AI Translation · Case Study
Heidegger’s section-by-section refutation of the Council of Trent — the most thorough Reformed response to the Roman counter-Reformation — Englished for the first time. Both volumes (1490 + 1707 passages) now searchable against the original 1690 Latin.
Source: 1690 Zurich edition (David Gessner). Translated to English passage-by-passage by Claude Sonnet 4; Latin originals preserved alongside every chunk. No prior English translation has existed.
Johann Heinrich Heidegger (1633–1698), Reformed dogmatician at the Carolinum in Zurich and successor in Bullinger’s line, wrote the Tumulus Tridentini Concilii (“The Tomb of the Council of Trent”) in 1690 as the mature follow-up to his earlier Anatome Concilii Tridentini (1672). The earlier work dissected Trent’s decrees; the later work declared their burial.
The Tumulus is the most thorough Reformed treatment of the Council of Trent ever written: a session-by-session, canon-by-canon refutation that engages every major decree from Paul III’s opening in 1545 to Pius IV’s conclusion in 1563. Heidegger writes against Augustin Reding, the Catholic abbot of Einsiedeln, whose defence of Trent had provoked Heidegger’s response. The polemic ranges across Scripture and tradition, justification, the sacraments, the sacrifice of the Mass, the cult of the saints, indulgences, purgatory, clerical celibacy, the Index of forbidden books, and the structure of ecclesiastical authority.
Despite its scale and theological depth, the Tumulus has never been translated into English. It has circulated only in Latin, which has kept it out of reach for all but specialist Reformation scholars. This project makes the entire work searchable and readable in English for the first time, with the original Latin preserved alongside every passage.
ARG. VI. Concilium generaliter definit, traditiones sine scripto recipiendas esse. At quae sint illae traditiones, ubi reperiantur, quomodo verae a falsis discerni queant, quisve earum sit numerus, non definit. Cujus quidem fallacis & dolosae generalitatis crypsis haud alia esse potest, quam ut liceat praetentu traditionis defendere, quicquid scriptum non est.
ARG. VII. Concinunt Patres, apud quos ratum fuit, nullum dogma esse, quod in canone scripto testimonium non habeat. Tertullianus contra Hermogenem: Adoro Scripturae plenitudinem. Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenes, aut timeat illud Vae adjicientibus. Athanasius in Synopsi paucis & nervose Scripturas vocat τὰς ϑεοπνεύστους εὐαγγελικάς, ἀρχιερατικὰς γραφάς, fidei primitias, autoramentum et statum.
Traditiones, quae articulos fidei in Scripturis non traditos [proferunt], simpliciter damnamus omnes.
ARGUMENT VI. The Council generally defines that traditions without writing are to be received. But what these traditions are, where they may be found, how true ones can be discerned from false ones, or what their number is, it does not define. The purpose of this fallacious and deceitful generality can be nothing other than that it might be permitted to defend whatever is not written under the pretext of tradition.
ARGUMENT VII. The Fathers agree, among whom it was established that there is no dogma which does not have testimony in the written canon. Tertullian against Hermogenes: “I adore the fullness of Scripture. Let Hermogenes show that it is written, or fear that woe pronounced upon those who add.” Athanasius in his Synopsis, briefly and forcefully, calls the Scriptures “the God-breathed evangelical and high-priestly writings, the first-fruits of faith, its surety and its standing.”
We condemn entirely all traditions that teach articles of faith not delivered in the Scriptures.
ARG. III. Verbum, quo Evangelii veritas continetur, ita certum esse debet, ut πληροφορίαν seu certitudinem fidei gignere possit. Tale non est verbum traditum.
Tum quia nec in se habet notas certitudinis, quas omnes agnoscere possint, nec in authentica aliqua norma. Tum quia nullum habemus fidum ejus custodem, quomodo Scripturae fidus custos est litera, pro qua Deus vigilaturum se recepit. Tum quia recipit varietatem & contrarietatem. Tum quia corruptioni obnoxium est, uti vel sola historia primorum temporum ante scriptam legem id evidenter ostendit.
ARGUMENT III. The Word in which the truth of the Gospel is contained must be so certain that it can generate the full assurance — the certainty of faith. The transmitted word is not such.
First, because it does not have in itself the marks of certainty which all can acknowledge, nor any authentic norm. Second, because we have no faithful guardian of it, as the written letter is the faithful guardian of Scripture, for which God has undertaken to watch. Third, because it admits variety and contradiction. Fourth, because it is liable to corruption, as the very history of the earliest times before the written law plainly shows.
