11 CHAPTER II. OF SCRIPTURE THE RULE OF FAITH. §. 1. "ALL Scripture," saith S. Paul, " is given by inspiration of GOD, and is profitable for doctrine." P And our LORD Himself saith," Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me." If such is the language applied to the Scriptures of the Old Testament by our LORD and His Apostles, with how much greater force should it be applied to their own recorded sayings? S. John doth in fact assign such paramount importance to his own Gospel; "But these are written that ye might believe that JESUS is the CHRIST, the SON of GOD; and that believing ye might have life through His name."r And S. Peter very clearly implies, that, although the truth had been fully delivered by oral teaching to the Christians whom he addressed, he was still desirous of leaving on record a perpetual written memorial of the substance of what he had taught them; as if nothing would fully compensate the loss of the testimony of such as had been from the beginning eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word. He saith, "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth." "Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty." That is, writes Ecumenius, "I do not this con demning your ignorance, but by the continuity of teaching about these things I labour that your hold of them may be abiding and unchangeable; that having been confirmed by them ye may even after my departure out of this life retain them sounding in your ears, and indelible." t So important did the early Church consider the testimony of the original eyewitnesses of CHRIST to be, and so careful were they to trace the doctrines of the Faith to their primary source, that we find Tertullian actually distinguishing between the Apostles and Apostolic men among the writers of the four Gospels. "We lay it down in the first place," he says, "that the Evangelical document had for its authors Apostles, on whom this office of promulgating the Gospel was imposed by the LORD Himself. If it had Apostolic men. too, yet not alone, but with Apostles and after Apostles. Since the preaching of disciples might come to be suspected of desire of glory, if the authority of their masters did not assist them, yea of CHRIST who made their masters Apostles."" The compendious mode of proof, borrowed from the prescriptive tradition of the Church, might be adduced to establish the claims of Scripture to be received as what it professed to be, that is, the revelation of God's Will; but once those claims were allowed, the appeal of Catholics in their controversies with heretics was to Scripture. In his Dialogue against the Marcionites, Origen makes the heretic Marinus appeal to Scripture only. "If ye would," saith he, "that the inquiry be made with all truth, waive matters of philosophy, complying with the Scriptures alone." Adamantius replies, "Let us comply with the Scriptures." And when Dionysius of Alexandria had a conference with certain Egyptian presbyters who were pushing their opinions about the Millennium to the verge of schism, both parties are represented as "accepting what was sustained by proofs and teachings of the Holy Scriptures." Nor was it otherwise in the great Arian controversy; the Bishop Alexander and his clergy, in the circular wherein they communicate to the W v. p. 130. Ecumen. in loc. T. II. p. 534. Euseb. Hist. Eccles L. vii. c. universal Church the deposition of Arius, expressly declare that" unfolding the Divine Scriptures they had frequently refuted him."x The object of obtaining a public declaration of Faith in a General Council was to justify the excision on a large scale of members of the Church who had already been excommunicated by their own Bishop in virtue of the power of discipline vested in his office, and to obtain more solemn sanctions of that sense which it was assumed was universally entertained in the Church respecting the interpretation of Holy Scripture. It was never pretended that Christians might individually or collectively propound articles of Faith which they did not at the same time profess to be contained implicitly or explicitly in Holy Scripture. S. Athanasius himself, the great light of the Nicene Council, writes to Macarius; "The holy and inspired Scriptures suffice of themselves for the enunciation of the truth; but there are many discourses also of our blessed doctors composed for this purpose, which if a person meets with he shall in a manner know the interpretation of the Scriptures, and obtain the knowledge which he desires." So, likewise, the Council of Carthage, A.D. 348, declares that they make their decrees "mindful of the Divine precepts and of the ruling (magisterii) of the Divine Scriptures;" and that their "sentence is not to be passed, but rather executed, in cases which Scripture hath openly sanctioned." And a beautiful illustration of this feeling is supplied by the practice