The Canons of Trent
Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Session VI on Justification (1547)
The Council of Trent, convened by Paul III, sitting in three periods 1545–1563
Eighteen years of sessions in an alpine town, and the two things it did are the two things nobody remembers together.
- Catch rate
- 8 / 255
- Base research
- 312
- Stat total
- 364
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Eighteen years of sessions, and the shape of the Roman church for the next four centuries. There is a great deal of it and it has all been thought about.
Thirty-three canons on justification, each ending let him be anathema. It is aiming at the Reformers by name without naming one.
The most carefully drafted document in this city. Its authors spent months on single words, and it shows.
Eighteen years, three periods, two suspensions and a plague. Nothing about it was quick.
Cited for this book
Rome’s real answer, and it has two halves. Trent ABOLISHED the indulgence trade in its own words — the abuses, it says, made the name of indulgences blasphemed by heretics, and all evil gains for obtaining them are wholly abolished. Rome’s own commission had already reported that popes and cardinals were worldly, that office was bought, and that the monasteries had lost discipline. And the same council hardened against justification by faith alone and shut the door on reunion for four hundred years. Both halves, or you have not finished the argument.
Moves learned
This book learns nothing new by levelling — everything it knows, it knew from the start or brought with it through development.
What answers it
The specific move or chapter of Scripture that cuts through this argument, and why.
Rome answered, and the answer had two halves. The Council of Trent ABOLISHED the indulgence trade in its own words — the abuses, it says, made the name of indulgences blasphemed, and all evil gains for obtaining them are wholly abolished. The stall the Theses were written against was shut by Rome, in council. And the same council hardened against faith alone, canon by canon. A Protestant who knows only the second half has not finished the argument.
Council of Trent, Session XXV (1563) Decree on Indulgences and Session VI (1547) Canon IX, trans. Waterworth 1848, in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom II (1877), public domain.
Read it: Let Him Be Anathema
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.
“If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will: let him be anathema.”
Council of Trent, Session VI (1547), Canon IX, trans. Waterworth 1848, in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom II (1877), public domain.
“If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost… and is inherent in them… let him be anathema.”
Council of Trent, Session VI (1547), Canon XI, trans. Waterworth 1848, in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom II (1877), public domain. The ellipses skip the Latin, which this edition prints inside the English sentence.
“If any one saith, that it is necessary for every one, for the obtaining the remission of sins, that he believe for certain, and without any wavering arising from his own infirmity and indisposition, that his sins are forgiven him: let him be anathema.”
Council of Trent, Session VI (1547), Canon XIII, trans. Waterworth 1848, in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom II (1877), public domain.
“I acknowledge the holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church for the mother and mistress of all churches; and I promise and swear true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ.”
The Profession of the Tridentine Faith (1564), Article X, in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom II (1877), public domain.
Rome’s real answer, convened by Paul III in 1545 and sitting in three periods until 1563 — eighteen years, two suspensions, and a plague.
It has two halves and nobody remembers them together. Trent ABOLISHED the indulgence trade in its own words. It also hardened against justification by faith alone and shut the door on reunion for four hundred years.
Canon XIII condemns the person who believes, for certain, that his own sins are forgiven. Read it slowly. That is the point on which the century turned.