believeth not,
shall be condemned" (Mark xvi. 16.)
St. Chrysostom gave out as an axiom: "It is a tradition [of
the Church]; seek nothing further." (Commentary on the passage I,
Thessalonians ii. 14; book xi., Homily 4.)
To suppose that Tradition has lost its authority from having
been (in part) committed to writing, would be as unreasonable as to say
that the natural law was made void from the moment that the Ten
Commandments were laid down in writing on Mount Sinai.
Some may ask: "Which of these two divine Words is the more
useful to us?
The holy Bishop of Hierapolis (Papias), the disciple of St.
John and friend of St. Polycarp, referring to Tradition, says: "If any
one came to me who had accompanied the elders, I questioned him concerning
their words, what Andrew and Peter said: for I did not think that what is
in the books would aid me as much as what comes from the living and
abiding voice." (Eusebius, b. iii, p. 39.)
Like two sacred rivers flowing from paradise, the Bible and
divine Tradition contain the Word of God, the precious gems of revealed
truth.
Though these two divine streams are in themselves, on account
of their divine origin, of equal sacredness, and are both full of revealed
truths, still, of the two, Tradition is to us more clear and safe.
First, because Tradition can testify in its own behalf through
the many authorized witnesses who carry this Tradition in themselves,
while Holy Scripture cannot make good its authority without referring to
Tradition to testify to its inspiration and preservation.
Second, because a word may have two or more meanings, and an
expression may be true in one of these meanings and not in the others.
Again, as an expression may be true, if taken figuratively, and not true
if taken literally—true if applied to some particular person, and not true
if applied to all—true if taken in its plain sense, and not true if taken
in a strained or fanciful sense—true if taken in a sense that does not
exclude other things, and not true if taken in an exclusive sense—true if
taken to act through the medium of other things, and not true if taken to
act without a medium—true if taken to mean a counsel, and not true if
taken as a precept—true if taken permissively, and not true if regarded as
the active cause of a thing; the Bible, which is a mere letter needing an
interpreter, cannot by itself set the mistaken interpreter right.
But Tradition, being a living word, because carried in the
mind and on the lips of divinely appointed living teachers, can say with
regard to each of its own expressions, and also as to the expressions in
Holy Writ itself, in what sense exactly those expressions are true, and in
what sense they are not true: and if wrongly interpreted by any one,
Tradition can set that one right, and explain the true meaning; and all
this it can do with an authority which, by a privilege granted by Christ,
is infallible and, owing to the unfailing, promised assistance of the Holy
Spirit dwelling in the Church, is divine.
Tradition, without Holy Scripture, Old or New, sufficed for
many years, and could still suffice. But Holy Scripture has never
sufficed by itself; it always stood in need of divine Tradition; for it is
only by this divine Tradition that we learn that the Holy Scripture is an
inspired book. It is only Tradition that can give with authority and
certainty the right meaning of the Scriptures. Without Tradition the Holy
Scriptures may be made to speak in many discordant ways, thus destroying
their authority altogether.
The Infallibility of the Church and the Pope
ALLOWING that God has
vouchsafed to reveal to men supernatural truths, which they could not
know, in their fullness, through their own unassisted understanding, and
that these truths are conveyed to our age in written books and in
unwritten traditions, it is but reasonable to ask at once what authority
we have for believing that the original Revelation has come to us in its
primitive purity and intent.
To say that God has merely given to men certain forms of words
which admit of different and contradictory interpretations, and has left
no authority on earth to declare which is the one true interpretation
intended, amounts to a denial of Revelation altogether, for every man
could see and hear only within his own limitations. He thus would be a
vessel of imperfection in passing on the Revelation. And each man having
lost or changed somewhat of the original treasure, it must in time become
so tainted and diminished that it could command reverence neither by faith
nor reason. There must, therefore, be some living authority on earth
commissioned by God to decide the meaning of the Revelation which God has
given us.
Such an authority must be infallible. Its infallibility is
contained in its very commission. We cannot conceive that God has
appointed an authority to teach us His Revelation, and commanded us to
listen to it and believe it, and yet at the same time allow it to lead us
astray. God, who is Truth itself, could not command us to believe false
teaching. Without such infallibility there would be no certainty of
faith. On any point "heresy" might be conceivably right and the Church
wrong.
