Traditio et Redditio Symboli. Il nostro “sì” a Dio

P. Robert Dodaro, O.S.A.
Preside dell’Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum della Pontificia Università Lateranense (Roma)

Traditio et redditio Symboli. Our “yes” to God

What can the Fathers of the Church tell us about catechesis in our contemporary world? How can respect for the Church’s Tradition be balanced with a catechetical method and language suited to the times and cultures in which we live? In discussing these questions, I shall speak about a subject which, as far as I know, has been completely neglected in theology, although it concerns a technique that is as old as ancient Greek literature and as contemporary to Catholic theology as the Second Vatican Council or even the recent encyclical letter of Pope Francis, Lumen fidei.

The technique I refer to is called “linguistic propriety”. This technique was deeply embedded in ancient Greek and Latin rhetoric, and the success of the Church Fathers in evangelizing and catechizing the Roman Empire lay in their outstanding grasp of this art form. Greek rhetoricians treated linguistic propriety under the umbrella category of to prepon; the Romans, who inherited it from the Greeks, referred to it as aptum or decus. Linguistic propriety is concerned generally with determining what is suitable and fitting in oral or written discourse. In its most fundamental and external sense it seeks to establish a congruence between the speaker’s ideas and the language used to express them. In gauging this harmony, the speaker must choose language that is appropriate to the audience and to the circumstances of the speech. In fact, the English word “appropriate”, in its current usage, captures the essence of what the ancients meant by propriety. Both the speaker and the audience have a certain dignity or status which should not be ignored. In fact, the category of linguistic propriety is deeply anchored in the ancient Greek and Roman sense of honor and honorableness. Hence, if I say something in this conference that offends you, you could say that my speech was “inappropriate”, and in doing so you will have made a judgment concerning linguistic propriety. Similarly if the language I use to communicate my ideas is unclear because the vocabulary I employ is too technical for this audience, I shall have failed in my task of linguistic propriety. Linguistic propriety in this external sense thus requires on the part of the speaker a kind of “triangular awareness” in deciding on language appropriate to the speaker, subject matter and audience. Linguistic propriety is achieved only when the discourse harmonizes these three elements.[1]

As I said, what I have described so far is linguistic propriety considered in an external sense, that is, between speaker and audience. But considered in its internal sense, linguistic propriety is even more important for catechesis. This internal, linguistic propriety fundamentally concerns the agreement or harmony between words and the ideas they represent. The key question here is, “How accurately do my words match the teachings I want to communicate?” But this kind of internal linguistic propriety can also be applied to comparisons between two texts, both of which are intended to express the same idea. In this case the key question can be put this way, “How closely do the words in one text correspond to the words in the other text and to the idea that both texts are supposed to express?”

Because linguistic propriety concerns itself with the entire array of linguistic issues surrounding the communication of ideas, the Fathers of the Church employed it as a general category for assessing the verbal precision and suitability of theological discourses in their day. Allow me to give two examples. In fourth-century Gaul, St Hilary of Poitiers argued on the basis of linguistic propriety when he tried to convince western and eastern bishops that they could accept in good faith each of their very different theological formulations for expressing the equality of the Son’s divine nature with the Father’s divine nature. Hilary wanted to reconcile the eastern and western bishops by reconciling their theological language. In a different context, when Marius Victorinus argued on the basis of internal linguistic propriety that “three subsistencies” was a more precise translation of the doctrinally recognized, Greek expression “three hypostases”, Augustine, writing in De trinitate, argued on the basis of external linguistic propriety that “three subsistencies” would confuse the faithful because the concept substance/subsistence lent itself to a materialist, even physical, conception of the Godhead. Moreover, Augustine insisted – still on the basis of external linguistic propriety – that the formulation “three persons” had already attained a doctrinally recognized usage in Latin Christianity, and that this “traditional” formula should thus be maintained over against Marius Victorinus’s suggested innovation, “three subsistencies”.

