October 28, 2026

    2 minutes readSt Robert Bellarmine: Chapter One: Those who have most of all Defended or Attacked Unwritten Traditions

    2 minutes readSt Robert Bellarmine: Chapter One: Those who have most of all Defended or Attacked Unwritten Traditions
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    Book Four: On the Unwritten Word of God

    Chapter One: Those who have most of all Defended or Attacked Unwritten Traditions

    We have hitherto discoursed of the written word of God; now we will advance to dispute briefly of the unwritten word of God, once we have first noted, to please the more studious, those who in our age have written about traditions, or certainly those we ourselves have read. For it was not licit for us to see them all.

    So, on this argument Cardinal Hosius wrote excellently in bk.4 Against the Prolegomena of Brentius; again Peter a Soto in his Defense against the same Brentius, from ch.50 to ch.66; Melchior Canus on Theological Places bk.3; Iodocus Tilletanus in his Apology against Chemnitz on behalf of the Council of Trent; Alphonsus a Castro bk.1 ch.5 of his work Against Heresies, and the Bishop of Rochester too at the beginning of his work against the assertion of the articles of Luther; the doctors of Cologne in their Examination of the Catechism of Monhemius, in their censure of the sixth Dialogue; Peter Canisius in his Catechism about the Precepts of the Church, and William Lindanus in the five books of his Panoply; John Lovanius in his book on the Invocation of the Saints chs.23-­‐25; Caspar Cardillus Villalpandaeus in his book on Traditions.

    Among the heretics have written chiefly against traditions Calvin Institutes bk.4 ch.8 sects.6-­‐8, and ch.10 sects.18-­‐20, and in his Antidote to the Council of Trent sess.4; John Brentius in his Prolegomena against Peter a Soto; Martin Chemnitz in the book he inscribed Theology of the Jesuits, chief chapters; and with great prolixity in his Examination of the Council of Trent when examining the decree on Traditions, which is contained in sess.4, and a certain Hermann Hamelmann, who has recently published an immense volume against traditions, which he divided into three books of Prolegomena, and then into three parts of the principle work, each of which contains many books.

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