Minor canon

“ The canonists became a band of specialists, separated from the civilians on the one hand and the theologians on the other. Just as the practical advantages of the study of Civil Law called away the votaries of the unprofitable secular study of literature, so did the practical uses of Canon Law divert active and ambitious churchmen from the academic study of theology. Law became the attractive science as well for ardent ecclesiastics as for men of the world. ”

“ The present canons treat of those who have in the persecution denied the faith, and are doing penance. And the first canon ordains, that upon those who after many torments have sacrificed to the gods, not being able by reason of frailty to persevere, and who have passed three years in penitence, other forty days should be enjoined, and that then they should be admitted into the Church. ”

“ The Church Dignitary.—A canon is a person who possesses a prebend, or revenue allotted for the performance of divine service in a cathedral or collegiate church. Though the institute of canons as it at present exists does not go back beyond the 11th century it has a long history behind it. ”

“ It would require volumes to point out the cruelties, absurdities and inconsistencies of the Canon Law. It has been thrown away by the world. Every civilized nation has a code of its own, and the Canon Law is of interest only to the historian, the antiquarian, and the enemy of theological government. ”

“ They saw clearly, that of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness, around the idea of a priest, as no mortal could deserve, and as always must, from the constitution of human nature, be dangerous in society. ”

“ A writing was considered canonical when a well-attested tradition put it among those composed by inspired men, apostles or others; and it had on that [pg 096] account a determining authority in matters of faith. Books which served as a rule of faith and were definitively set forth by the Church as divinely authoritative, were now termed canonical. The canon consisted of writings settled or determined by ecclesiastical law.288 Such was the idea added to the original acceptation of canon. To canonical were opposed apocryphal writings, i.e., heretical and fabricated ones ”

“ The question which most concerns us is not whether they may or may not be asserted, but whether or no they have been embodied in the Canon law of the Roman Church, and have been thereby stamped with the character of perpetuity. ”

“ We want such a deep, bold, vigorous, influential, and abiding sense of the supreme authority of the divine canon, and of its absolute completeness for every age, every clime, every position, every department—personal, social, and ecclesiastical, as shall enable us to withstand every attempt of the enemy to depreciate the value of that inestimable treasure. ”

“ But ye worshipful religious canons, deem not that I slander your house, although my tale be of a canon. Some rogue, pardee, is in every order, and God forbid that a whole company should rue the folly of one man. ”

“ He contended that the obsolete canon law should not be allowed ‘to supersede the canonical utterance of the living voice of the Church of England.’ His ecclesiastical position may be deduced from his publications: ‘Quam Dilecta,’ a description of All Saints' Church, Margaret St., 1891 ”

“ If all agree that a particular doctrine is a Catholic dogma and that to deny it is heresy, then that doctrine is certainly a dogma. If they agree that a doctrine cannot be denied without injuring Catholic truth, and that such denial is deserving of censure, this again is a sure proof that the doctrine is in some way a Catholic doctrine. ”

“ For who used to make mention of a man in his prayers before he is born? And masteris memorie is made in the canon of such men and women whose holiness and godly life credible histories make little mention [of] , which is an evident testimony that your holy canon is vain and of none effect. And if any will take upon him to defend the same, I will prove that therein is indigestible, barbarous, foolish congestion of words, imperfection of sentences, ungodly invocations, and diabolical conjurations. All this is that holy canon whose authority excels all scripture. ”

“ The supremacy which canon law obtained is easily accounted for when we compare the disciplined character of all ecclesiastical as compared with lay government, the training of the priest with that of the noble, the ignorance pervading all classes, and the rude character of the legislation administered in feudal society. ”

“ Then the body of men and women worshipping in any one place was subject neither to its own officers, nor to the Church at large; nor to the Scriptures of the Old or the New Testament. No man on earth, no organization, no book was master of the Soul. Each Church made out its canon of Scripture as well as it could. [2] Some of our canonical writings were excluded, and apocryphal writings used in their stead. Indeed, respecting this matter of Scripture, there has never been a uniform canon among all Christians. ”

“ These theologians, as we have said, only considered the subject in abstracto: Would subsequent inspiration or approbation give a book a right to be placed in the canon?—a verbal question rather than one of doctrine. It is certain that such a book would have a sacred authority, but it is also certain that it could not be called the work of God in the same sense as the holy books now in our possession. The council, in its definition, only considered the actual point; it declared all the books of our canon have God for their author, because the Holy Ghost was the chief agent in their composition. ”

“ No one can investigate the letter and working of the canon law without being struck by the marvellous mixture of lofty and eternal principles of right, with arbitrary and disingenuous evasions of obligation: it reads as if the jurists, finding that the Church could not be ruled by the true principles, were determined to rule by special pleadings and artful circumventions. For the future the theologians must look to the true principles, and let the canonists and civilians pass with their evasions and circumventions into the twilight of archæology. ”

“ His immense Contents. work consists of three parts (partes) . The first, treating of the sources of canon law and of ecclesiastical persons and offices, is divided according to the method of Paucapalea, Gratian’s pupil, into 101 distinctiones, which are subdivided into canones. The second part consists of 36 causae (cases proposed for solution) , subdivided into quaestiones (the several questions raised by the case) , under each of which are arranged the various canones (canons, decretals, &c.) ”

“ Now let any reasonable man ask himself this question. If, after an approximate settlement of the canon of the New Testament, and even later than the fourth and fifth centuries, literary fabricators had the skill and the audacity to make such additions and interpolations as these, what may they have done when no one had thought of a canon ”

