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What is the content of Holy Tradition?

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  • What is the content of Holy Tradition?

    My understanding is that Catholics (in contrast to sola scriptura) hold to 3 pillars of truth: Scripture, Holy Tradition, and the Magisterium of the Church.
    My understanding is that Holy Tradition (both for Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) refers to a body of teaching taught by Christ to the Apostles and that has been passed down in the Church from one generation to the next and preserved without addition or subtraction.

    This implies that it is a finite body of teaching, and the Church knows the contents, knows what is and what is not a part of it. This knowledge of the contents, because it is carefully protected and handed down, can be communicated. (Presumably, if the Church wanted, it could be written down in a book (or audio-recording) and the Church could declare that this book, no more and no less, is the content of Holy Tradition?) Has the Catholic Church communicated this knowledge publicly? Is this public knowledge? If so I'm interested in knowing what is the contents.

    Or is some of it secret, not known publicly? This could be on different levels. For example, a doctrine could be publicly known but whether the doctrine is part of Holy Tradition could still be a Church secret. If the knowledge of the contents is partly secret, then what is the part that is publicly known? What is the exact contents of that part?


    I'm also curious about the process of transmission. It seems at least some person or persons, at any given time, know the exact contents, assuming it, including its bounds, is being carefully preserved. Is this the bishops? So is it that when someone is ordained as a bishop, then an older bishop sits them down and has them commit to memory (orally) the Holy Tradition, and reminds them of the importance of remembering that this and this alone is Holy Tradition? Or something like that?

  • #2
    In my understanding, Holy Tradition is the church's practices and beliefs handed down from the beginning, the most important component of which is Holy Scripture. There's nothing secret about it (although it was kept secret from outsiders until, oh, mid-5th century or so, when the Roman empire became largely Christianized). Pretty much anything Protestants protest isn't in the Bible but cannot be traced to a starting point, especially if it is also shared by disparate churches which have not been in communion since the 4th/5th centuries, can be considered part of the Holy Tradition apart from Scripture. I don't know that anyone's ever attempted to collect it as a discrete set.
    Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

    Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
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    I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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    • #3
      Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
      In my understanding, Holy Tradition is the church's practices and beliefs handed down from the beginning, the most important component of which is Holy Scripture. There's nothing secret about it (although it was kept secret from outsiders until, oh, mid-5th century or so, when the Roman empire became largely Christianized). Pretty much anything Protestants protest isn't in the Bible but cannot be traced to a starting point, especially if it is also shared by disparate churches which have not been in communion since the 4th/5th centuries, can be considered part of the Holy Tradition apart from Scripture. I don't know that anyone's ever attempted to collect it as a discrete set.
      From my searching around it seems that Orthodox treats Scripture as a subset of Tradition, but Catholics define Tradition as that which was orally transmitted down from the apostles, rather than written Scripture. That they are two of 3 'pillars'. And I haven't seen anything about one pillar being more important than the other. Both are equally infallible sources of truth. But maybe Catholics use the term with different meanings in different contexts? The definitions of the terms maybe aren't super important, but for the purposes of my question, I'm making the distinction between the written apostolic teaching (Scripture) and the non-written, oral apostolic teaching (Tradition). (The distinction I'm seeing made in various Catholic sources.)

      I guess my question centers around the appearance (to me) that the boundaries of Holy Tradition seem fuzzy. And it would seem they should not be (to the Church), if it is carefully preserved. For Scripture there is a clear delineation between Scripture and, e.g. the Didache or the writings of Church Fathers. The latter may be good and useful, but are not considered Scripture--the infallible Word of God, passed to us from Christ through the Apostles. So likewise I should expect that there is a large body of oral tradition from the Church Fathers (for instance) that is good and useful, but isn't infallible Holy Tradition. If it is unknown which is which, then it would seem that protestants would be reasonable in treating it all like they treat extra-scriptural writings--a good and useful resource, but not known to be the infallible word of God.

      It stands to reason, then, that Catholics possess established boundaries to Holy Tradition, so we know which is which. And I was curious what they are.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Joel View Post
        From my searching around it seems that Orthodox treats Scripture as a subset of Tradition, but Catholics define Tradition as that which was orally transmitted down from the apostles, rather than written Scripture. That they are two of 3 'pillars'. And I haven't seen anything about one pillar being more important than the other. Both are equally infallible sources of truth. But maybe Catholics use the term with different meanings in different contexts? The definitions of the terms maybe aren't super important, but for the purposes of my question, I'm making the distinction between the written apostolic teaching (Scripture) and the non-written, oral apostolic teaching (Tradition). (The distinction I'm seeing made in various Catholic sources.)

        I guess my question centers around the appearance (to me) that the boundaries of Holy Tradition seem fuzzy. And it would seem they should not be (to the Church), if it is carefully preserved. For Scripture there is a clear delineation between Scripture and, e.g. the Didache or the writings of Church Fathers. The latter may be good and useful, but are not considered Scripture--the infallible Word of God, passed to us from Christ through the Apostles. So likewise I should expect that there is a large body of oral tradition from the Church Fathers (for instance) that is good and useful, but isn't infallible Holy Tradition. If it is unknown which is which, then it would seem that protestants would be reasonable in treating it all like they treat extra-scriptural writings--a good and useful resource, but not known to be the infallible word of God.

