The Catholic Confession: Book I—General, Volume II: Part II, Chapters I–V: The Papal Principle, Scripture, and Tradition

Johann Gerhard’s Confessio Catholica — The Catholic Confession —is one of the monumental documentary works of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Written during the final years of Gerhard’s life, it answers the charge that the churches of the Augsburg Confession abandoned the historic catholic faith and established a new religion. This second volume presents Chapters I–V of Book I, Part II. Gerhard turns from the principles of the true catholic religion to a searching examination of the authority claimed by the Roman papacy. He considers whether the Roman pontiff can serve as the Church’s supreme and infallible judge, surveys historical instances of papal error, and tests the qualifications by which Roman Catholic controversialists attempted to preserve claims of papal infallibility. Gerhard then addresses the place of Holy Scripture within the papal system. He contrasts Rome’s formal praise of Scripture with teachings that subordinate the biblical text to ecclesiastical judgment and unwritten tradition. Drawing upon Scripture, the Fathers, councils, canon law, historians, scholastic theologians, and Roman Catholic controversialists, he documents the internal disagreements of his opponents and turns their own testimony against later claims of unanimity and indefectibility. Translated from the Jena first edition of 1634, this volume includes extensive explanatory notes, a biographical register of authors and historical persons, and comprehensive indexes of persons, works and documents, and Scripture. It offers pastors, theologians, historians, and serious students of the Reformation a formidable investigation of papal authority, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the relationship between Scripture and tradition.