of subsequent Councils; when a copy of the Holy Gospels used to be reverently placed on a throne in the midst of the assembly, as the most fitting symbol of Him who spake of old through the Prophets, the Comforter and Spirit of Truth. The Faith, S. Athanasius argued, "was clear to all, being known and read out of the Divine Scriptures; for in it the saints that have been perfected were martyred, and now are at rest in the LORD. And the Faith would have remained uninjured continually, if the evil disposition of certain heretics had not dared to pervert it." b a In the conference between the Catholics and the Donatists at Carthage, A.D. 411, the same tradition of Appeal to the Scripture is continued, and the Scripture declared to be the Church's Rule. Marcellinus the commissioner says, "If the consent of both parties agrees that nothing be done on the side of the common law, but that all things be performed by ecclesiastical rules, that is, testimonies of the Old and New Testaments, let either party signify it." And S. Augustine spoke thus at the same Conference; "We retain that Church, which we have found in those Scriptures, in which also we have known CHRIST; forasmuch as our Scriptures, to whose authority we are alike subject, commend CHRIST and the Church as a holy wedded pair, CHRIST the Bridegroom, her the Bride. Where we know Him, there also ought we to find her. If therefore at the outset we were thinking to what communion of Christians in Africa we should attach ourselves, doubtless we ought to hold that which we do find in the Scriptures; and, repudiating men's charges, keep to the Divine Oracles alone, which know not falsehood." Pope Zosimus, in his letter to the African Bishops, A.D. 417, says; "I admonish your charity as well by the authority of the Apostolic See as by the mutual affection of love, that now your understandings be content with the precepts of all the Holy Scriptures, which have been ordained according to the tradition of our fathers. What is not abundant there? What is not full of the Spirit and words of GOD? unless it pleases every one to trust himself rather, and to use his own judgment concerning himself." e S. Optatus, arguing with the Donatists touching their rebaptizing proselytes from the Catholic Church, brings out very clearly the mind of the Church about the Rule of Faith. "Arbitrators are wanted. If Christians, they cannot be given. on either side, because truth is hindered by party spirit. A judge is to be sought for outside. If a Pagan, he cannot know Christian secrets. If a Jew, he is an enemy of Christian Baptism. Therefore on earth no judgment can be found touching this matter; a judge is to be sought for from Heaven. But why entreat we Heaven, when we have His Testament here in the Gospel? Since in this place earthly things may rightly be compared with heavenly; it is like the case of a man having numerous sons. These their father himself, as long as he is present, orders one and all: a testament is not yet necessary. So also CHRIST, as long as He was present on earth, enjoined on the Apostles whatever was necessary for the time. But as when an earthly father, perceiving himself on the brink of death, and fearing lest thereafter the brothers should break the peace and go to law, takes witnesses and transfers his will from his dying breast into tablets that shall endure for a long while; and if contention shall have arisen among the brothers, they do not make an uproar, but the will is sought for, and he who rests in the tomb silently speaks from the tablets: so He, the Living One, Whose the Testament is, is in Heaven; therefore His Will may be sought in the Gospel even as in a testament." f And in the Middle Ages it was the doctrine of John Duns Scotus, that Holy Scripture sufficiently contains the teaching necessary to one that journeys through this life to his eternal home. The explanation of GOD's commandments, as far as relates to faith and practice, is elicited from divers passages of Scripture. Aquinas states, that a Theologian uses authorities of Canonical Scripture as necessary positions; but he argues on grounds of probability only, when he employs the authorities of the Doctors of the Church. "For our Faith," he says, "rests on the revelation made to the Apostles and Prophets who wrote the Canonical Books, but not on any revelation (if any were made) to other teachers." h And Durandus writes: "I conclude then with the Apostle; 'Praying also for us, that GOD would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of CHRIST, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.' But we ought to speak of the mystery of CHRIST, and universally of those things which absolutely touch faith, in conformity with that which Scripture delivers. Whence CHRIST saith; 'Search the Scriptures; S. Optatus, L. v. p. 85. Scotus, in Prolog. Sent. qu. 2. h Summa Theol. I. qu. 1. Art. 8. |