Yes, this seems to be very confusing in the documentation. As far as I have been able to determine and tested, there are 3 different methods of authentication which can not be interchanged in an authorization sequence: Certificates, SAML, and User/Password (via AD/LDAP/Radius/etc.).
This is because the 3 methods occur at different points in the client connection. The certificate authentication happens during the initial SSL/TLS and webserver connection. The SAML authentication happens after connection is established and the server requests an authorization token before fulfilling the web request. The User/Password is after the client has connected, requested a page, is sent a login prompt, and has replied with a credential set.
As you can't send a SAML token before you have established a certificate-verified web connection, and you can't submit user/pass responses before you have SAML-token-verified web request, you can't intermix these authentication methods. The AD/LDAP/Radius authentication sequences works as the client connects, is sent an authentication page, and returns a user/pass credential response. The PA can then test that single response against multiple authentication servers in the authorization sequence. Certificates and SAML don't use user/pass credentials.
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