Trent vs. Augustine
In his four volume Examination of the Council of Trent, Martin Chemnitz carefully goes through the writings of the Council and exposes the voluminous errors contained therein.
The first topic that he takes up is “Concerning the Sacred Scriptures.” This is at the heart of the controversy between the Evangelicals and the Tridentines, because the two parties cannot agree on what should be authoritative in the Church. The Tridentines argue that appeals solely to Scripture cannot be made, because the apostles left “unwritten traditions” that are equal to, or in some cases, surpass and supersede the revelation of Scripture. And these unwritten traditions have been handed down through the apostles like children playing the game Telephone, with these revelations whispered from ear to ear. Therefore, one must not make judgments concerning dogma based on Scripture as the foundation, rule, and norm, but one must trust the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church as guardians of these secret oracles.
This is stated by the Council in the First Decree of the Fourth Session of April 5, 1546, which appeals to the authority of:
“the written books and in the unwritten traditions, which, after they had been received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself or from the apostles, the Holy Spirit dictating, have come down to us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; and following the example of the orthodox fathers, it receives and venerates with equal devotion and reverence all the books both of the Old and New Testaments (since one God is the author of both) and also said traditions, both those pertaining to faith and those pertaining to morals, as dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy Spirit and preserved by a continuous succession in the Catholic Church.” (emphasis added)
This is the allure of the Roman Catholic Church to many: that the direct succession from St. Peter provides a touchstone for authenticity, and that anything outside of this edifice is subject to corruption, lacking the whispered and unwritten esoteric traditions that complete the Gospel where the Scripture falls short.
In taking this tack, the Tridentines have to throw St. Augustine (and many other church fathers) under the proverbial bus.
For Augustine, like the Evangelicals in the sixteenth century disputations, points us to the Scriptures. And if there were sacred whispered revelations passed down from Christ and the apostles through the chain of succession, it seems that the great doctor of the church was left out of the loop. One has to wonder how this could be, since he was consecrated as a bishop, and would, it seems, be privy to this extrabiblical oral body of doctrine handed down from the apostles a thousand years before the Council of Trent.
Chemnitz quotes Augustine in numerous places, to cite a few:
“Whatever Christ wanted us to read concerning His deeds and sayings, that He commanded the evangelists, as it were His own hands, to write.”
“Since the Lord at the time of the apostles did not will that the acts of the other apostles should be written, who of us may say that they were this way or that way? Or, if he dares to say it, how will he prove it?”
“The City of God believes the sacred Scriptures, both old and new, which we call canonical. From these the faith is conceived by which the righteous man lives, through which we walk without doubting as long as we sojourn from the Lord.”
“Among the things which are clearly stated in Holy Scripture are found all things which comprise faith and morals for living, namely hope and love.”
"If anyone preaches either concerning Christ or concerning His church or concerning any other matter which pertains to our faith and life; I will not say, if we, but what Paul adds, if an angel from heaven should preach to you anything besides what you have received in the Scriptures of the Law and of the Gospel, let him be anathema.”
“You ought to notice particularly and store in your memory that God wanted to lay a firm foundation in the Scriptures against treacherous errors, a foundation against which no one dares to speak who would in any way be considered a Christian. For when He offered Himself to them to touch, this did not suffice Him unless he also confirmed the heart of the believers from the Scriptures, for he foresaw that the time would come when we would not have anything to touch but would have something to read.”
“What more shall I teach you than what we read in the apostle? For Holy Scripture fixes the rule of our doctrine, lest we dare to be wiser than we ought. Therefore I should not teach you anything else except to expound to you the words of the Teacher.”
“Wherever the place has been determined, let us see to it that the canonical codices are on hand and if any proofs can be produced on either side, let us set everything else aside and bring so important a matter to a conclusion.”
