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There is the further parallel between "traditions" (= traditiones) in the sense of tradita trandendatradenda and "witnesses" as the empirically given forms in which the Christian witness is alone accessible to us. The one traditum is actually given only in the many tradita, just as the one witness is actually given only in the many witnesses. Of course, so far as theological reflection is concerned, the one traditum is not datum but object or objective, to be discerned only in and through the many tradita that alone are actually given, even as the Christian witness of faith is not datum but object or objective, to be discerned and retrieved only in and through the many witnesses that alone are actually data.

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