COROLLARY VII.
Let no one deny that a consensus of the Fathers which is commended by universality, which was defended against heretics, asserted by testimonies of the Bible, fortified by arguments of every kind, proposed publicly and solemnly, and held as a rule by which the gravest questions concerning repentance and reconciliation were settled, contains dogmatic and apostolic tradition. That is, indeed, the tradition whose force and decisive authority for producing faith were explained most diligently above the rest by Tertullian1, Hegesippus2, and Irenaeus in six hundred places3, who among other things has the following4: “Having received this preaching and this faith, as we have said before, the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world, guards it diligently, as if inhabiting one house; and she believes these things similarly, namely, as if having one soul and one heart; and harmoniously she preaches and teaches and hands down these things, as if possessing one mouth. For although the languages in the world are dissimilar, nevertheless the force of tradition is one and the same. Neither do the Churches founded in Germany believe otherwise or hand down otherwise, nor those among the Iberians, nor those among the Celts, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those constituted in the middle of the world.” Moreover, Tertullian adds, this force of tradition, this rule instituted by Christ, has no questions among us except those which heresies introduce and which make heretics.
Now we have brought forward that consensus which shines by universality, which was constantly not another but one and the same—
—among the Italians5, Gauls6, Spaniards7, English8, Africans9, Egyptians10, Easterners11, Syrians12, inhabitants of Thrace, Pontus, and Asia13, and finally Palestinians14; which the doctors of the Church defended against heretics, vindicated by the oracles of the Bible and other arguments, publicly and solemnly proposed, and held in the place of a rule and norm by which they might establish true and sincere doctrines concerning repentance and reconciliation. Therefore there is at hand for us a dogmatic and apostolic tradition which permits no questions among Christians and from which no one departs without manifest danger to the faith. “For after the Apostles and Prophets,” as Leontius of Byzantium most truly admonished in his first book against Nestorius and Eutyches, “God placed doctors in the Church, according to the incomprehensible providence of the Holy Spirit, for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ. Wherefore he who does not receive those Fathers who are illustrious and celebrated in the Church plainly resists the ordinance and constitution of God.”