Per Caritatem

In the second section of his essay, Oberman moves into a discussion of the concept of tradition that characterized the fourth and fifth centuries. First, however, he summarizes two important points of the pre-Augustinian concept of tradition: (1) “The immediate divine origin of tradition together with the insistence on a clearly circumscribed series of historical acts of God in the rule of faith or the rule of truth;” (2) “The rejection of extra-scriptural tradition.”

Oberman begins by appealing to the work of Father George Tavard. In his book Holy Writ or Holy Church, Tavard claims that a seamless continuity of the organic relation of scripture and tradition existed between patristic and medieval theology until the 14th century. However, two new currents of thought began to threaten this understanding: (1) “one which opposes the Scriptures to the Church in admitting the possibility that only a remnant in the visible Church would be obedient to Scripture;” (2) “one which introduces the concept of post-apostolic and oral traditions and raises the Holy See to the dignity of judge of post-apostolic revelation” (p. 276). With the canon lawyers, according to Tavard we see a break with “medieval classicism. Living authority replaces both Scripture and its traditional interpretation” (Holy Writ or Holy Church, p. 39, as cited in Oberman, p. 276). Yet, Tavard also points out that the opposing group, viz., those who claimed that Scripture alone was the sole standard of truth for the Church, were also responsible for destroying the patristic-medieval unity—“from this to the doctrines of the Reformation there is only a difference of degree” (Holy Writ or Holy Church, p. 40, as cited in Oberman, p. 276).

According to Oberman, the shift away from the coinherence of Scripture and Church as maintained by the patristic-medieval vision that Tavard highlights can be traced back to the early Middle Ages—specifically to Basil the Great (c. 330-370) whose views on the subject where later propagated by Augustine. A new concept of tradition is set forth in Basil’s work, On the Holy Spirit. “We meet here for the first time the idea that the Christian owes equal respect and obedience to the written and to the unwritten ecclesiastical traditions, whether they are contained in the canonical writings or in the secret oral tradition handed down by the Apostles through succession” (p. 277). A number of canon lawyers (e.g., Ivo of Chartres and Gratian of Bologna) circulate Basil’s ideas in their writings and thus help to establish the two-sources theory for canon lawyers. For the medieval doctor of theology, however, Scripture remains the “authoritative source which stands in judgment over the interpretation of later commentators. The term ‘sacred page’ for theology is indicative for this close relationship” (p. 277). Such a view can be seen in St. Thomas Aquinas’ work. In the Summa Theologica, Thomas writes, “sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities [those of the philosophers] as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors. Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): ‘Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them. But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning’” (ST I, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2).

Turning to Augustine, Oberman notes that although Augustine asserts the primacy of Scripture, he did not set this in opposition with the authority of the Catholic Church, “…I would not believe the Gospel, unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me” [Contra ep. fund., 5], (p. 278). Disagreement soon ensued over the nature of the moving power (commovere of the Church. Some argued that the Church has a practical and instrumental authority (Gregory of Rimini), while others toward the end of the 14th century argued that Augustine’s statement points to a metaphysical priority. That is, in contrast to the idea that the Church’s authority over Scripture had a practical priority in a way similar to the function of Jesus’ miracles, viz., to urge his hearers to believe His words, the “moving authority of the Church becomes in late medieval versions the Church’s approval or creation of Holy Scripture” (p. 278). In distinction from Irenaeus’ and Tertullian’s emphasis on the sufficiency of Scripture, Augustine promotes an authoritative extra-scriptural oral tradition. “While on the one hand the Church ‘moves’ the faithful to discover the authority of Scripture, Scripture on the other hand refers the faithful back to the authority of the Church with regard to a series of issues with which the Apostles did not deal in writing” (p. 279).

