In the Sacrae Theologiae Summa, we have the following affirmations of the cessation of public revelation with the death of the last apostle and how the deposit of faith is something that will never be added to:
762. Scholium 2. The understanding
which the Apostles had of the deposit of faith—was it more perfect than what is
had today by the Church, or was it not?
Straub, n. 221; Palmieri, Prolog.
§ 30; Dorsch p. 766, and others respond affirmatively. To prove this they
appeal to John 14:26; 15:15; 16:12-15; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 2:6-12; 7:40; 2
Cor. 4:6; 11:6; Gal. 1;16; Eph. 3:3-5.
They confirm the same idea from
Irenaeus: R 213, 242; from Tertullian: 2 298. They add further from Irenaeus:
“For we have not known the disposition of our salvation form others, but from
those through whom the Gospel came to us . . . the foundation and pillar of our
faith. For it is not allowed to say that before they preached they had perfect
knowledge . . . afterwards they were endowed with the power from on high of the
descending Holy Spirit; they were filled with all things and had perfect
knowledge” (St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3,1-2: MG 7,844).
Likewise from Tertullian: “They
are wont to say that the Apostles did not know everything . . . But who of
sound mind can believe that they did not know, whom the Lord gave us as
Teachers . . . who explained certain obscure things to them separately, while
saying to them it is given to them to know hidden things that he could not make
known to the people? Was something hidden from Peter, called the rock of the
Church to be built, who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the
power of binding and loosing in heaven and on earth? And was something hidden
from John, very much loved by the Lord, who leaned on his breast, and to whom
alone the Lord manifested the traitor Judas, and whom in his place he
designated as the son of Mary? What did he now want them to know, to whom he
also showed his glory, and Moses and Elijah, and also the voice of the Father
from heaven? . . . . On one occasion he had said clearly: ‘I have yet many
things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now’ (John 16:12); nevertheless
he added: ‘When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the
truth’; here he shows that those men were ignorant of nothing, to whom he had
promised that they would obtain all truth through the Spirit of truth”
(Tertullian, De praescript. C.22: ML 2,34).
There is also Epiphanius: “The
words ‘he will guide you into all the truth’ (John 16:13) can refer to the
heavenly gift which they were going to receive, that indeed the Holy Spirit was
going to dwell in them, who would clearly declare everything to them that they
were able to understand in this life” (St. Epiphanius, Haer. 66 n. 61:
MG 42,122).
St. Thomas agrees: “Those who were
closer to Christ, either before, like John the Baptist, or later, like the
Apostles, had a fuller knowledge of the faith” (S. Th. I-II, q. 106, a. 4 and
ad 2, II-II, a. 1, a. 7 ad 4; q. 176, a. 1 ad1).
Therefore it seems necessary to
say that the Apostles had a fuller and more profound knowledge
of the deposit of revelation simply, although with some limitations,
and in some things they did not define it as explicitly as the later Church
did, as the circumstances required, and as she often had to do. (Joachim
Salaverri and Michaele Nicolau, Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 4 vols. [trans.
Kenneth Baker; Keep the Faith, Inc., 2015], 1B-290-91)
740. Definition of terms. Revelation
is attesting speech, whereby God manifested truths to men. In it a
twofold main aspect is usually distinguished—one formal and the other
objective. a) Revelation formally is the attesting speech of God itself,
b) Objective revelation consists in the truths made known to men by God
by means of an attesting speech.
Revelation according to its
destination again is distinguished into two forms: a) Private Revelation is
that which is given to a private person and for his good, b) Public
Revelation is that which is imposed by God on society and must be embraced
for the good of its members. This public revelation is divided again into
particular and universal: α)
Particular is the public revelation, which is destined for a particular
people, like the revelation of Moses in the Old Testament. β) Universal is the public revelation, which is given to all
men of all peoples, like the Christian revelation of the New Testament.
741. This
Christian revelation is said to have been completed with the Apostles. But this
can be understood in three ways: a) Revelation would be completed personally
with the Apostles, if all of it were given immediately to the persons of
the Apostles. b) Revelation would be said to be completed temporally with
the Apostles, if all of it were given within the time in which the
Apostles lived on this earth, namely, until the death of the Apostle John. c)
Revelation would be said to be completed with the Apostles virtually, if
every revealed truth, although the revelation was given immediately to someone
among the faithful, but had to be acknowledged as such by one of the Apostles.
742. State of the question.
In the thesis we are treating objective public and universal.
Revelation, and so we say: “Revelation constituting the object of the Catholic
faith.” We are saying that it was completed with the Apostles, not
necessarily personally, but at least temporally and virtually, so that
after the death of St. John the Apostle there is then no more objective, public
and universal divine revelation. (Ibid., 281-82)
[Objection] Without new
revelations dogmatic progress cannot take place. But dogmatic progress does
take place. Therefore, there are also new revelations.
I distinguish the major.
In revelation which constitutes the object of Catholic faith, conceded; in
the understanding, declaration and proposing of the revealed deposit, denied.
