est lex credendi lex orandi?
The good Chris Jones has resumed posting over at All the Fullness, which, simply put, is a good thing. More's the pity that I must take issue with one of his first posts in the new run. Well, I don't actually disagree with his conclusions - they're plainly true, and it's salutary to have 'em so clearly stated and commended for all. Nonetheless, I have a problem with all that leads up to the conclusions, and it has to do with a certain Latin cliché that has made its rounds for at least three quarters of a century.
The post, of course, is the one concerning what he correctly calls an 'old saw', Lex Orandi Lex Credendi. Those who know more Latin than I do will recognize what Chris does, that there is an implied 'est' in there, so that it's Lex orandi est lex credendi - 'The Law of praying is the law of believing', to be all wooden and literal about it. What bothers me is that the 'old saw' is just taken as a given, as though it, in some form, has been passed down from hoary antiquity. Indeed, one Fr Fenton, in the comments, helpfully offers the original phrase - about which more in a moment - but then goes on to bowdlerize it, all unwittingly I should think, as he sounds like an intelligent and careful person. Before getting to that, a problem immediately leaps at me - lex credendi is never, to my limited knowledge, used to signify anything in the early church. The ‘rule of faith' is regula fidei, and it is this rule of faith [which I will leave undefined] that guided the Church in her reading of Scripture and subsequently in her confessions at Nicea and Chalcedon, amongst others. The regula fidei would also have been the canon of truth used to measure various liturgical orders and so forth. I've never ever ever never heard of something called the lex credendi being used in such a manner, nor have I heard of some lex orandi apart from the rule, or canon, of faith. Pay that no never mind for now. What interests me, my friends, is the locus classicus of our fabled saw. [My lesse latine is being sorely strained, dear reader.]
So, what is the 'original' of this hallowed axiom? It is indeed, as Fr Fenton notes, from one Prosper of Aquitaine. As one Daniel Van Slyke notes*, the work in which our phrase's supposed ancestor appears is a short treatise that goes by many titles, and was at one time attributed to Celestine I. What's more, he notes that the work 'is not about worship but about the relationship between grace and human free will'. So, what is the original, or supposed original? All suspense should now be suspended, I suppose: ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi. There, that's clear, ain't it? Well, Dr Van Slyke offers this translation of the whole passage in which our little chestnut is enveloped, as it were, and for those who don't want to go to a new site, I'll quote it here as well.
‘Besides the inviolable sanctions of the most blessed and apostolic see, with which the most pious fathers, having cast down the pride of the pestilential novel teaching, taught us to ascribe to the grace of Christ the origins of good will, the growth of commendable efforts, and perseverance in them to the end, let us also consider the sacraments of priestly prayers that, having been handed down by the apostles, are uniformly practiced throughout the whole world and in every Catholic church, ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi. For when the bishops of the holy peoples observe the mandates committed to them by office in the presence of divine mercy, they plead the cause of the human race, and while the whole Church sighs deeply with them, they entreat and pray that faith may be given to unbelievers, that idol worshippers may be freed from the errors of their impiety, that the light of truth may appear to the Jews, the veil over their heart having been removed, that heretics may regain their senses by perception of the Catholic faith, that schismatics may receive the spirit of revived charity, that the remedies of penance be granted to the lapsed, and finally that the court of heavenly mercy may be opened to the catechumens when they are led to the sacraments of regeneration. The effect of these very things demonstrates that they are not asked from the Lord either vainly or in a perfunctory manner: seeing that God deigns to draw many out of every kind of error, whom delivered from the power of darkness he might transfer into the kingdom of the Son of his charity (Col 1.13), and from vessels of wrath he might make vessels of mercy (Rom 9.22). This is so much thought to be entirely divine work, that to the God accomplishing these things thanksgiving and praise are always rendered for the illumination or the correction of such people'.
