Sacred Tradition?

[jasev]

From wikipedia, I read the following quote on sacred tradition from Dei Verbum:

Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2, 42, Greek text), so that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort.

But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.

It is clear, therefore, that Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.

I’m still not sure I understand what Catholics believe sacred tradition covers? The scriptures… I get… you can read them, even if people disagree on them. Sacred tradition, how does one know what it says?

Maybe to clarify the question a bit, is sacred tradition:

A) What one can read in the church fathers where they agree on all points?

B) Secret knowledge known only the “teaching authority of the church”?

C) The inspired knowledge that whatever any Protestant, Eastern or Oriental Orthodox group or person teaches is wrong by default?

D) Something else entirely.

Okay, “C” was a joke in case you didn’t get it. Clearly polemics are off the charts on this board. Trying to lighten things up a bit. Let me state up front I’m not asking this question to disprove “sacred tradition” (whatever it is), I’m honestly just trying to understand what exactly is meant by it.

 

[Maeglin]

Sacred Tradition is essentially the teaching of the apostles and Jesus Christ handed down within the living Catholic Church. It is not a collection of “secret” teachings that the apostles gave the Church.

The content of Tradition can manifest itself in so-called monuments of the faith which can include:

1. The books of the Bible
2. Certain Writings of the Apostolic Fathers
3. Teachings of the Church Councils (examples include Infallibility of the Pope and Assumption/Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary)
4. Liturgy
5. The sense of the faithful

The monuments of the faith are not Tradition itself, but merely organs of transmission. The Magisterium (teaching authority) of the Catholic Church is what conveys living Tradition. This is why Tradition can’t be reduced to a list of teachings. Although the Magisterium embodies Tradition, it cannot make up new teachings. It only judges and perfects our understanding of the apostolic teachings. This is why the Church always cites Scripture and the writings of the Fathers when it teaches the faithful on a point of doctrine. It should be noted that it is really the Magisterium which judges the content of the writing of the Fathers and not the other way around. Church Fathers sometimes made mistakes (like Tertullian). However, because they wrote in Apostolic times (or soon afterward) their witness is very often indicative of the early Church’s understanding of doctrine and is generally reliable.

Tradition and the Magisterium are linked, and without it we lose our grounding. Even the Protestants obey teachings which stem from Tradition (although they aren’t always aware of it and sometimes disagree amongst themselves). An example is the Tradition that all general revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle. Other aspects of the faith which rely on the Magisterium include the content of the canon of the Bible, moving the Lord’s day from Saturday to Sunday, infant baptism, and other points of practice and doctrine.

The Holy Spirit prevents Tradition from corrupting by virtue of the need to preserve the Truth within the Catholic Church. Certainly, our reliance on the Church is a matter of faith. We Catholics believe the Tradition and the Scriptures by virtue of it’s origin in the testament of the Church and our Jewish forefathers.

 

[MarcoPolo]

What is Tradition? A very generic answer is the content of the Catechism. This is a tidy summary of Apostolic teaching the Church has handed down throughout the centuries.

This would include sacred Scripture itself, although Scripture is a unique form of transmission from the one deposit of faith emanating from the Apostles. Tradition is a living form of transmission and the Church continues to unfold new truths from the single deposit.

 

[dcdurel]

The best way to understand Tradition is to start with Jesus.
First the definition, tradition is information handed on without writing. Sacred Tradition is God’s word handed on without scripture.

The Church teaches in the Catechism

1. Jesus Christ is the "fullness of all revelation"1
   God has said everything in his Word.2
   “In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one.”3
   God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son.4
   Jesus Christ “completed and perfected Revelation”5
   Thus it is not scripture that is the fullness of revelation, but Jesus Christ.
   Revelation means what God has made known to us. While God has made known some of his knowledge through Abraham, Moses, scripture, etc. it is only through Jesus that He has made known everything regarding salvation.

Scripture is a witness to these teachings of the Church.
“All things have been delivered to me by my Father…” Mt 11:27
In Jesus "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” Col 2:3
In Christ “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9)

Thus, it is not Moses, Isaiah, St. Paul, the bible, scripture, etc. which is the fullness of all revelation, but Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught the whole Gospel only to His apostles.

Mk 4:34 “He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”
Mt 13:11 "to you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of heaven”.
John 15:15 “for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 14:26 “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
So Jesus communicated “everything” to His apostles when He taught them the Gospel and He sent the Holy Spirit to teach them again and explain what He taught and to give them the power to remember all He taught.

1. Jesus commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel. The Church teaches this Gospel “was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline.”1
   Why is this Gospel that they preached and taught the source of ALL saving truth?
   Because Jesus taught everything to His apostles.

The apostles were taught “everything” and “all things” directly by God. So the Church teaches this Gospel they preached contains “the fullness of the truth which God has enabled us to know about himself”1 and as the Church has always taught it was to be “the source of all saving truth and moral discipline”2.
The origin of the doctrines of salvation the Catholic Church teaches is not scripture, but Jesus and the Holy Spirit who taught the apostles directly. Since Jesus directly taught His Church “everything” then there is no doctrine of salvation the Church could have learned from scripture. If the Church had learned any doctrine of salvation from the Bible, then that would make Jesus a liar when He said He taught them “everything” and “all things”.

1. Jesus said Salvation comes from believing the Gospel the apostles proclaimed. Jesus did not say salvation comes from reading the the four Gospels, which are the narratives of the life of Jesus.
   Jesus did not say salvation comes from believing the scriptures, or reading scripture, or by studying the scripture, but only by believing the Gospel the apostles proclaimed.