But lest we think that linguistic propriety was a concern only during the patristic period of theology, I would like to read a brief paragraph from the address with which Blessed Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962. Here is a section of that address titled Gaudet mater ecclesia:

“The salient point of this council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church which has repeatedly been taught by the Fathers and by ancient and modern theologians, and which is presumed to be well known and familiar to all.

“For this a council was not necessary. But from the renewed, serene and tranquil adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness, as it still shines forth in the acts of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council, the Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit of the whole world expects a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciences in faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the linguistic forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith or the truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing, the manner in which these truths are set forth – in the same meaning and understanding – is another. And it is the latter that must be taken into great consideration, with patience if necessary, everything being measured in the forms and proportions of a magisterium which is predominantly pastoral in character.”[2]

One hears in Pope John’s address a kind of tension between the internal and external senses of linguistic propriety so familiar to the early Church Fathers. The Pope presumes that the Council’s efforts to update the manner of Catholic teaching and practice will remain faithful to the “fundamental doctrine of the Church which has repeatedly been taught by the Fathers and by ancient and modern theologians” as well as to “all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness, as it still shines forth in the acts of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council.” So in saying this he is calling for a certain precision in the language of the Council, for congruence between its teaching and previous Church teaching. We can hear in this particular appeal of the Pope an emphasis on the internal sense of linguistic propriety, a harmony between the past formulations of the doctrine of the Church and the present Council’s language. At the same time, the Pope calls for adaptation of the mode of expression of the Church’s past doctrine to the current conditions in which the Church finds itself. He says that this doctrine “should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the linguistic forms of modern thought.” In saying this, the Pope is focusing on the external sense of linguistic propriety, namely, the relationship between the text and its audience and the circumstances that condition the text’s comprehension and acceptance by the faithful. The key phrase that Pope John uses in expressing this tension between the internal and external senses of propriety occurs when he says, “The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith or the truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing, the manner in which these truths are set forth in the same meaning and understanding is another.” But immediately after making this key point, the Pope indicates that, without losing sight of the internal sense of propriety, namely, fidelity to the same meaning and understanding of ancient doctrine, the Council must give priority to the external sense of propriety, that is to the aggiornamento, or updating not of this doctrine, but of the manner in which it is expressed  (aliud modus, quo eaedem enuntiantur, eodem tamen sensu eademque sententia). He emphasizes that the role of the magisterium is “predominantly pastoral in character”, meaning that it must be concerned principally with effectively communicating the Church’s teaching in forms that will be understood by the faithful.

Hearing Pope John, the Fathers of the Church might have all cried out in unison, “Easier said than done.” The task that Pope John XXIII set for the Second Vatican Council calls to mind Cicero’s dictum, “…in speaking, as in living, nothing is more difficult than to determine what is appropriate.” Difficult as Pope John’s challenge to the Council Fathers was, however, this paragraph of his opening address and its key statement echo throughout conciliar and post-conciliar documents, and are found at work in the General Directory for Catechesis (1997) as well as in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I’ll give some brief examples, first from conciliar documents. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, refers back to Pope John’s words when it deals with the issue of faith and modern cultures. The Pastoral Constitution makes the observation that “it is sometimes difficult to harmonize culture with Christian teaching.” It then goes on to urge theologians “to seek continually for more suitable ways of communicating doctrine to the people of their times,” after which it quotes directly from the text I cited in Gaudet mater ecclesia.

