1) The traditional holy Scriptures and the Apocrypha of the Old Testament are both Scriptures and of equal authority. Now Luther had removed the Apocrypha of the Old Testament from canonic validity. He would have liked to remove many more books from canonic validity, e. g., the Book of Esther, and things like that. But he was able to remove the Apocrypha – the books which were not openly acknowledged, but “hidden.” Why is this important? The important thing is that these Apocrypha have a very special character, the character of legalism. They are legalism in terms of proverbs, to a great extent. And this legalistic spirit entered for a long time the Roman church, and now was preserved in terms of the authority of the Apocryphal books. So we have two Bibles, the Roman and the Protestant, and they are not identical.
2) Scripture and tradition are equal in authority – “with equal piety and reverence accepted,” was the phrase. This was the form in which the Council of Trent negated the Scriptural principle. What the tradition is, was not defined. Actually the tradition became identical with the decisions of the Vatican from day to day. But it was not defined and the fact that it was open made it possible that the Pope used it, however he wanted to use it. Of course he could not want to use it absolutely willfully, because there was an actual tradition deposited in the Councils and former decisions, but the present decision is always decisive, and the present decision about what the tradition is, is in the hands of the Pope.
3) There is only one translation which has ultimate and unconditional authority: the Vulgate of St. Jerome. This was said against Erasmus, who had edited a text of the New Testament in terms of higher criticism. This was used by the Reformers.
