# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S66
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

64 Proceedings of the tenth convention

Spirit did not include them in the Bible because we did not need them. For the Bible is perfect, as the apostle expressly testifies in 2 Tim. 3.

This our second thesis is rather a historical question. According to it, it must be proved first that in the papacy the principle is taught and acted upon that matters of faith are to be grounded on the writings of the fathers and consciences bound to their doctrinal decisions. We have already heard that in the decrees of the Council of Trent the traditions are publicly and solemnly declared before the whole of Christendom to be just as holy and binding as what is taught in Holy Scripture. There are, however, two kinds of traditions, written and so-called unwritten. Both kinds they accept alike. Indeed, even the interpretation of Holy Scripture may according to Trent be none other than that found in the writings of the fathers and established and approved by the Pope.

Now we wish to prove by a number of testimonies that the old church before the papacy stood quite differently, so that the traditionalism of the papacy is a falling away from it.

From the writings of the oldest church fathers it appears that precisely they bore witness against appeal to any human authorities in matters of faith.

Cyprian, the greatest church father before Augustine, a martyr, died 258, wrote, when Bishop Stephen of Rome had appealed against him to the tradition of the fathers: "Whence is that tradition? Does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the gospel? or does it come from the commands and letters of the apostles? For that what is written must be done, God testifies and sets forth, when he says to Joshua, the son of Nun: 'This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.' Josh. 1:8. Likewise the Lord commands, sending out his apostles, to baptize all nations and to teach them to observe all that he has commanded them. If, then, it is commanded either in the gospel, or is contained in the epistles of the apostles or in the Acts of the Apostles, that those who come from any sect are not to be baptized, but that only hands are to be laid on them unto repentance, then this tradition too may be observed. . . . But what stubbornness, what presumption it is to prefer human tradition to the divine ordinance, and not to think that God is made indignant and angry as often as human tradition looses and passes over God's commandments! Isa. 29:13. Matt. 15:3, 1 Tim. 6:3." (Ad Pompejum contra ep. Stephani. Opp. ed. Erasm. f. 327 sq.)