The Council of Trent, the Bible, and Tradition

The Council [of Trent] agreed fully with Ambrosius Pelargus, that under no condition should the Protestants be allowed to triumph by saying that the council had condemned the doctrine of the ancient church. But this practice caused untold difficulty without being able to guarantee certainty. For this business, indeed, ‘well-nigh divine prudence’ was requisite—which the Spanish ambassador acknowledged as belonging to the council on the sixteenth of March, 1562. Indeed, thus far they had not been able to orient themselves to the interchanging, crisscrossing, labyrinthine, twisting passages of an older and newer concept of tradition. But even in this they were to succeed. Finally, at the last opening [see editors’ note] on the eighteenth of January, 1562, all hesitation was set aside: [Gaspar de Fosso] the Archbishop of Reggio made a speech [see No. 1443] in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed circumcision into baptism, Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority. With this, to be sure, the last illusion was destroyed, and it was declared that tradition does not signify antiquity, but continual inspiration.

[Editors’ note: This "last opening" of the Council of Trent was not the last day, but the opening of the 17th session, the first meeting of the last series of sessions that was opened, after a lapse of time, under a new pope. The council was in session for longer or shorter periods over a series of years.]

Neufeld, Don F. and Julia Neuffer, eds., Seventh-day Adventist Bible Student’s Source Book, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1962, p. 888, no. 1444.
(Source: Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition ("Canon and Tradition"), Ludwigsburg: Druck und Verlag von Ferd. Riehm, 1859, p. 263. German.)

Holtzmann, Heinrich Julius, Kanon und Tradition, Ludwigsburg: Druck und Verlag von Ferd. Riehm, 1859, p. 263.