        It stands to reason, then, that Catholics possess established boundaries to Holy Tradition, so we know which is which. And I was curious what they are.
        Even Scripture is a little fuzzy. While the NT canon eventually became well-defined, it took a while (Revelation didn't make it into the cycle of daily readings because it took so long to be accepted) - and even then it was a matter of consensus, not dogma. The Orthodox OT is not well-defined, even today; while all of what the Jews consider to be scripture is included, various lists of other books are as well - and some of them are considered more useful than parts of the Jewish canon.
        Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

        Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
        sigpic
        I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Joel View Post
          From my searching around it seems that Orthodox treats Scripture as a subset of Tradition, but Catholics define Tradition as that which was orally transmitted down from the apostles, rather than written Scripture. That they are two of 3 'pillars'. And I haven't seen anything about one pillar being more important than the other. Both are equally infallible sources of truth. But maybe Catholics use the term with different meanings in different contexts? The definitions of the terms maybe aren't super important, but for the purposes of my question, I'm making the distinction between the written apostolic teaching (Scripture) and the non-written, oral apostolic teaching (Tradition). (The distinction I'm seeing made in various Catholic sources.)

          I guess my question centers around the appearance (to me) that the boundaries of Holy Tradition seem fuzzy. And it would seem they should not be (to the Church), if it is carefully preserved. For Scripture there is a clear delineation between Scripture and, e.g. the Didache or the writings of Church Fathers. The latter may be good and useful, but are not considered Scripture--the infallible Word of God, passed to us from Christ through the Apostles. So likewise I should expect that there is a large body of oral tradition from the Church Fathers (for instance) that is good and useful, but isn't infallible Holy Tradition. If it is unknown which is which, then it would seem that protestants would be reasonable in treating it all like they treat extra-scriptural writings--a good and useful resource, but not known to be the infallible word of God.

          It stands to reason, then, that Catholics possess established boundaries to Holy Tradition, so we know which is which. And I was curious what they are.
          Maybe an illustration of tradition in practice can help. The third through fifth centuries saw many controversies on the Trinity and the Incarnation, and scripture does explain some of it. But not much. So men of good conscience thought through the problem, some came up with wrong answers, the monophysite, Nestorian, Arian, etc all have scriptural support. But which scriptures do we bring to bear on the topic? Scripture, tradition, and the magesterium were all used, but are effective because of the backing of Divine guidance, the Holy Spirit working in and through the Church.

          I really do not think that most of us could come up with a summary of the Athanasian Creed today on our own, we know about the Trinity and the Incarnation because it has been hammered out in the past; we stand on the shoulders of giants of the past like Athanasius. Many Christians (maybe the majority) today have a nontrinitarian understanding, even though they ascribe to Trinitarian beliefs.

          The trinity was defined in the fifth century, the limits were set so that we can say this belief is orthodox, that belief is heterodox. But the trinity was not invented in the fifth century, we can trace it back to the early church.

          The three pillars are not independent, the boundaries are unclear. Catholics, like the Orthodox, see scripture as a part of tradition and the teaching authority; we say that scripture was just part of the church teaching. I don't think it likely that John and Paul realized they were writing for the ages when they penned their letters, they were teaching others about the faith. Some of those letters survived and became part of the canon of scripture.

          The basic building block of society is not the individual, we were made for society. And the Body of Christ is a society. The Body does have the Holy Spirit to guide us, but we have more, the Church. I was a Baptist before I was Catholic. There are parallels in the Baptist church, even though we did not view them using the Catholic Church's categories. We recognized teaching authority, we did not place the new Christian in the pulpit. We recognized scripture of course (sola scriptura). Wehad a magesterium of sorts, we looked to some theologians but not others. We had a tradition, the baptist traditions and the reformation ideas.

          This post was longer than I wanted, but the differences are hard to explain. I think a look at the idea of sensus fidei (sense of faith) can put it in perspective. A glance down the table of contents of the 2014 letter gives an overview of Catholic thought:faith is a response to the Word of G-d. And within the Body there are measures to help us maintain that faith, the Church. And the Church, as Body of Christ, has teaching authority (magesterium), has scripture handed down through the ages, and it has the appreciation for the faith which is tradition.

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          • #6
            Personally, I've never heard of the 'three pillars' of truth. More traditionally (npi), Catholics commonly used to speak of Sacred Scripture and Tradition as two sources of Revelation. Dei Verbum [The Word of God], The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, which was promulgated during Vatican II focused on Christ as the incarnate Word of God as the fullness of Revelation and brought about a much more unified understanding of tradition and scripture. It is worth a read. Tradition is much more amorphous than what you've been reading and it is a living reality guided by the Spirit and is also the product of reflection upon scripture.
            βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι δι᾿ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον·
            ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρους, τότε δὲ ἐπιγνώσομαι καθὼς καὶ ἐπεγνώσθην.

            אָכֵ֕ן אַתָּ֖ה אֵ֣ל מִסְתַּתֵּ֑ר אֱלֹהֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מוֹשִֽׁיעַ׃

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