Did Vatican II Correct Trent’s View of Tradition?

The problem of the Biblical Canon (or the problem of Canonicity) is the question of which books and textual passages count as inspired Scripture, and which should therefore be in the Bible. (For details, see “Bible Canon: What Is the Problem?”)

One approach to this problem is to appeal to “Tradition.” That approach can be seen in the teachings of both the Council of Trent (1545–63) and in Vatican II (1962–65), but there is a subtle difference between their approaches. It raises the question of whether Vatican II corrected what the Council of Trent said.

1. The Council of Trent

The Council of Trent (1545–63) explicitly listed the books of the Biblical Canon. It gives an appearance of treating that list as if it is an element of Revelation, and it explains Revelation as follows:

Our Lord Jesus Christ… promulgated… truth, and moral discipline… [which] are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves,… have come down… to us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand. (Session 4, 1546)

Trent says that Revelation is transmitted in “written books” (i.e., the Scriptures) and in “unwritten traditions.” Those unwritten traditions are Apostolic Tradition which communicate information from the Apostles to later Christians.

This means that the Revelation of the Biblical Canon must either be in the Bible itself, or it must come from the Apostles. The Biblical Canon is not contained in Scripture. (See “Bible Canon: Can Scripture Solve the Problem?”) So, that would seem to mean that the Biblical Canon must have been drawn up by the Apostles and then passed to later Christians, “ as it were from hand to hand.”

That basic model was reiterated by Vatican I (1870):

Now this supernatural revelation,… as declared by the sacred council of Trent, is contained in written books and unwritten traditions, which were received by the apostles from the lips of Christ himself, or came to the apostles by the dictation of the holy Spirit, and were passed on as it were from hand to hand until they reached us. (Dei Filius 2.5)

This model of Revelation provides a clear and simple solution to the problem of the Biblical Canon. It means that Christians know the contents of the Bible because the Apostles were inspired to know that information, and then they handed it on.

2. The Modernist Challenge

By the turn of the twentieth century (Theological) Modernists noticed that there was a problem in Trent’s approach. If the Apostles really did produce a list in the first century detailing which books should be in the Bible, then why was there so much apparent confusion about the Biblical Canon in the second, third and fourth centuries? (For details, see “Bible Canon: What Is the Early Church Evidence?”)

The Modernists concluded that the evidence of history made it implausible to think that there could have been an Apostolic Tradition listing the contents of the Biblical Canon. Their concerns about “Apostolic tradition” led Pope Pius X (d. 1914) to characterize them as:

…despising the holy and Apostolic traditions… (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907, #13).

But the Modernists were not so much “despising” Apostolic tradition, as simply claiming that the Church was asking too much of it. In their opinion Church teaching was at risk of becoming irrational, as it asserted claims which were contradicted by historical evidence.

Furthermore, if Apostolic tradition does not contain the Revelation of the Biblical Canon, then the Modernists concluded that that Revelation must have occurred after the Apostolic Age. But that particular Modernist conclusion seemed to be a direct rejection of Trent’s view that (all) Revelation occurred in the age of the Apostles, as either written Scripture or unwritten Tradition.

Unsurprisingly, Pope Pius X (d. 1914) strongly rejected the (Modernist) claim that:

Revelation… was not completed with the Apostles. (Lamentabili Sane, 1907, #21)

This created a serious theological crisis, as Pope Pius X did not offer an explanation or rationale to explain how the Church’s teaching about the Biblical Canon was rational. He simply repeated the prior teaching, and said that the Modernist alternative was not acceptable.

3. Responses to Modernism

We can see the seriousness of the theological crisis in the classic Pre-Vatican II Manuals (text books), such as Louis Billot’s De Immutabilitate Traditionis. (See Online 4th edition, 1929.)

When Billot engaged with the issue of historical evidence, he stated:

Tradition accepted in the true and Catholic sense is the rule of faith… The concept of tradition understood as… human action, or as the preaching of Christ and the Apostles, conveyed by the authority of historical (sources) alone, is a false, Protestant concept and (one that) carries a heretical character.

… traditio in vero et catholico sensu accepta, regula fidei est… Conceptus traditionis sub ratione…facti humani, seu praedicationis a Christo et apostolis cum sola auctoritate historica decurrentis, conceptus est falsus, protestanticus, haereticalem notam prae se ferens. (See Online text, p. 22.)

Billot has effectively turned the problem of historical evidence into a choice between two competing theories of Tradition. But that was not the real problem which the Modernists had raised. They were asking about the rationality of appealing to Apostolic Tradition when doing so seemed to be contrary to historical evidence. Billot does not have an answer to the Modernist problem. He has effectively side-stepped it.

When Billot dealt explicitly with the question of Biblical Canon, he stated:

But we [have] the instrument of Tradition, to which Christ committed the duty of teaching all truth… [thus] we receive the revealed truth of the whole canon of inspired Scripture.

At nos, ex organo traditionis cui a Christo commissum est munus docendi omnem veritatem…, [ergo] accipimus veritatem revelatam integri canonis Scripturae inspiratae. (See Online text, p. 31–32.)