Oberman then asks whether the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lerins written in the 5th century has contributed to furthering the two-sources theory. Vincent’s famous thesis is that the Catholic Church must hold to that which has been believed everywhere, always and by everyone—a thesis which seems to permit the idea of an authoritative extra-biblical tradition. Oberman, however, argues that when read in context we find that Vincent accepts the material sufficiency of scripture but rejects its formal sufficiency. “He [Vincent] insists that Holy Scripture needs to be interpreted by the Church since the heretics from Novation to Nestorius all advanced their own exegeses of biblical passages” [Commonitorium II.2], (p. 277). Vincent sees the task of interpretation as preservation and protection against the possibility of perverting what the Apostles have handed down. For Vincent, proper biblical exegesis is not safeguarded “in a secret oral tradition traceable to the Apostles themselves, but in the explicit consensus of the Fathers which provides a safeguard against arbitrary interpretation” (p. 279). Vincent seems to follow St. Thomas in that he does not want the interpretation of the Church to effectively become a second source apart from Holy Scripture. For Vincent, as was the case for Thomas, the “Fathers are in principle magistri probabiles, teachers whose utterances are probable but do not yet constitute proof (seeST I, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2; emphasis added). In fact, the statements of the Fathers come to represent the deposit of faith only when the following five requirements are satisfied: (1) all the Fathers must be of one mind on the issue (non unus aut duo tantum sed omnes pariter; (2) “the consensus has to be exactly the same ( uno eodemque consensu); (3) their opinion should be openly and explicitly formulated (aperte); repeatedly advanced (frequenter); and (5) continuously held, written and taught (perseveranter tenuisse, scripsisse, docuisse)” (p. 280). Oberman concludes the section by noting that though it is often taught (and may very well be the case) that Vincent directs his Commonitorium against Augustine’s strong teaching on predestination, nonetheless, “one does not tax the sources too heavily when one concludes that Vincent here directs his concept of authoritative exegetical tradition primarily against a two-sources theory” (p. 280).

In chapter twelve of his work, Dawn of the Reformation, Heiko Oberman discusses the issue of the relation of Scripture and tradition. As Oberman observes, the 16th century was marked with “bitter polemics concerning the source and norm of the Church’s knowledge of God’s revelation. Traditionally this is described as the clash of the sola scriptura-principle with the Scripture and tradition-principle” (p. 270). Both Protestants and Catholics were eager to uphold the purity and authority of God’s word, yet each believed that the other’s view was detrimental to maintaining this purity and authority. The Reformers pointed to ways in which ecclesial traditions had come to distort the Gospel, while proponents of the Counter-Reformation decried the Reformers for breaking with tradition and promoting private interpretations. “In both cases reliance on human authority is said to interfere with the rule of obedience to Holy Scripture” (p. 270). Oberman then highlights what in my opinion is often glossed over or completely ignored in this discussion, viz., that the debate before us is not one of Scripture or tradition. Until this misconception is deconstructed, the conversation will continue to stagnate. Rather, what we have in these competing claims is “the clash between two concepts of tradition” (p. 270). In order to more fully explicate these two concepts, Oberman begins by examining the gradual reception of the canon in the early Church.

Upon examining the writings of the early Church Fathers, scholars have come to formulate a position called the “coinherence of Church and Scripture.” That is, for the early Fathers, kerygma, Scripture, and tradition fully coincide (p. 270). Oberman then enumerates the following as characteristics of the coinherence position. First, Scripture and tradition coinhere in the “living, visible Body of Christ, inspired and vivified by the operation of the Holy Spirit” (p. 271). Here one must understand that the coinherence is not merely on the level of source (Scripture) and interpretation (tradition), but that Scripture and tradition flow from the same source, viz., the Word of God. Second, both find their common basis in the work of the Holy Spirit through whom both the fides quae creditur (the content of faith; faith objectively considered) and the fides qua creditur (the faith of the believer; faith subjectively considered) are held together (p. 271). Third, “tradition is not understood as an addition to the kerygma contained in Scripture, but either as the handing down of that same kerygma in living form, or as Revelation itself. This implies for the Fathers the explicit denial of extra-scriptural tradition” (p. 271). Moreover, this proclamation can only be safely handed down within the Church. For Irenaeus, the handing down of the truth is identified with episcopal succession (…qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum Patris accepereunt,” Adv. Haereses 4.26; p. 271). However, Irenaeus understands the episcopal witness as a derived witness whose “function is to preserve the integrity and totality of the original Apostolic witness. To this end the canon was formed” (p. 271). Oberman adds that the coinherence of Scripture and Church does not equate to an “amorphous organism.” In other words, the Church is distinguished by her instrumental role of receiving and preserving the Apostolic deposit—a deposit which was understood as containing the original kerygma in toto (pp. 271-272). Lastly, Oberman mentions briefly the relation of oral and written tradition with a view as to how modern Roman Catholic theology understands this relation. Form criticism has of course brought to our attention the fact that the scriptures which the Church received as canonical are “the product of a geographically differentiated and complex interplay of oral and later, written traditions.” Given these findings, Oberman highlights two observations made by modern Roman Catholic theologians: “(1) The canon constitutes a snapshot of a multidimensional living tradition. (2) This document from the early Church has the drawback of being only two-dimensional.” In other words, it represents an ossified part of the living tradition and therefore cannot communicate the fullness of the living Church. Current contemporary Roman Catholic theologians employ the distinction real and verbal in order to make this observation explicit (p. 272).

