| Text of the Rambler Article | ||||
A question has arisen among persons of theological knowledge and fair and candid minds, about the wording and the sense of a passage in the Rambler for May. It admits to my own mind of so clear and satisfactory an explanation, that I should think it unnecessary to intrude myself, an anonymous person, between the conductors and readers of this Magazine, except that, as in dogmatic works the replies made to objections often contain the richest matter, so here too, plain remarks on a plain subject may open to the minds of others profitable thoughts, which are more due to their own superior intelligence than to the very words of the writer. The Rambler, then, has these words at p. 122: "In the preparation of a dogmatic definition, the faithful are consulted, as lately in the instance of the Immaculate Conception." Now two questions bearing upon doctrine have been raised on this sentence, putting aside the question of fact as regards the particular instance cited, which must follow the decision on the doctrinal qustions: viz. first, whether it can, with doctrinal correctness, he said that an appeal to the faithful is one of the preliminaries of a definition of doctrine; and secondly, granting that the faithful are taken into account, still, whether they can correctly be said to be consulted. I shall remark on both these points, and I shall begin with the second. | ||||
Now doubtless, if a divine were expressing himself formally, and in Latin, he would not commonly speak of the laity being "consulted" among the preliminaries of a dogmatic definition, because the technical, or even scientific, meaning of the word "consult" is to "consult with," or to "take counsel." But the English word "consult," in its popular and ordinary use, is not so precise and narrow in its meaning; it is doubtless a word expressive of trust and deference, but not of submission. It includes the idea of inquiring into a matter of fact, as well as asking a judgment. Thus we talk of "consulting our barometer" about the weather:-the barometer only attests the fact of the state of the atmosphere. In like manner, we may consult a watch or a sun-dial about the time of day. A physician consults the pulse of his patient; but not in the same sense in which his patient consults him. It is but an index of the state of his health. Ecclesiastes says, "Qui observat ventum, non seminat" we might translate it, "he whoconsults," without meaning that we ask the wind's opinion. | ||||
This being considered, it was, I conceive, quite allowable for a writer, who was not teaching or treating theology, but, as it were, conversing, to say, as in the passage in question, "In the preparation of a dogmatic definition, the faithful are consulted." Doubtless their advice, their opinion, their judgment on the question of definition is not asked; but the matter of fact, viz. their belief, is sought for, as a testimony to that apostolical tradition, on which alone any doctrine whatsoever can be defined. In like manner, we may "consult" the liturgies or the rites of the Church; not that they speak, not that can take any part whatever in the definition, for they are documents or customs; but they are witnesses to the antiquity or universality of the doctrines which they contain, and about which they are "consulted." And, in like manner, I certainly understood the writer in the Rambler to mean (and I think any lay reader might so understand him) that the fidelium sensus and consensus is a branch of evidene which it is natural or necessary for the Church to regard and consult, before she proceeds to any definition, from its intrinsic cogency; and by consequence, that it ever has been so regarded and consulted. | ||||
And the writer's use of the word "opinion" in the foregoing sentence, and his omission of it in the sentence in question, seemed to show that, though the two cases put therein were analogous, they were not identical. Having said as much as this, I go further, and maintain that the word "consulted," used as it was used, was in no respect unadvisable, except so far as it distressed any learned and good men, who identified it with the Latin. I might, indeed, even have defended the word as it was used, in the Latin sense of it. Regnier both uses it of the laity and explains it. "Ciim receptam apud populos traditionem consulunt et sequuntur Episcopi, non illos habent pro magistris et ducibus, &c."* (De Eccles. Christ. p. i. 51, c. i., ed. Migne, col. 234) | ||||
But in my bountifulness I will give up this use of the word as untheological; still I will maintain that the true theological sense is unknown to all but theologians. Accordingly, the use of it in the Rambler was in no sense dangerous to any lay reader, who, if he knows Latin, still is not called upon, in the structure of his religious ideas, to draw those careful lines and those fine distinctions, which in theology itself are the very means of anticipating and repelling heresy. The laity would not have a truer, or a clearer, or a different view of the doctrine itself, though the sentence had run, "in the preparation of a dogmatic decree, regard is had to the sense of the faithful;" or, "there is an appeal to the general voice of the faithful;" or, "inquiry is made into the belief of the Christian people;" or, "the definition is not made without a previous reference to what the faithful will think of it and say to it;" or though any other form of words had been used, stronger or weaker, expressive of the same general idea, viz. that the sense of the faithful is not left out of the question by the Holy See among the preliminary acts of defining a doctrine. [ "When the bishops consult and follow a tradition received by the people they do not thereby make the people int their teachers and leaders, &c."] | ||||
