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by John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
from The Rambler, July 1859.
The Rambler was a Catholic periodical which, from 1848, tried to
show that English Catholics were intellectually serious and capable of rational
discussion.
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 questions: 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 1 shall begin with the second.
1.
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 who consults," 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 evidence 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 into 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; compassio 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 connected 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. 1 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 would 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 pi~ 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 digladiatorio, 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 am 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 our 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 doctors, 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.
1. 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.
2. 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.
(1.) 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 apertè patefaciant quid Ecclesia
antiquitùs de hoc senserit argumento,"* 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, rum scilicet ex pastorum. tum ex
fidelium sese gerendi ratione" * * (pp. 74, 75). Let it be observed, he not
only joins together the pastores and fideles, but contrasts them;
1 mean (for it will bear on what is to follow), the "faithful" do not
include the "pastors."
[*"It is plain enough what the ancient Church thought about this
argument."
** "We think it can be gathered from two sources, the behavior of
the pastors and that of the faithful."]
(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."*
[ *"Signs and manifestations of this tendency ... a combining of
pastors and faithful ... 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 conjunctè 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?"
(p. 139). He instances this from St. Irenaeus and Tertullian in the "Successio
Episcoporurn," who transmit the doctrines "tum activi operâ ministerii,
turn usu et praxi, turn institutis ritibus ... adeò ut catholica atque
apostolica doctrina inoculata ... fuerit ... communi Ecclesiae coetui" *
(p. 142).
[ * "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? ... by the exertion 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."]
(4.) 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, I 'communis fidelis populi sensus haud levem facit fidem'"*(p. 143). He
gives another passage from him in a note, which he introduces with the words,
"Illud praeclarè addit;" what Canus adds is, "Quaero ex te,
quando de rebus Christianae fidei inter nos contendimus, non de philosophae
decretis, utrùim potius quaerendum est, quid philosophi atque
ethnici, an quid homines Christiani, et doctriná et fide
instituti, sentiant? " * *
[* "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 means insignificant.' "
* * "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, "Gregorious verò de Valentii fusius
vim ejusmodi fidelium consensus evolvit. 'Est enim,' inquit, "in
definitionibus fidei habenda ratio, quoad fieri potest,
consensûs fidelium.' "* Here, again, "habere rationem," to have regard
to, is an act of respect and consideration. However, Gregory continues,
"Quoniam et ii sanè, quatenus ex ipsis constat Ecclesia, sic Spiritu Sancto assistente, divinas
revelationes integrè et purè conservant, ut omnes
illi quidem aberrare non possunt.... Illud solùm contendo; Si quando de
re aliqui in materie religionis controversia (controversâ?) constaret
fidelium omnium concordem esse sententiam (solet autem id constare, vel ex:
ipsi praxi alicujus cultûs communiter apud christianos populos
receptâ, vel ex scandalo et offensione communi, quae opinione
aliqui oritur, &c.) meritò posse et debere Pontificem
illi niti, ut quae esset Ecclesiae sententia infallibilis"** (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.
[ *"Gregory of Valencia, who brought out the force of this consensus
of the faithful, says that 'as far as possible, account must be taken of the
consensus of the faithful in definitions of faith,"
** "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
should rely upon it as the judgment of the infallible Church. (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 cam (viz. piam) sententiam sim propensior, communis maximus sensus
fidelium omnium. " * By "movet me" he means, that he attends
to what the coetus fldelium says: this is certainly not passing over
the fideles, but making much of them.
[*"The main consensus of all the faithful moves me to favor that
view."]
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 vivurn 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
separan nequit; qua propter, etsi documenta defterent omnia, solurn hoc
vivum et juge magisterium satis esset ad cognoscendarn doctrinarn
divinitus traditam, habito praesertim respectu ad solennes Christi
promissiones"* (p. 303).
[* "Dogmatic tradition is identified with the teachings of the
Church, from which it cannot be separated. Hence, 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."]
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. "Nerno est
qui nesciat," says Father Perrone, "quot utriusque Ecclesiae, tum Graecae tum
Latinae, Patres contrarium sensisse visi sunt" * (p. 147). He quotes in
a note the words of the Benedictine editor, as follows: "Propemodum incredibile
videri potest, quarn 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 parùm
constantes exstiterint." * * Father Perrone continues: "Certè quidem in
Ecclesiâ non deerat quoad hunc fidei articulum divina traditio; alioquin
nunquam is definiri potuisset: verùm 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 altè adeò defixum ...
habebant mentibus, purgatas animas statim ad Deum videndum eoque fruendum
admitti, ut non minimum eorum animi vel ex ipsâ controversiâ
fuerint offensi, quae sub Joanne XXII. agitabatur, et cujus definitio
diu nimis protrabebatur."*** 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.
[ * "Everyone is aware how many Fathers in both the Eastern and
Western Churches seem to have held an opposite opinion."
** "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 X1 (Benedict XII) and the Council of Florence, that
is, over a period of fully fourteen hundred years."
*** "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 difficulty. The unfailing magisteriurn
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."]
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" * (p. 156).
[* "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."]
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 conceptionern sit
animatus, et quo desiderio flagret, ut ejusmodi res ab apostolici sede
decernatur;"* 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 already said, is not to
be taken in its ordinary Latin sense.
[* "Make known to 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."]
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 definiendâ tandem aliquando
Immaculatâ Virginis Conceptione perspectus esset plurimorum
sociorum Antistitum sensus, tamen Encyclicas literas, &c. ad onmes 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. 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."** 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.
[* "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,
requesting 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."
* * "divine eloquence, revered tradition, the perpetual mind of the
Church, and the singular joint accord of Catholic bishops and faithful
..."]
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
fideliurn 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: 'So 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.
3.
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 Möhler's
Symbolique; e.g. "L'esprit de Dieu, qui gouverne et vivifie L'Eglise,
enfante dans l'homme, en s'unissant à lui, un instinct, un tact
éminemment chrétien, qui le conduit
à toute vraie doctrine.... Ce sentiment commun, cette conscience de
l'Eglise est la tradition dans le sens subjectif du mot. Qu'est-ce donc que la
tradition consid6r6e sous ce point de vue? C'est le sens chrétien
existant dans l'Eglise, et transmis par l'Eglise; sens, toutefois, qu'on ne
peut séparer des vérités qu'il
contient, puisqu'il est formé de ces vérités et par ces vérités."* Ap. Perrone, p. 142.
[* "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 transmitted by the Church; a mentality,
however, inseparable from the truths it contains, because it is formed out of
and by those very truths."]
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 praeceptorurn vi, sed consensu quodarn
tacito tam populi quàm cleri, quasi tacitis omnium suffragiis recepta
fuit, priusquàm ullo conciliorum decreto legimus earn fuisse firmatam."
