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TRADITION IN ANCIENT CHURCH 8 / 9

The Church interprets Scripture

The Church had the authority to interpret Scripture, since it was the only authentic custodian the apostolic kerygma . This kerygma was unfailingly kept alive in the Church, because she had the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Church continued to teach viva voce, viva voce, to disseminate and promote the Word of God. And the living voice of the Gospel (viva vox Evangelii ) is not simply to recite the words of Scripture. was the proclamation of the Word of God, as it was listened to and kept in the Church through the power of life-giving Spirit that did not stop living in it. Outside the Church and its devoted regular ministers, successors of the Apostles, there was no true proclamation of the Gospel or good preaching, or true understanding of the Word of God. And so it was futile to seek the truth elsewhere and outside the Catholic and Apostolic Church. This is the unanimous conviction of the Old Church, Saint Irenaeus to Chalcedon and beyond.

Saint Irenaeus was definite on this point. In the Church, the Apostles assembled the fullness of truth: "They entrusted him abundantly everything related to truth [50] . Of course, Scripture itself forms the major part of this "deposit" apostolic . Similarly the Church. The Church and the Scripture can not be separated or opposed to each other. Scripture, that is to say its true intelligence, was that in the Church, insofar as the Holy Spirit guided her.

Origen consistently emphasized the unity of Scripture and the Church. The task of the interpreter to explain the word of the Spirit: "We must be careful when we teach, not to make our own interpretations, but those of the Holy Spirit [51] ". But this is not strictly outside the Apostolic Tradition, preserved in the Church. Origen stresses the Catholic interpretation of Scripture, such as this the Church: "Listening to the Church in the Word of God Catholic explained [52] ..." What the heretics precisely ignore in their exegesis, is the true "intent", the voluntas of Scripture: "He who has God's words without following the intent of Scripture or truth of faith, sow and harvest wheat spines [53] .

The "intention" of Holy Scripture and the Rule of faith "are closely related and respond to each other. This was the position of the Fathers of the fourth century and following, in full agreement with the teaching of the ancients. With his customary sharpness and vehemence, Jerome , this giant of Scripture, expresses the same idea:

Marcion , Basilides and other heretics ... not the Gospel of God because they do not have the Holy Spirit, without which the Gospel we preach is a human thing. We believe that the Gospel does not lie in the words of Scripture, but in their meaning: not in the surface, but in the marrow, not in the leaves of the way, but in the root of their meaning. Here Scripture is when the audience a real purpose: when it is not passed without Christ, nor explained without fathers and those who preach it did not introduce without the Spirit ... We run a great danger to speak in the church, because he could that by a perverse interpretation, the Gospel of Christ becomes a gospel of man ... ( In Galat . 1, 1, 2, PL 26, 386).

emerge here, as at the time of Irenaeus of Tertullian and Origen , the same concern for the true understanding of the Word of God. Perhaps Jerome did Origen paraphrases. Outside the Church there is no divine Gospel, it is mere human substitutes. The true meaning of Scripture, the sensus Scripturae , that is to say, the divine message can not be perceived as "in association with the truth of faith (fidei juxta veritatem ) under the conduct of the rule of faith. The "truth of faith (fidei veritas ) is in this context, the Trinitarian confession of faith. The approach is the same as in St. Basil . St. Jerome speaks, above all, the proclamation of the Word takes place in the Church: "It is useful to listeners ( audientibus is used).

[50] Plenissime in eam contulerint omnia quae sunt veritatis, Contre les Hérésies, 3, 4, 1.

[51] Hoc observare debemus ut non nostras, cum docemus, sed Sancti Spiritus sententias proferamus. In Rom., 1, 3, 1.

[52] Audiens in Ecclesia verbum Dei catholice tractari, Homélies sur le Lévitique, 4.5.

[53] Qui enim neque juxta voluntatem Scripturarum neque juxta fidei veritatem profert eloquia Dei Seminati triticum metit and spins. Homilies on Jeremiah 7, 3.