Early believers were moved by the Word's luminous power, not by Church authority or the preachers' fame

What moved the "barbarians" the Apostles taught to prefer death to deserting the faith? Not the human arguments (they produce only human faith); not the Church's authority (then unknown to them — and if proved from Scripture, circular); not the preachers' authority (unarmed fishermen and obscure weavers). Therefore they believed moved by the luminous power and spiritual efficacy of the Word itself, handed down to us through Scripture.

No effect that depends on a cause cannot exist without that cause.ent to Scripture sometimes exists without the Church's known authority. Therefore this assent does not depend on the Church's authority as on a cause of itself — as history shows of those who believed from New Testament reading alone. Bellarmine himself confesses: no persuasion can compel belief in supernatural articles unless the mind is divinely helped — not even miracles entirely convince.