And then he adds, "This custom has its birth in that people which is ruled
by the Holy Ghost,"* &c.
[* "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."]
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; throw 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.
Here, of course, I must explain:-in saying this, then, undoubtedly I
am not denying that the great body of the Bishops were in their internal belief
orthodox; nor that there were numbers of clergy who stood by the laity, and
acted as their centres and guides; nor that the laity actually received their
faith, in the first instance, from the Bishops and clergy; nor that some
portions of the laity were ignorant, and other portions at length corrupted by
the Arian teachers, who got possession of the sees and ordained an heretical
clergy;-but I mean still, that in that time of immense confusion the divine
dogma of our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly
speaking) preserved, far more by the "Ecclesia docta" than by the "Ecclesia
docens;" that the body of the episcopate was unfaithful to its commission,
while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism; that at one time the
Pope, at other times the patriarchal, metropolitan, and other great sees, at
other times general councils, said what they should not have said, or did what
obscured and compromised revealed truth; while, on the other hand, it was the
Christian people who, under Providence, were the ecclesiastical strength of
Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius of Vercellae, and other great solitary confessors,
who would have failed without them.
I see, then, in the Arian history a palmary example of a state of the
Church, during which, in order to know the tradition of the Apostles, we must
have recourse to the faithful; for I fairly own, that if I go to writers, since
I must adjust the letter of Justin, Clement, and Hippolytus with the Nicene
Doctors, I get confused; and what revives and reinstates me, as far as history
goes, is the faith of the people. For I argue that, unless they had been
catechised, as St. Hilary says, in the orthodox faith from the time of their
baptism, they never could have had that horror, which they show, of the
heterodox Arian doctrine. Their voice, then, is the voice of tradition; and the
instance comes to us with still greater emphasis, when we consider -1. that it
occurs in the very beginning of the history of the "Ecclesia docens," for there
can scarcely be said to be any history of her teaching till the age of martyrs
was over; 2. that the doctrine in controversy was so momentous, being the very
foundation-of the Christian system; 3. that the state of controversy and
disorder lasted over the long space of sixty years; and 4. that it involved
serious persecutions, in life, limb, and property, to the faithful whose loyal
perseverance decided it.
It seems, then, as striking an instance as I could take in fulfilment
of Father Perrone's statement, that the voice of tradition may in certain cases
express itself, not by Councils, nor Fathers, nor Bishops, but the "communis
fidelium sensus."
I shall set down some authorities for the two points successively,
which I have to enforce, viz. that the Nicene dogma was maintained during the
greater part of the 4th century,
1. not by the unswerving firmness of the Holy See,
Councils, or Bishops, but
2. by the "consensus fidelium."
I. On the one hand, then, I say, that there was a temporary suspense
of the functions of the "Ecclesia docens." The body of Bishops failed in their
confession of the faith. They spoke variously, one against another; there was
nothing, after Nicaea, of firm, unvarying, consistent testimony, for nearly
sixty years. There were untrustworthy Councils, unfaithful Bishops; there was
weakness, fear of consequences, misguidance, delusion, hallucination, endless,
hopeless, extending itself into nearly every corner of the Catholic Church. The
comparatively few who remained faithful were discredited and driven into exile;
the rest were either deceivers or were deceived.
1. A.D. 325. The great council of Nicaea, of 318 Bishops, chiefly from
the eastern provinces of Christendom, under the presidency of Hosius of
Cordova, as the Pope's Legate. It was convoked against Arianism, which it once
for all anathematized; and it inserted the formula of the "Consubstantial" into
the Creed, with the view of .establishing the fundamental dogma which Arianism
impugned. It is the first Oecumenical Council, and recognised at the time its
own authority as the voice of the infallible Church. It is so received by the
orbis terrarum at this day. <A.D. 326. St. Athanasius, the great
champion of the Homoilison, was elected Bishop of Alexandria.>
[The history of the Arian controversy, from its date, A.D. 325, to the
date of the second Oecumenical Council, A.D. 381, is the history of the
struggle through Christendom for the universal acceptance or the repudiation of
the formula of the "Consubstantial."]
2. A.D. 334, 335. The synods of Caesarea and Tyre <sixty
Bishops> against Athanasius, who was therein accused and formally condemned
of rebellion, sedition, and ecclesiastical tyranny; of murder, sacrilege, and
magic; deposed from his see, forbidden to set foot in Alexandria for life, and
banished to Gaul. [Constantine confirmed the sentence.] <Also, they received
Arius into communion.>
3. A.D. 341. Council of Rome of fifty Bishops, attended by the exiles
from Thrace, Syria, &c., by Athanasius, &c., in which Athanasius was
pronounced innocent.
4. A.D. 341. Great Council of the Dedication at Antioch, attended by
ninety or a hundred Bishops. The council ratified the proceedings of the
councils of Caesarea and Tyre, and placed an Arian in the see of Athanasius.
Then it proceeded to pass a dogmatic decree in reversal of the formula of the
"Consubstantial." Four or five creeds, instead of the Nicene, were successively
adopted by the assembled fathers. [The first was a creed which they ascribed to
Lucian, a martyr and saint of the preceding century, in whom the Arians always
gloried as their master. The second was fuller and stronger in its language,
and made more pretension to orthodoxy. The third was more feeble again. These
three creeds]* were circulated in the neighbourhood; but, as they wished to
send one to Rome, they directed a fourth to be drawn up. This, too, apparently
failed. [So little was known at the time of the real history of this synod and
its creeds, that St. Hilary calls it "sanctorum synodus."]
* [These three creeds] Three of these
5. A.D. 345. Council of the creed called Macrostich. This creed
suppresses, as did the third, the word "substance." The eastern Bishops sent
this to the Bishops of [the West]*, who rejected it.
* [the West] France
6. A.D. 347. The great council of Sardica, attended by [380]* Bishops.
Before it commenced, the division between its members broke out on the question
whether or not Athanasius should have a seat in it. In consequence, seventy-six
retired to Philippopolis, on the Thracian side of Mount Haemus, and there
excommunicated the Pope and the Sardican fathers. These seceders published a
sixth confession of faith. The synod of Sardica, including Bishops from Italy,
Gaul, Africa, Egypt, Cyprus, and Palestine, confirmed the act of the Roman
council, and restored Athanasius and the other exiles to their sees. The synod
of Philippopolis, on the contrary, sent letters to the civil magistrates of
those cities, forbidding them to admit the exiles into them. The imperial power
took part with the Sardican fathers, and Athanasius went back to
Alexandria.
