Brief Response On Rodimus and Tertullian by Carlos Antonio Palad

Church Fathers, frescoes

Rodimus recently accused our esteemed Brother Marwil of hypocrisy for quoting Tertullian in favor of Blessed Mary as the New Eve, only to quote St. Jerome (who criticizes Tertullian as not belonging to the Church) in favor of the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary. Thus, according to Rodimus, Marwil is engaging in Church Father-hopping and hypocrisy.

First, a few historical facts:

1) Quintius Septimius Florens Tertullianus was born c. 160, and converted to Catholicism in 195 AD. Around 200 AD he was ordained a priest.

2) Tertullian's Catholic period lasted for about 11 years (195 - 206 AD). It is his writings from this period that are mostly quoted by Catholic theologians and writers as witnesses to the steadfast doctrine of the Church.

3) Beginning in 206 AD, Tertullian began to be dissatisfied with the "laxity" of the Roman Church, and fell into the Montanist heresy. A few years later, Tertullian formed his own sect, the Tertullianists. The Montanist and Tertullianist heresies taught, among other things, that some sins can never be forgiven at all by bishops and priests. Tertullian died in 220; more than 200 years later, his last remaining followers were converted by St. Augustine to the Catholic faith.

4) The writings of Tertullian c. 206-220 fall within his heretical period. However, just as 1+1=2 does not become wrong simply because it is uttered by an idiot, so not everything Tertullian wrote in 206-220 can be considered as heretical. Thus, where the teachings of Tertullian even in his Montanist period are in complete conformity with the writings in his Catholic period, the relevant quotes may still be cited as witnesses to apostolic teaching.

To pick an analogy: no Protestant divine worth his theology degree would say that either Martin Luther or John Calvin is infallible in all things. Indeed, most Protestants would say that they taught major errors in this or that area of doctrine. Nevertheless, most Protestants still draw from the writings of these Reformers for inspiration and learning, because the fact that they committed errors here or there does not (in their view) vitiate the fact that they were "right" on so many other things.

So, isn't this "pick and choose"? No, it is not.

In citing the Church Fathers, five things ought to be kept in mind:

A) Individual Church Fathers are not infallible. We Catholics never cite a particular Church Father because we think he is infallible, and because a citation from him is of its nature irrefutable. Even St. Augustine -- considered by Roman Catholics as the greatest of the Fathers -- was not infallible in all things.

B) Rather, when we cite the Church Fathers, it is in the context of what we call the "Consensus Patrum", or the Consensus of the Fathers. The Consensus Patrum may be defined as the broad agreement among the great majority of the Church Fathers, from the very first Apostolic Fathers down to the last Church Fathers (generally held to be St. Bede the Venerable in the West and St. John Damascene in the East), on the truthfulness, reliability and apostolic origin of certain teachings.

C) Thus, when we cite the Fathers on this or that issue, they are cited not so much because of their individual authority, but because their testimony on a certain doctrine constitutes yet another link in the golden chain of testimonials stretching from one generation of Fathers down to the next, proving that a certain belief is indeed that which "has been believed everywhere, always, by all" (St. Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, #6). Indeed, as St. Vincent of Lerins further declares in the same paragraph:

"For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors..."

D) In proving the antiquity and universality of a particular doctrine, and the consent of the body of the Christian faithful to it, it may even be useful (albeit not necessary) to quote heretics and dissidents who testify to the truths of Catholic doctrine -- for the fact that even these enemies of the Church are forced by their own convictions to testify to the truth of Catholic teaching, is an added motive to believe in the worthiness of these teachings. Thus, Catholics do not hesitate to point out the sayings of the first Protestant Reformers on the Blessed Virgin Mary. All the more reason, then, for Catholics to quote from people such as Tertullian, who at least spent part of his life as an ardent defender of the Church.

E) Finally, to the charge that the Church Fathers do not agree on all things; where there are serious disagreements among the Church Fathers, one must have recourse to the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, which definitively settle what is correct doctrine and what is not. Far from rendering superfluous the testimonies of the Fathers, the testimonies of the Church Fathers to the truth of a teaching of an Ecumenical Council BEFORE that Council was ever held, proves that said Council did not invent a novel teaching, but merely ratified and confirmed the tradition handed down from one generation of Church Fathers down to the next.

Thus, the reason why the Fathers are always read not in isolation, but always in the context of the testimony of all the other Church Fathers. Where sufficient Church Fathers from the very first century of the Church down to the sunset of the Patristic age (c. 8th century) testify to the truthfulness of a certain teaching, then we may be certain that it is the authentic tradition handed down from the Apostles. To repeat: a single quote from a Church Father is never sufficient or decisive in itself, but an unbroken chain of testimonies from one Father to the next is not to be contradicted.

When Brother Marwil cites Tertullian, it is not because Tertullian is an infallible authority. Rather, the value of Tertullian lies in the fact that he is one of the links in the unbroken chain of Patristic testimonies to Mary as the New Eve. His testimony is, to use the terminology of St. Vincent of Lerins, one of the proofs of the antiquity and universality of early Christian belief in the exalted state of the Blessed Virgin.