21 The Authority of the Fathers

The Authority of the Fathers

Question 21: Are the writings of the Fathers the rule of truth in the teachings of the faith and the interpretation of Scripture? Negative, against the Roman Catholics.

I. Although it can already be adequately deduced, from the preceding question, that the Fathers cannot sit as judges in controversies over the faith, yet because the Roman Catholics are forever bringing up the matter of patristic consensus and have the habit of presenting it to us as t rule of truth, a special question is called for on this i sue, which is of greatest urgency in present-day discussion.

II. By "Fathers" is not to be understood the apostles, the original founders and patriarchs of the Christian church, as does Augustine in his commentary on Psalms 45:1-17, but, according to well-established contemporary usage, the teachers (doctores) of the ancient church, who taught and explained the doctrine of salvation both in speech and in writing. [They are called Fathers] both in respect to chronology, for they lived many years before our age, and because of their teaching, for by instilling this in their disciples they begat children in the church for God.

III. Although some would regard their period as extending to the tenth century, we do not think that it should be carried beyond the sixth, because it is certain that after the six hundredth year, when antichrist raised his head, there was a great falling away, with, by the righteous judgment of God, a growing number of errors and superstitions. In the first century after the death of the apostles the chief [Fathers] were Ignatius and Polycarp, of whose writings fragments swvive. In the second, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. In the third, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, Amobius, [and] Lactantius. In the fourth, Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, [and] John Chrysostom. In the fifth, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, Hilary of Arles, Prosper of Aquitaine, [and] Leo I. In the sixth, Fulgentius Afer, Gelasius, Gregory the Great, and others.

IV. Among the Roman Catholics there are three types of opinions about the Fathers. First, that of those who equate them with Scripture, according to the decision of the Glossator: "The writings of the Fathers, both as individuals and as whole, are authoritative." A second opinion opposed to them is that of those who regard the Father’s writings as purely human, and who therefore deny that they are the rule of faith. This was the conclusion of Cajetan in his preface to the books of Moses, and of the wiser (sanior) Roman Catholics. The third opinion is that of those who hold a middle ground, teaching that the authority of individual Fathers is human and fallible but that the common and universal consensus of the Fathers is divinely inspired (divinus) and infallible in controversies. This was the teaching of the Council of Trent, when it declared, "The traditions of the Fathers, both with regard to faith and to morals, are to be received with the same reverence of mind as the Old and New Testaments." And again, it forbids anyone to presume to interpret Scripture contrary to the sense which holy mother church holds and has held or contrary to the unanimous consensus of the Fathers (session 4, canon 1). Many Roman Catholics-Stapleton, Bellarmine, Cano, Valentia, and others-are in agreement.

V. But the orthodox [Reformed], although they hold the Fathers in great esteem, and hold that they are of the greatest value for understanding the true history of the ancient church, and that our agreement with that church in the chief articles of faith is manifest, nevertheless deny that they can be called authoritative (authenticus) in matters of faith and the interpretation of Scripture, and that their decision is one on which we must stand or fall, but [we believe] that their authority is only ecclesiastical and hum ,subordinate to Scripture, and of no weight except insofar as it agrees with Scripture.

VI. It is not a question of whether the Fathers are witnesses who present the consensus of the ancient church, or the opinion of the church of the times in which they lived, but whether they are judges who can settle controversies with infallible authority. The Roman Catholics maintain the latter, we the former; if we ever argue against our adversaries on the basis of the Fathers, we use them merely as witnesses, who confirm by their stand the truth that we believe, and proclaim the faith of the church of their time, but not as judges whose decision is to be accepted absolutely and without criticism (examen) and who are the standard (mensura) of truth in the teachings of the faith or in the interpretation of Scripture.

VII. The reasons are (1) the Fathers, either individually or collectively, were not prophets and apostles, who had the privilege of infallibility by direct (immediatus) calling, and were furnished with extraordary gifts, but were men, fallible and subject to error, whose knowledge was imperfect, and who could be influenced by partisan zeal (partium studio) and led astray in surprising fashion (transversum) by emotions. The indirect (mediatus) calling with which they were furnished did not insure that they were beyond the danger of error; not only could they be wrong, but also it is apparent that both as single individuals and as many in agreement they were often wrong on several topics, which could easily be proved. But we have Roman Catholics agreeing with us on this, like Bellarmine, who recognizes that even the most erudite Fathers were wrong, not in an inconsequential way, on many matters (De Verbo Dei 3.2, 10); that they contradicted one another, and that there was none who was not faulty on something (De Christo 2.2). Sixtus Senensis and Salmeron say the same.

VIII. (2) The works of the Fathers are corrupt and interpolated in a number of ways. This is partly due to various pseudepigraphic writings, circulated in the name of the Fathers, which, in the judgment of scholars, are recognized as false offspring, improperly attributed to the Fathers, whether by the fantasies of flatterers, or forgery of heretics, or the greed of printers or booksellers. It is partly due to corruption and falsification which has been imposed on the genuine patristic writings, which plainly have been changed in a number of ways, whether by the faults of copyists, or by the presumption of monks, and especially the wickedness of the Jesuits, who have corrected, expurgated, and emasculated them, as learned men have long complained and our [theologians] shown by many examples, as can be seen in the works of Rivet and Daille and others.

