Yet, however various these expressions may be, they have all sprung in their fundamental forms from the living tradition, from that abundance and variety of life which is our inheritance in Scripture and Tradition. For here, in Scripture and Tradition, yes in Scripture alone and even in St. John and St. Paul alone, we have not merely the spiritual, but the sensible also, though it be the sensible transfigured into the spiritual. We have not only certainty of forgiveness, but also the severe imperative, the commandments and the doctrine of merit. We have not only personal spiritual experience, but also service of the community and official authority. And above all we have mysticism; for wherever there is genuine religion, there you must have mysticism. The fundamental forms of Catholicism may be determined without difficulty or dialectic from the Scriptures and even from St. Paul alone. For revelation does not consist merely in this or that inspiring idea. On the contrary, it is original, comprehensive, mighty life. It is something holy and but half-expressed, “a reality, which is fruitful in resources; a depth, which extends into mystery.”[4]

So the fullness of Catholicism wells out of the fullness of the revelation of the Old and New Testaments, out of the fullness of Scripture and Tradition. But it is a fullness in unity, for it is animated by one spirit and by one soul. The life of Catholicism grows, but it does not outgrow itself. The Church has advanced, past all hesitations and reverses, “till the whole truth ‘self-balanced on its center hung’.”[5]

There are, indeed, apparent disturbances of this inward equipoise, especially when heresies have arisen and compelled the Church to withdraw a truth which has been abused or to emphasize another which has been denied. But a mere attitude of antagonism to heresy, whether it be to Gnosticism, Arianism, Lutheranism or Modernism, is not the proper attitude of Catholicism.