THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
tested almost contemporaneously and for widely separated sections of the Church by Irenseus, Tertullian, and Origen (cf. Thomasius, ut sup., p. 38). There is no express statement of the content of this current oral tradition; but beyond doubt it is summed up in the baptismal confession (the so-called Apostles' Creed) and the " Rule of Faith " (see Regula Fidei). The third century also makes no distinction between oral and written tradition.
Church Fathers who defended the authenticity and validity of tradition nevertheless warned against setting too high a value upon it (Tertullian, De virginibus velandis, i.; Cyprian, Epist. lxxiv. [Ixxv.]). They also acknowledged the adequacy of Scripture (Athanasius, Oratio adv. gentes (vol. i., part, i.; Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, ii. 9). Yet Augustine declared " I would not believe Scripture if the authority of the Church catholic did not impel me " (Contra epist. Manichcei, v.), meaning that the opinion of the Church catholic determined the books properly belonging to Scripture (cf. F Loofs, Dogmengeschichte, § xliv. 1, Halle, 1906). The Church settled the Xew-Testament canon by means of tradition; and, being regarded as apostolic, tradition came to be the test of apostolicity, and this easily led to an overestimation of it. It became a source of Christian truth by the side of the Scriptures and was appealed to in support of propositions which are not found in the Bible or are found there only doubtfully. Chrysostom regarded the " unwritten deliverances " of the apostles as much matter of faith as their letters (on II Thess., Homilia iv., in Opera, xii. 385, cited in W Miinscher, Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte, hi. 137, 4 vols., Mar-
burg, 1809-18), and, before him, the orthodox Epiphanius expressly taught the validity of tradition by the side of the Scriptures (Hcer., lxi. 6). This became the doctrine of the Eastern Church (John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, iv. 12; Loofs, ut sup., § xliv.). Augustine, as already quoted, represents the same tendency in the West; and his opponent, Vincent of Lerins, declared that " the line of interpretation of prophets and apostles must follow the opinion of the Church catholic " {Commonitorium, ii.), and formulated the canon of catholicity (" that is catholic which has been believed always, everywhere, and by everybody," ib. hi.).
Throughout the Middle Ages it was orthodox doctrine that divine revelation flows in two streams — Bible and tradition. There was no advance in the teaching concerning revelation in general except that in the West, after Aristotle was made known by Mohammedan scholars, the natural reason was added as a third source of some knowledge of God (e.g., of his existence and unity; cf. Thomas Aquinas cited in Miinscher, ut sup., ii. 1, p. 100). In the East the tendency was steadily to make the Bible secondary to oral tradition. It is true that individuals here and there in the West, influenced by widely different motives, raised a voice of protest against the supremacy of tradition; but they failed to produce any far-reaching or abiding effect. Abelard set contradictory utterances of the Fathers side by side in 157 rubrics in his Sic et non, and was condemned for it. The Waldenses fared still worse when they promoted Bible reading and so in a meas-
ure cut loose from tradition (cf. the edicts of the councils of Toulouse in 1229 and Tarragona in 1234; texts in Miinscher, ut sup., ii. 1, p. 109). It was the so-called reformers before the Reformation who first challenged tradition clearly and boldly as a second source of Christian truth (cf. Wyclif, Trial, iv. 7, p. 199; Loofs, ut sup., § lxxii. 5); and it was in the Reformation that the doctrine of Scripture was thoroughly and earnestly developed.
The Reformation started with no special theory of Scripture. But as Luther developed his doctrine of justification by faith he found himself constantly compelled to appeal more and more to the written word of God and to discard all traditions of the Church. That sure testimony to the revelation of salvation is offered only in the Bible became the fundamental doctrine of the Reformation (cf. Thomasius, ut sup., ii. 197). Since Protestantism, however, believes that the Holy Spirit has always been present in the Church, it does not reject indiscriminately all tradition. It retains whatever of doctrine has the certain support of Scripture (cf. P Tschackert, Polemik, pp. 3, 96, Gotha, 1885) and in matters of rite and ceremony it keeps what is not contradictory to Scripture. The Roman Church, on the other hand, decreed at Trent (session iv.) that divine truth is derived from two sources, Scripture and tradition, and that the latter is to be regarded with the same reverence as the former. It practically made tradition the first source by declaring that the Bible is to be interpreted by it (cf. Loofs, ut sup., § lxxiv. 2), the reason being that certain of its dogmas and rites — the mass and its ceremonies, the consecration of priests, the tonsure, the marriage sacrament, extreme unction, purgatory — have no Biblical ground and must be justified by extra-Biblical tradition. In promulgating the two latest Roman dogmas — the immaculate conception and the universal episcopate of the pope — the Roman Church has departed from Vincent of Lerins, and to cover the infallibility dogma, the Jesuitical theology has made a new definition — " tradition is what has been taught as such in the Church of Rome." Further, the pope becomes the Church. Pius IX. declared " I am tradition," and wrote to the archbishop of Cologne (text in Tschackert, ut sup., p. 407, note 16) that the mere fact that a dogma is defined by the pope is sure and sufficient proof for all that it is founded in Scripture and tradition.
(P TsCHACKERTt.)
Bibliography: The subject is often treated in Protestant works on systematic theology (see Dogma, Dogmatics). and in all complete treatises of that subject by Roman Catholics, since in the Roman Church it is so important a theme. The works on the history of doctrine also deal with it. Consult especially: E. van Ess, Chrysostomus oder Stimmen der Kirchenvater iiber das niitzliche und erbauliche Bibellesen, Darmstadt, 1824 (Roman Catholic); J. L. Jacobi, Die kirchliche Lehre von der Tradition und heiligen Schrift, Berlin, 1847; J. H. Friedlieb, Schnft, Tradition und Schriftauslegung, Breslau, 1854 (Roman Catholic); A. Neander, Christliche Dogmengeschichte, ed. J. L. Jacobi, i. 75 sqq., 286-293, ii. 196 sqq., Berlin, 1857; idem, Christian Church, consult Index; H. J. Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition, Ludwigsburg, 1859; J. Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, 2 vols., Mtinster, 1862-90 (Roman Catholic); F. Speil, Die Lehrcn der katholischen Kirche gegenilber der protestantischen Polemik, Freiburg, 1865 (Roman Catholic); F. Ntzsch, Grundriss der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, i. 243-268, Be.lin, 1870; K. Hase,