Sect. 23The Various Modes in Which Traditional Testimony Is Given in the ChurchThe Various Modes in Which Traditional Testimony Is Given in the Church

The modes or forms in which the infallible testimony of the Holy Ghost is given are as manifold as the forms of the living organism of the Church. For our present purpose we may distinguish them according to the rank of the witnesses.

I. The most adequate testimony exists when the entire Body of the Church, Head and members alike, profess, teach, and act upon a certain doctrine. This unanimity is expressed and maintained by professions of Faith universally admitted, by catechisms in general use, and by the general practice of the Church either in her liturgy, discipline, or morals, in so far as such practice supposes and includes Faith in particular doctrines. Hence the old rule quoted against the Pelagians, “Legem credendi statuat lex supplicandi.”

II. Next in extent, though far lower in rank, is what is called the “Sensus fidelium,” that is, the distinct, universal, and constant profession of a doctrine by the whole body of the simple Faithful. As we have shown in § 13, this sensus fidelium involves a relatively independent and immediate testimony of the Holy Ghost. Although but an echo of the authentic testimony of the Teaching Apostolate, the universal belief of the Faithful is of great weight in times when its unity and distinctness are more apparent than the teaching of the Apostolate itself, or when a part of the Teaching Body is unfaithful to its duty, or when the Teaching Body, about to define a doctrine which had for a time been obscured in the Church, appeals to all the manifestations of the Holy Ghost in its favour. Thus, during the Arian troubles, St. Hilary could say, “The faithful ears of the people are holier than the lips of the priests.” And before the definition of the Immaculate Conception the profession and practice of the Faithful were appealed to in favour of the definition. Cf. Franzelin, De Trad., th. xii., p. 112, where he rejects the interpretation given in the Rambler for July, 1859, p. 218 sqq. See also Card. Newman’s Arians, pp. 464, 467; Ward, Essays on the Church’s Doctrinal Authority, p. 70. “As the blood flows from the heart to the body through the arteries; as the vital sap insinuates itself into the whole tree, into each bough, and leaf, and fibre; as water descends through a thousand channels from the mountaintop to the plain; so is Christ’s pure and life-giving doctrine diffused, flowing into the whole body through a thousand organs from the Ecclesia Docens.” Murray, De Ecclesia, disp. x., n. 15, quoted by Ward.

III. The universal teaching of the Bishops and Priests is another mode of ecclesiastical testimony to revealed truth. The testimony of all the Bishops is in itself infallible, independently of the teaching of the inferior clergy and the belief of the Faithful, because the Episcopate is the chief organ of infallibility in the Church. It is, moreover, an infallible testimony at every moment of its duration (“I am with you all days”). This mode of testimony is sometimes called the testimony of the Particular Churches, because the teaching of each Bishop is reflected and repeated by the clergy and the Faithful of his diocese. Hence the testimony of the Priests and of Theological Schools in subordination to the Bishop holds a sort of intermediate position and value between the “Sensus fidelium” and the testimony of the Episcopate.

IV. The central, perfect and juridical representative of Tradition is the Apostolic See. From the earliest times it has been the custom to consider the formula, “The Roman Church or Apostolic See hath held and doth hold,” as equivalent to “The Catholic Church hath held and doth hold;” because the universal Church must hold, at least implicitly, the doctrines taught by the Holy See. When the Pope pronounces a judicial sentence he can bind the whole Church, teachers as well as taught, and the authority of his decisions is not impaired, even by opposition within the Teaching Body. Moreover, as a consequence of the connection between the Head of the Church and the Roman See, there exists in the local Roman Church, apart from the authoritative decisions of the Pope, a certain actual and normal testimony which must be considered as an expression of the habitual teaching of the Holy See. This arises from the fact that the Faith professed in the Roman Church is the result of the constant teaching of the Popes, accepted by the laity and taught by the clergy, especially by the College of Cardinals who take part in the general government of the Church.

V. Besides the Apostolic See and the ordinary Apostolate, God has provided auxiliary channels of Ecclesiastical Tradition in the person of the extraordinary auxiliary members described above, § 12. Their position and importance have been defined by St. Augustine (Contra Julianum, 11. i. et ii., especially ii. c. 37), and by St. Vincent of Lerins who comments on the text of St. Augustine (Commonitor., c. xxviii. sqq., and c. i. of the second Commonitorium). In the early days of the Church, when the teaching functions were almost exclusively exercised by the Bishops, the extraordinary representatives of Apostolical Tradition were usually eminent members of the episcopate. They received the name of “Fathers” because this was the title commonly given to Bishops by their subjects and by their successors. They are also called “Fathers of the Church,” because, living as they did in the infancy of the Church, when extraordinary means were needed for its preservation, they received a more abundant outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and thus their doctrine represents His teaching in an eminent degree. Besides, their special function was to fix the substance of the Apostolic Deposit so that, naturally, their writings became the basis of the further development of doctrine, and were placed side by side with Scripture as channels of Apostolic doctrine. Thus they were the Fathers, not only of the Church in their own day, but also in subsequent ages. Compared with them, the later writers are regarded as the “Sons of the Fathers,” and sometimes as “Pædagogi,” with reference to what St. Paul says (1 Cor. 4:15), “If you have ten thousand instructors (pædogogi) in Christ, yet not many fathers.” The Sons of the Fathers were not all bishops. Many of them were priests or members of Religious Orders, or masters of theological schools. They represent the mind (sensus) of the Catholic Schools and of the Faithful, and are distinguished for human learning and industry, which they apply to the development and fuller comprehension of doctrine rather than to the fixing of its substance. Hence their name of “Doctors” or “Theologians.”