Now I shall go on presently to remark on the proposition itself which is conveyed in the words on which I have been commenting; here, however, I will first observe, that such misconceptions as I have been setting right will and must occur, from the nature of the case, whenever we speak on theological subjects in the vernacular; and if we do not use the vernacular, I do not see how the bulk of the Catholic people are to be catechised or taught at all. English has innovated on the Latin sense of its own Latin words; and if we are to speak according to the conditions of the language, and are to make ourselves intelligible to the multitude, we shall necessarily run the risk of startling those who are resolved to act as mere critics and scholastics in the process of popular instruction. This divergence from a classical or ecclesiastical standard is a great inconvenience, I grant; but we cannot remodel our mother-tongue. Crimen does not properly mean crime; amiable does not yet convey the idea of amabilis; compassi is not compassion; princeps is not a prince; disputatio is not a dispute; praevenire is not to prevent. Cicero imperator is not the Emperor Cicero; scriptor egregius is not an egregious writer; virgo singularis is not a singular virgin; retractare dicta is not to retract what be has said; and, as we know from the sacred passage, traducere is not necessarily to traduce. | ||||
Now this is not merely sharp writing, for mistakes do in matter of fact occur not unfrequently from this imperfect correspondence between theological Latin and English; showing that readers of English are bound ever to bear in mind that they are not reading Latin, and that learned divines must ever exercise charity in their interpretations of vernacular religious teaching. For instance, I know of certain English sermons which were translated into French by some French priests. They, good and friendly men, were surprised to find in these compositions such language as "weak evidence and strong evidence," and "insufficient, probably, demonstrative evidence;" they read that "some writers had depreciated the evidences of religion," and that "the last century, when love was cold, was an age of evidences." Evidentia, they said, meant that luminousness which attends on demonstration, conviction, certainty; how can it be more or less? how can it be unsatisfactory? how can a sane man disparage it? how can it be connectd with religious coldness? The simple explanation of the difficulty was, that the writer was writing for his own people, and that in English "an evidence" is not evidentia. | ||||
Another instance. An excellent Italian religious, now gone to his reward, was reading a work of the same author; and he came upon a sentence to the effect, I think, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was to be held with "implicit" faith. He was perplexed and concerned. He thought the writer held that the Church did not explicitly teach, had not explicitly defined, the dogma; that is, he confused the English meaning of the word, according to which it is a sort of correlative to imperative, meaning simple, unconditional, absolute, with its sense in theology. | ||||
It is not so exactly apposite to refer, yet I will refer, to another instance, as supplying a general illustration of the point I am urging. It was in a third country that a lecturer spoke in terms of disparagement of "Natural Theology," on the ground of its deciding questions of revelation by reasonings from physical phenomena. It was objected to him, that Naturalis Theologia embraced all truths and arguments from natural reason bearing upon the Divine Being and Attributes. Certainly he would have been the last to depreciate what he had ever made the paramount preliminary science to Christian faith; but he spoke according to the sense of those to whom his words might come. He considered that in the Protestant school of Paley and other popular writers, the idea of Natural Theology had practically merged in a scientific view of the argument from Design. Once more. Supposing a person were to ask me whether a friend, who has told me the fact in confidence, had written a certain book, and I were to answer, "Well,if he did, he certainly would tell me," and the inquirer went away satisfied that he did not write it,-I do not see that I have done any thing to incur the reproach of the English word "equivocation;" | ||||
I have but adopted a mode of turning off a difficult question, to which any one may be obliged any day to have recourse. I am not speaking of spontaneous and gratuitous assertions, statements on solemn occasions, or answers to formal authorities. I am speaking of impertinent or unjustifiable questions; and I should like to know the man who thinks himself bound to say every thing to every one. Physicians evade the questions of sick persons about themselves; friends break bad news gradually, and with temporary concealments, to those whom it may shock. Parents shuffle with their children. Statesmen, ministers in Parliament, baffle adversaries in every possible way short of a direct infringement of veracity. | ||||