In the period following the Second Vatican Council, many official documents of the popes and of the Holy See have also cited this key passage on propriety in Pope John’s address, when referring either to instances in which the Pope’s and Council’s mandate has been successfully implemented, or to situations in which bishops and theologians have yet to accomplish it fully, or even to occasions in which these updated theological expressions, in the judgment of the popes, have strayed too far from the perennial teaching of the Church to be considered congruent with them. In 1971, just five years after the close of the Council, Pope Paul VI consciously echoed Pope John’s position when he warned Catholic bishops, “Nowadays a serious effort is required of us to ensure that the teaching of the faith should keep the fullness of its meaning and force, while expressing itself in a form which allows it to reach the spirit and heart of the people to whom it is addressed.”[3] In that same year, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, speaking with Pope Paul’s expressed approval, criticized certain trends in contemporary theology which, in their view relativized the enduring significance of earlier Church doctrines. The Congregation argued that Pope John XXIII, in his opening address to the Council, had not placed into doubt the certainty and knowability of ancient Christian doctrine when he recommended that “the modes of studying, expounding and presenting that doctrine ” should be accommodated to the needs of the times.[4] In 1988 Blessed Pope John Paul II cited Pope John’s by-now famous statement when he criticized certain trends in modern Christology which reject the viability of the dogmatic formulas of the early ecumenical councils concerning Christ on the grounds that their language is no longer adaptable to the contemporary world. The Pope parsed his predecessor’s statement as requiring that efforts to suit early Christian dogmas to our times should not abandon earlier linguistic categories, such as “nature”, “grace” or “person” in respect to their traditional applications to Christ. Yet in the same breath he called on today’s theologians nevertheless to seek out fresh ways of explaining these theological categories. Once again, one hears in Pope John Paul’s words an appeal to linguistic propriety in both its internal and external senses.

This same emphasis on linguistic propriety is featured in the General Directory for Catechesis:

“Inculturation of the faith, under certain aspects, is a linguistic task. This implies that catechesis respect and value the language proper to the message, especially biblical language, as well as the historical-traditional language of the Church (creed, liturgy) and doctrinal language (dogmatic formulations). It is also necessary for catechesis to enter into dialogue with forms and terms proper to the culture of those to whom it is addressed. Finally, catechesis must stimulate new expressions of the Gospel in the culture in which it has been planted. In the process of inculturating the Gospel, catechesis should not be afraid to use traditional formulae and the technical language of the faith, but it must express its meaning and demonstrate its existential importance. Similarly, it is also the duty of catechesis ‘to speak a language suited to today’s children and young people in general and to other categories of people — the language of students, intellectuals and scientists; the language of the illiterate or of people of simple culture; the language of the handicapped, and so on’.”[5]

In saying this, the General Directory for Catechesis recognizes, in a manner congruent with Blessed Pope John’s opening address to the Second Vatican Council, the necessity of balancing a respect for the Church’s traditional doctrinal categories and formulae with the need to speak a language suited to today’s young people. So once again internal and external linguistic propriety must be maintained by the modern catechist. However, as if this task were not already difficult enough, the General Directory then directs episcopal conferences to be aware that “[i]ntrinsically connected with the question of language is that of the means of communication. One of the most effective and pervasive means is the mass media. ‘The very evangelization of modern culture depends to a great extent on the influence of the media’.” [6]

So while seeking to balance the internal and external senses of linguistic propriety, in formulating new catechetical measures, bishops’ conferences will also be looking at the media environment in which the Gospel is currently being preached and taught. But this task, too, involves application of the ancient principles of linguistic propriety, as practiced by the Church Fathers. It is obvious, at least in the West, that mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel (e.g., abortion, homosexual lifestyle). Religion is at best tolerated by mass media as “tame” and “quaint” when it does not actively oppose positions on ethical issues that the media have embraced as their own. However, when religious voices are raised in opposition to these positions, mass media targets religion as ideological and insensitive in regard to the vital needs of people in the contemporary world.

