La parole écrite et la parole non écrite
The Dual Source of Divine Truth
The Church maintains that the unwritten word of the apostles holds equal authority to the written Scriptures.
All that's left is to explain what Catholics believe regarding the word of God and the authority of the Church. Since Jesus Christ founded his Church on preaching, the unwritten word was the first rule of Christianity. When the Scriptures of the New Testament were added to it, that word didn't lose its authority. This is why we receive everything the apostles taught with equal veneration, whether written or spoken, just as Saint Paul himself expressly declared:✦1 Thess.2 ii.3 14.✦ .
The Continuity of Apostolic Tradition
Universal consent and historical continuity serve as the marks of authentic apostolic doctrine, which the Church preserves as a sacred deposit.
The sure mark that a doctrine comes from the apostles is that it is embraced by all Christian churches, with no one able to point to when it began.4 We cannot help receiving everything established in this way with the submission due to divine authority; and we are persuaded that those among the gentlemen of the so-called Reformed religion who are not stubborn hold this same conviction deep in their hearts—since it is not possible to believe that a doctrine received from the beginning of the Church comes from any source other than the apostles.56 That is why our adversaries should not be surprised if, careful to gather up everything our fathers left us, we keep the deposit of tradition as well as that of the Scriptures.
Read the original Latin
Il ne reste plus qu'à exposer ce que les Catholiques croient touchant la parole de Dieu, et touchant l'autorité de l'Église.
Jésus-Christ ayant fondé son Église sur la prédication, |la parole non écrite a été la première règle du christianisme; et lorsque les Écritures du nouveau Testament y ont été jointes, cette parole n'a pas perdu pour cela son autorité: ce qui fait que nous recevons avec une pareille vénération tout ce qui a été enseigné par les apôtres, soit par écrit, soit de vive voix, selon que saint Paul même l'a expressément déclaré (//. Thess. h. 14.) . Et la marqne certaine qu'une doctrine vient des apôtres, est lorsqu'elle est embrassée par toutes les églises chrétiennes, sans qu'on en puisse marquer le commencement. Nous ne pouvons nous empêcher de recevoir tout ce qui est établi de la sorte, avec la soumission qui est due à l'autorité divine: et nous sommes persuadés que ceux de Messieurs de la religion prétendue réformée, qui ne sont pas opiniâtres, ont ce même sentiment au fond du cœur; nïétant pas possible de croire qu'une doctrine reçue dès le commencement de l'Église vienne d'une autre source que des apôtres. C'est pourquoi nos adversaires ne doivent pas s'étonner, si étant soigneux de recueillir tout ce que nos pères nous ont laissé, nous conservons le dépôt de la tradition aussi bien que celui des Écritures.
Scripture echoes
Notes
- 1 ↩Source ends mid-citation with broken parenthesis '(//.'; the reference continues in the following fragment sentences (Thess. / h. / 14.). A stray '|' after 'prédication,' was treated as noise.
- 2 ↩Citation fragment: almost certainly Thessalonians within a 2 Thessalonians reference split across s2–s4.
- 3 ↩Source 'h.' is almost certainly OCR for chapter 'ii.' in an older citation style (2 Thess. ii. 14).
- 4 ↩Source 'marqne' corrected as 'marque' (mark/sign).
- 5 ↩Source 'nïétant' corrected as 'n'étant'.
- 6 ↩'Messieurs de la religion prétendue réformée' is the historical French Catholic designation for Protestants; rendered with the polemical force of the original ('so-called Reformed religion').
Exposition de la doctrine de l'Église catholique sur les matières de controverse companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit