[f. as prec. + -IST.]
1. One who accepts, adheres to, or maintains the authority of, tradition. a. generally.
1666. Tillotson, Rule Faith, III. x. This fundamental difference about the rule of faith … is fully acknowledged by the traditionists themselves.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Traditionist, one that stands for Tradition.
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., viii. (1885), 207. The traditionists … have insisted on eliminating cause and effect from the domain of morals.
b. In Moslem history: see quots. and TRADITION 6 c.
1759. Universal Hist., Mod., II. 42. The great schism between the Sonnites, or Traditionists, that is, those of the Moslems who acknowledge the authority of the Sonna, or collection of moral traditions of the sayings and actions of Mohammed, and the Shiites, or partisans of Ali.
1847. Ockley’s Saracens, 82, note. Those who consider the caliphs preceding Ali as the rightful successors of Mohammed, are called Sonnites or Traditionists.
1864. Reader, 30 April, 549/3. The language once used by the poets of the Desert, and employed by Mohammed and the traditionists.
c. In Judaism: cf. TRADITION 6 a.
1840. Milman, Hist. Chr., I. 69. The great schism in the Jewish popular creed, that of the traditionists and anti-traditionists.
2. One who gives vogue to, hands on, or records a tradition; a reporter or relater of traditions.
1759. Pilkington, Rem. Script., v. 15. We are not able to ascertain who the Masorites or Traditionists were, that settled the present Standard of the Hebrew Scriptures.
1789. Misc., in Ann. Reg., 126/1. Traditionists of grievous tidings and narrators of heart-breaking events.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 1. Priests and poets invented, and traditionists expatiated.
So Traditionize v., intr. to deal in or give vogue to traditions; to support tradition.
1840. G. S. Faber, Christ’s Disc. Capernaum, iv. 101. Ireneus … against the antiscripturally traditionising Gnostics.
