DEPOSIT OF THE FAITH.- The word deposit (Greek παραθήκη) occurs in St. Paul's letters to Timothy (I Tim. 6:20; II Tim. 1:14), in the writings of several Fathers, especially in Tertullian (De praescriptione, 25: PL 2, 37), in St. Vincent of Lérins (Commonitorium primum, 22: PL 50, 667 ff.); it enters definitively into theological terminology from the end of the 16th century, and is sanctioned by the Council of the Vatican, sess. III, cap. 4 (Denz-U, 1798 ff.).
In legal language the term indicates a thing of which the depositary is not the owner, but the faithful custodian. In ecclesiastical language, the term is used to designate the divine Revelation, integral and complete, as it is contained in Sacred Scripture and in the divine-apostolic tradition. This is the theological concept of the deposit.
Only those truths that form part of the public revelation, strictly binding on all the faithful, belong to the deposit of the faith, to the exclusion of private revelations, even if genuine. So that the deposit of the faith, entrusted to the Church, may always be preserved and handed down faithfully, Jesus Christ instituted the living magisterium, endowed with the gift of infallibility, which belongs to the whole
Church, "pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15), personally to Peter, the foundation of the Church (Mt. 16:18), and to his successors in the Roman primacy (v. INFALLIBILITÀ DELLA CHIESA E DEL PAPA).
Therefore the pope and the bishops united with him have the right and the duty to preserve the deposit of the faith, to explain it, defend it, establish its content and its extent, adapting to the needs of men and of the times. This immutable preservation of the deposit of the faith does not, however, prevent a real progress (v. DOCMA) in the knowledge of it on the part of individuals and of the whole Church, but always "in eodem dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia" (Council of the Vatican, sess. III, cap. 4, Denz-U, 1800). Hence the infallible definitions issued by the Church do nothing but authentically declare that the truths proposed are contained in the deposit of Revelation, and are generally only more explicit declarations of what was less expressly contained in the earlier formulas or definitions (cf. Snm. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 1, a. 9, ad 2; a. 10, ad 1).
Bibliography4 works
Giacinto Ameri