* [380] more than 300
7. A.D. 351. [Before many years had run out, the great eastern party
was up again.] <The Bishops of the East met at Sirmium. The semi-Arian
Bishops began to detach themselves from the Arians, and to form a separate
party.>
Under pretence of putting down a kind of Sabellianism, they drew up a
new creed, into which they introduced [certain inadvisable expressions]* of
some of the ante-Nicene writers, on the subject of our Lord's divinity, and
dropped the word -substance." [St. Hilary thought this creed also Catholic; and
other Catholic writers style its fathers "holy Bishops."]
*'Certain inadvisable expressions] the language
[8. There is considerable confusion of dates here. Anyhow, there was a
second Sirmian creed, in which the eastern party first came to a division among
themselves. St. Hilary at length gives up these creeds as indefensible, and
calls this one a "blasphemy." It is the first creed which criticises the words
"substance," &c., as unscriptural. Some years afterwards this "blasphemia"
seems to have been interpolated, and sent into the East in the name of Hosius.
At a later date, there was a third Sirmian creed; and a second edition of it,
with alterations, was published at Nice in Thrace.]
9. A.D. 353. The council of Arles.* [I cannot find how many Bishops
attended it. As the Pope sent several Bishops as legates, it must have been one
of great importance. The Bishop of Arles was an Arian, and managed to seduce,
or to force, a number of orthodox Bishops, including the Pope's legate,
Vincent, to subscribe the condemnation of Athanasius. Paulinus, Bishop of
Trêves, was nearly the only champion of the Nicene faith and of
Athanasius.] He was accordingly banished into Phrygia, where he died.
* The Council of Aries <The Pope sent to it several Bishops as
legates. The Fathers of the Council, including the Pope's legate, Vincent,
subscribed the condemnation of Athanasius. Paulinus, Bishop of Tr~ves, was
nearly the only one who stood up for the Nicene faith and for
Athanasius.>
10. A.D. 355. The council of Milan, of more than 300 Bishops of the
West. Nearly all of them, subscribed the condemnation of Athanasius; whether
they generally subscribed the heretical creed, which was brought forward, does
not appear. The Pope's four legates remained firm, and St. Dionysius of Milan,
who died an exile in Asia Minor. An Arian was put into his see. Saturninus, the
Bishop of Arles, proceeded to hold a council at Beziers; and its fathers
banished St. Hilary to Phrygia.
<A.D. 357-9. The Arians and Semi-Arians successively drew up fresh
creeds at Sirmium.>
11. A.D. 357< - 8.> Hosius falls. "Constantius used such
violence towards the old man, and confined him so straitly, that at last,
broken by suffering, he was brought, though hardly, to hold communion with
Valens and Ursacius (the Arian leaders), though he would not subscribe against
Athanasius." Athan. Arian. Hist. 45.
12. <And> Liberius. A.D. 357 < - 8> "The tragedy was not
ended in the lapse of Hosius, but in the evil which befell Liberius, the Roman
Pontiff, it became far more dreadful and mournful, considering that he was
Bishop of so great a city, and of the whole Catholic Church, and that he had so
bravely resisted Constantius two years previously. There is nothing, whether in
the historians and holy fathers, or in his own letters, to prevent our coming
to the conclusion, that Liberius communicated with the Arians, and confirmed
the sentence passed against Athanasius; but he is not at all on that account to
be called a heretic." Baron. Ann. 357, 38-45. Athanasius says: "Liberius, after
he had been in banishment <for> two years, gave way, and from fear of
threatened death was induced to subscribe." Arian. Hist. S41. St. Jerome
says: "Liberius, taedio victus exilii, in haereticam pravitatern subscribens,
Roman quasi victor intraverat."* Chron. <ed. Val. p. 797>
[* "Liberius, worn out by the tedium of exile and subscribing to the
heretical error, had entered Rome almost as a conqueror."]
13. A.D. 359. The great councils of Seleucia and Ariminum, being one
bi-partite council, representing the East and West respectively. At Seleucia
there were 150 Bishops, of which only the twelve or thirteen from Egypt were
champions of the Nicene "Consubstantial." At Ariminum there were as many as 400
Bishops, who, worn out by the artifice of long delay on the part of the Arians,
abandoned the "Consubstantial," and subscribed the ambiguous formula which the
heretics had substituted for it.
[14. A.D. 361. The death of Constantius; the Catholic Bishops breathe
again, and begin at once to remedy the miseries of the Church, though troubles
were soon to break out anew.]
15. A.D. 362. State of the Church of Antioch at this time. There were
four Bishops or communions of Antioch; first, the old succession and communion,
which had possession before the Arian troubles; secondly, the Arian succession,
which had lately conformed to orthodoxy in the person of Meletius; thirdly, the
new Latin succession, lately created by Lucifer, whom some have thought the
Pope's legate there; and, fourthly, the new Arian succession, which was
[begun]* upon the recantation of Meletius. At length, as Arianism was brought
under, the evil reduced itself to two <Episcopal> successions, that of
Meletius and the Latin, which went on for many years, the West and Egypt
holding communion with the latter, and the East with the former.
* [begun] started
[16. A.D. 370-379. St. Basil was Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia
through these years. The judgments formed about this great doctor in his
lifetime show us vividly the extreme confusion which prevailed. He was accused
by one party of being a follower of Apollinaris, and lost in consequence some
of the sees over which he was metropolitan. He was accused by the monks in his
friend Gregory's diocese of favouring the semi-Arians. He was accused by the
Neocaesareans of inclining towards Arianism. And he was treated with suspicion
and coldness by Pope Damasus].
17. About A.D. 360, St. Hilary says: "I am not speaking of things
foreign to my knowledge; I am not writing about what I am ignorant of; I have
heard and I have seen the shortcomings of persons who are [present to]* me, not
of laymen <merely>, but of Bishops. For, excepting the Bishop Eleusius
and a few with him, for the most part the ten Asian provinces, within whose
boundaries I am situate, are truly ignorant of God." <De Syn. 63.> It is
observable, that even Eleusius, who is here spoken of as somewhat better than
the rest, was a semi-Arian, according to Socrates, and even a persecutor of
Catholics at Constantinople; and, according to Sozomen, one of those who
[urged]** Pope Liberius to give up the Nicene formula of the "Consubstantial."
By the ten Asian provinces is meant the east and south provinces of Asia Minor,
pretty nearly as cut off by a line passing from Cyzicus to Seleucia through
Synnada.
*[present to] round about
*[urged] were active in causing
18. A.D. 360. St. Gregory Nazianzen says, about this date: "Surely the
pastors have done foolishly; for, excepting a very few, who, either on account
of their insignificance were passed over, or who by reason of their virtue
resisted, and who were to be left as a seed and root for the springing up again
and revival of Israel by the influences of the Spirit, all temporised, only
differing from each other in this, that some succumbed earlier, and others
later; some were foremost champions and leaders in the impiety, and others
joined the second rank of the battle, being overcome by fear, or by interest,
or by flattery, or, what was the most excusable, by their own ignorance."