“ In vain the Catholic points out the wholly exceptional circumstances that surround the Scriptural canon—the impossibility from the very first of admitting books of doubtful origin as coming from the apostles, or that these books could have been changed in any respect under the jealous guardianship of a church and hierarchy spread over the face of the earth, and charged with the conservation of the sacred deposit. The incredulous critic refuses to receive proofs which the most common mind perceives the full value of as well as the good sense. ”

“ And yet the decision of these questions is fundamental, for as the limits of the canonical scriptures vary, so may the dogmas deduced from them require modification. Christianity is one thing, if the fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the pastoral Epistles, and the Apocalypse are canonical and (by the hypothesis) infallibly true; and another thing, if they are not. As I have already said, whoso defines the canon defines the creed. ”

“ This paragraph, like the previous one, is not a proper canon, but a verbal repetition of a proposal made in the fourth session by the imperial commissioners, improved by the legate Paschasinus, and approved by the Synod. Moreover, this so-called canon is not found in the ancient collections, and was probably added to the twenty-eight canons in the same manner and for the same reasons as the preceding.
Bright. ”

“ If any one of the heretics be asked, how he proves that we ought to abandon the universal and ancient faith of the Church Catholic, he will promptly reply, "It is written;" and on the spot is ready with a thousand texts and proofs, some from the Law, some from the Psalms, some from the Apostles, some from the Prophets; with the view of precipitating the unhappy soul, by a new and perverse interpretation of them, from the secure pinnacle of Catholicism into the gulf of heresy. Moreover, they add promises which wonderfully deceive incautious men. ”

“ Is not our Holy Father, the Pope, your judge?”
“I will say nothing else to you. I have a good Master, that is God; it is to Him I look in everything and to none other.”
“If you will not believe in the Church, if you will not believe that Article of the Creed, ‘the Church, One, Holy, Catholic,’ you will be declared a heretic and, by other judges, punished with the pains of fire.” ”

“ The canon of Scripture was proposed in the congregations before the fourth session as the subject for discussion, and the three following questions were raised: (1) Were all the books of both Testaments to be approved and received? (2) Was there to be a fresh inquiry into their canonical character before giving such approval? (3) Should there be any distinction drawn between the books, as being some of them read merely for moral instruction, and others for proving the doctrines of Christian belief? ”

“ If the canon law had restricted itself to really spiritual questions, matters of belief or of morals for which the national code had no provision, it is not likely that the kings would have been jealous of papal or archiepiscopal enactments, or would have stood on their rights when the exact line was occasionally overstepped. ”

“ If any presbyters have been advanced without examination, or if upon examination they have made confession of crime, and men acting in violation of the canon have laid hands upon them, notwithstanding their confession, such the canon does not admit ”

“ How, then, could God the Father admit one into his Kingdom, who has always refused to do his will, - who, instead of learning to do the will of God, the full doctrine of Christ, through the Catholic Church, was himself his own teacher, his own lawgiver, his own judge, in all religious matters! ”

“ Hefele: “This is probably the least ancient canon in the whole collection.” With this opinion there is general concurrence, since the mention of the Constitutions among the canonical books indicates the hand of the last compiler of that collection of writings. ”

“ To assert that it is lawful for any one—even a deacon or priest—to preach the word of God without licence of the apostolic see or of a catholic bishop or any other sufficiently recognised authority. (16) To assert that no one is a civil lord, no one a bishop, no one a prelate, while he is in mortal sin. ”

“ Canons are public property, and have to be acted upon by large bodies. Accordingly, as might be expected, the Nicene Council, when enacting Canons of its own, refers to certain Canons as already existing, and speaks of them in that familiar and indirect way which would be natural under the circumstances, just as we speak of our Rubrics or Articles. ”

“ II. The Tradition of a truth being once established, a Catholic has no further interest in the investigation of its continuity, except for the purposes of science and apologetics. Heretics, moreover, have no right to demand direct proof of the antiquity of a doctrine. We may indeed reply to their arguments from Tradition, and set before them the traces of the doctrine in the different ages, but it is better to prove to them the Catholic principle of Tradition, for which there is abundant historical evidence. ”

“ Catholicism perpetually appears the caricature of a great concept. Take for another example the methods of canonisation, by which he or she who dies “in the odour of piety” may pass, in the course of centuries, from the degree of venerable servant of God to the apogee of blessed saintship. ”

“ We Catholics need no evidence at all,
The holy father is infallible, surely!'
And English canons heard,
And quietly demurred.
Religion rests on evidence, of course,
And on inquiry we must put no force. ”

“ One must know that one’s belief is opposed to divine revelation or to Catholic faith. Hence, those who were born and brought up in Protestantism, and who in good faith accept the confession of their denomination, are not formal but material heretics. Even those who are ignorant of their errors through grave fault and who hold to them firmly, are guilty, not of formal heresy, but of sinful ignorance (see 904 sqq.) ”

“ And we have decided that this decree—which some, placing human above divine honor, have called an unendurable weight and an immense burden, but which we call by its proper name, that is, the truth and light necessary to salvation—is to be received and observed not only by you and your subjects, but also by all princes and peoples of the earth who confess and worship Christ; for it is greatly desired by us, and would be most fitting for you, that, as you are greater than others in glory, in honor, and in virtue, so you should be more distinguished in devotion to Christ. ”