가톨릭 교회의 권위가 나를 이끌어주지 않는다면,
나는 복음서라 해도 믿지 않겠노라.
Ego vero evangelico non credrem,
nisi me catholicae Ecclessiae commoveret auctorictas.
- 성 아우구스티노
Now Augustine maintained that her[Catholic Church] authority had to be accepted so completely that he stated he would not have believed the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church had vouched for it.
- 레오 10세. 주여, 일어나소서 EXSURGE DOMINE
"St Augustine is quoted as having written in the book against the Letter of the Manicheans, "I would not believe the Gospel if I did not believe the Church." Here you see we are to believe the Church more than the Gospel.
I
answer: Even if Augustine had used those words, who gave him authority,
that we must believe what he says? What Scripture does he quote to
prove the statement? What if he erred here, as we know that he
frequently did, as did all the fathers? Should one single sentence of
Augustine be so mighty as to refute all the texts quoted above [Luther had quoted a variety of texts proving the supreme authority of Scripture]? That is not what God wills; St. Augustine must yield to them.
Further,
if that were St. Augustine's meaning he would contradict himself; for
in very many places he exalts the HoIy Scriptures above the opinions of
all teachers, above the decrees of all councils and churches, and will
have men judge of him and of the teachings of all men according to the
Scriptures. Why then do the faithful shepherds pass by those sayings of
St. Augustine, plain and clear as they are, and light on this lonely
one, which is so obscure and sounds so unlike Augustine as we know him
from all his writings? It can only be because they want to bolster up
their tyranny with idle, empty words.
Furthermore,
they are deceivers, in that they not only ascribe to St. Augustine an
opinion he did not hold, but they also falsify and pervert his words.
For St. Augustine's words really are 'I would not have believed the Gospel if the authority of the whole Church had not moved me.'
Augustine
speaks of the whole Church, and says that throughout the world it with
one consent preaches the Gospel and not the Letter of the Manicheans;
and this unanimous authority of the Church moves him to consider it the
true Gospel. But our tyrants apply this name of the Church to
themselves, as if the laymen and the common people were not also
Christians. And what they teach they want men to consider as the
teaching of the Christian Church, although, they are a minority, and we,
who are universal Christendom, should also be consulted about what is
to be taught in the name of universal Christendom. See, so cleverly do
they quote the words of St. Augustine: what he says of the Church
throughout all the world, they would have us understand of the Roman
See.
But
how does it follow from this saying that the doctrines of men are also
to be observed? What doctrine of men has ever been devised that has been
accepted and preached by all of the universal Church throughout the
world? Not one; the Gospel alone is accepted by all Christians
everywhere.
But
then we must not understand St. Augustine to say that he would not
believe the Gospel unless he were moved thereto by the authority of the
whole Church. For that were false and unchristian. Every man must
believe only because it is God's Word, and because he in convinced in
his heart that it is true, although an, angel from heaven and all the
world preached the contrary. His meaning is rather, as he himself says,
that he finds the Gospel nowhere except in the Church, and that this
external proof can be given heretics that their doctrine is not right,
but that that is right which all the world has with one accord accepted.
For the eunuch in Acts viii, 37, believed on the Gospel as preached by
Philip, although he did not know whether many or few believed on it. So
also Abraham believed the promise of God all by himself, when no man
knew of it, Romans iv, 18. And Mary, Luke i, 38, believed the message of
Gabriel by herself, and there was no one on earth who believed with
her. In this way Augustine also had to believe, and all the saints, and
we too, every one for himself alone.
For
this reason St. Augustine's words cannot bear the interpretation they
put upon them; but they must be understood of the external proof of
faith, by which heretics are refuted and the weak strengthened in faith,
when they see that all the world preaches and regards as Gospel that
which they believe. And if this meaning cannot be found in St.
Augustine's words; for they are contrary to the Scriptures and all to
experience if they have that other meaning."
Source: Martin Luther, That Doctrines of Men Are to be Rejected Together With A Reply to Texts Quoted in Defence of the Doctrines of Men (1522), Works of Martin Luther Volume II (The Philadelphia Edition), Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1943, pp. 451-453.
Also, in a Tabletalk entry Luther is reported to have said the following:
Belief in the Gospel Because of the Church? (April 6, 1539)
“In the passage, ‘I would not believe the gospel unless the authority of the church urged me to,’
Augustine++ never wished to embrace the opinion of the papists. He
didn’t want to write what should be believed but what should be judged,
as another passage indicates, ‘I do not wish you to believe my writings more than the Holy Scripture.’+
But the sophists++ poked fun at Paul for having written obscurely and
confusedly. Ah, dear God, this treasure of the Holy Scriptures belongs
only to a contrite heart and a humble and God-fearing spirit. The
ungodly must be exposed and their boasting put down. This is what
Stephen did in Acts 7 [:2–53], where he spoke against the place of
Jerusalem, against the law, against the prosperous people, against a
demanding God. Truly it was an excellent and sharp sermon! In the Roman
church today the glory of the church is not at all comparable with the
glory of Jerusalem and of the people Israel.”