Orat. xxi. 24.
19. A.D. 363. About this time, St. Jerome says: "Nearly all the
churches in the whole world, under the pretence of peace and the emperor, are
polluted with the communion of the Arians." Chron. Of the same
date, that is, upon the council of Ariminum, are his famous words, "Ingernuit
totus orbis et se esse Arianum miratus est." In Lucif.
*<19.> [That is,] the Catholics of Christendom were surprised indeed to
find that [their rulers]** had made Arians of them.
[*"The whole world groaned, and marveled to see itself Arian."]
** [their rulers] the Council
[20. A.D. 364. And St. Hilary: "Up to this date, the only cause why
Christ's people is not murdered by the priests of Anti-christ, with this deceit
of impiety, is, that they take the words which the heretics use, to denote the
faith which they themselves hold. Sanctiores aures plebis quàm corda
sunt sacerdotum." * In Aux. 6.]
[* "There is more holiness in the ears of the people than in the
hearts of the priests."]
21. St. Hilary speaks of the series of ecclesiastical councils of that
time in the following well-known passage: ["It is most dangerous to us, and it
is lamentable, that there are at Present as many creeds as there are
sentiments, and as many doctrines among us as dispositions, while we write
creeds and explain them according to our fancy.] Since the Nicene council, we
have done nothing but write the creed. While we fight about words, inquire
about novelties, take advantage of ambiguities, criticise authors, fight on
party questions, have difficulties in agreeing, and prepare to anathernatise
each other, there is scarce a man who belongs to Christ. Take, for instance,
last year's creed, what alteration is there not in it already? First, we have
the creed, which bids us not to use the Nicene 'consubstantial;' then comes
another, which decrees and preaches it; next, the third, excuses the word
'substance,' as adopted by the fathers in their simplicity; lastly, the fourth,
<which> instead of excusing, condemns. We [impose]* creeds by the year or
by the month, we change our [minds about our own imposition of them, then]** we
prohibit our changes, [then] we anathernatise our prohibitions. Thus, we either
condemn others in our own persons, or ourselves in the instance of others, and
while we bite and devour one another, are like to be consumed one of another."
<Ad Const. ii. 4, 5.>
* [impose] determine
** [minds about ... of them, then] own determinations,
22. A.D. 382. St. Gregory writes: "If I must speak the truth, I feel
disposed to shun every conference of Bishops; for never saw I synod brought to
a happy issue, and remedying, and not rather aggravating, existing evils. For
rivalry and ambition are stronger than reason,-do not think me extravagant for
saying so,-and a mediator is more likely to incur some imputation himself than
to clear up the imputations which others lie under." Ep. 129. [It must ever be
kept in mind that a passage like this only relates, and is here quoted as only
relating, to that miserable time of which it is spoken. Nothing more can be
argued from it than that the "Ecclesia docens" is not at every time the active
instrument of the Church's infallibility.]
II. Now we come secondly to the proofs of the fidelity of the laity,
and the effectiveness of that fidelity, during that domination of imperial
heresy to which the foregoing passages have related. I have abridged t e
extracts w ic o ow, ut not, I ope, to t e injury o t eir sense.
1. ALEXANDRIA. "We suppose," says Athanasius, "you are not ignorant
what outrages they (the Arian Bishops) committed at Alexandria, for they are
reported everywhere. They attacked the holy virgins and brethren with
naked swords; they beat with scourges their persons, esteemed
honourable in God's sight, so that their feet were lamed by the stripes, whose
souls were whole and sound in purity and all good works." Athan. Op. c.
Arian. 15, [Oxf: tr.]
"Accordingly Constantius writes letters, and commences a
persecution against all. Gathering together a multitude of herdsmen
and shepherds, and dissolute youths belonging to the town, armed with swords
and clubs, they attacked in a body the Church of Quirinus: and
some they slew, some they trampled under foot,
others they beat with stripes and cast into prison or banished. They
hauled away many women also, and dragged them openly into the court, and
insulted them, dragging them by the hair. Some they proscribed; from
some they took away their bread, for no other reason but that they
might be induced to join the Arians, and receive Gregory (the Arian Bishop),
who had been sent by the Emperor." Athan. Hist. Arian. $10.
"On the week that succeeded the holy Pentecost, when the people,
after their fast, had gone out to the cemetery to pray, because that all
refused communion with George (the Arian Bishop), the commander, Sebastian,
straightway with a multitude of soldiers proceeded to attack the people,
though it was the Lord's day; and finding a few praying, (for the greater
part had already retired on account of the lateness of the hourJ having lighted
a pile, he placed certain virgins near the fire, and endeavoured to
force them to say that they were of the Arian faith. And having seized on
forty men, he cut some fresh twigs of the palm-tree, with the thorns
upon them, and scourged them on the back so severely that some of them were for
a long time under medical treatment, on account of the thorns which had entered
their flesh, and others, unable to bear up under their sufferings, died. All
those whom they had taken, both the men and the virgins, they sent away into
banishment to the great oasis. Moreover, they immediately banished out of Egypt
and Libya the following Bishops (sixteen), and the presbyters, Hierax and
Dioscorus: some of them died on the way, others in the place of their
banishment. They caused also more than thirty Bishops to take to flight."
Apol. de Fug. 7.
2. EGYPT. "The Emperor Valens having issued an edict commanding that
the orthodox should be expelled both from Alexandria and the rest of Egypt,
depopulation and ruin to an immense extent immediately followed; some
were dragged before the tribunals, others cast into prison, and many
tortured in various ways; all sorts of punishment being inflicted upon persons
who aimed only at peace and quiet." Socr. Hist. iv. 24,
[Bohn.]
3. THE MONKS OF EGYPT. "Antony left the solitude of the desert
to go about every part of the city (Alexandria), warning the inhabitants that
the Arians were opposing the truth, and that the doctrines of the Apostles were
preached only by Athanasius." Theod. Hist. iv. 27, [Bohn.]
"Lucius, the Arian, with a considerable body of troops, proceeded to
the monasteries of Egypt, where he in person assailed the assemblage of
holy men with greater fury than the ruthless soldiery. When these excellent
persons remained unmoved by all the violence, in despair he advised the
military chief to send the fathers of the monks, the Egyptian Macarius and his
namesake of Alexandria, into exile." Socr. iv. 24.
OF CONSTANTINOPLE. "Isaac, on seeing the emperor depart at the
head of his army, exclaimed, 'You who have declared war against God cannot gain
His aid. Cease from fighting against Him, and He will terminate the war.
