# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1856_S209
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Whether Such a One Is to Be Declared a Heretic or a Dangerous False Teacher, etc. 209

...and have been surely and constantly received by the first and ancient Church — yes, although the contrary is proved, clearer than the noonday light, by the most evident testimonies of antiquity — in spite of all this we determine and decree that this must be believed with certainty, although no skilled proofs for the matter are brought forward by us, because (if it is not agreeable) the fullness of such antichristian power lies buried in the shrine of the papal heart."

"They pronounce the curse upon all who do not accept the apocryphal books with the same certainty and authority as the canonical ones. Accursed, then, will be Eusebius, Jerome, Origen, Melito, and the whole first apostolic and ancient Church, from whose testimony that which we have cited above concerning those books is taken." ...

"The whole controversy therefore consists in this question: whether it is certain and undoubted that those books, concerning which this dispute exists, are Scripture inspired by God, either published or approved by the prophets and apostles who had that authority from God? All antiquity answers that it is not certain, but that it has been doubted on account of the disagreement of many. But Tridentine arrogance threatens with that curse anyone unwilling to accept those books with the same, indeed the very same, certainty and authority as the other books concerning which there has never been doubt. What wonder is it, then, that certain papal parasites have argued that the Pope can make new articles of faith, when here he does not shrink from fabricating a new canonical writing? — so that there is no longer any doubt who that one is who, sitting in the temple of God, exalts himself above everything that is called God. 2 Thessalonians 2."

"Are those books, then, to be rejected and condemned outright? This we by no means seek. What use, then, has this controversy? I answer: that the rule of faith, or of sound doctrine, may be certain in the Church. For the ancients held that the authority of church dogmas is to be established from the canonical books alone, as the testimonies cited above show. It was held that the authority of the canonical writings alone was fit to establish what is in dispute; as for the remaining books, which Cyprian calls ecclesiastical and Jerome apocryphal, it was indeed intended that they be read in the churches for the edification of the people, but not for the proof of the authority of church dogmas. And the authority of those books was held less fit to establish what is in dispute. No doctrine, therefore, may be set up from those books which does not have certain and evident foundations and testimonies in the other canonical writings. Nothing that is in dispute can be proved from those books unless other proofs and confirmations are present in the canonical books. Rather, what is said in those books is to be interpreted and understood according to the analogy of what is plainly taught in the canonical books. That this is the opinion of the