There is no revealed doctrine (dogma explicitum) proclaimed by the Church which is not contained in its exact substance (formaliter) in the sources of revelation, that is, in Scripture and Tradition. But it is not always expressly (explicite) revealed in its specific content, and is often contained so to say wrapped up (implicite) in other truths. As the history of dogma shows, it sometimes needed a long process to free such truths from their wrappings and to make them plain and visible. More than six centuries passed before the Church set forth the central Christian dogma of Jesus, God and Man, in all its aspects and formulated it exhaustively. The doctrine of transubstantiation was not defined as a revealed dogma until the year 1215, nor the infallibility and plenary jurisdiction of the pope until 1870. This dogmatic development, fulfilled under the assistance of the Holy Spirit and under the supervision and guidance of the Church’s teaching office, is not always effected in a purely logical manner, by mere juxtaposition of revealed truths, or by philosophical methods, by demonstrating that a truth is attested by Scripture and Tradition, however indispensable may be the labors of theologians in elucidation and demonstration. For the legacy of the faith as left us in the revelation has not been transmitted to us in the form of a clear logical system, but is wrapped up rather in the forms of its time; nor was it always so lucidly and plainly set forth in those forms, that its inner content and irresistible external proof were immediately obvious. And sometimes, when the source of a doctrine is to be sought, not in holy Scripture, but in that age-long tradition which is represented in the most various documents, the discriminating eye of the theologian has the greatest difficulty in determining clearly what is the pure gold of revelation and what the product of purely human wisdom and purely human faith. Often enough he will find Fathers and theologians expressing views which impair their unanimous witness (unanimis consensus patrum). And so the exegesis and argument of the theologians are not able unaided to prepare the way effectively for the definitive decisions of the Church’s teaching authority. Indeed, were they such a decisive factor in the construction of dogma, then—to mention only one of the latest of dogmas—the beautiful truth of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception might never have been defined. For two most distinguished Mariologists, St. Bernard and St. Thomas, expressly questioned its revealed character, nay even denied it. How then, in spite of all obstacles, was the dogma ultimately defined? And how was the dogma of Papal Infallibility defined? Certainly it is Church authority under the guidance of the Holy Ghost which by its ordinary and extraordinary teaching strews the seeds of revealed truth in the field of the Church, and like a careful gardener protects their sprouting, guards the tender shoots from foreign growths and prunes away all evil tendencies. The teaching authority, guarded by the Holy Ghost, is therefore the decisive active factor in dogmatic development. But—to keep to our metaphor—the gardener does not do the whole of the work. For the very reason that the seed of revealed truth is a living and organic thing, it requires for its progressive growth a fertile field, a maternal soil, which may foster the seed committed to it and bring it to maturity. The living community is this fertile soil. Theologians speak of a passive infallibility of the faithful, and in the same way the community may be called the passive factor in the formation of dogma. The living community of the faithful, hearing and obeying the revelation which the teaching authority proclaims, itself shares in the infallibility of the Church as it accepts this revelation, cherishes it and bears fruit. Such is the nature of the influence which the community exercised in the development of the dogmas above mentioned, especially that of the Immaculate Conception of our Lady. It was the Catholic body, the fellowship of the faithful, in its vital movement, and with its vivid sense and profound instinct for the faith, which refused to abandon these truths, even when authoritative theologians sought to deprive it of them. All these truths germinated in the soil of the community, like living seeds, be protected and fostered by pope and bishop until their time came. And even though these truths—as for instance the particular one of the Immaculate Conception of Mary—circulated originally among the faithful in distorted and legendary forms which will not bear historical criticism, yet the living community grasped their substance and inner value too intimately, vitally, and immediately to be able to sacrifice their eternal content along with the imperfect forms and expressions to which the theologians objected. The divine spirit of its faith was too sensitive, the moral and religious experience produced in so many of its members by that truth was too rich, manifold and profound, and the Church’s custody of the deposit of faith too vigilant, to allow of such a consummation. Because of the solidarity of its life, this common experience of a truth, new and yet old, belonged to the whole community, and became deeper and stronger the more widely it spread, until all shared it. And since this life of faith was not a spasmodic and fortuitous phenomenon, but was steadily evolved under the purifying and promoting influence of the teaching authority, and thereby drew strength and guidance from its profound connection with the whole mass of supernatural revelation, it became for that reason a life full of divine clarity and purity. It is not the sectional belief of this or that group of the faithful, but a life in the whole and of the whole infallible Church, of the whole Body of Christ, a life inspired by Christ. It would be by no means difficult to show that the compact fellowship of the faith exercised this quasi-maternal function in the growth and ripening of most of our dogmas, from the consubstantiality of the Son to the infallibility of the pope, and that it is exercising it at present in respect of that belief in the universal intercessory mediatorship of Mary, which is beginning to become ripe for definition. It is the teaching authority of the Church which proclaims the revelation in its complete fullness, together with the truths which are contained only germinally (implicite) in it; and it is the same authority which watches over the process of the unfolding of these implicit truths and by the help of the theologians excludes all spurious elements. And lastly it is the teaching authority alone that gives the final solemn decision regarding the revealed character of a truth. We should grievously misconceive the absolutely pre-eminent and decisive authority of the “teaching Church” if we supposed that its function was merely one of registering and ratifying the unanimous belief of the “learning Church” and that it played no independent and decisive part in the formation of dogma.[5] Yet on the other hand it is the maternal organism of the compact fellowship which fertilized by the Church’s teaching, brings dogmas to maturity, until they receive their definitive form in the Church’s authoritative definition.