Melchior Cano on the Consensus of the Fathers in Interpreting Sacred Scripture

 Melchior Cano was a Counter-Reformation era theologian and professor of theology at Salamanca. His work, De Locis Theologicis, makes for one of the earliest and most detailed expositions of the sources of theology for Roman Catholics. In the seventh book of this work, he outlines the various levels of authority given to different opinions based upon their matter (what they are about) and consent (how many Early Church Fathers oppose or agree). In chapter three of this book, Cano lays down his fifth conclusion: "in the exposition of sacred literature, the common understanding of all the ancient saints provides the theologian with a most certain argument for corroborating theological assertions since the sense of all the saints is the sense of the Holy Spirit Himself." In the subsequent pages, he proves this assertion from Christian tradition. This list of quotations, often called a florilegium, will be reproduced below based upon a translation of the entire book I made (which can be read here). For this florilegium, I will also give hyperlinks to websites with the same English translation. In places where no other English translation exists, I have linked the volume of Migne which includes that work. 

"Invoking then Jesus, the Paternal Light, the Real, the True, 'which lighteth every man coming into the world,' 'through Whom we have access to the Father,' Source of Light, let us aspire, as far as is attainable, to the illuminations handed down by our fathers in the most sacred Oracles, and let us gaze, as we may, upon the Hierarchies of the Heavenly Minds manifested by them symbolically for our instruction." (Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Heavenly Hierarchy, Chapter I, Section 2)

"Let us, then, keep the precepts of our forefathers, nor with rude and reckless daring profane the symbols bequeathed to us. That sealed book of prophecy, whereof we have heard, neither elders, nor powers, nor angels, nor archangels, ventured to open; for Christ alone is reserved the peculiar right of opening it. Who among us dare unseal the book of the priesthood, sealed by confessors, and long hallowed by the testimony of many? They who have been constrained to unseal, nevertheless have since, respecting the deceit put upon them, sealed again; they who dared not lay sacrilegious hands upon it, have stood forth as martyrs and confessors. How can we deny the Faith held by those whose victory we proclaim?" (Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book III, Chapter 15)

"They must be very careful to pursue that course which, in the beginning of this Commonitory, we said that holy and learned men had commended to us, that is to say, they must interpret the sacred Canon according to the traditions of the Universal Church and in keeping with the rules of Catholic doctrine, in which Catholic and Universal Church, moreover, they must follow universality, antiquity, consent. And if at any time a part opposes itself to the whole, novelty to antiquity, the dissent of one or a few who are in error to the consent of all or at all events of the great majority of Catholics, then they must prefer the soundness of the whole to the corruption of a part; in which same whole they must prefer the religion of antiquity to the profaneness of novelty." (Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, Chapter 27)

"For those are slothful who, having it in their power to provide themselves with proper proofs for the divine Scriptures from the Scriptures themselves, select only what contributes to their own pleasures. And those have a craving for glory who voluntarily evade, by arguments of a diverse sort, the things delivered by the blessed apostles and teachers, which are wedded to inspired words; opposing the divine tradition by human teachings, in order to establish the heresy. For, in truth, what remained to be said — in ecclesiastical knowledge I mean — by such men, Marcion, for example, or Prodicus, and such like, who did not walk in the right way? For they could not have surpassed their predecessors in wisdom, so as to discover anything in addition to what had been uttered by them; for they would have been satisfied had they been able to learn the things laid down before." (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book VII, Chapter 16)

“But it is argued that they i.e. the Scriptures seemed there to make absurd statements. I respond: On whose assertion? Forsooth on that of enemies, for whatever cause, for whatever reason, for this is not now the question, still enemies. Upon reading, I found it so of myself. Is it so? Without having received any instruction in poetry, you would not dare to read Terentianus Maurus without a master: Asper, Cornutus, Donatus, and others without number are needed, that any poet whatever may be understood, whose strains seem to court even the applause of the theatre; do you in the case of those books, which, however they may be, yet by the confession of nearly the whole human race are commonly reported to be sacred and full of divine things, rush upon them without a guide, and dare to deliver an opinion on them without a teacher; and, if there meet you any matters, which seem absurd, do not accuse rather your own dullness, and mind decayed by the corruption of this world, such as is that of all that are foolish, than those books which haply cannot be understood by such persons! You should seek some one at once pious and learned, or who by consent of many was said to be such, that you might be both bettered by his advice, and instructed by his learning." (Augustine, On the Profit of Believing, Chapter 17)

"And immediately, in the beginning of Genesis, I found the first of Origen's Homilies written about Melchizedek, in which, disputing with many words, he went so far as to call him an Angel. And with almost the same arguments which your writer made concerning the Holy Spirit, Origen spoke about the divine virtues. I went to Didymus, his follower, and beheld a man who had marched against the opinion of his master. I turned to Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Eusebius of Caesaria, and Emisenus, also Apollinaris, and our Eustathius, who was the first Bishop of the Church of Antioch to sound the most famous war trumpet against Arius: and I discovered that the opinions of all these, through various arguments and diversions, had reached one common ground, that they said that Melchizedek was a Canaanite man...You have heard what I have heard, what I have read about Melchizedek. It was mine to cite the witnesses: it is yours to judge of the faith of the witnesses. But if you reject them all, you certainly have no grounds to accept that spiritual interpreter of yours, who, unskilled in speech and knowledge, pronounced the Holy Spirit of Melchizedek with such a loftiness and authority that he proved that most true saying which is sung among the Greeks, 'Imperfection gives confidence, learning gives fear.'" (Jerome, Letter 73 Ad Evangelum Presbyterum, Chapter 2)

