Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/32

 TRADITION

TRADITION

anarchy, and eventualh' to the denial of all dogma. These disputes, anarchy, and denial could not be according to the Divine intention. Hence the neces- sity of a competent authority to solve controversies and interpret the Bible. To say that the Bible was perfectly clear and sufficient to all was obviously a retort born of desperation, a defiance of experience and common sense. Cathohcs refuted it without difficulty, and their position was amply justified when the Protestants began compromising themselves with the civil power, rejecting the doctrinal authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium only to fall under that of princes.

Moreover it was enough to look at the Bible, to read it without prejudice to see that the economy of the Christian preaching was above all one of oral teaching. Christ preached. He did not vrrite. In His preaching He appealed to the Bible, but He was not satisfied with the mere reading of it. He explained and interpreted it. He made use of it in His teaching, but He did not substitute it for His teaching. There is the example of the mysterious traveller who ex- plained to the disciples of Emmaus what had reference to Him in the Scriptures to convince them that Christ had to suffer and thus enter into His glory. And as He preached Himself so He sent His Apostles to preach; He did not commission them to vrrhe but to teach, and it was by oral teaching and preaching that they instructed the nations and brought them to the Faith. If some of them wrote and did so under Divine inspiration it is manifest that this was as it were incidentally. They did not write for the sake of WTiting, but" to supplement th'eir oral teaching when they could not go themselves to recall or ex-plain it, to solve practical questions, etc. St. Paul, who of all the Apostles wrote the most, did not dream of writing everything nor of replacing his oral teaching by his writings. Finallv, the same texts which show us Christ instituting His Church and the Apostles founding Churches and spreading Christ's doctrine throughout the world show us at the same time the Church instituted as a teaching authority; the Apostles claimed for themselves this authority, sending others as they had been sent by Christ and as Christ had been sent by God, always with power to teach and to impose doctrine as well as to govern the Church and to baptize. Whoever believed them would be saved; whoever refused to beUeve them would be condemned. It is the Uving Church and not Scripture that St. Paul indicates as the pillar and the unshakable ground of truth. And the inference of texts and facts is only what is exacted by the nature of things. A book although Divine and inspired is not intended to support itself. If it is obscure — and what unprejudiced person will deny that there are obscurities in the Bible?— it must be interpreted. And even if it is clear it does not carry with it the guarantee of its Divinity, its authenticity, or its value. Someone must bring it within reach and no matter what be done the believer cannot beHeve in the Bible nor find in it the object of his faith until he has previously made an act of faith in the intermediary authorities between the word of God and his reading. Now, authority for authority, is it not better to have recourse to that of the Church than to that of the first comer? Liberal Protestants, such as M. Auguste Sabatier, have been the first to recognize that, if there must be a religion of authority, the Catholic system with the splendid organization of its living magis- terium is far superior to th(> Protestant system, which rests everytliing on tlie authority of a book.

The prerogatives of this teacliing authority are made sufficiently clear by the texts and they are to a certain extent implii'(l in the very institution. The ('hurch, according to SI. I'aul's Kpistle to Timothy, is the pillar and ground of truth; the .Ajmstlos and con- sequently their Buccessors have the right to impose

their doctrine; whosoever refuses to believe them shall be condemned, whosoever rejects anything is shipwrecked in the Faith. This authority is there- fore infallible. And this infallibihty is guaranteed imphcitly but directly by the promise of the Saviour: "Behold I am with you all daj's even to the consum- mation of the world." Briefly the Church continues Christ in its mission to teach as in its mission to sanctify; its power is the same as that which He re- ceived from His Father and, as He came full of truth no less than of grace, the Church is likewise an institution of truth as it is an institution of grace. This doctrine was intended to be spread throughout the world despite so many obstacles of every kind, and the accomplishment of the task required miracles. So did Christ give to his Apostles the miraculous power which guaranteed their teaching. As He Him- self confirmed His words by His works He wished that they also should present with their doctrine unex- ceptionable motives for credibility. Their miracles were the Divine seals of their mission and their Apos- tolate. The Divine seal has always been stamped on the teaching authority. It is not necessary that every missionary should work miracles, the Church herself is an ever-living miracle, bearing always on her brow the unexceptionable witness that God is with her.

II. The relation of Scripture to the living magis- terium, and of the living magisterium to Scripture. — This relation is the same as that between the Gospel and the Apostolic preaching. Christ made use of the Bible, He appealed to it as to an irrefragable author- ity. He explained and interpreted it and furnished the key to it, with it he shed light on His own doctrine and mission. The Apostles did in hke manner when they spoke to the Jews. Both sides had access to the Scriptures in a text admitted by all, both recognized in them a Divine authority, as in the very word of God. This was also the way of the faithful in their studies and discussions; but with pagans and unbe- lievers it was necessary to begin with presenting the Bible and guaranteeing its authority; the Christian doctrine concerning the Bible had to be exjilained to the faithful themselves, and the guarantee of this doctrine demonstrated. The Bible had been com- mitted to the care of the living magisterium. It was the Church's part to guard the Bible, to present it to the faithful in authorized editions or accurate trans- lations, it was for her to make known the nature and value of the Divine Book by declaring what she knew regarding its inspiration and inerrancy, it was for her to supply the key by explaining why and how it had been inspired, how it contained Revelation, how the proper object of that Revelation was not purely human instruction but a religious and moral doctrine with a view to our supernatural destiny and the means to attain it, how, the Old Testament being a preparation and annunciation of the Messias and the new dispensation, there might be found beneath the husk of the letter typical meanings, figures, and prophecies. It was for the Church in consequence to determine the authentic canon, to specify the special rules and conditions for interpretation, to pronounce in case of doubt as to the exact sense of a given book or text, and even v.-hen necessary to safeguard the historical, prophetical, or apologetic value of a given text or passage, to pronounce in certain questions of authenticity, chronology, exegesis, or translation, either to reject an oi)inion compromising the authority of the book or the veracity of its doctrine or to main- tain a given body of revealed truth contained in a given text. It was above all for the Church to circu- l.ate the Divine Book by mint ing its doctrine, adapting and exiilaining it, by offering it and drawing from it nourishment wlierewith to nourish souls, briefly by supjilementing the book, making use of it, and assist- ing others to make use of it. This is the debt of Scripture to the Uving magisterium.