[Natural Law]

"That was WRITTEN way before there were any CATHOLIC traditions to transmit!"

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was revealed to us both in the written Scripture and through the Apostolic Tradition. In this way the tradition precedes Paul and his writings.

[Elsie]

In this way the tradition precedes Paul and his writings.

Then those JEWISH scribes went to a HELL of a lot of trouble to be sure that the WORD was COPIED down right when they made new scrolls!

[Mad Dawg]

IF one insists that there was no Church before Constantine, then Elsie's contention makes some sense. If however you see "Catholic" not so much as part of a name but as one of the aspects of the Church, along with the other three, then there can not logically be any tradition which antedates Catholicism. From where I sit, Elsie's view is based on (but does not prove) the notion that "Catholic" is part of the name of a denomination. And from where I sit, that is just not the case and an ecclesiological disagreement. So once again, instead of dialogue or fruitful argument, we are stuck with the boring process of:

Assertion
Counter-assertion, often with decorative fonts.

But we already knew we disagreed, so it's really nothing more but a kind of defiant spinning of wheels.