When St. Athanasius saw that he was pursued on the Nile by the imperial officers, he turned round his boat and met them; when they came up to his party and hailed them, and asked whether they had seen any thing of Athanasius, Athanasius cried out, "O yes, he is not far from you:" and off the vessels went in different directions as swiftly as they could go, each boat on its own errand, the pursuer and the pursued. I do not see that there is in any of these instances what is expressed by the English word "equivocation;" but it is the equivocatio of a Latin treatise; and when Protestants hear that "aequivocamus sine scrupulo" they are shocked at the notion or our "unscrupulous equivocation." Now, in saying all this, I must not be supposed to be forgetful of the sacred and imperative duty of preserving with religious exactness all those theological terms which are ecclesiastically recognised as portions of dogmatic statements, such as Trinity, Person, Consubstantial, Nature, Transubstantiation, Sacrament, &c. It ould be unpardonable for a Catholic to teach "justification by faith only," and say that he meant by "faith" fides formata, or "justification without works," and say that he meant by "works" the works of the Jewish ritual; but granting all this fully, still if our whole religious phraseology is, as a matter of duty, to be modelled in strict conformity to theological Latin, neither the poor nor children will understand us. | ||||
I have always fancied that to preachers great license was allowed, not only in the wording, but even in the matter of their discourses: they exaggerate and are rhetorical, and they are understood as speaking "more praedicatorio. I have always fancied that, when Catholics were accused of hyperbolical language towards the Blessed Virgin, it was replied that devotion was not the measure of doctrine; nor surely is the vernacular of a magazine writer. I do not see that I am wrong in considering that a periodical, not treating theology ex professo, but accidentally alluding to an ecclesiastical act, commits no real offence if it uses an unscientific word, since it speaks, not "more gladiatorio," but "colloquialiter." | ||||
I shall conclude this head of my subject with allusion to a passage in the history of St. Dionysius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria, though it is beyond my purpose; but I like to quote a saint whom, multis nominibus (not "with many names, or "by many nouns ), I have always loved most of all the Ante-Nicene Fathers. It relates to an attack which was made on his orthodoxy; a very serious matter. Now I know every one will be particular on his own special science or pursuits. I am the last man to find fault with such particularity. Drill-sergeants think much of deportment; hard logicians come down with a sledgehammer even on a Plato who does not happen to enumerate in his beautiful sentences all the argumentative considerations which go to make up his conclusion; scholars are horrified, as if with sensible pain, at the perpetration of a false quantity. I am far from ridiculing, despising, or even undervaluing such precision; it is for the good of every art and science that it should have vigilant guardians. Nor a I comparing such precision (far from it) with that true religious zeal which leads theologians to keep the sacred Ark of the Covenant in every letter of its dogma, as a tremendous deposit for which they are responsible. In this curious sceptical world, such sensitiveness is the only human means by which the treasure of faith can be kept inviolate. | ||||
There is a woe in Scripture against the unfaithful shepherd. We do not blame the watch-dog because he sometimes flies at the wrong person. I conceive the force, the peremptoriness, the sternness, with which the Holy See comes down upon the vagrant or the robber, trespassing upon the enclosure of revealed truth, is the only sufficient antagonist to the power and subtlety of the world, to imperial comprehensiveness, monarchical selfishness, nationalism, the liberalism of philosophy, the encroachments and usurpations of science. I grant, I maintain all this; and after this avowal, lest I be misunderstood, I venture to introduce my notice of St. Dionysius. He was accused on a far worse charge, and before a far more formidable tribunal, than commonly befalls a Catholic writer; for he was brought up before the Holy See on a denial of our Lord's divinity. He had been controverting with the Sabellians; and he was in consequence accused of the doctrine to which Arius afterwards gave his name, that is, of considering or Lord a creature. He says, writing in his defence, that when he urged his opponents with the argument that "a vine and a vine-dresser were not the same," neither, therefore, were the "Father and the Son," these were not the only illustrations that he made use of, nor those on which he dwelt, for he also spoke of "a root and a plant ... a fount and a stream," which are not only distinct from each other, but of one and the same nature. Then he adds, "But my accusers have no eyes to see this portion of my treatise; but they take up two little words detached from the context, and proceed to discharge them at me as pebbles from a sling." [Athan. de Sent. Dion. 8.] | ||||
If even a saint's words are not always precise enough to allow of being made a dogmatic text, much less are those of any modern periodical. The conclusion I would draw from all I have been saying is this: Without deciding whether or not it is advisable to introduce points of theology into popular works, and especially whether it is advisable for laymen to do so, still, if this actually is done, we are not to expect in them that perfect accuracy of expression which is demanded in a Latin treatise or a lecture ex cathedra; and if there be a want of this exactness, we must not at once think it proceeds from self-will and undutifulness in the writers. | ||||