Without reproducing Van Slyke's argument in detail, let me observe, first, that I find convincing his argument that the lex supplicandi refers to the command to pray for all found in 1 Timothy 2.1-4. Second, I further find convincing his argument that Prosper ‘conceives "lex supplicandi" as referring to prayer in general, perhaps but not necessarily including officially sanctioned and corporate prayer' - or, I do when he qualifies it. Just to offer a striking detail, Van Slyke asks us to consider that Prosper uses supplicandi instead of orandi - that is, ‘of beseeching/petitioning' instead of the more inclusive ‘of praying'. As he notes, ‘the word is very precise, for the argument is based on Christian prayers of intercession . . . ,' which ‘ought not to be confused with prayer in general' [emphasis mine]. I doubt he sees his contradiction here. I think I can save his argument, because it's one of confused wording, and not a problem with the evidence. Quite simply, the first point establishes that we here deal with prayer in a broader sense than 'the liturgy', while the second shows the precise focus of supplicandi in Prosper's usage as being, again, intercession. Clearly, one needn't confine intercession to the liturgy alone.
Third, let's realize that legem credendi is, like our denuded lex credendi, distinct from the rule of faith, or regula fidei. Again, Van Slyke shows that in the context of Prosper's treatise, legem credendi is something quite precise, namely ‘the doctrine of utter dependence on divine grace' for which he argues in his defense of Augustine. Make of that what you will, it remains strikingly different from the undifferentiated, all-encompassing sense usually given to lex credendi, that is, that it signifies ‘all that Christians believe' or, in the case of Chris's post, all they will come to believe; more on that in a second. So, given all this, we can say, in paraphrase, that Prosper's phrase tells us that, given what we confess concerning the utter dependence of the unconverted on God's grace, we ought to closely heed the admonition to pray for all that they might be drawn to God in Christ and so be saved.
Van Slyke's paper is long and detailed, and I really don't want to simply parrot him in this essay. Indeed, a detailed examination of the phrase in Prosper is not my purpose. I commend the linked paper to all who come along, knowing you will find it fascinating and useful. Especially noteworthy, to me anyway, is the overwhelmingly Roman context in which this notion floats about. This makes clear why Pius XII would find it necessary to say that the Roman Catholic Church has never and does not teach ‘that axiom lex orandi lex credendi'. I make no confessional or polemic hay of this. Rather, I observe it and move on - it's just curious, that's all.
The point of this long and perhaps pedantic post is, not to examine Prosper's argument. I want, rather, to commend skepticism in the face of this supposedly self-evident axiom. Instead of basing an argument on it, why not question it? Why not seek out its context and form in its original setting, to see if it can bear the weight we foist on it? In this case, clearly, it cannot. Again, Van Slyke's conclusion is compelling, to me at least - ‘One can consider Prosper's phrase a hermeneutical statement of theological method [which, really now, is what we've made its diminutive putative descendent] only by taking it out of context. The axiom as commonly worded . . . and understood is not a tradition handed down from early Christianity, but a rather recent theological invention of dubious merit'.
Given that, I must question my friend's reliance on this overworked, meaningless phrase, something to which I too found myself prone in days gone by. What's more, he has something simple, easily forgotten, and certainly important to say - ‘the faith which is actually imparted to the folks in the pews is what they hear and experience when they are actually sitting in those pews'. Lex orandi lex credendi has nothing to say to this - his point is a matter of psychological reality. In that sense it may be a ‘law' of some kind, though I'm rather wary of formulating ‘laws' governing something as complex and unpredictable as human persons in their psychological complexity. All the same, his point is right on, and the powers that be too often forget this in their incessant experimentation on, propagandizing to, and patronizing of ‘the folks in the pews'. It's for this reason, don't you know, that Luther advised all who would use the Catechism to retain the same form, year after year, so that all might learn it by heart and have a sure foundation. If one changed the edition, the translation, or whatever, year after year for no very good reason, then only chaos would result. So, he said, wisely and in line with, I think, most of the catechetical traditions of Christendom, that such wild variation should be avoided always and everywhere.
This is a good point to make, and Chris, I must say with all respect, could have made it more plainly and more convincingly, had he not cloaked it in that ‘old saw' which is really nothing more than a vaporous invention of our flaky, half-baked brains. That it might seem useful or profound [it isn't] is no excuse. In short, let's have done with the tyranny of axioms, bromides, boogums of days past that have no matter and less mirth.
*Please note that in what follows, I rather slavishly follow his damn fine and detailed paper; he takes issue with what he regards as the ‘rather loose' translation found in The Defense of Saint Augustine, noted by Fr Fenton.