Thursday, February 23, 2017

"In Scripture not only teachings, but even each and every word pertains to faith. We believe no word in Scripture is in vain or not rightly placed, but in Councils the greater part of the acts does not pertain to faith. For disputations that are prefaced, or reasons which are added, or the things that are advanced to explain and illustrate are not on faith, rather only the bare decrees and not even all of these, but only those which are proposed as de fide. Sometimes Councils define something not as a decree but as probable, such as when the Council of Vienne decreed that it must be held as more probable that grace and the virtues are infused into infants at Baptism, as it is contained in Clem. uni. de Summa Trinitate et fide Catholica. But when a decree is proposed as de fide, it is easily discerned from the words of the Council because they usually say they explain the Catholic faith or they must be held as heretics who think the contrary; or what is most common, they say anathema and exclude them from the Church who think the contrary. But when they say none of these, the matter is not certain de fide.  Next, in the very decrees on faith, not the words but only the sense pertains to faith, for it is not heretical to say that in canons of Councils some word is superfluous or not rightly placed, unless perhaps the decree were formed from the word itself, as when in the Council of Nicaea they decreed the word homoousion must be received, and in Ephesus the word Theotokon."  St. Robert Bellarmine  De Conciliis, lib. 2, ch. 12

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