Next, Oberman focuses on two of the earliest Latin Fathers, who wrote near the end of the second century, Irenaeus and Tertullian. According to Irenaeus, the rule of faith (regula fidei or regula veritatis) “is faithfully preserved by the apostolic Church and has found multiform expression in the canonical books (Adv. Haeres. II.41.4). Here we have an unbroken stream in the movement from preached kerygma to the written Scriptures or what we might call the inscripturated apostolic proclamation. This written proclamation then serves as the foundation of the faith (Adv. Haeres. III.1.1). Though Irenaeus no doubt places great emphasis on episcopal succession, at this stage of church history one should not interpret Irenaeus as suggesting that episcopal succession “constitute[s] a channel of oral tradition which would stand alongside Scripture as a second source of revelation” (p. 273, emphasis added). The task of these successors to the Apostles was to faithfully preserve the kerygmic proclamation until canonization was complete. For Irenaeus, there is complete identity between the rule of faith received by the Apostles and the rule of faith received in his own day in the apostolic writings as handed down by the bishops. In addition, recent scholarly findings have made manifest that the regula fidei as employed by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria is not to be interpreted as rule for faith. “The regula fidei is the rule constituted by faith or truth: the historical facts of God’s action in creation and redemption” (p. 273). Neither is the regula fidei to be understood as an authoritative interpretation of Holy Scripture, nor should it been seen as identical to the Creed. The regula fidei is revelation itself and forms the structure of Holy Scripture, whereas, “the Creed is a confession of the historical reality of the acts of God in creation and redemption” (p. 273).

According to Oberman, the distinction made by contemporary Roman Catholic theologians between real and verbal tradition cannot be maintained here since Irenaeus “identifies truth and reality. The reality which we perceive with our eyes is the same as the reality to which the kerygma pertains” (p. 273).
When we turn to Tertullian (and Cyprian) we find a strong distinction made between tradition as preserved in the canon and human traditions (consuetudines). Tertullian, of course, is often pictured as one with a strong anti-intellectual bent, who made it his mission to condemn philosophy. However, as Oberman points out, Tertullian’s vitriolic remarks against e.g., Aristotle as a heretic, is not a wholesale rejection of reason or even philosophy, but of philosophy used as a second source of revelation. For Tertullian, nothing need be added to the apostolic deposit of faith. Oberman closes this section by stating that, “[f]or this period it is not relevant to insist on the usual distinction between active tradition, the act of handing down, and passive tradition, the content of what is handed down. Tradition corresponds at once with fides quae, the articles of faith and fides qua, the act of faith. Tradition is not only divine in content and origin but also in its providential path through history. This can be stressed to the degree that we are forced to translate tradition with ‘revelation’ and tradere with ‘to reveal’” (p. 275).

“The sign of Christ is legible only if we read his human love and self-gift unto death as the manifestation of absolute love. Seeing this relationship would prevent us from putting his humanity on a pedestal, making him a hero or superhuman demigod [...] and thereby obscuring the real manifestation of love. What most decisively draws our attention to Christ is not that he is more powerful that other human beings [...] but that he seeks to be so ‘meek and humble of heart’ (Mt 11:29) and therefore so ‘poor in spirit’ (Mt 5:3) that absolute love might shine through his human love and become present in it. Indeed, such an attitude of love can ultimately be determined (conceived and carried out) only on the basis of this absolute love. Christ’s act of creating space in himself for God is not self-mastery, but is itself already obedience, an obedience willing to take on whatever task the ‘ever greater Father’ gives. The task, however, consists in letting the sins of the world into the same space he had allowed the Father to fill, and to do so out of the love that God also fills, as the ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’ (Jn 1:29), and therefore takes away mine” (Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible, pp. 99-100).

The following is taken from a lecture given by Dr. Michael Foley at the University of Dallas (March 8, 2007).
***
Dr. Foley addressed the various ways in which one might respond to a common criticism of the Confessions, viz., it is unorganized, lacking in cohesion, and more or less without any sense of structure or unity. Of the many possible chiastic structures that unify the Confessions, I will share one in particular that Dr. Foley discussed. Upon deeper reflection, one can discern a chiastic pattern in books I-IX, which draws our attention to two snapshots of the human soul via images of descent and ascent. In book I, Augustine is characterized by a dis-ordered soul and is ruled by his passions. By the time we reach book IX, Augustine has been converted and is characterized by a well-ordered soul in submission to Christ. In book II, concupiscence and lust are the dominant themes, while conversely, book VIII illustrates how his lusts have been subdued by God’s grace and put to rest. Curiositas or an improper desire for knowledge grips Augustine in book III, and as a result, he becomes a Manichee. In book VII, Augustine reads the Platonists and gains an understanding of the mind as immaterial, which then allows him to break through the materialism that he imbibed for nearly a decade with the Manicheans. Consequently, he is better able to apprehend God’s nature, and his curiositas is replaced with a more accurate understanding of reality. In book IV, selfish ambition drives Augustine and he is most concerned with furthering his career as a rhetor. In contrast, in book VI, Augustine gains humility and begins to see a need to listen to others not only for the purposes of increasing his skills in rhetoric, but for a content that has something more than a fleeting significance (e.g., St. Ambrose). Book V is the center of this chiastic structure and is where Augustine encounters both Faustus and St. Ambrose. Faustus, of course, completely disappoints him, whereas Ambrose helps him to read Scripture with a new hermeneutic and many of his (Augustine’s) former difficulties with Scripture fall away.

One might also summarize the Confessions by saying that in books I-IX, Augustine learns to read the enigma of his past. To do this he must be converted to the good (book VII), to time (book XI), and to Christ (book VIII). Hence, we have a manifold conversion. Having been brought this far (by the end of book IX), he can then look back on his life properly. As mentioned above, from Ambrose Augustine learns to read Scripture in multiple senses. He then takes what he has learned from Ambrose about interpreting Scripture, and applies it to the interpretation of his own life. He tells of his past in order to help us to learn to read our pasts properly. In book X, we have something more than an abstract account of memory—we have as well the reading of our own memory. Lastly, in books XII-XIII, we have the reading of reality in two texts, the book of nature and the book of Scripture. In the final book of the Confessions, Augustine gives an extended meditation on Genesis 1 and brings us full circle back to our origin and telos, the Triune God in whom we live and move and have our being, and in whom, along with Augustine, we can find rest for our restless hearts.

In chapter five of Love Alone is Credible, Balthasar observes that in order for God to reveal his love for the world, this love—even in its wholly-otherness—must be recognizable by the world. Paradoxically, from the (humanly speaking) grandest to the most selfish lover, each must in some inchoate way already have at least a taste of love in order to recognize true love. As the Christian tradition confesses, God is our Creator, and if he is our Creator, he can no doubt create us with a capacity to love him and can implant within us the seeds of such love which he himself can then (non-violently) bring to fruition. To illustrate how such love might be awakened, Balthasar offers the following analogy.

“After a mother has smiled at her child for many days and weeks, she finally receives her child’s smile in response. She has awakened love in the heart of her child, and as the child awakens to love, it also awakens to knowledge: the initially empty-sense impressions gather meaningfully around the core of the Thou. Knowledge (with its whole complex of intuition and concept) comes into play, because the play of love has already begun beforehand, initiated by the mother, the transcendent. God interprets himself to man as love in the same way: he radiates love, which kindles the light of love in the heart of man, and it is precisely this light that allows man to perceive this, the absolute Love: ‘For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness”, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ’ (2 Cor 4:6). In this face, the primal foundation of being smiles at us as a mother and as a father. Insofar as we are his creatures, the seed of love lives dormant within us as the image of God (imago). But just as no child can be awakened to love without being loved, so too no human heart can come to an understanding of God without the free gift of his grace—in the image of his Son” (p. 76; emphasis added).

“God, who condescends graciously to his creature, does not want to lay hold of him and fulfill him in an external manner, but rather in the most intimate way possible. Historical revelation in the Son aims at a transformative subjective appropriation; its goal is the revelation of the Holy Spirit of freedom and adoption within the human spirit. The Church Fathers already insisted that all objective redemption would be useless if it were not relived subjectively as a dying and rising with Christ in the Holy Spirit; this truth echoes over and over throughout the Middle Ages … and the Baroque period.

Wird Christus tausendmal zu Bethlehem goboren
Und nicht in dir, du bleibst doch ewiglich verloren…
Daz Kreuz zu Golgotha kann dich nicht von dem
Bösen,
Wo es nicht auch in dir wird aufgericht’, erlösen[1].

Notes

[1] “If Christ were born a thousand times in Bethlehem, but not in you, you would remain lost forever…The Cross on Golgotha cannot redeem you from evil if it is not raised up also in you” (Angelus Silesius: Cherubinischer Wandersmann, 1:61; cf. 5:160; 2:81; 5:325). As found in Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible, p. 42.