Restore the pastors to their flocks, and then you will obtain a bloodless
victory." [Ibid 34.]*
* [ibid. 34] Theod. iv.
OF SYRIA, &c. "That these heretical doctrines (Apollinarian and
Eunomian) did not finally become predominant is mainly to be attributed to
the zeal of the monks of this period; for all the monks of Syria,
Cappadocia, and the neighbouring provinces were sincerely attached to the
Nicene faith. The same fate awaited them which had been experienced by the
Arians; for they incurred the full weight of the popular odium and aversion,
when it was observed that their sentiments were regarded with suspicion, by the
monks." Sozom. [Hist. vii.]* 27, [Bohn.]
* [Hist. vii] vi.
OF CAPPADOCIA. "Gregory, the father of Gregory Theologus, otherwise a
most excellent man and a zealous defender of the true and Catholic religion,
not being on his guard against the artifices of the Arians, such was his
simplicity, received with kindness certain men who were contaminated with the
poison, and subscribed an impious proposition of theirs. This moved the monks
to such indignation, that they withdrew forthwith from his communion,
and took with them, after their example, a considerable part of his
flock." Ed. Bened. Monit. in Greg. Naz. Orat. 6.
[4. SYRIA. "Syria and the neighbouring provinces were plunged into
confusion and disorder, for the Arians were very numerous in these parts, and
had possession of the churches. The members of the Catholic Church were not,
however, few in numbers. It was through their instrumentality that
the Church of Antioch was preserved from the encroachments of the Arians, and
enabled to resist the power of Valens. Indeed, it appears that all the Churches
which were governed by men who were firmly attached to the faith did not
deviate from the form of doctrine which they had originally embraced." Sozom.
vi. 21]
5. ANTIOCH. "Whereas he (the Bishop Leontius) took part in the
blasphemy of Arius, he made a point of concealing this disease, partly for
fear of the multitude, partly for the menaces of Constantius; so those who
followed the apostolical dogmas gained from him neither patronage nor
ordination, but those who held Arianism were allowed the fullest liberty of
speech, and were placed in the ranks of the sacred ministry. But Flavian and
Diodorus, who had embraced the ascetical life, and maintained the apostolical
dogmas, openly withstood Leontius's machinations against
religious doctrine. They threatened that they would retire from the communion
of his Church, and would go to the West, and reveal his intrigues. Though they
were not as yet in the sacred ministry, but were in the ranks
of the laity, night and day they used to excite all the
people to zeal for religion. They were the first to divide the singers into two
choirs, and to teach them to sing [alternately]* the strains of David. They
too, assembling the devout at the shrines of the martyrs, passed the whole
night there in hymns to God. These things Leontius seeing, did not think it
safe to hinder them, for he saw that the multitude was especially well
affected towards those excellent persons. Nothing, however, could persuade
Leontius to correct his wickedness. It follows, that among the clergy were many
who were infected with the heresy: but the mass of the people were champions
of orthodoxy." Theodor. Hist. ii. 24.
* [alternately] in alternate parts
6. EDESSA. "There is in that city a magnificent church, dedicated to
St. Thomas the Apostle, wherein, on account of the sanctity of the place,
religious assemblies are continually held. The Emperor Valens wished to inspect
this edifice; when, having learned that all who usually congregated there
were opposed to the heresy which he favoured, he is said to have struck the
prefect with his own hand, because he had neglected to expel them thence. The
prefect, to prevent the slaughter of so great a number of persons,
privately warned them against resorting thither. But his admonitions and
menaces were alike unheeded; for on the following day they all crowded to
the church. When the prefect was going towards it with a large military
force, a poor woman, leading her own little child by the hand, hurried hastily
by on her way to the church, breaking through the ranks of the soldiery. The
prefect, irritated at this, ordered her to be brought to him, and thus
addressed her: 'Wretched woman, whither are you running in so disorderly a
manner?' She replied, 'To the same place that others are hastening.' 'Have you
not heard,' said he, 'that the prefect is about to put to death all that shall
be found there?' 'Yes,' said the woman, 'and therefore I hasten, that I may be
found there."And whither are you dragging that little child?' said the prefect.
The woman answered, 'That he also may be vouchsafed the honour of
martyrdom.' The prefect went back and informed the emperor that all were ready
to die in behalf of their own faith; and added that it
would be preposterous to destroy so many persons at one time, and thus
succeeded in restraining the emperor's wrath." Socr. iv. 18. "Thus was the
Christian faith confessed by the whole city of Edessa." Sozom. vi.
18.
7. SAMOSATA. "The Arians, having deprived this exemplary flock of
their shepherd, elected in his place an individual with whom none of
the inhabitants of the city, whether poor or rich,
servants or mechanics, husbandmen or gardeners, men or women, young or old,
would hold communion. He was left quite alone; no one even calling to
see him, or exchanging a word with him. It is, however, said that his
disposition was extremely gentle; and this is proved by what I am about to
relate. One day, when he went to bathe in the public baths, the attendants
closed the doors; but he ordered the doors to be thrown open, that the people
might be admitted to bathe with himself. Perceiving that they remained in a
standing posture before him, imagining that great deference towards himself was
the cause of this conduct, he arose and left the bath. These people
believed that the water had been contaminated by his heresy, and ordered it
to be let out and fresh water to be supplied. When he heard of this
circumstance, he left the city, thinking that he ought no longer to remain in a
place where he was the object of public aversion and
hatred. Upon this retirement of Eunomius, Lucius was elected as his
successor by the Arians. Some young persons were amusing themselves with
playing at ball in the marketplace; Lucius was passing by at the time, and the
ball happened to fall beneath the feet of the ass on which he was mounted.
The youths uttered loud exclamations, believing that the ball was
contaminated. They lighted a fire, and hurled the ball through it,
believing that by this process the ball would be purified. Although this was
only a childish deed, and although it exhibits the remains of ancient
superstition, yet it is sufficient to show the odium which the Arian
faction bad incurred in this city. Lucius was far from imitating the
mildness of Eunomius, and he persuaded the heads of government to exile most of
the clergy." Theodor. iv. 15.
8. OSRHOENE. "Arianism met with similar opposition at the same period
in OsrhoEne and Cappadocia. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, and Gregory, Bishop of
Nazianzus, were held in high admiration and esteem throughout these
regions." Sozom. vi. 21.
9. CAPPADOCIA. "Valens, in passing through Cappadocia, did all in his
power to injure the orthodox, and to deliver up the churches to the Arians. He
thought to accomplish his designs more easily on account of a dispute which was
then pending between Basil and Eusebius, who governed the Church of Caesarea.
