24 September 2007

Patristic Quote for the Day

The City of God believes the Old and New Testaments accepted as canonical. Out of these she formulates that faith according to which the just man lives. And in the light of this faith we walk without fear of stumbling so long as "we are exiled from the Lord." This perfectly certain faith apart, other things which have not been sensibly or intellectually experienced nor clearly revealed in canonical Scripture, nor vouchsafed for by witnesses whom it is reasonable to believe - these we can doubt and nobody in justice can take us to task for this. -- St. Augustine, *City of God* Book XIX, Chapter 18

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fr. Weedon,

"...nor vouchsafed for by witnesses whom it is reasonable to believe-these we can doubt..."

This sounds like an Augustinian endorsement of Sacra Traditio or Catholic Principle, as you Lutherans like to call it. I don't believe you were trying to use this as a sola scriptura argument, though I can see how some people would pick this quote apart so that it did become that.