Cardinal Newman, while yet a Protestant, in one of his Oxford
Tracts wrote the following: "It would be foolish to say that the Church
has authority to declare dogmatical points, and yet that she can err. How
can the Church have authority if she is not certainly true in her
declarations? Should we say that she has authority to tell a lie?
Dogmatical matters are not, like things of earthly interest, grounded on
material expediency, which is to be determined by discretion. Dogmatical
matters appeal to conscience, and conscience is only subject to truth in
matters of belief. To say that the Church has authority, and yet she may
err in her declarations, would be to destroy authority of conscience,
which every one should hold sacred; it would be to substitute something
else besides truth as sovereign lord of conscience, which would be
tyranny. If the Church has authority in dogmatical matters, she must be
the organ and representative of truth; her teaching must be identified
with truth; in one word, the Church must be infallible."
Catholics believe, First, that in the bosom of the Roman
Catholic Church there exists such an infallible authority, and that it is
placed in the whole body of the Episcopate united with the Roman Pontiff.
Second, that this unfailing protection from teaching error is assured by
God in a special manner to the Roman Pontiff himself, when he speaks ex
cathedra, as visible head of the Church and legitimate successor of
St. Peter.
INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH
THAT this infallibility
belongs to the whole body of bishops united to the Roman Pointiff, is
plain from those texts which prove the infallible teaching of the apostles
united to St. Peter, their chief, and which apply also to their
successors.
The teaching Church is called by St. Paul "the pillar and
ground of the truth." (1 Tim. iii. 15.) Our Lord promises that "the gates
of hell shall not prevail" against His Church (Matt. xvi. 18.):—that the
Holy Spirit shall abide with her forever for the express purpose of
guiding her into all truth: "I will ask the Father, and He shall give you
another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever." (John xiv. 16.)
"He will teach you all things." (John xiv. 26.)
Our Lord Jesus Christ put the apostles in His place in His
divine mission upon earth, and in the office of teaching. "As My Father
hath sent Me, I also send you." (John xx. 21.) "He that heareth you,
heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me." (Luke x. 16.) And
immediately after giving to His apostles the commission to preach the
Gospel to every creature, He added: "He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned." (Mark xvi.
16.) All these texts, which demand from the faithful their full
acceptance of what the Church teaches, show it to be impossible that the
true Church can teach what is false in matters of faith and morals.
This infallibility does not depend
upon the learning which exists in the whole body of the Episcopate united
to the Pope, when discussing and deciding points of faith or morals, but
on the promised aid of the Holy Ghost, who enlightens their minds and
guides their counsels. Thus the decision of the first Council at
Jerusalem was communicated to the faithful in the following apostolical
declaration: "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay no
further burden upon you than these necessary things." (Acts xv. 28.)
By this divine assistance, the bishops in union with the
Bishop of Rome do not become the medium of a new revelation, but are
divinely assisted and enlightened according to the unfailing promise of
God, to understand clearly what has been revealed, and to declare rightly
the true meaning of the revelation.
From this doctrine it does not follow that the Church assumed
to be more than the Scriptures, as she has been accused of doing, but that
she claims a higher authority than those private persons who take it upon
themselves to expound the Scriptures.
INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE
THE infallibility of
St. Peter and his successors is plainly seen from the Holy Scriptures.
First, we read in Luke xxii. 32 that Our Savior addressed St.
Peter in presence of the other apostles thus: "Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted,
confirm thy brethren."
Here Jesus Christ provides against the danger to which His
apostles and their successors would always have been exposed: of falling
from the faith through the frailty and evil passion of men, or through the
instigation and fraud of the devil. And in what way does He provide? By
praying in a special manner for one of them that his faith should not
fail, and by commanding him to confirm his brethren; thus giving all the
other apostles clearly to understand that they all were bound to adhere to
that one, and follow his directions, and that thus they would possess the
privilege of being themselves infallible guides.
St. Peter is the one for whom Christ especially prayed; and in
the person of Peter his successors are of necessity included; for Jesus
Christ was providing for the good of His Church, which was to last, not
for the lifetime of St. Peter only, but to the end of time, against the
unceasing attacks of the enemy.