Source: LW 54:344
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Odd how Luther turns Augustine's statement on its head.
Let's read more Augustine:
"Entreat
of God to set you free from the evil of error; if your heart be set on a
happy life. And this will take place the more easily, if you obey with a
willing mind His commands, which He hath willed should be confirmed by
so great authority of the catholic Church. " ("On the profit of
believing")
And so we see for Augustine, the church is not merely
defined by who believes the gospel (Donatists anyone??), but the church
itself has an authority to confirm what God's commands actually are.
"But
should you meet with a person not yet believing the gospel, how would
you reply to him were he to say, I do not believe? For my part, I should
not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic
Church.5 So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe
in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichaeus, how can I but
consent? Take your choice. If you say, Believe the Catholics: their
advice to me is to put no faith in you; so that, believing them, I am
precluded from believing you; — If you say, Do not believe the
Catholics: you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in
Manichaeus; for it was at the command of the Catholics that I believed
the gospel; — Again, if you say, You were right in believing the
Catholics when they praised the gospel, but wrong in believing their
vituperation of Manichaeus: do you think me such a fool as to believe or
not to believe as you like or dislike, without any reason? It is
therefore fairer and safer by far for me, having in one instance put
faith in the Catholics, not to go over to you, till, instead of bidding
me believe, you make me understand something in the clearest and most
open manner. To convince me, then, you must put aside the gospel. If you
keep to the gospel, I will keep to those who commanded me to believe
the gospel; and, in obedience to them, I will not believe you at all.
But if haply you should succeed in finding in the gospel an
incontrovertible testimony to the apostleship of Manichaeus, you will
weaken my regard for the authority of the Catholics who bid me not to
believe you; and the effect of that will be, that I shall no longer be
able to believe the gospel either, for it was through the Catholics that
I got my faith in it; and so, whatever you bring from the gospel will
no longer have any weight with me. Wherefore, if no clear proof of the
apostleship of Manichaeus is found in the gospel, I will believe the
Catholics rather than you. But if you read thence some passage clearly
in favor of Manichaeus, I will believe neither them nor you: not them,
for they lied to me about you; nor you, for you quote to me that
Scripture which I had believed on the authority of those liars. But far
be it that I should not believe the gospel; for believing it, I find no
way of believing you too. For the names of the apostles, as there
recorded,6 do not include the name of Manichaeus. And who the successor
of Christ’s betrayer was we read in the Acts of the Apostles;7 which
book I must needs believe if I believe the gospel, since both writings
alike Catholic authority commends to me. The same book contains the
well-known narrative of the calling and apostleship of Paul.8 Read me
now, if you can, in the gospel where Manichaeus is called an apostle, or
in any other book in which I have professed to believe."
It's hard to believe Luther even read Augustine in context here. It's basically an argument about apostolic succession.
Notice
where Augustine says that he wouldn't even contemplate Manichaeus'
teaching on the basis of an argument from the gospels, because the only
reason he believes the gospels is because of the catholics. In other
words, Augustine recognizes the epistemological contradiction in
following these gospel books purely on their own to contradict the
church who is the only authority in the world given to say that this
gospel is the true one, and all the others false gospels. Augustine
recognizes that to give up recognizing that authority, all the other
gospels, whether gnostic or by other heretical groups would have equal
claims. So to entertain an argument from the gospels by an heretical
group is equally as nonsense.
"Cyprian indeed, now that
the corruptible body no longer presseth down the soul, nor the earthly
tabernacle presseth down the mind that museth upon many things,1 sees
with greater clearness that truth to which his charity made him
deserving to attain. May he therefore help us by his prayers, while we
labor in the mortality of the flesh as in a darksome cloud, that if the
Lord so grant it, we may imitate so far as we can the good that was in
him. But if he thought otherwise than right on any point, and persuaded
certain of his brethren and colleagues to entertain his views in a
matter which he now sees clearly through the revelation of Him whom he
loved, let us, who are far inferior to his merits, yet following, as our
weakness will allow, the authority of the Catholic Church of which he
was himself a conspicuous and most noble member, strive our utmost
against heretics and schismatics, seeing that they, being cut off from
the unity which he maintained, and barren of the love with which he was
fruitful, and fallen away from the humility in which he stood, are
disavowed and condemned the more by him, in proportion as he knows that
they wish to search out his writings for purposes of treachery, and are
unwilling to imitate what he did for the maintainance of peace" -
Against the Manachaens
Here Augustine puts unity in the catholic
church as a more noble and humble state than even being in the truth.
