Fathers used Church consensus against heretics — not present-pastor supremacy
As for that supporting point — that the Church's doctors, when they answered heretics who rejected certain books of Scripture, kept using the Church's testimony and consensus to prove those books' authority — I answer that this does not yield what the Pontificians want, or what is actually in dispute.
It does not show that the pastors who govern the Church in each age have, for us, an authority greater and better known than Scripture's, or that our faith about Scripture rests on the testimony and judgment of the pastors now in office as on a divine, infallible, chief, and proper foundation.
Those fathers were not simply arguing from the authority of the bishops of their own day as if that were a rule of faith binding every church member.
The heretics they opposed rejected certain sacred books as falsely ascribed to the apostles or apostolic men and as inventions of Catholic teachers. Against that charge the Fathers set the perpetual consensus of bishops and of the faithful who, from the apostles' time on, have received those books as handed down and recommended by the apostles as true and divine.
Only a shameless, stubborn person can refuse that consensus. Anyone today who denied that the books of Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Cicero belong to the men named on them could be answered from the continuous judgment of the learned who have always ascribed them so — and would be thought mad for refusing so constant a fame.
By equal — indeed by far greater — right, then, is the person mad who dares to oppose a tradition and fame still more constant, celebrated, and continuous, which refers the books we hold sacred to the apostles as their authors and approvers?
Latin
XXXIX. Ad illam vero argumenti confirmationem, quae inde petita est quod Ecclesiae Doctores, ad confutandos varios haereticos, qui quosdam Scripturae libros repudiabant, perpetuo usi sunt testimonio & consensu Ecclesiae, quo librorum istorum authoritatem comprobarunt: Respondeo, inde minime concludi posse quod Pontificii volunt, & quod in quaestione est, nempe authoritatem Pastorum, qui unoquoque saeculo Ecclesiam gubernant, majorem quoad nos & notiorem esse Scripturae authoritate, fidemque nostram de Scriptura niti testimonio & judicio Pastorum qui jam Ecclesiae praesunt tanquam divino & infallibili, & tanquam praecipuo & proprio suo fundamento. Neque Doctores isti simpliciter argumentantur ex Episcoporum sui temporis authoritate, quasi regula fidei fuisset, & ea singulorum Ecclesiae membrorum fides obstringeretur: sed, quum haeretici illi, quos impugnabant, librorum quorundam sacrorum authoritatem rejicerent, quasi Apostolis aut viris Apostolicis falso tribuerentur, & a Catholicis Doctoribus conficti essent, Patres illis opposuerunt perpetuum Episcoporum atque fidelium consensum, qui jam inde ab Apostolorum temporibus, libros illos venerati sunt tanquam ab Apostolis traditos & commendatos pro veris & divinis: cui consensui fidem derogare non potest, nisi homo protervus & pervicax. Etenim, si ille qui hodie negaret libros Aristotelis, Demosthenis & Ciceronis, eorum esse quibus tribuuntur, convinci posset ex consensu Doctorum, qui omnibus saeculis libros illos tribuerunt magnis illis & praestantibus viris, & insanus haberetur qui famae tam constanti & celebri fidem denegaret: Annon pari, imo longe majori jure insanus habeatur, qui se audet opponere traditioni, & famae constantiori & celebriori, & magis adhuc continuae, quae libros illos, quos pro sacris habemus, ad Apostolos refert tanquam authores & approbatores?
About this text
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu - Sedan Theological Theses, newly rendered from the 1675 London Latin. Covers De Theologia through Angelorum & Hominum Sanctorum Cultu Romana I-LXXVII and Pars Secunda (Reformata) I-XL. Not the collected folio.
English follows locked Pitt Latin through Imaginum CLOSED + Sanctorum Cultu Romana CLOSED + Pars Secunda Reformata I-XL. 1675 PDF ~384-390 (book ~370-376); Vision OCR + pdftotext + tess. No modern English. This slice densifies Sanctorum Pars Secunda I-XL. Next: Pars Secunda XLI–fin (~CI). Claim stays claimed (book densify not done).
Catalogue & scope
ESTC R17887; Wing L802. IA bub_gb_eOkHAW4G0-wC (+ EEBO 1675 for gap leaves). Densify through Sanctorum Cultu Romana I-LXXVII + Pars Secunda Reformata I-XL (Pars Secunda not closed; not whole folio).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Theologia I-XLIII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Checked print Internet Archive PDF of the 1675 Pitt folio (Latin)
- Checked print pdftotext of De Theologia pages (Latin)
- Checked print Internet Archive DjVu OCR of the 1675 Pitt folio (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Fide I-XXII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Authoritate Scripturae Pars I I-XLVII + Pars II I-XXXV + Pars III I-VIII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Scripturae plenitudine densify (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.