OBIECT. X. A temporibus Apostolorum ad nostra usque tempora Ecclesia Catholica in Eucharistia proprie dictum & propitiatorium Sacrificium credidit. Extant enim liturgiae, nominatim Jacobi Apostoli, de qua Patres 227. in Quinisexta Synodo Can. 32. testimonium ferunt; Petri Apostoli; Marci Evangelistae; tres S. Basilii; Gregorii Theologi; Cyrilli Alexandrini ex Arabico conversae; ejusdem Anaphora ex vetustissimo Codice Syriaco; Liturgia Constantinopolitana Chrysostomi.
Ex quarum omnium formulis patet, Missam sub ratione veri Sacrificii fuisse celebratam. Ejusdem usum vetustate conservatum testantur Clemens, Justinus Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus Martyr, Methodius Patarensis, Cyprianus, Eusebius, Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus, Gregorius Nazianzenus, Ambrosius, Hieronymus, Chrysostomus, Augustinus.
RESP. Sacrae Scripturae praesidio depulsi frustra ecclesiae consensum appellitant. Sacramentorum enim institutio & usus ex verbo Dei, eoque claro & integro, derivanda est.
OBJECTION X. From the times of the Apostles to our own times, the Catholic Church has believed the Eucharist to be properly called a true and propitiatory sacrifice. For there exist liturgies, namely of James the Apostle, concerning which the Fathers give testimony in the Quinisext Synod Canon 32; of Peter the Apostle; of Mark the Evangelist; three of St. Basil; of Gregory the Theologian; of Cyril of Alexandria translated from Arabic; the same one’s Anaphora from a most ancient Syriac Codex; the Constantinopolitan liturgy of Chrysostom.
From all of whose formulas it is evident that the Mass was celebrated under the character of a true sacrifice. Clement, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus Martyr, Methodius of Patara, Cyprian, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine testify to the preservation of this same belief from antiquity.
RESPONSE: Having been driven from the protection of Sacred Scripture, they vainly appeal to the consensus of the church. For the institution and use of the sacraments must be derived from the Word of God, and that Word clear and entire.
Apostolus, si pluries offerretur, pluries ipsi moriendum fuisse pertendit; absque sanguinis effusione nulla peccata remitti posse asserit; & unica oblatione Christum consummasse omnes, qui sanctificantur, astruit.
Frequentem eorundem sacrificiorum repetitionem (quae ipsissima vestrae applicationis nomine venditata iteratio est) imperfectionis sacrificii firmum ostendit argumentum. Non sine peculiari afflatu Apostolus unitatem irreiterabilem sacrificii Christi tam frequenter, & tot argumentis ingerit & inculcat, quasi data opera occurrens spiritui erroris, qui olim in Ecclesiam introducturos erat aliud sacrificium Christi praeter mortem ejus.
Oblatio enim sine morte nulla est. Unde diversam oblationem ejusdem Christi tot argumentis Apostolus infringit.
The Apostle contends that if Christ were offered multiple times, he himself would have to die multiple times. He asserts that without the shedding of blood no sins can be remitted, and he affirms that by one offering Christ has perfected all who are sanctified.
He sets forth the frequent repetition of those same sacrifices (which repetition is sold under the very name of your “application”) as firm proof of the imperfection of the sacrifice itself. Not without special design does the Apostle so frequently drive home the unity and unrepeatable nature of Christ’s sacrifice with so many arguments, as if deliberately opposing that spirit of error which would in time enter the Church — some other sacrifice of Christ besides his death.
For there is no oblation without death. Hence the Apostle refutes any other oblation of the same Christ with so many arguments.
The 1690 Zurich edition (David Gessner, printer) survives in several Google Books scans on the Internet Archive.
Volume 1 (Tomus Prior) is at bub_gb_AqL5FWZu6QMC; Volume 2 (Tomus Posterior) at
bub_gb_wkib8poKYh8C. Both are reproduced as full plain-text via the IA DjVu OCR pipeline.
content = the English translation,
used for search and reading; raw_content = the unmodified 1690 Latin, preserved for
scholarly reference.The 17th-century Latin OCR has inevitable artifacts — long-s, ligatures, page-break hyphens, occasional misreadings. The 1690 print also uses Greek for terms like πληροφορία and ϑεοπνεύστους which Google Books OCR transliterates imperfectly. Future passes may run Stage 2 OCR cleaning over specific sections, or selectively re-translate weak chunks against a higher-quality scan from the Bodleian or Zurich Zentralbibliothek if one becomes available.
3,197 passages across both volumes, fully searchable, free for 14 days.
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