Were it possible that the Pope, in his capacity of supreme
Pastor of the Church, in speaking ex cathedra, could teach error,
it might be argued. First, that the prayer of Our Lord for St. Peter was
not granted; Second, that the special provision which Jesus Christ made
for securing His Church against error, instead of preserving it from
erring in faith and morals, would, at least in certain cases, only serve
to draw the whole Church into error, and be an advantage for Satan, not a
means of defense to the Church against him.
Another proof is deduced from the words addressed to Simon by
our blessed Lord after having changed Simon's name into that of Peter [Kephas,
Rock]. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. xvi. 18.)
As the Church of Christ was to last beyond the lifetime of St.
Peter, even to the end of the world, and as the Church is not a lifeless,
material building, but a living body of men requiring a living head to
rule them and to be a foundation to that great society, this promise of
Christ, of making Peter a rock, was meant not only for Peter, for also for
his successors. There must be proportion between the building and its
foundation. The building, namely, the visible Church, being a living,
successive body of men, the foundation also, that is, the visible ruling
power which sustains the whole superstructure, must be living and
successive. Therefore the successors of St. Peter, as the supreme visible
rulers of the Church, are each, like St. Peter, the rock or the visible
foundation of it.
If rocks, they must stand immovable as teachers of truth; if
foundations of the Church of Christ, against which "the gates of hell
shall not prevail," it follows that much less can the gates of hell
prevail against the foundation itself; for the house receives solidity
from the foundation, not the foundation from the house.
A third argument is drawn from those words of Jesus Christ
addressed to St. Peter, "Feed My lambs . . . feed My lambs . . . feed My
sheep." (John xxi. 15-17).
From this divine charge to St. Peter, there arises the
corresponding duty on the part of all the other bishops, and of all the
faithful throughout the world, to submit themselves to the guidance of the
Sovereign Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, and allow themselves to be
fed by him with the spiritual food of his wholesome teaching.
Hence it follows that the Sovereign Pontiff must be divinely
protected from teaching what is wrong: that is, he must, in teaching, be
infallible; for, if he were not protected by God from error when he
teaches the whole Church in his capacity of Supreme Pastor, the Church
would be liable to be led into error, contrary to the promise of Jesus
Christ.
That this was the belief of the early Church, the Fathers of
the first five centuries are splendid witnesses. Being disturbed with the
disputes among three parties which divided the Church of Antioch, of which
Church or Diocese he was then a subject, St. Jerome writes for directions
to Rome to Pope St. Damasus I, thus: "I, who am but a sheep, do apply to
my shepherd for succor. I am united in communion with your Holiness, that
is to say, with the chair of Peter; I know that the Church is built upon
that rock. He who eats the paschal lamb out of the house, is profane.
Whoever is not in the ark of Noe will perish by the deluge. I know
nothing of Vitalis; I reject Meletius; I am ignorant of Paulinus; he who
gathers not with thee scatters." (Letter to Pope St. Damasus.)
The great African Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, Bishop
of Hippo near the site of ancient Carthage, who lived in the fourth and in
the beginning of the fifth century, must also have been impressed with the
same principle and conviction; for, commenting on the condemnation of
Pelagianism, he says: "Already the decision of two Councils have been
submitted to the Apostolic See, and from thence rescripts (or Apostolic
Letters of reply) have come to us. The cause is finished." This sentence
of St. Augustine has been condensed into that famous maxim which has for
ages expressed in a few words of the Catholic faith on this point: "Roma
locuta est, causa finite est"—"Rome has spoken, the case is ended."
The infallibility of the Pope was defined by the Vatican
Council in the Fourth Session, chapter iv., on the 18소
of July in the year of Our Lord 1870, in these words: "Wherefore
faithfully adhering to the Tradition received from the beginning of the
Christian faith, for the glory of God our Savior, the exaltation of the
Catholic religion, and the salvation of the Christian people. We, the
Sacred Council, approving, teach and define that it is a dogma divinely
revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra—that
is, when discharging the office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians,
by reason of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine
regarding faith or morals to be held by the whole Church—he, by the divine
assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possesses that infallibility
with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed in
defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such
definitions of the said Roman Pontiff are of themselves unalterable and
not from the consent of the Church."
By teaching ex cathedra is meant, when the Pope speaks,
not as a private theologian, or in some other limited character, but when
defining solemnly a doctrine in his capacity of successor of St. Peter and
Pastor of the Universal Church.