2. Now I come to the matter of what the writer in the Rambler really said, putting aside the question of the wording; and I begin by expressing my belief that, whatever he may be willing to admit on the score of theological Latinity in the use of the word "consult" when applied to the faithful, yet one thing he cannot deny, viz. that in using it, he implied, from the very force of the term, that they are treated by the Holy See, on occasions such as that specified, with attention and consideration. Then follows the question, Why? and the answer is plain, viz. because the body of the faithful is one of the witnesses to the fact of the tradition of revealed doctrine, and because their consensus through Christendom is the voice of the Infallible Church. I think I am right in saying that the tradition of the Apostles, committed to the whole Church in its various constituents and functions per modum unius, manifests itself variously at various times: sometimes by the mouth of the episocopacy, sometimes by the doctrs, sometimes by the people, sometimes by liturgies, rites, ceremonies, and customs, by events, disputes, movements, and all those other phenomena which are comprised under the name of history. | ||||
It follows that none of these channels of tradition may be treated with disrespect; granting at the same time fully, that the gift of discerning, discriminating, defining, promulgating, and enforcing any portion of that tradition resides solely in the Ecclesia docens. One man will lay more stress on one aspect of doctrine, another on another; for myself, I am accustomed to lay great stress on the consensus fidelium, and I will say how it has to come about. | ||||
It had long been to me a difficulty, that I could not find certain portions of the defined doctrine of the Church in ecclesiastical writers. I was at Rome in the year 1847; and then I had the great advantage and honour of seeing Fathers Perrone and Passaglia, and having various conversations with them on this point. The point of difficulty was this, that up to the date of the definition of certain articles of doctrine respectively, there was so very deficient evidence from existing documents that Bishops, doctors, theologians, held them. I do not mean to say that I expressed my difficulty in this formal shape; but that what passed between us in such interviews as they were kind enough to give me, ran into or impinged upon this question. Nor would I ever dream of making them answerable for the impression which their answers made on me; but, speaking simply on my own responsibility, I should say that, while Father Passaglia seemed to maintain that the AnteNicene writers were clear in their testimonies in behalf(e.g.) of the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and justification, expressly praising and making much of the Anglican Bishop Bull; Father Perrone, on the other hand, not speaking, indeed directly upon those particular doctrines, but rather on such as I will presently introduce in his own words, seemed to me to say "transeat" to the alleged fact which constituted the difficulty, and to lay a great stress on what he considered to be the sensus and consensus fidelium, as a compensation for whatever deficiency there might be of patristical testimony in behalf of various points of the Catholic dogma. | ||||
(1) I should have been led to fancy, perhaps, that he was shaping his remarks in the direction in which he considered he might be especially serviceable to myself, who had been accustomed to account for the (supposed) phenomena in another way, had it not been for his work on the Immaculate Conception, which I read the next year with great interest, and which was passing through the press when I saw him. I am glad to have this opportunity of expressing my gratitude and attachment to a venerable man, who never grudged me his valuable time. But now for his treatise, to which I have referred, so far as it speaks of the sensus fidelium, and of its bearing upon the doctrine, of which his work treats, and upon its definition. He states the historical fact of such sensus. Speaking of the ."Ecclesiae sensus" on the subject, he says that, though the liturgies of the Feast of the Conception "satis aperte patefaciant quid Ecclesia antiquitus de hoc senserit argumento," (they "show clearly enough what the Church in antiquty felt about this matter ) yet it may be worth while to add some direct remarks on the sense itself of the Church. | ||||
Then he says, "Ex duplici fonte eum colligi posse arbitramur, tum scilicet ex pastorum. tum ex fidelium sese gerendi ratione" ( we think we can gather from this double source, that is from the comportment both of the pastors and of the faithful ). Let it be observed, he not only joins together the pastores and fideles, but contrasts them; I mean (for it will bear on what is to follow), the "faithful" do not include the "pastors." | ||||
