Chapter XIX: Which excludes the necessity of traditions, § 394.
CHAPTER XIX: ON UNWRITTEN TRADITIONS
§ 394. From the perfection of Scripture that we have been proving clearly up to this point, we conclude that it needs no supplement of traditions in the articles of faith that one must know for his salvation. Consequently, we repudiate the unwritten traditions that the Papists foist upon the Church as something we must accept with an equal affection of piety65 with the written Word of God and with which they busily complete the imperfection of Scripture. However, before we line up our forces against those traditions of the Papists, we will make some remarks about the state of the question.
(1) When the word “tradition” is used in the Scriptures and the fathers, it is taken generally for a teaching handed down in any way, in which manner the word is also used for those things that are expressly contained in Scripture (Acts 6:14, Vulgate; 1 Cor. 11:23; 2 Thess. 2:15; Cyprian, Epistle 74 ad Pompeium). Bellarmine acknowledges this in De verbo Dei, bk. 4, c. 2, and writes: “The word ‘tradition’ is a general one and means all teaching written or unwritten that one person communicates to another.” Exod. 17:14: “Write and hand down.” The question here is not about such traditions that are contained in Scripture.
(2) This also is not involved in the question: whether Christ and the apostles did not do and say more things than are extant in the writings of the evangelists and apostles as things they did and said. Rather, the question is whether some necessary parts of doctrine pertaining to faith and behavior were not written down but have been handed down only orally.
(3) The question is not about rituals and ceremonies. We admit that the apostles established in the churches certain free rituals that were related to decency and good order [1 Cor. 14:40] that were not specifically and individually written nor were imposed on the churches with a permanent rule of necessity, though the type—namely, that “all things should be done for edification”—was written [1 Cor. 14:26], and that alone is necessary.