This dissension had been the cause of Basil's departing to Pontus. The
people, and some of the most powerful and wisest men of the city, began to
regard Eusebius with suspicion, and to meditate a secession from his communion.
The emperor and the Arian Bishops regarded the absence of Basil, and the hatred
of the people towards Eusebius, as circumstances that would tend greatly to the
success of their designs. But their expectations were utterly frustrated.
On the first intelligence of the intention of the emperor to pass through
Cappadocia, Basil returned to Caesarea, where he effected a reconciliation with
Eusebius. The projects of Valens were thus defeated, and he returned with his
Bishops." Sozom. vi. 15.
10. PONTUS. "It is said that when Eulahus, Bishop of Amasia in Pontus,
returned from exile, he found that his Church had passed into the hands of an
Arian, and that scarcely fifty inhabitants of the city had submitted to
the control of their new Bishop." Sozom. vii. 2.
11. ARMENIA. "That company of Arians, who came with Eustathius to
Nicopolis, had promised that they would bring over this city to compliance with
the commands of the imperial vicar. This city had great ecclesiastical
importance, both because it was the metropolis of Armenia, and because it had
been ennobled by the blood of martyrs, and governed hitherto by Bishops of
great reputation, and thus, as Basil calls it, was the nurse of religion and
the metropolis of sound doctrine. Fronto, one of the city presbyters, who had
hitherto shown himself as a champion of the truth, through ambition gave
himself up to the enemies of Christ, and purchased the bishopric of the Arians
at the price of renouncing the Catholic faith. This wicked proceeding of
Eustathius and the Arians brought a new glory instead of evil to the
Nicopolitans, since it gave them an opportunity of defending the faith. Fronto,
indeed, the Arians consecrated, but there was a remarkable unanimity of
clergy and people in rejecting him. Scarcely one or two clerks sided with
him; on the contrary, he became the execration of all Armenia." Vita S.
Basil., Bened. pp. clvii, clviii.
12. NICOMEDIA. "Eighty pious clergy proceeded to Nicomedia, and there
presented to the emperor a supplicatory petition complaining of the ill-usage
to which they had been subjected. Valens, dissembling his displeasure in their
presence, gave Modestus, the prefect, a secret order to apprehend these persons
and put them to death. The prefect, fearing that he should excite the
populace to a seditious movement against himself, if he attempted the
public execution of so many, pretended to send them away into exile," &c.
Socr. iv. 16.
13. [ASIA MINOR]* St. Basil says, about the year 372:
"Religious people keep silence, but every blaspheming tongue is let loose.
Sacred things are profaned; those of the laity who are sound in faith
avoid the places of worship as schools of impiety, and raise their hands
in solitude, with groans and tears, to the Lord in heaven." Ep. 92.
Four years after he writes: "Matters have come to this pass; the people
have left their houses of prayer, and assemble in deserts: a pitiable
sight; women and children, old men, and [others]** infirm, wretchedly
faring in the open air, amid the most profuse rains and snow-storms, and winds,
and frost<s> of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To
this they submit, because they will have no part in the wicked Arian
leaven." Ep. 242. Again: "Only one offence is now vigorously punished, an
accurate observance of our fathers' traditions. For this cause the pious are
driven from their countries, and transported into deserts. The people are in
lamentation, in continual tears at home and abroad. There is a cry in the
city, a cry in the country, in the roads, in the deserts. joy and spiritual
cheerfulness are no more; our feasts are turned into mourning; our houses of
prayer are shut up, our altars deprived of the spiritual worship."
Ep. 243.
*[ASIA MINOR] CAPPADOCIA
** [others] men otherwise
<PAPHLAGONIA, &c. "I thought," says Julian in one of his
Epistles, "that the leaders of the Galilaeans would feel more grateful to me
than to my predecessor. For in his time they were in great numbers turned out
of their homes, and persecuted, and imprisoned; moreover, multitudes of
so-called heretics" (the Novatians who were with the Catholics against the
Arians) "were slaughtered, so that in Samosata, Paphlagonia, Bithynia, and
Galatia, and many other nations, villages were utterly sacked and destroyed."
Ep. 52.>
14. SCYTHIA. "There are in this country a great number of cities, of
towns, and of fortresses. According to an ancient custom which still prevails,
all the churches of the whole country are under the sway of one Bishop. Valens
(the emperor) repaired to the church, and strove to gain over the Bishop to the
heresy of Arius; but this latter manfully opposed his arguments, and, after a
courageous defence of the Nicene doctrines, quitted the emperor, and proceeded
to another church, whither he was followed by the people. Valens was
extremely offended at being left alone in a church
with his attendants, and, in resentment, condemned Vetranio (the Bishop) to
banishment. Not long after, however, he recalled him, because, I believe,
he apprehended an insurrection." Sozom. vi.
21.
15. CONSTANTINOPLE. "Those who acknowledged the doctrine of
consubstantiality were not only expelled from the churches, but also from the
cities. But although expulsion at first satisfied them (the Arians), they soon
proceeded to the worse extremity of inducing compulsory communion with them,
caring little for such a desecration of the churches. They resorted to all
kinds of scourgings, a variety of tortures, and confiscation of property. Many
were punished with exile, some died under the torture, and others were put to
death while being driven from their country. These atrocities were exercised
throughout all the eastern cities, but especially at Constantinople." Socr.
ii. 27.
[The following passage is quoted for the substantial fact which it
contains, viz. the testimony of popular tradition to the Catholic doctrine: "At
this period a union was nearly effected between the Novatian and Catholic
Churches; for, as they both held the same sentiments concerning the
Divinity, and were subjected to a common persecution, the members of both
Churches assembled and prayed together. The Catholics then possessed no houses
of prayer, for the Arians had wrested them from them." Sozom. iv 20.]
16. ILLYRIA. "The parents of Theodosius were Christians, and were
attached to the Nicene doctrine, hence he took pleasure in the ministration of
Ascholius (Bishop of Thessalonica). He also rejoiced at finding that the
Arian heresy had not been received in Illyria." Sozom. vii. 4.
17. NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MACEDONIA. "Theodosius inquired concerning the
religious sentiments which were prevalent in the other provinces, and
ascertained that, as far as Macedonia, one form of belief was universally
predominant," &c. Ibid.
18. ROME. "With respect to doctrine no dissension arose either at Rome
or in any other of the Western Churches. The people unanimously adhered to
the form of belief established at Nicaea." Sozom. vi. 23. ["Not long after,
Liberius (the Pope) was recalled and reinstated in his see; for the people of
Rome, having raised a sedition, and expelled Felix (whom the Arian party
had intruded) from their Church, Constantius deemed it inexpedient to
provoke the popular fury." Socr. ii. 37.]