In this passage Billot solves the problem of Biblical Canon by effectively turning “Apostolic Tradition” into a “Magisterial Tradition,” which is a record of Church teachings. On the surface that seems to avoid the Modernist challenge to Apostolic Tradition. But it has only done so by creating a circularity of dubious rationality. The Church knows the Biblical Canon because the Church teaches it… And the Church teaches it because the Church knows it.

We can see the problem at the heart of Billot’s position by asking how does the Church know what to teach about the Biblical Canon? Is the Church repeating information which it has received through an original Apostolic Tradition (as Trent seemed to imply)? Or, has there been a Post-Apostolic Revelation telling the Church what to teach (as the Modernists were condemned for saying).

Billot is trying to avoid both horns of the dilemma. He can’t say that the Apostles did teach the contents of the Biblical Canon, as the rationality of that position is challenged by historical evidence. But he can’t deny it either, without risking an accusation that he is a Modernist. Billot’s inability to deal with the question left his position looking questionably rational.

4. Vatican II

By the time of Vatican II (1965) it was increasingly clear that the set of theological problems surrounding Canonicity, Apostolic Tradition and Revelation could not be ignored any longer.

After some of the most heated discussions of the Council, and after considerable re-drafting of texts, the Council produced Dei Verbum. It states:

This tradition which comes from the Apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit….  For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth… The words of the holy fathers witness to the presence of this living tradition… Through the same tradition the Church’s full canon of the sacred books is known. (Dei Verbum 8)

This passage reiterates that there is an Apostolic Tradition but it adds an entirely new nuance. It states that that Tradition “develops in the Church.” Those four English words (or three Latin words, in Ecclesia proficit) completely transformed the problem of Canonicity.

Those words meant that it was no longer necessary to claim that there was an Apostolic Tradition listing all of the Biblical books, as there was now a recognition that Tradition “develops in the Church.” The idea of development meant that there was no longer a clash between Apostolic Tradition and historical evidence. On the contrary, the diversity of views evident in historical sources actually confirmed the point that Vatican II was making: the Church was “moving forward toward the fullness of divine truth.”

Vatican II was also careful to echo Pius X’s insistence that Revelation was completed in the age of the Apostles. Using slightly more circumspect language the Council affirmed:

Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church… perpetuates… all that she believes. (Dei Verbum 8)

In this paragraph Vatican II is effectively saying that “everything… that (the Church) believes… was handed on by the Apostles.” That is a rejection of the Modernist claim that some Revelation occurred after the Apostolic Age.

By expressing itself carefully, Vatican II has steered a mid-way between the Modernists and the Anti-Modernists. It has tweaked Trent’s model of a Revelation which was completed in the Apostolic age by adding the idea that the Church’s understanding of that Revelation can continue to grow after the Apostolic Age.

5. The Catechism

The Catechism (1992) provides a helpful clarification of what Vatican II is saying about Revelation. It states:

Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries. (CCC 66)

This explains how Revelation can be complete (in the Apostolic era) and how Church teaching can also continue to develop over time. That development is a matter of making “explicit” what was implicit in the original Revelation, which occurred in the Apostolic era.

When this model of Revelation is applied to the issue of the Biblical Canon, it means that the Church’s teaching on the Canon of Scripture was implicit in the Apostolic era, (i.e., through the usage of Scripture). But it only became explicit (i.e., as a list of Biblical books) in later Church teaching.

However, when the Catechism focuses more explicitly upon the specific issue of the Biblical Canon, its presentation of Church teaching becomes arguably inaccurate. It states:

It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. (CCC 120)

Footnote 90 of the Catechism references that claim to paragraph 8 of Dei Verbum. But that claim is not an accurate report of what Dei Verbum teaches. The Catechism reports Dei Verbum’s summary of Trent’s teaching, but then it has completely omitted the nuance which Dei Verbum added, in order to transform the problem of Biblical Canon.

If the Catechism were to have more accurately presented Vatican II’s teaching, then it should have said something like:

It was by the apostolic Tradition [which develops in the Church] that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. (CCC 120 emphasized words added)

What this all means is that paragraph 66 of the Catechism is a good explanation of Church teaching about Revelation, but paragraph 120 is an arguably inaccurate presentation of the Church’s teaching (at Vatican II) about the Biblical Canon.

6. Conclusion

Vatican II’s approach to the topics of Revelation and Canonicity opened with a reiteration of the teaching of Trent: that Revelation derives ultimately from the Apostolic era. Then with three Latin words, Vatican II nuanced that teaching, asserting that Revelation develops over time.

That nuanced understanding of Revelation tweaked the teaching of the Council of Trent and arguably “completed it” rather than corrected it, as Vatican II’s position repudiates nothing in what Trent said. Instead, Vatican II clarifies Trent’s teaching so that it cannot be misunderstood and rejected as irrational, as occurred in the Modernist Crisis.

On the specific question of the Biblical Canon, Vatican II upholds Trent’s principle that the answer originates in Apostolic Tradition, but it has added that the full answer occurs through the development of that Apostolic Tradition. What this means is that Tradition contains the answer to the problem of Biblical Canon, but Tradition has also been shaped over the centuries. So a full answer to the problem of Biblical Canon cannot just cite Tradition, it must also clarify what has shaped the development of the original Apostolic Tradition, into the actual content of the Biblical Canon which Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II all affirmed.