(2.) Next he goes on to describe the relation of that sensus fidelium to the sensus Ecclesiae. He says, that to inquire into the sense of the Church on any question, is nothing else but to investigate towards which side of it she has more inclined. And the "indicia et manifestationes hujus propensionis" are her public acts, liturgies, feasts, prayers, "pastorum ac fidelium in unum veluti conspiratio" (p. 101). Again, at p. 109, joining together in one this twofold consent of pastors and people, he speaks of the "unanimis pastorum ac fidelium consensio ... per liturgias, per festa, per euchologia, per fidei controversias, per conciones patefacta."* ["unanimous consensus of pastors and faithful, exhibited through liturgies, celebrations, prayers, debates, and discourses."] | ||||
(3.) These various "indicia" are also the instrumenta traditionis, and vary one with another in the evidence which they give in favour of particular doctrines; so that the strength of one makes up in a particular case for the deficiency of another, and the strength of the -sensus communis fidelium" can make up (e.g.) for the silence of the Fathers. "Istiusmodi instrumenta interdum simul conjuncte conspirare possunt ad traditionem aliquam apostolicam atque divinam patefaciendam, interdum vero seorsum.... Perperam nonnulli solent ad inficiandam traditionis alicujus existentiam urgere silentium Patrum ... quid enim si silentium istud alio pacto ... compensetur?" ["Such instruments may illustrate some divine and apostolic tradition, sometimes in combination, sometimes separately ... Some are accustomed wrongly to urge silence on the part of the Fathers as impugning the existence of some tradition ... But what if that silence is compensated in some other way?] (p. 139). | ||||
He instances this from St. Irenaeus and Tertullian in the "Successio Episcoporurn," who transmit the doctrines "tum activi opere ministerii, tum usu et praxi, tum institutis ritibus ... adeo ut catholica atque apostolica doctrina inoculata ... fuerit ... communi Ecclesiae coetui" ["by the exercise of an active ministry, by usage and practice, and established rituals, so as to implant a Catholic and apostolic doctrine in the community of the Church."]. He then goes on to speak directly of the force of the "sensus fidelium," as distinct (not separate) from the teaching of their pastors. "Praestantissimi theologi maximam probandi vim huic communi sensui inesse uno ore fatentur. Etenim Canus, 'In quaestione fidei,' inquit, 'communis fidelis populi sensus haud levem facit fidem'" ["The most distinguished theologians agree in attributing the greatest probative force to this common sentiment. Cano asserts that 'in a question of faith, common sentiment of the faithful people provides a warrant that is by no mens insignificant."] (p. 143). | ||||
He gives another passage from him in a note, which he introduces with the words, "Illud praeclare addit;" what Canus adds is, "Quaero ex te, quando de rebus Christianae fidei inter nos contendimus, non de philosophiae decretis, utrum potius quaerendum est, quid philosophi atque ethnici, an quid homines Christiani, et doctrina et fide instituti, sentiant? " [Cano excellently adds. . . 'I ask you, when we discuss not philosophical conclusions but matters of Christian belief, whether it is preferable to ascertain the views of philosophers and pagans, or the thoughts of Christians formed by doctrine and faith.'] Now certainly "quaerere quid sentiant homines doctrini et fide instituti," though not asking advice, is an act implying not a little deference on the part of the persons addressing towards the parties addressed. | ||||
Father Perrone continues, "Gregorius vere de Valentii [Gregory of Valencia] fusius vim ejusmodi fidelium consensus evolvit. 'Est enim,' inquit, "in definitionibus fidei habenda ratio, quoad fieri potest, consens s fidelium.' [brought out the force of this consensus of the faithful, saying that 'as far as possible, account must be taken of the consensus of the faithful in definitions of faith,']" | ||||
Here, again, "habere rationem," to have regard to, is an act of respect and consideration. However, Gregory continues, "Quoniam et ii sane, quatenus ex ipsis constat Ecclesia, sic Spiritu Sancto assistente, divinas revelationes integre et pure conservant, ut omnes illi quidem aberrare non possunt.... Illud solum contendo; Si quando de re aliqui in materie religionis controversia (controversa?) constaret fidelium omnium concordem esse sententiam (solet autem id constare, vel ex: ipsi praxi alicujus cult s communiter apud christianos populos recept , vel ex scandalo et offensione communi, quae opinione aliqui oritur, &c.) merito posse et debere Pontificem illi niti, ut quae esset Ecclesiae sententia infallibilis" ["For inasmuch as they comprise the Church, by assistance of the Holy Spirit they so preserve divine revelations in their purity and integrity that they cannot all go astray ... I contend only this: If a consensus of the faithful is established in some disputed matter of religion, the Pope may and hould rely upon it as the judgment of the infallible Church."] (p. 144). Thus Gregory says that, in controversy about a matter of faith, the consent of all the faithful has such a force in the proof of this side or that, that the Supreme Pontiff is able and ought to rest upon it, as being the judgment or sentiment of the infallible Church. These are surely exceedingly strong words; not that I take them to mean strictly that infallibility is in the "consensus fidelium," but that that "consensus" is an indicium or instrumentum to us of the judgement of that Church which is infallible. Such consensus is usually verified either from some practice of worship adopted universally among Christians, or by general scandal and offense caused by some opinion. | ||||
