NOTE A. To the Church the Scriptures belong, etc. Tertullian, de praescr. Haer. xix: "Our appeal must not be made to the Scriptures; nor must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will either be impossible or uncertain, or not certain enough.... The natural order of things would require that this point should be first raised, "To whom does the faith itself properly belong? Whose are the Scriptures? From whom, and through whom, and when, and to whom has been handed down that rule by which men become Christians?' For wherever it shall be made manifest that the true Christian rule and faith exists, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions." Augustine, de moribus Eccl. lxi, speaks of the Scriptures as "at all times most widely diffused, and guarded by the testimony of the Churches dispersed abroad throughout the whole world." In determining the contents of the Canon, he elsewhere says, we must follow the authority of the greatest available number of Churches, especially that of Apostolic Sees." 66 With regard to the actual Canon of Scripture and its contents, see the account given by Bp. Westcott in The Bible and the Church. The enlarged Canon adopted by the Synod of Trent includes the apocryphal Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, the two Books of Maccabees, and the Book of Baruch; the Synod, in the main, follows the Third Council of Carthage (397 A.D.), which, without doubt, was largely influenced by the authority of S. Augustine. The reasons, however, why his authority on this point is not for a moment to be weighed against the testimony of the four preceding centuries are overwhelmingly strong, but cannot be discussed here. We receive the Canon on the authority of the Church, and we may observe, "It is no vicious circle to say that Holy Scripture proves the existence of the Church, and that this, the Church, proves Holy Scripture. An ambassador comes to a king bearing his credentials in a letter. He himself is the authority for the genuineness of the letter when the letter is opened, it is found to define the powers, plenipotentiary or other, of the messenger who brought it. Thus it is with Holy Scrip. ture" (Bp. Forbes, Explanation of the XXXIX Articles, p. 93). The same illustration is given by Dr. Wiseman, Lectures on the Frincipal Doctrines and Practices of the Catholic Church, vol. i, lect. 3. It has sometimes been contended that a passage of S. Basil (de Spir. Sancto, c. lxvi.) recognizes the equal authority of unwritten tradition and Scripture. But (1) the illustrations given by Basil are all taken from points of practice, usage, and discipline, the word dóyμara evidently meaning ordinances and usages, not doctrines. (2) S. Basil himself expressly teaches elsewhere that in matters of faith the appeal to Scripture is the ultimate test or criterion. Thus he says, "It is a manifest defection from the faith, and a proof of arrogance, either to reject any. thing of what is written, or to introduce anything that is not" (de Fide, c. i.); and again, "Believe those things which are written; the things which are not written seek not" (Hom. xxix, adv. calumn. S. Trin.). To these may be added a passage from the de Spiritu Sancto itself, c. xvi. S. Basil is speaking of the co-equal honour and glory due to the Father and the Son, as a point taught by "the Fathers." He continues: "But this is not sufficient for us, that it is the tradition of the Fathers. For even they followed the mind (Bovλýμatı) of the Scripture, taking their first principles (or premisses) from the passages which a short while ago we set before you from Scripture." NOTE B. On tradition as a rule of usages and rites, see Palmer, Treatise on the Church, part iii, ch. 4. The "tradition" is in fact threefold: (a) A rule of faith and doctrine, such as the doctrine of Christ's Divinity, the doctrine of grace, etc. These and other doctrines, which are taught by the Church and corroborated by Scripture, are therefore de fide. (b) A rule of interpretation (hermeneutical tradition). (c) A rule respecting rites and ceremonies. Tertullian, de cor. Mil. iii, mentions certain ceremonies in baptism, times of receiving the Holy Communion, the observance of Sunday, and the use of the sign of the cross, as instances of traditional usages. S. Basil of Caesarea, in the passage de Spir. Sancto, c. lxvi, ascribes to tradition the words of invocation (éπíkλŋois) used before the consecration of the elements. The freedom recognized by our Thirty-fourth Article is admirably illustrated by the injunction given by Pope Gregory the Great to Augustine: "Ex singulis ergo quibusque ecclesiis, quae pia, quae religiosa, quae recta sunt elige, et haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone" (Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 27, quoted by Maclear, Introduction to the Articles, p. 383, note 2). See generally Hawkins' Bampton Lectures, No. 5. NOTE C. Roman Catholic lay-people and Scripture. M. Lasserre says: "The greater part of the children of the Church only know fragments of the sacred volume, reproduced in no logical or chronological order in prayer-books and in the Mass for Sundays and feasts; and they scarcely retain anything from it except special quotations which are met with more often than others in sermons and pious books, and end by taking possession, whether they wish it or not, of the memory of all, and so to say become public property" (Preface, p. ii). Cp. Gore's Roman Catholic Claims, pp. 10 and 11. A defence of the great restrictions under which laypeople are allowed to read Scripture is given by Father Clarke in his pamphlet The Pope and the Bible, chap. 2. A notice of this tract appears in The Church and Synagogue for Oct. 1896, in which it is stated that "Mr. Ottley quietly assumes, without any further discussion, that by 'Bible' is meant the Canonical Books of the New Testament, or as he calls them 'the Christian Scriptures"." It is necessary perhaps to explain that the phrase "Christian Bible" (p. 11) was meant to convey the idea that the Old Testament gained a new character from its reception by the Christian Church. The full significance of the Old Testament was gradually elucidated "under the guidance of apostolic men, who before they finally disappeared had written the books of the New Testament" (Church and Synagogue, p. 37). The "Bible" in the Christian sense of the term would accordingly mean the Old Testament accompanied and elucidated by the New Testament; in this sense the Church is certainly prior to the Bible. There is a passage in Irenaeus (Haer. iv. 26. 1, ed. Stieren) which describes the new character given to the Old Testament by the New as follows: inò 'Iovdaíwv μèv åvaγινωσκόμενος ὁ νόμος ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ, μύθῳ ἔοικεν· οὐ γὰρ ἔχουσι τὴν ἐξήγησιν τῶν πάντων, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἡ κατ ̓ ἄνθρωπον παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ· ὑπὸ δὲ χριστιανῶν ἀναγινωσκόμενος θησαυρός ἐστι, κεκρυμμένος μὲν ἐν ἀγρῷ, αὐτοῖς δὲ ȧτокeкаλνμμévos. Cp. Origen, in Num. hom. ix. 4: "Nobis autem, qui eam [legem] spiritaliter et evangelico sensu intelligimus et exponimus, semper nova est et utrumque nobis novum Testamentum est, non temporis novitate sed intelligentiae novitate." OXFORD: HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY |