Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/33

 TRADITION

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TRADITION

On the other hand the living magisterium owes mucli to Scripture. There it finds the word of God, new-blown so to speak, as it was expressed under Divine agency by the inspired author; while oral tra- dition, although faithfully transmitting revealed truth with the Divine assistance, nevertheless transmits it only in human formulas. Scripture gives us beyond doubt to a certain extent a human expression of the truth which it presents, since this truth is developed in and by a human brain acting in a human manner, but also to a certain extent Divine, since this human development takes place wholly under the action of God. So also with due proportion it may be said of the inspired word what Christ said of His: It is spirit and life. In a sense differing from the Protestant sense which sometimes goes so far as to deify the Bible, but, in a true sen.se, we admit that God speaks to us in the Bible more directly than in oral teaching. The latter, moreover, ever faithful to the recommen- dations which St. Paul made to his disciple Timothy, does not fail to have recourse to Biblical sources for its instruction and to draw thence the heavenly doctrine, to take thence with the doctrine a sure, ever-young, and ever-living expression of this doctrine, one more adequate than any other despite the inevitable in- adaptabihty of human formulas to divine realities. In the hands of masters Scripture may become a sharp defensive and offensive weapon against error and heresy. When a controversy arises recourse is had first to the Bible. Frequently when decisive texts are found masters wield them skilfully and in such a way as to demonstrate their irresistible force. If none are found of the necessary clearness the assist- ance of Scripture is not thereby abandoned. Guided by the clear sense of the living and luminous truth, which it bears within itself, by its likeness to faith de- fended at need against error by the Divine assistance, the living magisterium strives, explains, argues, and occasionally subtihzes in order to bring forward texts which, if they lack an independent and absolute value, have an ad hominem force, or value, through the au- thority of the authentic interpreter, whose very thought, if it is not, or is not clearly, in Scripture, nevertheless stands forth with a distinctness or new clearness in this manipulation of Scripture, by this contact with it.

Manifestly there is no question here of a meaning which is not in Scripture and which the magisterium reads into it by imposing it as the Biblical meaning. This individual ^Titers may do and have sometimes done, for they are not infallible as individuals, but not the authentic magisterium. There is question only of the advantage which the living magisterium draws from Scripture whether to attain a clearer conscious- ness of its own thought, to formulate it in hieratic terms, or to triumphantly reject an opinion favourable to error or heresy. As regards Biblical interpretation properly so called the Church is infallible in the sense that, whether by authentic decision of jiope or coun- cil, or by its current teaching that a given passage of Scripture has a certain meaning, this meaning mu.st be regarded as the true sense of the pa.ssage in ques- tion. It claims this power of infallible interpretation only in matters of faith and morals, that is where re- ligious or moral truth is in danger, directly, if the text or passage belongs to the moral and religious order; indirectly, if in a.ssigning a meaning to a text or book the veracity of the Bible, its moral value, or the dogma of its in.spiration or inerrancy is imperilled. Without going further into the manifold services which the Bible renders to the living magisterium mention must, nevertheless be made as particularly important of its services in the apologetic order. In fact Scripture by its historic value, which is indisputable and undis- puted on manj' points, furnishes the apologist with irrefragable arguments in support, of supernatural religion. It contains for example miracles whose

reality is impressed on the historian with the same certainty as the most acknowledged facts. This is true and perhaps more strikingly so of the argument from the prophecies, for the Scriptures, the Old as well as the New Testament, contain manifest prophecies, the fulfilment of which we behold either in Christ and His Apostles or in the later development of the Christian religion.

In view of all this it will be readily understood that since the time of St. Paul the Church has urgently recommended to her ministers the study of Holy Scripture, that she has watched with a jealous au- thority over its integral transmission, its exact translation, and its faithful interpretation. If occa- sionally she has seemed to restrict its use or its diffusion this too was through an easily comprehen- sible love and a particular esteem for the Bible, that the sacred Book might not like a profane book be made a ground for curiosity, endless discu.ssions, and abuses of every kind. In short, since the Churcli at last proves to be the best safeguard for human reason against the excesses of an unbridled reason, so by the very avowal of sincere Protestants does she show her- self at the present day the best defender of the Bible against an unrestrained Biblicism or an unchecked criticism.

III. The proper mode of existence of revealed truth in the mind of the Church and the way to recognize this truth. — There is a fornuila current in Christian teaching (and the formula is borrowed from St. Paul himself) that traditional truth was confided to the Church as a deposit which it would guard and faithfully transmit as it had received it without add- ing to it or taking anything away. This formula ex- presses very well one of the aspects of tradition and one of the principal roles of the living magisterium. But this idea of a deposit should not make us lose sight of the true manner in which traditional truth lives and is transmitted in the Church. This deposit in fact is not an inanimate tiling pas.sed from hand to hand; it is not, properly speaking, an assemlilage of doctrines and institutions consigned to books or other monuments. Books and monuments of every kind are a means, an organ of transmission, they are not, properly speaking, the tradition it.self. To better understand the latter it must be represented as a current of life and truth coming from God through Christ and through the Apostles to the last of the faithful who repeats his creed and learns his cate- chism. This conception of tradition is not always clear to aU at the first glance. It must be reached, however, if we wish to form a clear and exact idea. We can endeavour to explain it to ourselves in the following manner: We are all conscious of an assem- blage of ideas or opinions living in our mind and forming part of the very life of our mind; sometimes they find their clear ex^iression, again we find our- selves without the exact formula wherewith to express them to ourselves or to others: an idea is in search as it were of its expression, sometimes it even acts in us and leads us to actions without our having as yet the reflective consciousness of it. Something similar may be said of the ideas or opinions which live, as it were, and stir the social sentiment of a people, a family, or any other well-characterized group to form what is called the .spirit of the day, the spirit of a family, or the spirit of a people.

This common sentiment is in a seni3e nothing else than the sum of individual sentiments, and yet we feel clearly that it is quite another thing than the indi- vidual taken individually. It is a fact of experience that there is a common sentiment, as if there were such a thing as a common spirit, and as if this com- mon spirit were the abode of certain ideas and opin- ions which are doubtless the ideas and opinions of each man, but which take on a i)eculiar aspect in each man iuasmucli as they arc the ideas and opinions