For Catholic readers
Whether doctrine develops
Can the Church come to define as dogma something the early Church did not articulate?
This is the quiet disagreement underneath the loud ones. Both Churches say the faith does not change and that its expression sharpens under pressure. They differ on what may legitimately emerge from that sharpening, and Vincent's fifth-century rule is claimed by both.
What is held in common
Both Churches deny that the content of the apostolic faith can change, and both accept that the Church's language for it demonstrably did. The word 'consubstantial' is not in Scripture. 'Theotokos' had to be fought for. Neither communion thinks the councils invented what they defined; both think the councils articulated it against a denial. So far there is no argument.
The Orthodox position
The Orthodox instinct is that dogma is defined only in response to a specific error, and that a definition draws a boundary rather than adding territory. The Church says more than it once said, but it does not come to know more than it once knew. What was believed everywhere, always and by all is the measure; a teaching that cannot show itself in the earlier Church is not thereby refined, it is new.
Vincent's rule is the classic statement, and Orthodox writers cite it constantly. It is worth reading what he actually wrote, because the version usually quoted is a Latin tag.
The texts
we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense "Catholic," which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent.
On this text. Vincent's own text. The archived volume also carries the editor's introduction, which paraphrases the rule as 'Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus'; that phrase is the editor's summary formula and should not be quoted as though Vincent wrote it in that form here.
Where the difference actually lies
Catholic theology has a developed account of how the Church's understanding can grow over time, such that a doctrine may be defined in the nineteenth or twentieth century which was not explicitly held earlier, provided it is judged to be contained in the deposit. Orthodox theology has generally not adopted that account, and is correspondingly sceptical of definitions that cannot point to conciliar and patristic articulation.
This is why the argument about any one later doctrine tends to stall. The two sides are not only disagreeing about that doctrine; they are disagreeing about what kind of argument would settle it.
Not yet stated here: the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church
Development of doctrine is easy to state as a caricature — 'they can define anything they like' — and that is not what any Catholic authority claims. The conditions are specific and this site will state them when it holds the texts.
- Vatican II, Dei Verbum, on the growth in understanding of the tradition
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, on the development of dogma and its limits
- Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (tier D, not magisterial)
Why this is empty. A claim about what another Church teaches requires that Church's own authoritative text — tier E in the source policy. No such text has been obtained, so the claim is not made. This gap is the honest state of the evidence, not an oversight.
Sources for this page
- Tier C Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lérins, John Cassian Vincent of Lérins, A Commonitory, Chapter II translated edition of primary texts Source record (opens in a new tab)
Tiers are explained in the methodology. No page on this site has been reviewed or approved by any bishop, priest, synod or seminary.