NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Of the origin of the word “with,” and what force it has. Also concerning the unwrittenlaws of the church.others we have received delivered to us “in a mystery” 1270 by the tradition of the apostles;and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one willgainsay;—no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of theChurch. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on theground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure theCic., Acad. ii. 19. ‘De suis decretis quæ philosophi vocant δόγματα.’…There is an approach towards the ecclesiasticalmeaning in Ignat., Mag. 13, βεβαιωθῆσαι ἐν τοῖς δόγμασι τοῦ κυρίου καὶ τῶν ἀποστόλων.” Bp. Lightfootin Col. ii. 14. The “doctrines” of heretics are also called δόγματα, as in Basil, Ep. CCLXI. and Socr., E. H. iii. 10.cf. Bp. Bull, in Serm. 2, “The dogmata or tenets of the Sadducees.” In Orig., c. Cels. iii. p. 135, Ed. Spencer, 1658,δόγμα is used of the gospel or teaching of our Lord. The special point about St. Basil’s use of δόγματα is that heuses the word of doctrines and practices privately and tacitly sanctioned in the Church (like ἀπόρρητα, whichis used of the esoteric doctrine of the Pythagoreans, Plat., Phæd. 62. B.), while he reserves κηρύγματα for whatis now often understood by δόγματα, i.e. “legitima synodo decreta.” cf. Ep. LII., where he speaks of the greatκήρυγμα of the Fathers at Nicæa. In this he is supported by Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, 579–607, ofwhom Photius (Cod. ccxxx. Migne Pat. Gr. ciii. p. 1027) writes, “In this work,” i.e. Or. II. “he says that of thedoctrines (διδαγμάτων) handed down in the church by the ministers of the word, some are δόγματα, and othersκηρύγματα. The distinction is that δόγματα are announced with concealment and prudence, and are often designedlycompassed with obscurity, in order that holy things may not be exposed to profane persons nor pearlscast before swine. Κηρύγματα, on the other hand, are announced without any concealment.” So the BenedictineEditors speak of Origen (c. Cels. i. 7) as replying to Celsus, “prædicationem Christianorum toti orbi notioremesse quam placita philosophorum: sed tamen fatetur, ut apud philosophos, ita etiam apud Christianos nonullaesse veluti interiora, quæ post exteriorem et propositam omnibus doctrinam tradantur.” Of κηρύματα they note,“Videntur hoc nomine designari leges ecclesiasticæ et canonum decreta quæ promulgari in ecclesia mos erat, utneminem laterent.” Mr. C.F.H. Johnston remarks: “The ὁμοούσιον, which many now-a-days would call theNicene dogma (τὰ τοῦ ὁμοουσίου δόγματα, Soc., E.H. iii. 10) because it was put forth in the Council of Nicæa,was for that reason called not δόγμα, but κήρυγμα, by St. Basil, who would have said that it became the κήρυγμα(definition) of that Council, because it had always been the δόγμα of the Church.” In extra theological philosophya dogma has all along meant a certainly expressed opinion whether formally decreed or not. So Shaftesbury,Misc. Ref. ii. 2, “He who is certain, or presumes to say he knows, is in that particular whether he be mistaken orin the right a dogmatist.” cf. Littré S.V. for a similar use in French. In theology the modern Roman limitationof dogma to decreed doctrine is illustrated by the statement of Abbé Bérgier (Dict. de Théol. Ed. 1844) of theImmaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. “Or, nous convenons que ce n’est pas un dogme de foi,” because,though a common opinion among Romanists, it had not been so asserted at the Council of Trent. Since thepublication of Pius IX’s Edict of 1854 it has become, to ultramontanists, a “dogma of faith.”1270 1 Cor. ii. 7. Whether there is or is not here a conscious reference to St. Paul’s words, there seems to beboth in the text and in the passage cited an employment of μυστήριον in its proper sense of a secret revealed tothe initiated.231