Chapter IV.

If, for these and other such rules, you insist upon having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer. That reason will support tradition, and custom, and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from some one who has. Meanwhile you will believe that there is some reason to which submission is due. I add still one case more, as it will be proper to show you how it was among the ancients also. Among the Jews, so usual is it for their women to have the head veiled, that they may thereby be recognised. I ask in this instance for the law. I put the apostle aside. If Rebecca at once drew down her veil, when in the distance she saw her betrothed, this modesty of a mere private individual could not have made a law, or it will have made it only for those who have the reason which she had. Let virgins alone be veiled, and this when they are coming to be married, and not till they have recognised their destined husband. If Susanna also, who was subjected to unveiling on her trial,11    Vulgate, Dan. xiii. 32. [See Apocrypha, Hist. of Susanna, v. 32.] furnishes an argument for the veiling of women, I can say here also, the veil was a voluntary thing. She had come accused, ashamed of the disgrace she had brought on herself, properly concealing her beauty, even because now she feared to please. But I should not suppose that, when it was her aim to please, she took walks with a veil on in her husband’s avenue. Grant, now, that she was always veiled. In this particular case, too, or, in fact, in that of any other, I demand the dress-law.  If I nowhere find a law, it follows that tradition has given the fashion in question to custom, to find subsequently (its authorization in) the apostle’s sanction, from the true interpretation of reason. This instances, therefore, will make it sufficiently plain that you can vindicate the keeping of even unwritten tradition established by custom; the proper witness for tradition when demonstrated by long-continued observance.12    [Observe it must (1.) be based on Apostolic grounds; (2.) must not be a novelty, but derived from a time “to which the memory of men runneth not contrary.”] But even in civil matters custom is accepted as law, when positive legal enactment is wanting; and it is the same thing whether it depends on writing or on reason, since reason is, in fact, the basis of law. But, (you say), if reason is the ground of law, all will now henceforth have to be counted law, whoever brings it forward, which shall have reason as its ground.13    [I slightly amend the translation to bring out the force of an objection to which our author gives a Montanistic reply.] Or do you think that every believer is entitled to originate and establish a law, if only it be such as is agreeable to God, as is helpful to discipline, as promotes salvation, when the Lord says, “But why do you not even of your own selves judge what is right?”14    Luke xii. 27. And not merely in regard to a judicial sentence, but in regard to every decision in matters we are called on to consider, the apostle also says, “If of anything you are ignorant, God shall reveal it unto you;”15    Phil. iii. 15. he himself, too, being accustomed to afford counsel though he had not the command of the Lord, and to dictate of himself16    [See luminous remarks in Kaye, pp. 371–373.] as possessing the Spirit of God who guides into all truth. Therefore his advice has, by the warrant of divine reason, become equivalent to nothing less than a divine command. Earnestly now inquire of this teacher,17    [This teacher, i.e., right reason, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost.  He is here foisting in a plea for the “New Prophecy,” apparently, and this is one of the most decided instances in the treatise.] keeping intact your regard for tradition, from whomsoever it originally sprang; nor have regard to the author, but to the authority, and especially that of custom itself, which on this very account we should revere, that we may not want an interpreter; so that if reason too is God’s gift, you may then learn, not whether custom has to be followed by you, but why.

4. Harum et aliarum eiusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules, scripturarum nullam leges. Traditio tibi praetendetur auctrix et consuetudo confirmatrix et fides obseruatrix. Rationem traditioni et consuetudini et fidei patrocinaturam aut ipse perspicies aut ab aliquo qui perspexerit disces. Interim non nullam esse credes cui debeatur obsequium. Adicio unum adhuc exemplum, quatinus et de ueteribus docere conueniet. Apud Iudaeos tam sollemne est feminis eorum uelamen capitis ut inde noscantur. Quaero legem, apostolum differo. Si Rebecca conspecto procul sponso uelamen inuasit, priuatus pudor legem facere non potuit, aut, causae suae fecerit, tegantur uirgines solae, et hoc nuptum uenientes, nec antequam cognouerint sponsos. Si et Susanna in iudicio reuelata argumentum uelandi praestat, possum dicere : « Et hic uelamen arbitrii fuit.» Rea uenerat, erubescens de infamia sua, merito abscondens decorem, uel quia timens iam placere. Ceterum in stadio mariti non putem uelatam deambulasse quae placuit. Fuerit nunc uelata semper, in ipsa quoque legem habitus requiro uel in quacumque alia. Si legem nusquam reperio, sequitur ut traditio consuetudini morem hunc dederit, habiturum quandoque apostoli auctoritatem ex interpretatione rationis. His igitur exemplis renuntiatum erit posse etiam non scriptam traditionem in obseruatione defendi, confirmatam consuetudine, idonea teste probatae tunc traditionis ex perseuerantia obseruationis. Consuetudo autem etiam in ciuilibus rebus pro lege suscipitur, cum deficit lex, nec differt scriptura an ratione consistat, quando et legem ratio commendet. Porro si ratione lex constat, lex erit omne iam quod ratione constiterit a quocumque productum. An non putas omni fideli licere concipere et constituere, dumtaxat quod Deo congruat, quod disciplinae conducat, quod saluti proficiat, dicente Domino : « Cur autem non et a uobis ipsis quod iustum iudicatis ? » Et non de iudicio tantum, sed de omni sententia rerum examinandarum dicit et apostolus : « Si quid ignoratis, Deus uobis reuelabit», solitus et ipse consilium subministrare, cum praeceptum Domini non habebat, et edicere a semetipso, spiritum Dei habens deductorem omnis ueritatis. Itaque consilium eius diuini iam praecepti instar obtinuit de rationis diuinae patrocinio. Hanc nunc expostula saluo traditionis respectu, quocumque traditore censetur, nec auctorem respicias, sed auctoritatem, et in primis consuetudinis ipsius quae propterea colenda est ne non sit rationis interpres, ut, si et hanc Deus dederit, tunc discas non an obseruanda sit tibi consuetudo, sed cur.