Father Perrone proceeds to quote from Petavius, who supplies us with the following striking admonition from St. Paulinus, viz. "ut de omnium fidelium ore pendeamus, quia in onmern fidelem Spiritus Dei spirat." ["We should hang upon the lips of all the faithful, because the Spirit of God breathes into every believer."] Petavius speaks thus, as he quotes him (p. 156): "Movet me, ut in eam (viz. piam) sententiam sim propensior, communis maximus sensus fidelium omnium." ["The main consensus of all the faithful moves me to favor that view."] By "movet me" he means, that he attends to what the coetus fidelium says: this is certainly not passing over the fideles, but making much of them. In a later part of his work (p. 186), Father Perrone speaks of the "consensus fidelium" under the strong image of a seal. | ||||
After mentioning various arguments in favour of the Immaculate Conception, such as the testimony of so many universities, religious bodies, theologians, &c., he continues, "Haec demum omnia firmissimo veluti sigillo obsignat totius christiani populi consensus." ["All these are ratified by consensus of the whole Christian people as by the most authoritative seal."] | ||||
(5.) He proceeds to give several instances, in which the definition of doctrine was made in consequence of nothing else but the "sensus fidelium" and the "juge et vivum magisterium" of the Church. For his meaning of the "juge et vivum magisteriurn Ecclesiae," he refers us to his Praelectiones (part ii. S2, c.ii.). In that passage I do not see that he defines the sense of the word; but I understand him to mean that high authoritative voice or act which is the Infallible Church's prerogative, inasmuch as she is the teacher of the nations; and which is a sufficient warrant to all men for a doctrine being true and being de fide, by the mere fact of its formally occurring. It is distinct from, and independent of, tradition, though never in fact separated from it. | ||||
He says, "Fit ut traditio dogmatica identificetur cum ipsi Ecclesiae doctrina, a qua separari nequit; quapropter, etsi documenta defuerent omnia, solum hoc vivum et juge magisterium satis esset ad cognoscendarn doctrinam divinitus traditam, habito praesertim respectu ad solemnes Christi promissiones" ["Dogmatic tradition is identified with the teachings of the Church, from which it cannot be separated. So, even if all documentation were lacking, this living, consistent magisterium would suffice by itself to make known the divinely transmitted doctrine, especially in consideration of Christ's solemn promises."] (p. 303). | ||||
This being understood, he speaks of several points of faith which have been determined and defined by the "magisterium" of the Church and, as to tradition, on the "consensus fidelium," prominently, if not solely. The most remarkable of these is the "dogma de visione Dei beatifici" possessed by souls after purgatory and before the day of judgment; a point which Protestants, availing themselves of the comment of the Benedictines of St. Maur upon St. Ambrose, are accustomed to urge in controversy. "Nemo est qui nesciat," says Father Perrone, "quot utriusque Ecclesiae, tum Graecae tum Latinae, Patres contrarium sensisse visi sunt" ["Everyone knows how many Fathers in both the Eastem and Western Churches seem to have held an opposite opinion."] (p. 147). | ||||
He quotes in a note the words of the Benedictine editor, as follows: "Propemodum incredibile videri potest, quam in ei quaestione sancti Patres ab ipsis Apostolorum temporibus ad Gregorii XI. (Benedicti XII) pontificatum florentinumque concilium, hoc est toto quatuordecim seculorum spatio, incerti ac parum constantes exstiterint." ["It may seem almost incredible how diffident and inconsistent the holy Fathers were about this question, all the way from the Apostolic age to the pontificate of Gregory XI (Benedict XII) and the Council of Florence, that is, over a period of fully fourteen hundred years."] | ||||
Father Perrone continues: "Certe quidem in Ecclesi non deerat quoad hunc fidei articulum divina traditio; alioquin nunquam is definiri potuisset: ver m non omnibus illa erat comperta; divina eloquia haud satis in re sunt conspicua; Patres, ut vidimus, in varias abierunt sententias; liturgiae ipsae non modicam prae se ferunt difficultatem. His omnibus succurrit juge Ecclesiae magisterium, communis praeterea fidelium sensus; qui alt ade defixum ... habebant mentibus, purgatas animas statim ad Deum videndum eoque fruendum admitti, ut non minimum eorum animi vel ex ipsa controversi fuerint offensi, quae sub Joanne XXII. agitabatur, et cujus definitio diu nimis protrabebatur." | ||||
["Certainly the Church was not without any divine tradition regarding this article of faith; otherwise it could not have been defined. Yet it was scarcely obvious to everyone. Divine eloquence on this subject was not abundant. The Fathers' thoughts, as noted, strayed in different directions. Even the liturgies present considerable dificulty. The unfailing magisterium of the Church came to the aid of all these along with the consensus of the faithful. In their minds it was so deeply established that souls, once purified, had immediate access to the vision and enjoyment of God, that they were no little offended by the controversy that went on under John XXII, and the unwarranted postponement of a definition."] | ||||