IX. (3) The Fathers themselves recognized that their writings were not authoritative in the sense that their bare assertion must stand in the teachings which they gave on religion. Augustine wrote to Jerome: "I admit to your charity that only to the books now called canonical have I learned to pay such respect and honor as to believe most firmly that none of their authors erred in writing. . . . When I read others, however they excel in sanctity of teaching, I do not regard a statement as true because they make it, but because they have been able to convince me, either through canonical authors or by a probable reason which does not conflict with truth. Nor do I believe that you, brother, think otherwise; moreover, I say I do not believe that you want your books to be read as are the prophets and apostles, concerning whose writings, since they are free from all error, it is not permissible to doubt" (epistle 19 [82.3]). . . .

X. The Roman Catholics themselves repudiate the authority of the Fathers insofar as they recognize them as in disagreement, and they freely depart from them, so untrue is it that they accept them as judges in matters of faith. Many instances, besides the references already made to Bellarmine, Sixtus Senensis, and Salmeron, could be mentioned. Cajetan, in his preface to the Pentateuch, speaking of his commentaries on Scripture, says: "If ever a suitable new meaning of a text is found, not contradicting either Holy Scripture or the teaching of the church, even though differing from the main stream of sacred teachers, I ask all readers not to scorn it hastily, but to show themselves fair judges. Such authority that we should believe them because they wrote what they did is reserved for the authors of Holy Scripture alone. ’When I read others,’ says Augustine, ’however they excel in holiness and in teaching, I do not regard a statement as true because they make it’ . . . ." Baronius frequently freely rebukes and refutes the Fathers, where they teach something other than what he approves. If therefore our adversaries themselves are found disdaining and despising the Fathers, even when [the Fathers] are in agreement, whenever they are unacceptable, by what power will they require them to be heard by us as judges in controversies?

XI. The universal church can and should accept whatever all teachers offer with complete agreement according to the Word of God. But if the teaching is not from the Word, but rather is contrary to it, then it is so far from true that the church should receive it, that rather it is bound to call it anathema (Galatians 1:8).

XII. Although those Fathers who were closer to the age of the apostles ought to be more pure, it does not follow that their writings can be regarded as a norm like the apostolic ones, because the gift of infallibility is by definition unique to the apostles, and does not belong to their successors, who were not endowed with the same gift.

XIII. The unity of the church is properly maintained by unity of faith transmitted in Scripture, not by the consensus of the Fathers, which it is almost impossible to discover.

XIV. The obedience due to leaders (Hebrews 13:17) is not blind and mindless, as if immediate agreement were to be given to everything said or written by them, but it should be rational, that we hear them when they speak and pass on the oracles of God that they themselves received from Christ (Matthew 28:20; 1 Corinthians 11:23).

XV. Although we are unwilling to accept the Fathers as judges in matters of faith, we do not say that their authority amounts to nothing. They can indeed be most helpful; if not in establishing faith at least in exemplifying and confirming it, so that by this witness it may conform to the faith of the old church, and it may be seen that Roman Catholics manipulate the consensus of the Fathers rather than follow it, and the dogmas which they force upon us from the early centuries, by tradition apart from Scripture, may be unheard.

XVI. It is useless for the Roman Catholics to plead the consensus of the Fathers for the resolution of controversies and the interpretation of Scripture. (1) Because, even if available, it would form only a human and probable argument, such as could be gained from the opinions of the prudent, but not one necessarily true and beyond appeal, since the Fathers submitted themselves and their opinions to Scripture. (2) Because, if not impossible, it is at least very difficult to discover such a consensus, nor is that route, long and difficult and complicated by such a massive labyrinth, suitable for the ending of controversies. This is especially so because one can hardly know what the Fathers would have felt about our controversies, both because we have very few writings of the Fathers, especially those of the first, second, and third centuries, whose opinion is preferable to that of later ones, because closer to the age of the apostles, and because what does survive from those three centuries deals mainly with questions foreign to our controversies, and is relevant to them only accidentally and in another context, and also because the Fathers both often disagreed with one another, and often changed their minds, and understood the same article of faith differently, as they grew in the knowledge of truth with age, and as elders disclaimed what they had believed when younger.

XVII. It is not to be supposed that the Fathers are despised and insulted when we take away the supreme power of decision. It is indeed necessary to take care not to steal their proper honor, but much more not to bestow too much upon them, since more dangerous sinning has been done in the latter regard than in the former. Even if they should live again, such authority could not be assigned to them, and they would speak to us as the apostles spoke to those at Lystra who were worshiping them, "We are men of the same passions as you" (Acts 14:14-15). [The Fathers] often declare that they wrote not to command with authority but to profit by the exercise, that they might be read, not with the obligation of obedience, but with freedom of judgment, and they offered their works as by no means on a par with the most holy Scriptures (Augustine, Contra Faustum 11.5 and Contra Cresconium 2.31).

XVIII. From the above it can easily be seen that the Fathers neither can nor should be brought in as judges in our controversies, but only as witnesses, who offer testimony to Christian truth by their striking consensus, and show the emptiness of the dogmas which the Roman Catholics have introduced, either by silence or by solid arguments. Therefore, although their writings are to be received reverently, and can be read with profit, they can have no other authority than the ecclesiastical and human, that is, subordinate and dependent on Scripture.