Those "cut off from the unity" of the church are to be condemned and
Cyprian to be praised regardless of whether Cyprian taught error and
schismatics did or not. The reason is Cyprian was in the catholic
church.
"In what class, then, do we place baptized infants but
amongst believers, as the authority of the catholic Church everywhere
asserts? They belong, therefore, among those who have believed; for this
is obtained for them by virtue of the sacrament and the answer of their
sponsors." Augustine "on the baptism of infants".
Augustine
here justifies his teaching, not on the authority of scripture, but on
the authority of "the catholic church everywhere".
Read Augustine
in his context and know that Luther didn't know what he was talking
about as far as what Augustine taught. Of course, the reason is clear:
Luther was a modern day Manichaeus, asking us to believe him over the
catholic church, and he knew or should have known that Augustine's own
words condemned him.
"But if haply you should succeed in finding
in the gospel an incontrovertible testimony to the apostleship of
Manichaeus, you will weaken my regard for the authority of the Catholics
who bid me not to believe you; and the effect of that will be, that I
shall no longer be able to believe the gospel either, for it was through
the Catholics that I got my faith in it; and so, whatever you bring
from the gospel will no longer have any weight with me. "
Augustine's words were:
Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae Ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas. (PL 42:176)
The
verbs in both protasis and apodosis are imperfect subjunctives. In
classical Latin this is the normal syntax of a contrary to fact present
condition. The translation would then be:
"I would not believe the gospel unless the authority of the Catholic church moved me."
Historically,
many Protestant scholars have argued that Augustine substitutes the
imperfect here for the pluperfect, which would make the statement
correspond in meaning to a past contrary to fact condition. The
translation in that case would be:
"I would not have believed the gospel unless the authority of the Catholic church (had) moved me."
Warfield was critical of this reading. See his article on Augustine's Doctrine of Knowledge and Authority
in the Princeton Theological Review (Oct. 1907). He said that "It is a
counsel of despair, for example, to represent Augustine as
employing--'in accordance with the usage of the African dialect'--the
imperfect in a pluperfect sense."
Whether Warfield is right, I
don't know. In the bit of Augustine's Latin that I have read, I do
remember noticing the imperfect being used where the pluperfect would be
expected. But Warfield knew far more about Latin and about Augustine
than I do.
Since we are throwing out Augustine quotes...
"God alone swears securely, because He alone is infallible." -Augustine, Exp on Psalm 89
"For, in the next place, that I may not seem to rest on mere human arguments, — since there is so much obscurity in this question, that in earlier ages of the Church, before the schism of Donatus, it has caused men of great weight, and even our fathers, the bishops, whose hearts were full of charity, so to dispute and doubt among themselves, saving always the peace of the Church, that the several statutes of their Councils in their different districts long varied from each other, till at length the most wholesome opinion was established, to the removal of ALL DOUBTS, by a plenary Council of the WHOLE WORLD" - On Baptism, Against the Donatists
It seems to me that you are the one committing anachronism, if anyone. If an authority is able to state something removing ALL DOUBT, then it was infallible, and your thesis has failed, no matter how many talking heads you want to quote. Augustine distinguishes plenary councils of Africa with ecumenical plenary councils, which can remove all doubt on a question.Reply
"
“In the passage, ‘I would not believe the gospel unless the authority
of the church urged me to,’ Augustine never wished to embrace the
opinion of the papists."
EPrhaps SOMEONE ought to try
actually reading Augustine himself rather than this propaganda-filtered
pap. Augustine was as Catholic as they come. He believed in the
apostolic authority of the Catholic Church, the authority of the Holy
See of Peter, the authority of Sacred Scripture and the authority of
Sacred Rradition.
The pop-apologetic claim that Augustine was
some sort of pre-Protestantism Protestant is intellectual dishonesty of
the first order. The credibility of those who advance such patently
absurd revisions of history is utterly shot to bits, having the same
weight as that of "Vatican supercomputer" claimants.
E i E
Regardless of anyone's fallible view on St Augustine's position (which nonetheless history has proven to be fully Catholic), the whole "Sola Scriptura" debate has to be brought back to the original Authority, Christ Himself, who granted the Apostles His authority in this great commission: " Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you...". His commission was to teach and baptize, not to write a book. The foundation of the Church is apostolic teaching and authority, not the Bible.
ReplyRe: "His commission was to teach and baptize, not to write a book."
Yes.
If God had wanted the Bible and the indwelling Holy Spirit to be the
ultimate authority for every believer -- which is what I believed, back
when I was Protestant -- why didn't Jesus and the apostles invent the
printing press? Why, instead, did God send His Son into a world where a
book cost a years' wage? Indeed, why did he send His Son into a world
with 99% illiteracy, if indeed His Gospel depended on both widespread
literacy and affordable Bibles for everyone?
The Protestant God seems to have set up his children, way back in the first Christian centuries, to fail.
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