Revelation is unwritten or written; one Word in substance, dual in mode; against a real pontifical distinction

XXII. Second: divine revelation is either unwritten or written. Divine things can be known only through God and his word — whether that word is ἄγραφον, unwritten, or ἔγγραφον, written. Whatever is known from it returns to this principle: Whatever God has said must be believed; or, The mouth of the Lord has spoken, therefore it must be believed.

As to the substance of doctrine this Word is altogether one; as to the mode of revelation it is, as it were, twofold — unwritten and written. That mode of revelation is what chiefly needs explanation. Although everything revealed proceeds from one and the same Spirit, not everything is disclosed in the same way. Some things are written; some are gathered by inference — as Gregory Nazianzen teaches in book 5 On Theology, Basil the Great in On the true faith, and Augustine in On Baptism against the Donatists, book 2 chapter 14 and book 4 chapter 23.

Some things are not, and yet are said to be in the Scriptures — that God sits, that he has ears and eyes. Some things are, and yet are not said expressly and in so many words — that the Holy Spirit is God — though something is said from which the point follows of necessity, as when one who says twice five says ten, and one who says twice two says four, even without using those exact words. Some things neither are nor are said. Finally, some both are and are said.

Those who join the papists in setting a real distinction between the written and the unwritten word of God go badly astray. Irenaeus speaks wisely (Against heresies, book 3, chapter 1): We have known the disposition of our salvation through no others than those through whom the Gospel reached us — which they first heralded, and afterwards, by God's will, handed down to us in the Scriptures as the foundation and pillar of our faith to come.