It is also clear that there must be additional esoteric knowledge not published in the Bible, yet practiced in the early church and continued in the Catholic tradition, no?
“It is also clear that there must be additional esoteric knowledge not published in the Bible, yet practiced in the early church and continued in the Catholic tradition, no?”
Bible is pretty clear on this, that not everything which occurred is written inside it. Everything that is needed for salvation is there, but if you want to know more about the history of the early church, what the church fathers wrote, you are going to have to go elsewhere.
However, there are plenty of other things that were not written in the bible that are considered to be authoritative. Things like the Didache, etc, the list goes on. The reason they didn’t make the bible is not because they were wrong, but because they didn’t fit with the primary goal, explaining everything that was necessary for salvation.
Tradition is what the church calls this body of evidence that has built up over 20 centuries, and tradition helps the church to interpret and understand scripture. Tradition is also required to fit with scripture and cannot contradict scripture. Fill in the gaps so to speak.