On Divine Tradition – Cardinal Franzelin

This was a joint project with Sensus Traditionis Press. Now that they are beginning their own distribution and hardcover service we will no longer carry this item. We will provide a link to purchase hardcover on Sensus Traditionis Press as soon as it is available. Thank you for your understanding!

On Divine Tradition is one of the most important theological texts dealing with the notion of Tradition in the Church. Unlike other authors who wrote very well on the subject but tailored it to the issues of their day, such as Melchior Cano and St. Robert Bellarmine, Cardinal Franzelin wrote a treatise considering tradition in itself, and then applied the fruit of this discussion to refute the Protestant notion that Tradition is opposed to Scripture.

Thus, in 26 Theses, Franzelin explains for us the notion of Tradition, where we seen tradition in history; how Scripture is also a witness to it; that Christ founded a living magisterium of witnesses to guide His Church; what is infallibility and how do we see it exercised; what are the monuments; what is the authority of the Fathers of the Church as well as the Theologians? What do we make of St. Vincent of Lérin’s definition, always, everywhere and by all?

Questions such as these, are treated in depth in a serious theological study considered to be classical in theological studies, which set the discussion for every other writer on the topic, even after Vatican II. Hitherto locked away in Latin, Ryan Grant (Director of the Bellarmine Translation Project) has rendered them into a good, readable English while preserving the scholastic and Thomistic language of the original, having given a great contribution to Theology which for too long has been impoverished on account of being cut off from its Latin patrimony.

NB: The text is a heavily Thomistic text, and though great pains were taken to make it readable, still, it is a work of systematic theology and will not read like a popular theology book. Still, there are many great and important insights for those who are not particularly trained in theology, but there will be sections that are much more difficult. While all this adds to the glory of the work, we felt it necessary to warn the general reader.