Again scripture is a witness to this.
“He said to them, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:15-16

 

[dcdurel]

St. Paul says the same thing.
“Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.“ 1 Corinthians 15:1-3*(NIV)
Now, we cannot reduce this Gospel to a few verses, because Jesus spent three years teaching His apostles and the Holy Spirit taught them “all things”. It was so much that He had to send the Holy Spirit to "bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

1. This full and living Gospel was handed down entirely in Tradition.
   The Church teaches in the Catechism:

“In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority.” Indeed, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.” This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, "the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes."1
The “full and living Gospel” is handed down entirely in Tradition. Thus, “all that she believes” is handed down entirely in Tradition, not scripture.

"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”1
Again, scripture is a witness to this. First, Jesus commanded His apostles to preach this Gospel that they learned from Him. He did not command them to write the Gospel they learned from Him. Second, the apostles had to take Jesus as an example. Since Jesus did not write a word of scripture when He taught the Gospel, the apostles had to follow His example and also proclaim the Gospel without writing a word of scripture. And since Jesus taught them EVERYTHING, they had to teach their successors EVERYTHING.

There is not a single book of the Bible, not a single chapter of the Bible that claims to be a summary of this Gospel that the apostles taught and preached. Therefore we cannot learn it from reading the bible. It must be proclaimed by the Church. 875.

“How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?”[390] No one - no individual and no community - can proclaim the Gospel to himself: “Faith comes from what is heard.”[391]

So faith comes from what is heard, no one can learn the Gospel by studying scripture.
Later on the Holy Spirit moved some apostles and apostolic men to write the narratives of the life of Jesus, the four Gospels. The Church teaches that “The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on…”2

These narratives of the life of Jesus are also called “Gospels” because they contain certain of the many elements of the “full and living Gospel”, but they do not claim to be a summary of the Gospel the apostles taught and preached.

So what was the content of this Gospel the apostles taught and preached?
Since Jesus said salvation comes from believing this Gospel, we must know the content of this Gospel.
Now, even an atheist can know exactly the content of this Gospel the apostles taught, even though they never wrote it. It is easy, all we have to do is learn the teachings the early Christians learned from the apostles. If we read what they wrote, we notice that they all believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the mass, prayers to the saints in heaven, the authority of the Church, etc. In other words, the early Christians who learned directly from the apostles believed the same teachings the Church teaches today. In other words, the early Christians who learned from the apostles were all Catholic. So the Gospel the apostles taught was the Catholic faith.

 

[dcdurel]

Let’s suppose the apostle John was preaching and these four Gospels had already been written. Let’s suppose some pagan comes to John and says, “tell me about this Jesus that you are preaching.” What would John say? Would John start reading one of the four Gospels? Would John start with

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram…”

Obviously this would not work. Perhaps some think John could have started with his own Gospel:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race …”

The pagan would ask "who is this God, who was “the Word”, what is "in the beginning, etc.? Obviously, John could not preach the Gospel by simply reading scripture and by giving an explanation of it. John would have to begin with the basics and teach who God is, who Jesus is, the Trinity, why Jesus was sent, what salvation is, etc. That is why even Martin Luther, who promoted “scripture alone” realized that he could not teach his Gospel by reading and explaining scripture. He had to write his small catechism and his large catechism, in order to teach his gospel. Now, since John, or any other apostle could not proclaim the Gospel by reading it, then giving an explanation, then how did the apostles proclaim the Gospel? How did they “teach them to observe all that I have commanded you”?

They taught by first giving the initial proclamation of Who Jesus is and why He came, that is, He is the Son of God, the God who created everything, and He was sent to free us from everything that oppresses us, especially sin. If the listener wanted to learn more about God and how to be freed from the slavery of sin, then the apostles, or their successors would teach them the rest of the Gospel in an organized manner. They did so by teaching them the articles of the Apostles Creed, (the truths about God), then the sacraments, (the means of receiving the gift of salvation, then the Commandmandments, (how to life a life in union with God and our neighbor) and prayer
The Creed, Sacraments, Commandments and prayer are the basics of all catechisms. That is because catechisms are nothing but the Gospel the apostles taught and preached, in a written form.

But notice, the doctrines in the Catechisms did NOT originate from the bible.
Because the teachings of the Church did not originate from scripture, but directly from God. Jesus and the Holy Spirit taught the apostles EVERYTHING. The apostles handed down EVERYTHING. Thus no doctrine of the Catholic Church was learned from the bible. The Church already knows everything, though everything is not yet made explicit.

So the Gospel contains all Jesus taught. It is handed down entirely in Tradition, since Jesus wrote nothing. The apostles handed down this Gospel entirely in Tradition.

“Catechesis is nothing other than the process of transmitting the Gospel, as the Christian community has received it, understands it, celebrates it, lives it and communicates it in many ways.”
General Directory for Catechesis 105

"Catechesis is an education in the faith of children, young people and adults which includes especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life.” 5
Catechism of the Catholic Church 5

In local catechisms, the Church communicates the Gospel in a manner accessible to the human person so that it may be really perceived as the “Good News” of salvation. (General Directory for Catechesis).

Thus the Catechism is simply a written form of the Tradition the Church learned from Jesus Christ.
And of course, the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, over the ages understands more deeply the original doctrines handed down, thus there is growth in understanding this original Tradition, and this too becomes part of Tradition, since it is guided by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Tradition itself is the deeds wrought by God in salvation history, especially the deeds of Christ, the Son of God, and most especially His deed of salfivic sacrifice on the Cross.

Tradition is transmitted in many ways:
orally, from Christ to the Apostles
in the writings of the Fathers, Saints, and Doctors of the Church
by the deeds of all who imitate Christ, especially Saints and martyrs
by the doctrine, life and worship of the Church.

Some of my articles about Tradition, Scripture, and the Magisterium are here:
catholicplanet.com/TSM/index.htm