The addition of the words, "a doctrine regarding faith or
morals," signifies that the Pope, in virtue of this definition, is
believed to be infallible only when he teaches a doctrine concerning faith
or morals, that is to say, in matters relating to revealed truth, or to
principles of moral conduct in life.
These limitations show that Catholics are not, according to
the definition, bound to believe that the Pope can not err in matters
other than faith or morals, or even in matters of faith or of morals, when
he is speaking as a private individual, and not in his official capacity
ex cathedra.
It is important to remark that
infallibility, as applied by Catholics to the Pope, differs from
impeccability; for infallible, speaking of men, means preserved by God in
certain cases from erring; and impeccable means either unable to sin, as
God is, or preserved by God from sinning.
The Pope is not impeccable; on the contrary, any Pope may fall
into sin; but nevertheless, every Pope is infallible in expounding Holy
Scripture, in defining, that is, declaring in precise words, revealed
truth, and teaching points of faith or morals, when he does all this ex
cathedra.
Protestants are apt to make this objection: How can a sinful
man be infallible? Many of the Scribes and Pharisees were of sinful life,
and yet Our Lord, referring to them, says: "The Scribes and the Pharisees
have sat on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they
shall say to you, observe and do; but according to their works do ye not;
for they say and do not." (Matt. xxiii. 2, 3.) And St. Peter himself,
though guilty at one time of sin, is acknowledged by Christians to have
been infallible in teaching the Church, both by word and by writing.
THE
CHARACTER OF THE POPES
WHEN Christ instituted
the Papacy, He did not promise that none but real saints would be clothed
with the highest dignity on earth. He left it possible even for the Head
of His Church to fall into sin, and to dishonor the sublime office.
However, "the dignity of Peter is never obscured, even in one unworthy of
being his successor" (St. Leo). We have the assurance of our divine Lord
that His Church will remain secure against error by His personal abiding.
If the reigning Pope be a sinful man, the Papacy remains the same: a
divine institution. Fortunately, nearly all the occupants of the See of
Peter have been men of spotless character. Seventy-nine out of the two
hundred and fifty-eight Popes that have ruled the Church since the days of
St. Peter, are canonized saints and four are called blessed. They were
universally considered to be men of heroic sanctity before they were
proclaimed saints. Eminent Protestant historians have, of late years,
exonerated from vile charges many of those Popes that were considered
unworthy. The list has now been reduced to three or four. The chief
originator of the "bad" Popes in the early Middle Ages, says Bishop Stang
in his "Spiritual Pepper and Salts," was the courtbishop, Luiprand of
Cremona, who was in the pay of the German Emperors and sided with them
against the Roman Pontiffs.
Though at all times the representatives of the Church were
attacked with lies and calumnies, yet it was reserved for the sixteenth
century to witness a systematic vilification of the Papacy, inaugurated by
Martin Luther, a fallen priest. Some of his vituperations are simply
untranslatable. "They are the filthiest things ever put into print" (Hefele).
Luther seemed to be insane on this subject. He tells us that he could not
pray without cursing the Pope. He twisted the whole Sacred Scripture into
menaces and imprecations against the Popes. He advocated the hanging and
burning of the Pope, styled him the real Antichrist, an impious
hypocrite. "Whosoever shall follow the Pope, do I, Martin Luther, deliver
to the divine judgment." And yet at the commencement of his career of
destruction he seemed to abhor a course that would separate him from Rome;
for, in February, 1519, he wrote: "No cause is so great or could become
so great that one should separate himself from the Roman Church; nay, for
no sin or evil whatsoever that one might name or think of, should one
divide charity or spiritual unity."
Toward the rend of his life he grew so bitter that he could no
longer mention the name of the Pope without adding that of the devil. The
last book he wrote bore the title: "The Papacy an Institution of the
Devil." On the day before his death, February 17, 1546, he seized a piece
of chalk and wrote upon the wall: "Living, O Pope, I was thy pest; dying,
I shall be thy death." They were the last words written by the hand of
the man who was probably the most implacable and foulest enemy of the
Papacy. (See the chapter on Martin Luther.) Despite the stream of lies
and calumnies that he started to course through centuries, and out of
which so many drunk to their own destruction, the Popes of Rome, in the
past and present, have remained the custodians of divine truth, the
protectors of true civilization, the promoters of art and science, the
ornaments of the human race.
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