UNION
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UNION
the lines of bishops who are the duly appointed suc-
cessors of the Apostles, and who, like them, are
guarded in their teaching by the assistance of the
Holy Ghost. Thus the word tradition now comes into
prominence, and, just as St. Paul said to Timothy,
"keep the deposit" (I Tim., vi, 20), that is the
sacred doctrine committed to him by the Apostle as a
sacred trust, so the Fathers of the Church say, "keep
the tradition." This is ever their first and most
decisive test of sound doctrine, not what recommends
itself to the reason of the individual or his party, but
what is sanctioned by the ApostoUcal tradition; and
for the ascertaining of this tradition the Fathers of
the second and third centiu-ies refer the searcher to
the Churches founded immediately by the Apostles,
and before all others to the Church of Rome. We
learn, moreover, from these early witnesses, that this
Church of Rome, in proportion as the ecclesiastical
system passed out of the state of embryo to that of
fiiU formation, became more and more explicitly
recognized as the see which had inherited the prerog-
atives of Blessed Peter, and was, therefore, the
authority which in all cases of controversy must ulti-
mately decide what was in accordance with the tradi-
tion, and in all questions of jurisdiction and disciphne
was the visible head, communion with which was
communion with the one and indivisible Church. As
these points of ecclesiastical history are discussed
elsewhere, we need not demonstrate them bj' bring-
ing forward the copious Patristic testimonies which
may be found in any good treatise on the Church.
We may, however, usefully quote, not so much in
proof as in illustration of what is said, a passage or
two from St. Irena>us's treatise "Adversus haereses",
he being the earUest of the Fathers from whom we
have extant a treatise of any fullness, and this particu-
lar treatise dealing with just the points with which
we are concerned.
"The Church which is now planted throughout the whole inhabited globe, indeed even to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their dis- ciples that faith which is in one God, the Father omnipotent who made Heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in it; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who was incarnate for our salvation, and in the Holy Ghost. . . . Having received this preach- ing, and this faith, as we have said, the Church, though spread throughout the whole world, preserves it with the utmost care and dihgence, just as if she dwelt in one house, and beheves these truths just as if she had but one and the same soul and heart, and preaches them and teaches them and hands them down [Iradil] just as if she had but one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are diverse, the force and meaning of the tradition is everywhere the same. Nor do the Churches which are in Germany believe differently or pass down a different tradition, as neither again do the Churches in Spain or Gaul, or in the East, or in Egypt or Africa, or those situated in the middle of the earth [that is the Churches of Pales- tine]. But as the sun, which is God's creature, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so too does the preaching of the truth shine everywhere and illuminate all men who desire to come to the knowl- edge of the truth. And neither do those of the Church's rulers who are powerful in speech add to this tradition — for no one is above the [great] teacher — nor do those who arc infirm in speech subtract from it. For since the Faith is one and the same, neither does he who can say more add to it, nor he who can say less diminish it" (Adv. ha^r., I, x, n. 2).
This striking passage .shows not merely how com- plete was the unity of faith throughout the world in those days, but how this unity of faith was the response to the unity of the doctrine everywhere preached, to the unity of the tradition everywliere handed <lowii. Elsewhere St. Irena;us testifies to the
source of this uniform tradition, and what was imder-
stood to be the safeguard of its purity. In the first
three chapters of his third book he is criticizing the
heretics of his time and the inconsistency of their
methods; and in so doing sets forth by way of con-
trast the method of the Church. "When you refute
them out of Scripture", he says, "they accuse the
Scriptures themselves of errors, of lack of authority, of
contradictory statements, and deny that the truth
can be gathered from them save by those who know
the tradition." By "tradition", however, they
mean a fictitious esoteric tradition which they claim
to have received, "sometimes from Valentinus, some-
times from Marcion, sometimes from Basihdes, or
anyone else who is in opposition". "When in your
turn you appeal to the tradition that has come down
from the .\postles through the succession of the
presbj'ters in the Churches, they reply that they are
wiser than the presbyters and even than the Apostles
themselves, and know the uncon'upted truth." To
this Irenaeus observes that "it is difficult to bring to
repentance a soul captm-ed by error, but that it is not
altogether impossible to escape error by setting truth
by the side of it." He then proceeds to state where
the true tradition can be found: "The tradition of the
Apostles has been made manifest throughout the
world, and can be found in every Church by those who
wish to know the truth. W'e can number, too, the
bishops who were appointed by the Apostles in the
Churches and their successors down to our own day,
none of whom knew of or taught the doctrines which
these men madly teach. Yet, if the Apostles had
known of these secret mysteries and used to teach
them secretly, without the knowledge of others, to the
perfect, they would have taught them to those chiefly
to whom they confided the Churches themselves.
For they desired that those whom they left behind
them as successors, by dehvering over to them their
own office of teaching, should be most perfect and
blameless, inasmuch as, if they acted rightly, much
good, but if they fell away the gravest calamity, would
ensue."
To exempUfy this method of referring to the tradi- tion of the Churches, he applies it to three of the Churches: Rome, Smyrna, and Ephesus, setting that of Rome in the first place, as having a tradition with which those of the other Churches are necessarily in accord. The passage is well kno^Ti, but for its inti- mate bearing on our present subject we may transcribe it. "But as it would take too long in a volume hke the present to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, we confound aU those who, in any way, whether through self-will, or vain gloiy, or bhndness, or evil-mindedness, invent false doctrines, by direct- ing them to the greatest and most ancient Church, well known to all, which was founded and established at Rome by tlie two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, and to the tradition it has received from the Apostles and the faith it has announced to men, both of which have come down to us through the succession of the Bishops. For to this Church, on account of its greater authority", — the Greek text being defective here, it is impossible to say exactly what Greek word Ues behind the Latin principalitas, but the context indicates "authority" as giving the intended sense — "it is necessary that every Church — that is, the faithful from all parts — should have recourse as to that in which the Apostolic tradition is ever pre- served by those" — if we follow Dom Morin's highly probable correction of an apparently defective reading — "who are set over it."
One more quotation from St. Irena-us we must permit ourselves, as it evidences so clearly the feeling of this Father and his contemporaries as to the relative conchtions of those who were in the one Church or without it : " i'or in the Church God has set Apostles, prophets, and doctors, together with all