"In Holy Scripture what else do we understand by foundations but holy preachers? For since God had placed them first in the Church, the whole structure of the subsequent fabric has risen up upon them... What else do we understand by the foundations of this earth, but the teachers of Holy Church? For columns are raised on the bases, and on the columns the weight of the whole fabric is raised. Holy teachers are then not improperly designated by the name of bases. For while they preach what is right, and in life accord with their preaching, they uphold the whole weight of the Church by the fixed gravity of their manners." (Gregory the Great, Morals in Job, Book XXVIII, Chapter 5)

"But Cappadocia was no less fertile than either of these; if anything, it gave us an even richer crop in Gregory and Basil... Both were of high station, both studied in Athens where they were fellow students, and both upon leaving the lecture hall were sought after as rhetoricians. But as wonderfully as Basil practiced this art, Gregory still more wonderfully disdained it. And since he had given himself wholly to God’s service, he presumed upon his companion’s love to such an extent that he removed Basil from the professor’s chair which he was occupying and forced him to accompany him to a monastic house, where for thirteen years, they say, having put aside all the writings of the worldly pagans, they gave their attention solely to the books of holy scripture, the understanding of which they did not presume to derive from themselves, but from the writings and authority of those of old who were themselves known to have received the rule of understanding from apostolic tradition. They sought the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in these vessels of clay by examining their commentaries on the prophets in particular." (Rufinus, History of the Church, Book XI, Chapter 9)

"Therefore, most beloved brethren, let us undoubtedly ascend to Sacred Scripture through the probable expositions of the Fathers, as by a kind of ladder of vision; so that, advanced by their senses, we may merit to arrive effectively at the contemplation of the Lord. For this is like Jacob's ladder by which the angels ascend and descend, on which the Lord leans, extending his hand to the weary, supporting the weary as they comes to him in contemplation. Wherefore, since it is good, we ought to observe this order of reading: that first the novices of Christ, after they have learned the Psalms, should meditate by constant exercise upon the divine authority contained in the codices free from error, so that, Lord willing, it may become most familiar to them." (Cassiodorus, Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning, Preface)

"But it is not only on this point of pre-existence that the deranged Origenists err and go astray from the straight road  (such impiety would be tolerable in comparison with their other evils), but they also make myriads of other statements contrary to the tradition of the apostles and our Fathers. They throw out the planting of paradise, they do not want Adam fashioned in the flesh, they object to the moulding of Eve from him, they reject the utterance of the snake, they forbid the ranks of heavenly armies as they were created to be in the beginning by God, imagining that they resulted from a primordial condemnation and deviation. They dream up, both godlessly and mythically, that all rational things were produced in a henad of minds, and they abuse the creation of the waters above heaven, and want an end to the punishment of Hell, and they introduce besides total corruptibility of all perceptible things..." (Sophronius, Synodal Letter to Constantinople II, Profession of Faith in Creation)

"It behooves those who preside over the churches, every day but especially on Lord's days, to teach all the clergy and people words of piety and of right religion, gathering out of holy Scripture meditations and determinations of the truth, and not going beyond the limits now fixed, nor varying from the tradition of the God-bearing fathers. And if any controversy in regard to Scripture shall have been raised, let them not interpret it otherwise than as the lights and doctors of the church in their writings have expounded it, and in those let them glory rather than in composing things out of their own heads, lest through their lack of skill they may have departed from what was fitting. For through the doctrine of the aforesaid fathers, the people coming to the knowledge of what is good and desirable, as well as what is useless and to be rejected, will remodel their life for the better, and not be led by ignorance, but applying their minds to the doctrine, they will take heed that no evil befall them and work out their salvation in fear of impending punishment." (Council of Trullo, Canon 19)

"We follow in all things the holy fathers and doctors of the church Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Theophilus, John of Constantinople, Cyril, Leo, Proclus, and we accept all that they have expounded concerning the right faith and the condemnation of heretics, and we also accept other holy and orthodox fathers who in the holy Church of God preached the right faith irreproachably until the end of their lives." (Emperor Justinian I, Letter to Constantinople II, Session I apud Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, Book IV, Canon 99)

"The statutes of the canons are to be observed by all without prejudice, and no one in actions or in ecclesiastical judgments is to be guided by his own sense, but rather in remembrance of their authority. In expounding or preaching the Sacred Scriptures, let everyone follow the sense of the holy Catholic Fathers which are greatly approved, and, in whose writings, as the blessed Jerome says, ‘the truth of the faith does not waver.’” (Council of Melda, Canon 11 apud Burchard of Worms, Decretum, Book I, Canon 61)

"We command all who undertake this task of preaching, or will later undertake it, to preach and expound the gospel truth and holy scripture in accordance with the exposition, interpretation and commentaries that the church or long use has approved and has accepted for teaching until now, and will accept in the future, without any addition contrary to its true meaning or in conflict with it. They are always to insist on the meanings which are in harmony with the words of sacred scripture and with the interpretations, properly and wisely understood, of the doctors mentioned." (Fifth Lateran Council, Session XI)

"Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,– in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, – wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, – whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,–hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never  (intended) to be at any time published." (Council of Trent, Session IV, Decree Concerning the Addition and Use of the Sacred Books)