However, overt opposition to Christianity by mass media is only part of the problem. The sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and artfully engrained in the viewing public, that when people hear the Christian message, it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel by contrast to the ostensible humaneness of the anti-Christian perspective. In this way, the Church’s message is made to seem unsuitable and inappropriate for our day, and this is the point at which linguistic decorum becomes an issue for the modern Church. Note, for example, how “alternative families” comprised of homosexual partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programs today such as Modern Family and The New Normal. These two American television series are currently being rebroadcast through syndication in other western countries. They are only two examples of a great number of television series that challenge traditional Catholic standards of ethics. Catholic pastors and catechists who preach or teach against the legalization of abortion or homosexual “marriage” often seem ideologically driven, severe and uncaring, not because of anything they say or do, but because their audiences contrast their message with the sympathetic, caring tones of media-produced images of human beings who, because they are caught in morally complex life situations, opt for choices that are made to appear as healthful and good.

If Catholic catechism in conjunction with the “new evangelization” is going to counter these mass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality successfully, pastors, preachers, teachers and catechists are going to have to become far more informed about the context of evangelizing in a world dominated by the mass media. Magisterial Church teaching can be helpful in this regard, yet there is a great need for further development in this area.

The Fathers of the Church can provide eminent guidance for the Church in this aspect of the new evangelization, precisely because they were masters of the art of rhetoric and its attendant doctrine of linguistic propriety. With their rhetorical formation, which, for many of them, constituted the best training available in the late ancient world, the Church Fathers offered a formidable response to those non-Christian and anti-Christian literary and rhetorical forces at work throughout the Roman Empire in shaping the religious and ethical imaginations of the day. When in his City of God, St Augustine used the tale of Alexander the Great’s encounter with a captured pirate to ironize conventional viewpoints that legitimated the Roman Empire, he subverted and then redefined the sense of “propriety” that undergirded Roman history and literature. Let me retell that story to show you what I mean. A pirate was brought before the Emperor Alexander the Great for summary judgment. Alexander interrogated the pirate, “what are you doing infesting the sea with your thievery”? The pirate answered, “I’m doing the same thing you’re doing. But because I have a single, tiny ship, I’m called a pirate; because you have a large fleet of ships, you’re called an emperor.” Augustine’s point in telling the story was to reveal to his readers how the injustices constitutive of all empires are masked, both by the sheer size of the empire, and by the power that it exerts over language. By calling the commander of the single, smaller vessel a “pirate”, Alexander deflected the fact that he and his fleet were engaged in an even greater magnitude of piracy. Augustine’s point in telling the story was therefore not simply to point out that empires, such as the Roman Empire, are by their nature unjust. His point was to show how the manipulation of language by the centers of cultural production, in this case Roman secular historians and political theorists, masks the injustices of  the society to which the leaders of these centers owe allegiance. In today’s world, similar kinds of leaders influence the principle communications media of our societies. They thus determine the dominant cultural messages influencing people who consume these media. Among these consumers of media productions are the Catholic faithful and others who should be the objects of evangelization and catechesis.

Church Fathers, among them John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Leo the Great, Gregory of Nazianzen were great preachers and catechists because they were first great rhetoricians. In other words, their evangelization and catechesis were successful in great part because these bishops understood the foundations of social communication appropriate to the world in which they lived. Consequently, they understood with enormous precision the techniques through which popular religious and ethical imaginations of their day were manipulated by the centers of secular power in that world. No less precision in understading these techniques is required today of pastors and catechists.

In order to combat successfully the dominance of the mass media over popular religious and moral imaginations, the Church’s pastors, teachers and catechists should master the arts of communication in all its forms, especially the most cunning, whether they are found in cinema, television, print or the Internet. In my view, it is not sufficient for the Church to own its own television media or to sponsor religious films. The secular media will always be stronger in this field, and the Church cannot successfully compete with it. Instead, the Church must seek out linguistic and visual forms and platforms that enable it to unmask the subtle and manipulative ways through which the dominant secular, anti-Christian culture, as it were, innoculates the masses against the Gospel by falsely representing its values as cold, severe and inhumane. When I ask priests and theologians whether they watch television series such as the two I mentioned earlier, Modern Family and The New Normal (both of which are broadcast in Italy as well!), they inevitably reassure me saying, “No, I have never heard of that program. I don’t have any time for television.” That kind of response troubles me. As long as we are unaware of the techniques and degrees of rhetorical subtlety with which modern media pre-emptively disqualifies the Christian message to people living in ethically difficult circumstances by depicting the Church’s response to them in severe and uncaring tones, we will not be able to formulate counter-strategies for unmasking the media’s depiction of Catholic doctrine and practice.

