Tradition

TRADITION. - Together with the Bible it is one of the two sources of divine Revelation, and it can be defined as: "The preaching or oral transmission of all the truths (revealed by Christ to the Apostles or suggested to them by the Holy Spirit), through the ever-living and infallible magisterium of the Church, assisted by the Spirit of truth."

I. NOTIONS

T. in general (Latin traditio, from tradere) means "transmission of a piece of news, of a doctrine, of a practice from ancient times down to us." It can be considered under a twofold aspect: active (subjective or formal) and passive (objective or material). The first is represented by the living organ, by the qualified subject (persons, institution), which serves as the channel of transmission; the second, on the other hand, is constituted by the object or deposit transmitted (doctrines, practices, customs), whether sacred or profane.

The Christian sacred t., under the objective-material aspect, must be distinguished into divine or divino-apostolic t., and human t. The first are those truths, or cultic and disciplinary institutions, deriving immediately from Christ or from the Apostles, insofar as they were promulgators of Revelation, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, transmitted uncorrupted down to us, and they are the object of divine faith. The second can be apostolic or merely ecclesiastical, according as they derive from the Apostles or from religious authority (pope, bishops), only insofar as the latter are invested with legitimate authority of magisterium and jurisdiction: they merit a simple ecclesiastical faith.

Oral t. does not exclude the written, inasmuch as, with the passing of time, oral transmission ordinarily also crystallizes in the written document (inscriptions, books, acts of councils). Since, however, the written is only a subsidiary means of oral t., the case of authentic divino-apostolic t. cannot be excluded, of which there is no sufficient documentation, at least as regards the first centuries. The living voice of the Church of today is a surer guarantee than any written text: t. belongs to all the centuries and is never interrupted.

Comparing t. with the Bible, t. is said to be: "inesive" when the same truth is contained in both sources; "declarative" when a truth attested by the Bible is better clarified in t.; "constitutive" or "completive" if it transmits truths not contained in the Bible, e.g., the practice of baptizing infants. It is precisely on this last point that the irreconcilable opposition between Catholics and Protestants takes shape: according to the latter, the sole source of Revelation is the Bible, in which is contained everything that one has the duty to believe. A "constitutive" t. is, for them, absurd.

II. THE EXISTENCE OF TRADITION

It was defined against the Protestants by the Council of Trent (sess. IV; 6 April 1546: Denz-U, 783), and again, almost in identical words, by the Vatican Council (ibid., 1787). In these definitions, both of the Council of Trent and of the Vatican, there is question: 1) only of divine-apostolic traditions, 2) having a relation to faith and morals, 3) transmitted uninterruptedly through the magisterium of the Church assisted by the Holy Spirit. If even one of these conditions is lacking, we always have human, utterly fallible traditions.

In the Bible there is affirmed both the existence of a living and authentic means of oral transmission, and the existence of determinate truths to be handed down faithfully (subjective-formal tradition and objective-material tradition). "Go therefore, make disciples of all nations... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Mt. 28, 19-20); Jesus took care to preach and to have preaching done, not to write or to have writing done. And in the writings of the Apostles the fragmentariness and incompleteness are undeniable, by the confession of their own authors (Jn. 20, 30; 21, 25). St. Paul sets forth the nature and the necessity of tradition: "faith (comes) by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom. 10, 17); and more explicitly: "Therefore, brethren, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions (κρατειτε τὰς παραδόσεις) in which you were taught, whether by word or by our letter" (II Thess. 2, 15). Indeed, before appealing to what is written, he appeals to his living voice (cf. I Cor. 10, 2; 11, 23; 15, 3; I Thess. 4, 2), and admonishes Christians to beware of those who teach differently "from the doctrine in which you were instructed" (Rom. 16, 17). In the pastoral letters tradition is compared to a deposit to be jealously guarded, as he himself had done: "O Timothy, guard the deposit (τὴν παρα-

θήκην φύλαξον), avoiding the profane novelties of words and
the oppositions of a pseudo-science (I Tim. 6, 20; cf.
II Tim. 1, 13-14; 2, 1-2).

In the teaching of the Fathers, from sub-apostolic times onward, tradition is held in the highest account. With the passage of time there then arose a true and proper theology of tradition, in which three successive phases can be distinguished: a) at first no exact distinction was yet made between written and oral teaching (apostolic Fathers), and teaching in general was referred to the undisputed and ever-living authority of the Church, whether particular or universal: first there were the itinerant Apostles, the prophets, the teachers and, finally, the monarchical episcopate and, above all, the Church of Rome; b) in the 3rd century (St. Irenaeus, Tertullian) a clear distinction began to be made between Scripture and tradition, as separate sources of Revelation, with preference given to the latter; c) in the 4th and 5th centuries (the Cappadocians in the East, St. Augustine in the West) the concept of tradition was ever better deepened in its organs of transmission (the teaching Church, the Fathers, the councils) together with the criteria for investigating the true apostolic tradition.