I also distinguish the minor and deny the consequent and the consequence.
(Ibid., 291)
The following is a selection of statements from Councils and Popes
also affirming this (all of which are relevant to the scope and limits of the development
of doctrine within Catholicism):
The
Council of Trent (1546-1563)
Session
IV (April 8, 1546)
783 [DS 1501] The sacred and holy
ecumenical and general Synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit,
with the same three Legates of the Apostolic See presiding over it, keeping
this constantly in view, that with the abolishing of errors, the purity itself of
the Gospel is preserved in the Church, which promised before through the
Prophets in the Holy Scriptures our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God first
promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded “to be preached” by His
apostles “to every creature” as the source of every saving truth and of
instruction in morals [Matt. 28:19 ff.; Mark 16:15], and [the Synod] clearly
perceiving that this truth and instruction are contained in the written books
and in the unwritten traditions, which have been received by the apostles from
the mouth of Christ Himself, or from the apostles themselves, at the dictation
of the Holy Spirit, have come down even to us, transmitted as it were from hand
to hand, [the Synod] following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and
holds in veneration with an equal affection of piety and reverence all the
books both of the Old and of the New Testament, since one God is the author of
both, and also the traditions themselves, those that appertain both to faith
and to morals, as having been dictated either by Christ’s own word of mouth, or
by the Holy Spirit, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous
succession. And so that no doubt may arise in anyone’s mind as to which are the
books that are accepted by this Synod, it has decreed that a list of the Sacred
books be added to this decree.
Vatican
1 (1869-70):
1800 [DS 3020] [The true progress of knowledge,
both natural and revealed]. For, the doctrine of faith which God revealed
has not been handed down as a philosophic invention to the human mind to be
perfected, but has been entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ,
to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence, also, that
understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy
Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that
meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding [can. 3]. “Therefore
… let the understanding, the knowledge, and wisdom of individuals as of all, of
one man as of the whole Church, grow and progress strongly with the passage of
the ages and the centuries; but let it be solely in its own genus, namely in
the same dogma, with the same sense and the same understanding.”
1818 [DS 3043] 3. If anyone shall have said that it is possible that to the dogmas
declared by the Church a meaning must sometimes be attributed according to the
progress of science, different from that which the Church has understood and
understands: let him be anathema.
1836 [DS 3069] [Argument from the assent of the
Church]. To satisfy this pastoral duty, our predecessors always gave
tireless attention that the saving doctrine of Christ be spread among all the
peoples of the earth, and with equal care they watched that, wherever it was
received, it was preserved sound and pure. Therefore, the bishops of the whole
world, now individually, now gathered in Synods, following a long custom of the
churches and the formula of the ancient rule, referred to this Holy See those
dangers particularly which emerged in the affairs of faith, that there
especially the damages to faith might be repaired where faith cannot experience
a failure. The Roman Pontiffs, moreover, according as the condition of the
times and affairs advised, sometimes by calling ecumenical Councils or by
examining the opinion of the Church spread throughout the world; sometimes by
particular synods, sometimes by employing other helps which divine Providence
supplied, have defined that those matters must be held which with God’s help
they have recognized as in agreement with Sacred Scripture and apostolic
tradition. [DS 3070] For, the Holy
Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they
might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the
revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might
faithfully set it forth. Indeed, all the venerable fathers have embraced their
apostolic doctrine, and the holy orthodox Doctors have venerated and followed
it, knowing full well that the See of St. Peter always remains unimpaired by
any error, according to the divine promise of our Lord the Savior made to the
chief of His disciples: “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and
thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren” [Luke 22:32].
Pius IX (1846-1878):
“Qui pluribis,” November 9, 1846:
1636 [DS 2777] And with no less deceit certainly, Venerable Brothers, those enemies of
divine revelation, exalting human progress with the highest praise, with a rash
and sacrilegious daring would wish to introduce it into the Catholic religion,
just as if religion itself were not the work of God but of men, or were some
philosophical discovery which can be perfected by human means [cf. n. 1705].
Against such unhappily raving men applies very conveniently, indeed, what
Tertullian deservedly made a matter of reproach to the philosophers of his own
time: “Who have produced a stoic and platonic and dialectic Christianity.” And
since, indeed, our most holy religion has not been invented by human reason but
has been mercifully disclosed to men by God, thus everyone easily understands
that religion itself acquires all its force from the authority of the same God
speaking, and cannot ever be drawn from or be perfected by human reason.