“But now I ought not to quote the Nicean, nor you the Ariminensian Council, as if to judge beforehand. I will not be bound by the authority of this, nor you by the authority of that. On the authority of the Scriptures and not on any one’s own, but on the common witnesses of both, let matter contend with matter, cause with cause, reason with reason.”
“Let our books be taken away from the midst, and let the Book of God enter there. Listen to Christ speaking. Listen to the truth talking.”
“When there is a dispute about a very obscure matter in which there is no help from certain and clear testimonies of the divine Scriptures, human presumption ought to hold itself in check and not do anything which would cause it to veer to either side.”
“Let us not hear: This I say, this you say; but, thus says the Lord. Surely it is the books of the Lord on whose authority we both agree and which we both believe. There let us seek the church, there let us discuss our case.”
“Let those things be removed from our midst which we quote against each other not from divine canonical books but from elsewhere. Someone may perhaps ask: Why do you want to remove these things from the midst? Because I do not want the holy church proved by human documents but by divine oracles.”
“Whatever they may adduce, and whatever they may quote from, let us rather, if we are His sheep, hear the voice of our Shepherd. Therefore let us search for the church in the sacred canonical Scriptures.”
“I seek the voice of the Shepherd. Read me this from a prophet, read to me from a Psalm, cite from the Law, cite from the Gospel, cite from an apostle. There I read about the church which is dispersed in the whole world and about the statement of the Lord: ‘My sheep hear My voice and follow Me.’ Let human books be removed! Let the divine voices sound forth!”
“Read to us from the Law, from the Prophets, from the Psalms, from the Gospel, read it from the apostolic writings, and we shall believe.”
“Neither dare one agree with catholic bishops if by chance they err in anything, with the result that their opinion is against the canonical Scriptures of God.”
“He who preaches another gospel, let him be cursed, or let him read it to me in the Holy Scriptures, and he shall not be cursed.”
“Let them show their church if they can, not by the speeches and mumblings of the Africans, not by the councils of their bishops, not by the writings of their champions, not by fraudulent signs and wonders, because we have been prepared and made cautious also against these things by the Word of the Lord, but by a command of the Law, by the predictions of the prophets, by songs from the Psalms, by the words of the Shepherd Himself, by the preaching and labors of the evangelists, that is, by all the canonical authorities of the sacred books.”
“Let him not say it is true because this one or that one performed such and such marvelous things, or because men pray at the memorials of our dead and are heard, or because such and such things are taking place there, or because this one or that one has seen such and such a vision either awake or dreamed it while asleep. Let these things be removed because they are either inventions of lying men or signs of deceiving spirits. For we also do not say that we should be believed because we are in the church of Christ, because innumerable bishops of our communion have commended this church to which we adhere, or because such great miracles both of answer to prayer and of healing take place throughout the world in the holy places which our communion frequents.”
“The Lord Jesus Himself, when after His resurrection He presented His body to the eyes of His disciples that they should see and to their hands that they might touch it, lest they should think they were experiencing some deceit, nevertheless judges that He must strengthen them with the testimonies from the law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
“These [Scriptures] are the documents of our cause, these are the foundations, these the pillars.”
“Demand of them that they show some clear testimonies from the canonical books. Remember that the Lord said, ‘They have Moses and Prophets; let them hear them."‘“
Perhaps the great Bishop St. Augustine of Hippo, upon whom the Roman Catholic Church has granted the title “Doctor of the Church” - only the third person to bear this lofty honor - somehow did not get the memo containing all of the secret esoteric traditions that were not to be written. What a tragedy that one of the greatest doctors and theologians of the Church, should have been omitted from the meticulous, Spirit-directed, hand-to-hand transmission of the unwritten traditions “received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself or from the apostles, the Holy Spirit dictating, have come down to” the fathers of the Council of Trent.
Perhaps the Trentonians should have excommunicated Augustine as an impostor and a heretic, since he clearly sides with the Evangelicals who likewise reject the canonicity of unwritten traditions, instead arguing their case based on the Holy Scriptures.