Now does not this imply that the tradition, on which the definition was made, was manifested in the consensus fidelium with a luminousness which the succession of Bishops, though many of them were "Sancti Patres ab ipsis Apostolorum temporibus," did not furnish? that the definition was delayed till the fideles would bear the delay no longer? that it was made because of them and for their sake, because of their strong feelings? If so, surely, in plain English, most considerable deference was paid to the "sensus fidelium;" their opinion and advice indeed was not asked, but their testimony was taken, their feelings consulted, their impatience, I had almost said, feared. | ||||
In like manner, as regards the doctrine, though not the definition, of the Immaculate Conception, he says, not denying, of course, the availableness of the other "instrumenta traditionis" in this particular case, "Ratissimum est, Christi fideles omnes circa hunc articulum unius esse animi, idque ita, ut maximo afficerentur scandalo, si vel minima de Immaculati Virginis Conceptione quaestio moveretur" ["It is well established that all the Christian faithful are in such complete agreement about this article that they would be deeply scandalized if the Virgin's Immaculate Conception were even mildly questioned."] (p. 156). | ||||
3. A year had hardly passed from the appearance of Fr. Perrone's book in England, when the Pope published his Encyclical Letter. In it he asked the Bishops of the Catholic world, "ut nobis significare velitis, qui devotione vester clerus populusque fidelis erga Immaculatae Virginis conceptionem sit animatus, et quo desiderio flagret, ut ejusmodi res ab apostolici sede decernatur;" ["Show us how devoted your clergy and faithful people are with respect to the conception of the Immaculate Virgin, and how eager they are for a decision on the matter to be issued by the Apostolic See."]; that is, when it came to the point to take measures for the definition of the doctrine, he did lay a special stress on this particular preliminary, viz. the ascertainment of the feeling of the faithful both towards the doctrine and its definition; as the Rambler stated in the passage out of which this argument has arisen. It seems to me important to keep this in view, whatever becomes of the word "consulted," which, I have alread said, is not to be taken in its ordinary Latin sense. | ||||
4. At length, in 1854, the definition took place, and the Pope's Bull containing it made its appearance. In it the Holy Father speaks as he had spoken in his Encyclical, viz. that although he already knew the sentiments of the Bishops, still he had wished to know the sentiments of the people also: "Quamvis nobis ex receptis postulationibus de definienda tandem aliquando Immaculata Virginis Conceptione perspectus esset plurimorum sociorum Antistitum sensus, tamen Encyclicas literas, &c. ad omnes Ven. FF. totius Catholici orbis sacrorum Antistites misimus, ut, adhibitis ad Deum precibus, nobis scripto etiam significarent, quae esset suorum fidelium erga Immaculatam Deiparae Conceptionem pietas et devotio," &c. ["Even though the requests we had received left no doubt about the opinion of most of our fellow bishops concerning eventual definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, we nevertheless sent encyclical letters and the like to all our venerable brother bishops in the whole Catholic world, reqesting them, after prayer, to inform us in writing about the piety and devotion of their faithful concerning the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God."] | ||||
And when, before the formal definition, he enumerates the various witnesses to the apostolicity of the doctrine, he sets down "divina eloquia, veneranda traditio, perpetuus Ecclesiae sensus, singularis catholicorum Antistitum ac fidelium conspiratio." ["divine eloquence, revered tradition, the perpetual mind of the Church, and the singular joint accord of Catholic bishops and faithful ..."] Conspiratio; the two, the Church teaching and the Church taught, are put together, as one twofold testimony, illustrating each other, and never to be divided. | ||||
5. A year or two passed, and the Bishop of Birmingham published his treatise on the doctrine. I close this portion of my paper with an extract from his careful view of the argument. "Nor should the universal conviction of pious Catholics be passed over, as of small account in the general argument; for that pious belief, and the devotion which springs from it, are the faithful reflection of the pastoral teaching" (p. 172). Reflection; that is, the people are a mirror, in which the Bishops see themselves. Well, I suppose a person may consult his glass, and in that way may know things about himself which he can learn in no other way. This is what Fr. Perrone above seems to say has sometimes actually been the case, as in the instance of the "beatifica visio" of the saints; at least he does not mention the "pastorum ac fidelium conspiratio" in reviewing the grounds of its definition, but simply the "juge Ecclesiae magisterium" and the "communis fidelium sensus." | ||||