The
False Freedom of Science (against James Frohschammer), from the epistle
"Gravissimas Inter," to the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, December
11, 1862:
1673 [DS 2856] Adhering to these and other almost innumerable divine texts, the Holy
Fathers, in transmitting the teaching of the Church, have constantly taken care
to distinguish the knowledge of divine things which is common to all by the
power of natural intelligence, from the knowledge of those things which is
received on faith through the Holy Spirit; and they have continuously taught
that through this (faith) those mysteries are revealed to us in Christ which
transcend not only human philosophy but even the angelic natural intelligence,
and which, although they are known through divine revelation and have been
accepted by faith, nevertheless, remain still covered by the sacred veil of
faith itself, and wrapped in an obscuring mist as long as we are absent from
the Lord in this mortal life. [DS 2857]
From all this, it is clear that the proposition of Frohschammer is wholly
foreign to the teaching of the Catholic Church, since he does not hesitate to
assert that all the dogmas of the Christian religion without discrimination are
the object of natural science or philosophy, and that human reason, cultivated
so much throughout history, provided these dogmas have been proposed to reason
itself as an object, can from its own natural powers and principle, arrive at
the true understanding concerning all, even the more hidden dogmas [see n.
1709].
“Syllabus
of Errors,” December 8, 1864:
1706 [DS 2906] 6. The faith of Christ is opposed to human reason; and divine
revelation is not only of no benefit to, but even harms the perfection of man
(1 [see n. 1635] 26).
Pius
X (1903-1914):
The
Errors of the Modernists, on the Church, Revelation, Christ, the Sacraments,
from the Decree of the Holy Office, "Lamentabili," July 3, 1907:
2020 [DS 3420] 20. Revelation could have been nothing other than the consciousness
acquired by man of his relation to God.
2021 [DS 3421] 21. Revelation, constituting the object of Catholic faith, was not
completed with the apostles.
2054 [DS 3454] 54. The dogmas, the sacraments, the hierarchy, as far as pertains both
to the notion and to the reality, are nothing but interpretations and the
evolution of the Christian intelligence, which have increased and perfected the
little germ latent in the Gospel.
The
False doctrines of the Modernists, from the Encyclical, "Pascendi dominici
gregis," September 8, 1907
2094 [DS 3493] Moreover, to complete this whole subject of faith and its various
branches, it remains for us, Venerable Brethren, to consider finally the
precepts of the modernists on the development of both.—Here is a general
principle: In a religion which is living nothing is without change, and so
there must be change. From here they make a step to what is essentially the
chief point in their doctrines, namely, evolution.
Dogma, then, Church, worship, the Books that we revere as sacred, even faith
itself, unless we wish all these to be powerless, must be bound by the laws of
evolution. This cannot appear surprising to you, if you bear in mind what the
modernists have taught on each of these subjects. So, granted the law of
evolution, we have the way of evolution described by the modernists themselves.
And first, as regards faith. The primitive form of faith, they say, was crude
and common to all men, since it had its origin in human nature and human life.
Vital evolution contributed progress; to be sure, not by the novelty of forms
added to it from the outside, but by the daily increasing pervasion of the
religious sense into the conscience. Moreover, this progress was made in two
ways: first, in a negative way, by eliminating anything extraneous, as for
example, that might come from family or nation; second, in a positive way, by
the intellectual and moral refinement of man, whereby the notion of the divine
becomes fuller and clearer, and the religious sense more accurate. The same
causes for the progress of faith are to be brought forward as were employed to
explain its origins. But to these must be added certain extraordinary men (whom
we call prophets, and of whom Christ is the most outstanding), not only because
they bore before themselves in their lives and works something mysterious which
faith attributed to the divinity, but also because they met with new
experiences never had before, corresponding to the religious needs of the time
of each.—But the progress of dogma arises chiefly from this, that impediments
to faith have to be overcome, enemies have to be conquered, objections have to
be refuted. Add to this a perpetual struggle to penetrate more deeply the
things that are contained in the mysteries of faith. Thus, to pass over other
examples, it happened in the case of Christ: in Him that divine something or
other, which faith admitted, was slowly and gradually expanded, so that finally
He was held to be God.—The necessity of accommodating itself to the customs and
traditions of the people especially contributed to the evolution of worship;
likewise, the necessity of employing the power of certain acts, which they have
acquired by usage.—Finally, the cause of evolution as regards the Church arose
in this, that she needs to be adjusted to contemporary historical conditions,
and to the forms of civil government publicly in vogue. This do they think
regarding each. But before we proceed we wish that this doctrine of necessities
or needs be well noted; for beyond all that we have seen, this is, as it were,
the basis and foundation of that famous method which they call historical.
The
Oath Against the Errors of Modernism, from Motu proprio, "Sacrorum
antistitum," September 1, 1910
3541] Fourthly, I
accept sincerely the doctrine of faith transmitted from the apostles through
the orthodox fathers, always in the same sense and interpretation, even to us;
and so I reject the heretical invention of the evolution of dogmas, passing
from one meaning to another, different from that which the Church first had;
and likewise I reject all error whereby a philosophic fiction is substituted
for the divine deposit, given over to the Spouse of Christ and to be guarded
faithfully by her, or a creation of the human conscience formed gradually by
the efforts of men and to be perfected by indefinite progress in the future.
Pius
XII (1939-1958)
Humani
generis, August 12, 1950
To the Magisterium
Christ the Lord confided the whole deposit of faith, namely, the Sacred
Writings and divine Tradition to guard and to defend and to interpret.
