I. What, according to the divine economy instituted by our Lord, are the roles of the Church when there is question of knowing revelation, I think is unknown to no one from those things which, in the treatise On Faith, we disputed in the preceding year. For we said that the magisterium of the Church is the most obvious means, and the means most adapted to the nature of the matter, by which the existence of revelation becomes certainly known; that, apart from the Church, anyone is unequal to attaining the deposit of revelation integrally; finally, that the one Church can propose to men, by an authentic magisterium, the genuine understanding of revelation.
II. In these things we included whatever pertains to the rule of faith, which they call the proximate rule. These things, however, as we noted there, could not be established unless we held as certain that the divine Church exists, endowed with all the prerogatives and gifts with which Christ loved to adorn Her, and especially with that perennial charism of infallibility, by which, being enriched, in the place of Christ Himself, she would never cease to enlighten every man until the consummation of the age. The things
therefore, which there we assumed as established, here we have attempted, according to our powers, to unfold and to corroborate with the strongest arguments.
III. Nor was the labor to be confined within these limits. It was necessary to begin from religion itself; from there, when the general questions concerning it had been completed, we made our way to revelation. After we had established its possibility, its necessity, and its very existence, we strove to show that the Christian religion alone is true. Thus, while we took care to refute the errors of atheism, naturalism, and rationalism, widely spreading in our age, we came by a ready course to the Church, since She is the Christian religion itself existing in the concrete.
IV. In this twofold treatment, namely of religion and the Church, we have not ceased to listen to the magisterium of the Church Herself, as it becomes known especially from the encyclicals, allocutions, and Syllabus of the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX, and also from the Vatican Council. The true and integral constitution of the Church had to be carefully set forth, and Her prerogatives and rights had to be defended from the assaults of adversaries; and this, indeed, in such a way that we would assail not only the perverse errors of heretics, but also the opinions of certain men whom, Catholics in name only but in reality most hostile enemies of the Church, you would rightly and deservedly call such. When at last we narrowed our discourse to the visible head of the Church, nothing was of greater importance to us than that we should have the Constitution “Pastor Aeternus” as the norm and rule of the matters to be treated. Accordingly, we endeavored to examine its individual chapters in order, to explain them with lights gathered from every side, to strengthen them with the firmest arguments, and also, with what force was possible, to defend them against all the attacks of adversaries; so that, in this whole part of our treatment, we may seem to have presented, as it were, a commentary on that constitution.
V. It is scarcely necessary for us to indicate that those things which were disputed in the preceding year were of no small assistance to us. For there we said many things concerning the office of the Church and of reason in the matter of faith, which are also suitably referred here; there we met many objections which we judged it necessary to cast down in that place, and which this year it was possible only to indicate, referring readers there for a fuller explanation of the same. We did this deliberately, lest the bulk of this treatment grow too much; and yet we could not be briefer. For very many questions presented themselves which it was right neither to omit altogether nor, considering the gravity of the matter, to dispatch in a briefer discourse.
VI. Finally, to those reading these disputations of ours it will certainly be clear that we have so used, when there was occasion, the authority and doctrine of all the greatest theologians, and especially of Suarez and Bellarmine, but above all of the chief of all, Saint Thomas, that sometimes we have copied their very words. This was done deliberately; for, as we noted in our preceding treatises, “we thought regard should be had for those for whom those authors cannot be at hand; also because the things which are heard as handed down by so many and such great men are received with greater reverence; and finally, and especially, so that the minds of young men may gradually become accustomed to their way of treating questions and to their accustomed language, and thus, with the help of the Master, after they have overcome the first difficulties which occur in turning them over, they may more easily thereafter, when the course of theology has been completed, be drawn to approach those sources.” Nevertheless, as was fitting, we have by no means neglected the works of more recent authors; indeed, to all these, whose names you will find cited here and there in the course of the treatment, we give very many thanks from this very beginning of the work, frankly confessing that we have profited very greatly from their labors and doctrine.
VII. And, lest I detain the readers longer, one thing I ask again and again: that if they gain any profit from this elaboration, either for leading back into the fold of Christ those who are situated outside the Church, or for confirming in the true love of the Christian religion those who are obedient to the Church, they would refer all of it, as received, solely to the Supreme Bestower of every gift.