"Liberius, returning to Rome, found the mind of the mass of men
alienated from him, because he had so shamefully yielded to Constantius.
And thus it came to pass, that those persons who had hitherto kept aloof from
Felix (the rival Pope), and had avoided his communion in favour of Liberius, on
hearing what had happened, left him for Felix, who raised the Catholic
standard. [Among others, Damasus (afterwards Pope) took the side of Felix. Such
had been, even from the times of the Apostles, the love of Catholic
discipline in the Roman people."] Baron. arm. 357. <56> He tells us
besides <57>, that the people would not even go to the public baths, lest
they should bathe with the party of Liberius.
19. MILAN. "At the council of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellae, when it
was proposed to draw up a declaration against Athanasius, said that the council
ought first to be sure of the faith of the Bishops attending it, for he had
found out that some of them were polluted with heresy. Accordingly he brought
before the Fathers the Nicene creed, and said he was willing to comply with all
their demands, after they had subscribed that confession. Dionysius, Bishop of
Milan, at once took up the paper and began to write his assent; but Valens (the
Arian) violently pulled pen and paper out of his hands, crying out that such a
course of proceeding was impossible. Whereupon, after much tumult, the
question came before the people, and great was the distress of all of them;
the faith of the Church was [impugned]* by the Bishops. They then,
dreading the judgment of the people, transfer their meeting from the church
to the imperial palace." Hilar. ad Const. i. <8>.
*[impugned] attacked
"As the feast of Easter approached, the empress sent to St. Ambrose to
ask a church of him, where the Arians who attended her might meet together. He
replied, that a Bishop could not give up the temple of God. The pretorian
prefect came into the church, where St. Ambrose was, attended by the people,
and endeavoured to persuade him to yield up at least the Portian Basilica.
The people were clamorous against the proposal;" and the prefect retired
to report how matters stood to the emperor. The Sunday following, St. Ambrose
was explaining the creed, when he was informed that the officers were hanging
up the imperial hangings in the Portian Basilica, and that upon this news the
people were repairing thither. While he was offering up the holy sacrifice, a
second message came that the people had seized an Arian priest as he was
passing through the street. He despatched a number of his clergy to the spot to
rescue the Arian from his danger. The court looked on this resistance of
the people as seditious, and immediately laid considerable fines upon the
whole body of the tradesmen of the city. Several were thrown into prison.
In three days' time these tradesmen were fined two hundred pounds weight of
gold, and they said that they were ready to give as much again, on condition
that they might retain their faith. The prisons were filled with tradesmen:
all the officers of the household, secretaries, agents of the emperor,
and dependent officers who served under various counts, were kept within doors,
and were forbidden to appear in public under pretence that they should bear no
part in (the] sedition. Men of higher rank were menaced with severe
consequences, unless the Basilica were surrendered....
"Next morning the Basilica was surrounded by soldiers; but it was
reported, that these soldiers had sent to the emperor to tell him that
if he wished to come abroad he might, and that they would attend him, if he was
going to the assembly of the Catholics; otherwise, that they would go to
that which would be held by St. Ambrose. Indeed, the soldiers were all
Catholics, as well as the citizens of Milan; there were no heretics there,
except a few officers of the emperor and some Goths....
"St. Ambrose was continuing his discourse when he was told that the
emperor had withdrawn the soldiers from the Basilica, and that he had restored
to the tradesmen the fines which he had exacted from them. This news gave
joy to the people, who expressed their delight with applauses and
thanksgivings; the soldiers themselves were eager to bring the news,
throwing themselves on the altars, and kissing them in token of peace."
Fleury's Hist. xviii. 41, 42, Oxf. trans.
[20. THE SOLDIERY. Soldiers having been mentioned in the foregoing
extract, I add the following passage. "Terentius, a general distinguished by
his valour and by his piety, was able, on his return from Armenia, to erect
trophies of victory. Valens promised to give him everything that he might
desire. But he asked not for gold or silver, for lands, power, of honours;
he requested that a church might be iven to those who preached the
apostolical doctrines." Theodor. iv. 32.
"Valens sent Trajan, the general, against the barbarians. Trajan was
defeated, and, on his return, the emperor reproached him severely, and accused
him of weakness and cowardice. But Trajan replied with great boldness, 'It is
not 1, 0 emperor, who have been defeated; for you, by fighting against God,
have thrown the barbarians upon His protection. Do you not know who those
are whom you have driven from the churches, and who are those to whom you have
given them up?' Arintheus and Victor, the other commanders, accorded in what
he had said, and brought the emperor to reflect on the truth of their
remonstrances." Ibid. 33.]
21. CHRISTENDOM GENERALLY. St. Hilary to Constantius: "Not only in
words, but in tears, we beseech you to save the Catholic Churches from any
longer continuance of these most grievous injuries, and of their present
intolerable persecutions and insults, which moreover they are enduring, which
is monstrous, from our brethren. Surely your clemency should listen to the
voice of those who cry out so loudly, 'I am a Catholic, I have no wish
to be a heretic.' It should seem equitable to your sanctity, most glorious
Augustus, that they who fear the Lord God and His judgment should not be
polluted and contaminated with execrable blasphemies, but should have
liberty to follow those Bishops and prelates who observe inviolate the laws
of charity, and who desire a perpetual and sincere peace. It is impossible, it
is unreasonable, to mix true and false, to confuse light and darkness, and
bring into a union, of whatever kind, night and day. Give permission to the
populations to hear the teaching of the pastors whom they have wished, whom
they fixed on, whom they have chosen, to attend their celebration of the divine
mysteries, to offer prayers through them for your safety and prosperity." ad
Const. i. <i.2.>
Now I know quite well what will be said to so elaborate a
collection of instances as I have been making. The "lector benevolus" will
quote against me the words of Cicero, "Utitur in re non dubii testibus non
necessariis. " * This is sure to befall a man when he directs the attention of
a friend to any truth which hitherto he has thought little of. At first, he
seems to be hazarding a paradox, and at length to be committing a truism. The
hearer is first of all startled, and then disappointed; he ends by asking, "is
this all?" It is a curious phenomenon in the philosophy of the human mind, that
we often do not know whether we hold a point or not, though we hold it; but
when our attention is once drawn to it, then forthwith we find it so much part
of ourselves, that we cannot recollect when we began to hold it, and we
conclude (with truth), and we declare, that it has always been our belief. Now
it strikes me as worth noticing, that, though Father Perrone is so clear upon
the point of doctrine which I have been urging in 1847, yet in 1842, which is
the date of my own copy of his Praelectiones, he has not given the
consensus fidelium any distinct place in his Loci Theologici,
though he has even given "heretici" a place there. Among the Media
Traditionis, he enumerates the magisterium of the Church, the Acts
of the Martyrs, the Liturgy, usages and rites of worship, the Fathers,
heretics, Church history; but not a word, that I can find, directly and
separately, about the sensus fldelium. This is the more remarkable,
because, speaking of the Acta Martyrum, he gives a reason for the force
of the testimony of the martyrs which belongs quite as fully to the faithful
generally; viz. that, as not being theologians, they can only repeat that
objective truth, which, on the other hand, Fathers and theologians do but
present subjectively, and thereby coloured with their own mental peculiarities.