At the same time, I believe that the Church should resist the temptation to think that it can compete with modern mass media by turning the sacred liturgy into spectacle. Here again, Church Fathers, such as Tertullian, remind us today that visual spectacle is the domain of the saeculum and that our proper mission is to introduce people to the nature of mystery as an antidote to spectacle. In his City of God, St Augustine teaches that mystery focuses the imagination on the darkness surrounding death, specificially on the darkness of Christ’s crucifixion which he saw echoed in the deaths of Christian martyrs. Spectacle, on the other hand, with its companion features celebrity and heroism, provides man with a false comfort by distracting the mind from its instinctive fear of death. Augustine saw this false comfort present in Roman theatre, sports events, secular festivals, and military honors. Augustine’s argument has a relevance for modern culture, where these same ancient features of spectacle are amplified by modern media into false forms of celebrity and heroism. Secularism, as an anti-Christian force, depends upon modern media’s grasp upon contemporary culture and, consequently, upon man’s religious and ethical imagination. As a consequence, evangelization and catechesis in the modern world must find the appropriate rhetorical vehicles for redirecting public attention away from spectacle into mystery.

Prof. Robert Dodaro, OSA
President, Istituto Patristico Augustinianum,
Professor, Pontificia Università Lateranensis

[1] Among the key Latin terms used to convey these concepts are accomodatio, aptum, conuenientia, conuenire, congruere, congruentia, decere, decus, decorum, dignitas, dignum, honestas, honestum.

[2] Blessed Pope John XXIII, Allocution “Gaudet Mater Ecclesia” on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council , 11 October 1962, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis  54 (1962) 792: “Neque opus nostrum, quasi ad finem primarium, eo spectat, ut de quibusdam capitibus praecipuis doctrinae ecclesiasticae disceptetur, atque adeo fusius repetantur ea, quae Patres ac theologi veteres et recentiores tradiderunt, et quae a vobis non ignorari sed in mentibus vestris inhaerere merito putamus.

“Etenim ad huiusmodi tantum disputationes habendas non opus erat, ut Concilium Oecumenicum indiceretur. Verumtamen in praesenti oportet ut universa doctrina christiana, nulla parte inde detracta, hic temporibus nostris ab omnibus accipiatur novo studio, mentibus serenis atque pacatis, tradita accurata illa ratione verba concipiendi et in formam redigendi, quae ex actis Concilii Tridentini et Vaticani Primi praesertim elucet; oportet ut, quemadmodum cuncti sinceri rei christianae, catholicae, apostolicae fautores vehementer exoptant, eadem doctrina amplius et altius cognoscatur eaque plenius animi imbuantur atque formentur; oportet ut haec doctrina certa et immutabilis, cui fidele obsequium est praestandum, ea ratione pervestigetur et exponatur, quam tempora postulant nostra. Est enim aliud ipsum depositum Fidei, seu veritates, quae veneranda doctrina nostra continentur, aliud modus, quo eaedem enuntiantur, eodem tamen sensu eademque sententia. Huic quippe modo plurimum tribuendum erit et patienter, si opus fuerit, in eo elaborandum; scilicet eae inducendae erunt rationes res exponendi, quae cum magisterio, cuius indoles praesertim pastoralis est, magis congruant.”

[3] Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Quinque iam anni, AAS 63 (1971) 100ff.

[4] Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mysterium ecclesiae, n. 5.

[5] Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis, 11 August 1997, n. 208.

[6] Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis, 11 August 1997, n. 209.