Essays for Lent: Tradition

Tradition

by Sebastian R. Fama

It is often alleged that the Catholic Church focuses on tradition rather than Scripture. That is simply not so. The Church focuses on Scripture and Sacred Tradition as they both flow out of the same divine wellspring, making up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation 2:9,10). This is verified by the teaching of Scripture. Scripture speaks of two kinds of tradition. One is condemned, and the other requires belief. Paul tells us In 2 Thessalonians 2:15, to "Stand firm, and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." Notice how Paul ranks oral tradition with written tradition equally. Why does he do that? He gives us the answer in 1 Thessalonians 2:13: "And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God..." So the oral traditions and the written were both the word of God. No wonder Paul was pleased when the Corinthians accepted the traditions that he passed on to them. "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you" (1 Corinthians 11:2). It is sometimes claimed that the oral tradition that Paul is speaking of is what he later put into Scripture. But the Bible nowhere says this.

Bible Christians rely on Catholic Tradition. For instance, how do they know that the 27 books of the New Testament belong in the Bible? How do they know that Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark? His name doesn't appear in the manuscripts. How do they know that public revelation ended with the death of the last apostle? They know these things the same way that Catholics know them, because the Catholic Church tells us so.

So then, what type of tradition does Jesus condemn? Mark records the following statement made by Jesus to the Scribes and Pharisees:

"You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men." And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'… but you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, "what you would have gained from me is corban" (that is, given to God), then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition" (Mark 7:8-13).

The Scribes and Pharisees were violating one of the commandments with their own tradition (tradition of men), and Jesus corrects them with the traditional interpretation (Sacred Tradition). The Apostles taught in the same manner and, according to the Bible, apostolic teaching was the standard in the early Church: "And they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers" (Acts 2:42).

How can we recognize the traditions of men? Well, if they cannot be traced back to the early Church, they would have to be man-made. To believe otherwise would imply that God didn't get it right the first time. What Catholics call Sacred Tradition can be traced back to the early Church. The same cannot be said of those beliefs that are uniquely Protestant. Protestantism was the creation of men. It first appeared in the sixteenth century. We even know the names of the men who started it. Names like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. If men started it, it is a tradition of men and not of God. One could hardly argue that it was an apostolic institution.

Early Christians knew the importance of Sacred Tradition. In the year 200 AD Tertullian wrote, "Wherever it shall be clear that the truth of the Christian discipline and faith are present, there also will be found the truth of the Scriptures and their explanation, and of all the Christian traditions" (The Demurrer against the heretics 19:3). A few decades later, Origen writes, "That alone is to be believed as the truth which is in no way at variance with ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition" (Fundamental doctrines 1, preface: 2, circa 225 AD).

It is only when we embrace Scripture and Sacred Tradition that we have the complete Word of God. And as Jesus once said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).

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