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TRADITION IN ANCIENT CHURCH 9 / 9

St. Augustine and the Catholic authority

In the same way that one must understand the famous award and rightly worrying, St. Augustine : "For me, I could not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church had not pushed me [54] . You must read the sentence in context. First, St. Augustine do not take it for himself. He speaks of the attitude which the ordinary believer should adopt when confronted with the claim of heretics to the authority. In such cases, it was about, just for believing, to use the authority of the Church, which and in which he had received the Gospel itself: "The Gospel itself, I believed in receiving instruction Catholic preachers" (ipsi Evangelio catholicis praedicantibus credidi ).

The Gospel and the preaching of the Catholica belong to each other. Saint Augustine did not intend to make the Gospel to the Church. He just wanted to point out that the "Gospel" is still, in effect, received in the context of the preaching of the Catholic Church and can not simply not be separated from the Church. It is in this context only that can be measured and understood properly.

course, the testimony of Scripture is ultimately "evident in itself, but only to" believers "for those who have attained a certain" spiritual maturity ", this which is possible only in the Church. Augustine opposed the authority (auctoritas ) teaching and preaching of the Catholic Church to pretentious ramblings of Manichean exegesis. The Gospel is not the Manichean. The authority of the Catholic Church (Ecclesiae auctoritas Catholicae ) was not an independent source for the faith. It was the essential principle of any sound interpretation. In fact, the sentence may be reversed: you would not believe the Church, if it was pushed there by the Gospel. The converse is an absolute truth [55] .

[54] Ego vero Evangelio crederem non, nisi me Catholicae commoveret Ecclesiae auctoritas, C. Fundamenta epistolam , 6.

[55] See Louis Montadon, Bible Church in St. Augustine Apologetics, "Research of Religious Science," t. 2 (1911), p. 233-238; Pierre Battiffol, Catholicism of Saint Augustine , 5th edition, Paris, 1929, p.25-27 (see the whole chapter 1, The Rule of Faith Church), and especially ADR Polman, The Word Of God According To St. Augustine (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1961), p.198-208 (this is a translation of the book review published in Dutch in 1955: De Theologie van Augustinus, bij het Woord Gods Augustinus ), see also WF Dankbaar, "Schriftgezag in Kerkgezag bij Augustinus, Nederlands Theologische Tijdschrift , 11 (1956-1957), p. 37-59 (article refers to the Dutch edition of the Book of Polman).