His lordship proceeds: "The more devout the faithful grew, the more devoted they showed themselves towards this mystery. And it is the devout who have the surest instinct in discerning the mysteries of which the Holy Spirit breathes the grace through the Church, and who, with as sure a tact, reject what is alien from her teaching. The common accord of the faithful has weight much as an argument even with the most learned divines. St. Augustine says, that amongst many things which most justly held him in the bosom of the Catholic Church, was the 'accord of populations and of nations.' In another work he says, 'It seems that I have believed nothing but the confirmed opinion and the exceedingly wide-spread report of populations and of nations.' Elsewhere he says: 'In matters whereupon the Scripture has not spoken clearly, the custom of the people of God, or the institutions of our predecessors, are to be held as law.' In the same spirit St. Jerome argues, whilst defending the use of relics against Vigilantius: 'o the people of all the Churches who have gone out to meet holy relics, and have received them with so much joy, are to be accounted foolish' " (pp. 172, 173). And here I might come to an end; but, having got so far, I am induced, before concluding, to suggest an historical instance of the same great principle, which Father Perrone does not draw out. | ||||
First, I will set down the various ways in which theologians put before us the bearing of the Consent of the faithful upon the manifestation of the tradition of the Church. Its consensus is to be regarded: 1. as a testimony to the fact of the apostolical dogma; 2. as a sort of instinct, or phronema, deep in the bosom of the mystical body of Christ; 3. as a direction of the Holy Ghost; 4. as an answer to its prayer; 5. as a jealousy of error, which it at once feels as a scandal. | ||||
1. The first of these I need not enlarge upon, as it is illustrated in the foregoing passages from Father Perrone. | ||||
2. The second is explained in the well-known passages of M hler's Symbolique; e.g. "L'esprit de Dieu, qui gouverne et vivifie L' glise, enfante dans l'homme, en s'unissant lui, un instinct, un tact minemment chr tien, qui le conduit toute vraie doctrine.... Ce sentiment commun, cette conscience de l' glise est la tradition dans le sens subjectif du mot. Qu'est-ce donc que la tradition consider sous ce point de vue? C'est le sens chr tien existant dans l' glise, et transmis par l' glise; sens, toutefois, qu'on ne peut s parer des v rit s qu'il contient, puisqu'il est form de ces v rit s et par ces v rit s." ["The Spirit of God who directs and animates the Church, in becoming united to a human being, engenders a distinctively Christian sensitivity which shows the way to all true doctrine. This common sensibility, this consciousness of the Church, is tradition in the subjective sense of that word. What, from that point of view, is tradition? It is the Christian mentality, existing in the Church and trnsmitted by the Church; a mentality, however, inseparable from the truths it contains, because it is formed out of and by those very truths."] Ap. Perrone, p. 142. | ||||
3. Cardinal Fisher seems to speak of the third, as he is quoted by Petavius, De Incarn. xiv. 2; that is, he speaks of a custom imperceptibly gaining a position, "nulli praeceptorum vi, sed consensu quodam tacito tam populi qu m cleri, quasi tacitis omnium suffragiis recepta fuit, priusquam ullo conciliorum decreto legimus eam fuisse firmatam." ["Not compelled by any precepts, but carried forward by a kind of tacit consensus of clergy and people, as though silent votes had come in from them all, long before we read of its confirmation by conciliar decree."] And then he adds, "This custom has its birth in that people which is ruled by the Holy Ghost,"* &c. | ||||
4. Petavius speaks of a fourth aspect of it. "It is well said by St. Augustine, that to the minds of individuals certain things are revealed by God, not only by extraordinary means, as in visions, &c., but also in those usual ways, according to which what is unknown to them is opened in answer to their prayer. After this manner it is to be believed that God has revealed to Christians the sinless Conception of the Immaculate Virgin." De Incarn. xiv. 2, 11. | ||||
5. The fifth is enlarged upon in Dr. Newman's second Lecture on Anglican Difficulties, from which I quote a few lines: "We know that it is the property of life to be impatient of any foreign substance in the body to which it belongs. It will be sovereign in its own domain, and it conflicts with what it cannot assimilate into itself, and is irritated and disordered till it has expelled it. Such expulsion, then, is emphatically a test of uncongeniality, for it shows that the substance ejected, not only is not one with the body that rejects it, but cannot be made one with it; that its introduction is not only useless, or superfluous, or adventitious, but that it is intolerable." Presently he continues: "The religious life of a people is of a certain quality and direction, and these are tested by the mode in which it encounters the various opinions, customs, and institutions which are submitted to it. Drive a stake into a river's bed, and you will at once ascertain which way it is running, and at what speed; thro up even a straw upon the air, and you will see which way the wind blows; submit your heretical and Catholic principle to the action of the multitude, and you will be able to pronounce at once whether it is imbued with Catholic truth or with heretical falsehood." And then he proceeds to exemplify this by a passage in the history of Arianism, the very history which I intend now to take, as illustrative of the truth and importance of the thesis on which I am insisting. It is not a little remarkable, that, though, historically speaking, the fourth century is the age of doctors, illustrated, as it was, by the saints Athanasius, Hilary, the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, and all of these saints bishops also, except one, nevertheless in that very day the divine tradition committed to the infallible Church was proclaimed and maintained far more by the faithful than by the Episcopate. | ||||