"We learn from them," he says, "what was the traditionary doctrine in both
domestic and public assemblies of the Church, without any admixture of private
and (so to say) subjective explanation, such as at times creates a difficulty
in ascertaining the real meaning of the Fathers; and so much the more, because
many of them were either women or ordinary and untaught laymen, who brought out
and avowed just what they believed in a straightforward inartificial way." May
we not conjecture that the argument from the Consent of the Faithful was but
dimly written among the Loci on the tablets of his intellect, till the
necessities, or rather the requirements, of the contemplated definition of the
Immaculate Conception brought the argument before him with great force? Yet who
will therefore for an instant suppose that he did not always hold it? Perhaps I
have overlooked some passage of his treatises, and am in consequence
interpreting his course of thought wrongly; but, at any rate, what I seem to
see in him, is what actually does occur from time to time in myself and others.
A man holds an opinion or a truth, yet without holding it with a simple
consciousness and a direct recognition; and thus, though he had never denied,
he has never gone so far as to profess it.
* "He invokes, in a matter that is not in doubt, witnesses for whom
there is no need."
As to the particular doctrine to which I have here been directing my
view, and the passage in history by which I have been illustrating it, I am not
supposing that such times as the Arian will ever come again. As to the present,
certainly, if there ever was an age which might dispense with the testimony of
the faithful, and leave the maintenance of the truth to the pastors of the
Church, it is the age in which we live. Never was the Episcopate of Christendom
so devoted to the Holy See, so religious, so earnest in the discharge of its
special duties, so little disposed to innovate, so superior to the temptation
of theological sophistry. And perhaps this is the reason why the "consensus
fidelium" has, in the minds of many, fallen into the background. Yet each
constituent portion of the Church has its proper functions, and no portion can
safely be neglected. Though the laity be but the reflection or echo of the
clergy in matters of faith, yet there is something in the "pastorum et fidelium
conspiratio," which is not in the pastors alone. The history of the
definition of the Immaculate Conception shows us this; and it will be one among
the blessings which the Holy Mother, who is the subject of it, will gain for
us, in repayment of the definition, that by that very definition we are all
reminded of the part which the laity have had in the preliminaries of its
promulgation. Pope Pius has given us a pattern, in his manner of defining, of
the duty of considering the sentiments of the laity upon a point of tradition,
in spite of whatever fullness of evidence the Bishops had already thrown upon
it.
In most cases when a definition is contemplated, the laity will have a
testimony to give; but if ever there be an instance when they ought to be
consulted, it is in the case of doctrines which bear directly upon devotional
sentiments. Such is the Immaculate Conception, of which the Rambler was
speaking in the sentence which has occasioned these remarks. The faithful
people have ever a special function in regard to those doctrinal truths which
relate to the Objects of worship. Hence it is, that, while the Councils of the
fourth century were traitors to our Lord's divinity, the laity vehemently
protested against its impugners. Hence it is, that, in a later age, when the
learned Benedictines of Germany and France were perplexed in their enunciation
of the doctrine of the Real Presence, Paschasius was supported by the faithful
in his maintenance of it. The saints, again, are the object of a religious
cultus; and therefore it was the faithful, again, who urged on the Holy
See, in the time of John XXII., to declare their beatitude in heaven, though so
many Fathers spoke variously. And the Blessed Virgin is preEminently an object
of devotion; and therefore it is, I repeat, that though Bishops had already
spoken in favour of her absolute sinlessness, the Pope was not content without
knowing the feelings of the faithful.
Father Dalgairns gives us another case in point; and with his words I
conclude: "While devotion in the shape of a dogma issues from the high places
of the Church, in the shape of devotion ... it starts from below.... Place
yourselves, in imagination, in a vast city of the East in the fifth century.
Ephesus, the capital of Asia Minor, is all in commotion; for a council is to be
held there, and Bishops are flocking in from all parts of the world. There is
anxiety painted on every face; so that you may easily see that the question is
one of general interest.... Ask the very children in the streets what is the
matter; they will tell you that wicked men are coming to make out that their
own mother is not the Mother of God. And so, during a livelong day of June,
they crowd around the gates of the old cathedral-church of St. Mary, and watch
with anxious faces each Bishop as he goes in. Well might they be anxious; for
it is well known that Nestorius has won the court over to his side. It was only
the other day that he entered the town, with banners displayed and trumpets
sounding, surrounded by the glittering files of the emperor's body-guard, with
Count Candidianus, their general and his own partisan, at their head. Besides
which, it is known for certain, that at least eighty-four Bishops are ready to
vote with him; and who knows how many more? He is himself the patriarch of
Constantinople, the rival of Rome, the imperial city of the East; and then John
of Antioch is hourly expected with his quota of votes; and he, the patriarch of
the see next in influence to that of Nestorius, is, if not a heretic, at least
of that wretched party which, in ecclesiastical disputes, ever hovers between
the two camps of the devil and of God. The day wears on, and still nothing
issues from the church; it proves, at least, that there is a difference of
opinion; and as the shades of evening close around them, the weary watchers
grow more anxious still. At length the great gates of the Basilica are thrown
open; and oh, what a cry of joy bursts from the assembled crowd, as it is
announced to them that Mary has been proclaimed to be, what every one with a
Catholic heart knew that she was before, the Mother of God! ... Men, women, and
children, the noble and the low-born, the stately matron and the modest maiden,
all crowd round the Bishops with acclamations. They will not leave them; they
accompany them to their homes with a long procession of lighted torches; they
burn incense before them, after the eastern fashion, to do them honour. There
was but little sleep in Ephesus that night; for very joy they remained awake;
the whole town was one blaze of light, for each window was illuminated."'
My own drift is somewhat different from that which has dictated this
glowing description; but the substance of the argument of each of us is one and
the same. I think certainly that the Ecclesia docens is more happy when
she has such enthusiastic partisans about her as are here represented, than
when she cuts off the faithful from the study of her divine doctrines and the
sympathy of her divine contemplations, and requires from them a fides
implicita in her word, which in the educated classes will terminate in
indifference, and in the poorer in superstition.
John Henry Newman
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