Autor: Crowe, Frederich E., S.J.

Buch: Theology of the Christian Word

Titel: Theology of the Christian Word

Stichwort: Tertullian, Irenäus -> Athanasius, Augustinus: apostolische -> katholische Tradtion

Kurzinhalt: The great council has become in some sense a "source" of the faith; Augustinus: "securus iudicat orbis terrarum."

Textausschnitt: 72d It is Athanasius, so much of whose work is concerned with the explanation and defense of Nicea, who begins to bring the next phase into focus. His Letter on the Decrees of the Council of Nicea, the very title of which is itself significant, was written about the year 350, and various phrases used by Athanasius reveal the new state of the question: He talks about "the transactions of the Council," and "the assembled Bishops," who "published against [the Arians] the sound and ecclesiastical faith." Athanasius asks about them: "Are they not then committing a crime, in their very thought to gainsay so great and ecumenical a Council?" The Arianizers are in the position of one condemned and arguing against the legitimate judge after the case is closed. (Athanasius too seems to have had his legal side.) (Fs)

73a When we read Athanasius from the perspective of our question on the loci, and see his position as it appears in the trajectory we are plotting, his language is extremely significant. It is clear what the new state of the question is: The great council has become in some sense a "source" of the faith. Of course, we must insist again that it is not the ultimate source; Athanasius maintains as much as anyone could desire that the council did not invent the doctrine it promulgated. The same point is made by contrast with the opponents of Nicea in his letter on the spurious synods of Ariminum in Italy and Seleucia in Isauria. This letter, On the Synods, written about 359, poked fun at their dated creed that gives the year of the consulate in which it was issued, and compared it with the great council of Nicea that simply wrote: "Thus believes the Catholic Church." And repeatedly he accuses his adversaries of deserting "the Fathers." But all his appeals to tradition cannot disguise the new state of affairs. Ireneus and Tertullian had appealed to the succession of bishops from the apostles onwards, but such a procedure is now impractical. The succession is too extended and the churches are too numerous. In any case, it would be useless when church is pitted against church. The one remedy now is an assembly of all the churches, where a consensus will prevail and the recalcitrant members be brought back into line. It is the present church beginning to assert itself as not only the legitimate heir of the past but also as a spokesman in its own right. (Fs)

73b Let us designate what is emerging here by the term "Catholic tradition." I use it in contradistinction to apostolic tradition, hoping thereby to remove it from the controversy of the scripture/tradition dichotomy. It denotes simply the patrimony of dogmas defined by the church and made binding on her adherents, along with a train of lesser doctrines thought to be entailed by the dogmas. And the immediate source of these dogmas, always with an implicit or explicit appeal to the past for their ultimate justification, is the consensus of the present church, the "great church" as it came to be called in Athanasius's time. Nicea shows the mentality of this era as vécu; Augustine will make it thematique with his famous phrase "securus iudicat orbis terrarum." (Fs)