In particular it must be noted that the attitude of the apostolic Fathers regarding oral tradition is indicated by Papias (ca. 130): "But if ever someone who had followed the presbyters came, I used to inquire into the words of the presbyters: what Andrew, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, or John, or Matthew, or some other disciple of the Lord had said... For I was convinced that I would derive no such profit from the things learned from books as from the living and abiding voice" (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III, 39: PG 20, 297). Note that Papias was not ignorant of the written Gospels, at least those of St. Matthew and St. Mark. For St. Clement of Rome (ca. 101) the preaching of the Apostles and of the bishops appointed by them is the "rule of our tradition (τῆς παραδόσεως ἡμῶν κανών: I Cor. 7, 2). According to St. Irenaeus (d. 202), the Church "preaches, teaches and transmits the same things as though she had but one mouth. For although in the world there are diverse tongues, yet one and identical is the power of tradition (ἡ δύναμις τῆς παραδόσεως). Nor do the Churches founded in Germany believe differently, nor do they preach differently" (Adv. haer., I, 10, 2: PG 7, 553). Living tradition is superior to the Bible itself: "If the Apostles had left nothing in writing, one would equally have to follow the order of the tradition handed down by them to the heads of the Church. This method is followed by many barbarian peoples who believe in Christ. Without paper and without ink they have written salvation in their hearts through the work of the Holy Spirit: they carefully preserve the ancient tradition" (ibid., III, 4, 2: PG 7, 855). Tertullian (d. 222-23), after enumerating certain doctrines and customs not mentioned by the Bible (the rite of Baptism, prayers for the dead, etc.), writes: "If you ask for the authority of the Scriptures for these and other similar disciplinary practices, you will read none. Instead tradition will present itself as authority, custom as confirmation, faith as observing it" (De corona, 3-4: PL 2, 98-99; cf. also De praescript., 21: PL 2, 33). It should be borne in mind that some examples adduced by Tertullian are true and proper dogmatic traditions, not merely disciplinary ones.

So too St. Basil (d. 379), cited also by the Council of Trent (De Spiritu Sancto, 66: PG 32, 188); St. John Chrysostom: "It is tradition not to seek more" (In II ad Thess., Hom. 4, 2: PG 62, 488); St. Augustine (d. 430), who systematically has recourse to the argument from tradition against heretics: thus, for example, against the Donatists: "Quod universa tenet Ecclesia, nec Conciliis institutum, sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate apostolica traditum rectissime creditur" (De Bapt., 4, 24: PL 43, 174); St. Vincent of Lérins (5th century), who formulates the well-known rule for recognizing, among many, the true apostolic tradition: "In ipsa item Ecclesia catholica magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est" (Commonit., 2: PL 50, 640). The idea of tradition had so penetrated the minds of the faithful that in the 4th and 5th centuries people began to compile catalogues or patristic florilegia for dogmatic use. One of these patristic collections was presented by St. Cyril of Alexandria at the Council of Ephesus (431), in defense of the divine maternity of Mary.

From the texts cited, besides the existence of tradition, certain clarifications indispensable for an exact evaluation of the subject can clearly be deduced: 1) both in the Bible and in the Fathers, the concept of tradition is always linked to the assistance of the Holy Spirit; without the Spirit of truth, oral teaching, even with all human precautions, could not fail to be mixed with inevitable errors. It is on this point that Protestantism errs. 2) The concept of tradition is inseparable from the living magisterium of the Church: a tradition, even of the 1st or 2nd century, not attested by the Church of today, could count as historical documentation, but could not constitute a dogma of faith: material washed up along the way and nothing more. Therefore the full sense of tradition can be had only on condition of keeping united the two aspects, subjective-formal and objective-material, of which the first is predominant. Hence between the magisterium of the Church and tradition in the full sense we posit only an inadequate distinction: we hold, that is, that the Church is like a teacher who as it were incorporates into herself Sacred Scripture and tradition.

III. MONUMENTS OF TRADITION

According to what has been said, it is clear that, in itself, the Catholic Church, as it presents itself today, is the sole granite monument of tradition. There is no need to interrogate the past, when one is at the school of a master whose living voice is the faithful echo and, as it were, the record of the centuries gone by. In fact, however, this living voice, with the passing of the centuries, has also been handed down and, as it were, engraved in written or customary documents.

When speaking of "monuments of tradition," therefore, what is meant is "all those means, outside the living oral magisterium, by which one can, in the course of the centuries, as it were re-read and reconstruct the truths currently professed by the Catholic Church." Through these monuments the theologian and the scholar can retrace the history of dogmas. This history, however, unlike all others, does not and cannot discover, in the past, truths unknown to us, but only confirm the antiquity, the primordiality of the faith professed today, which is not a human invention, but solely divine.

The documents, or monuments, of tradition, thus understood, can be: a) written (professions of faith, definitions, councils, books of the Fathers, doctors, theologians, etc.); b) artistic-epigraphic (sculptures, paintings, monuments in general, tombs, epigraphs, etc.); c) simply customary (religious beliefs of the faithful, rites, ceremonies, various liturgical or paraliturgical uses [v. LITURGIA]).

The "sensus christianus" of the faithful is also an excellent instrument for the preservation, transmission and penetration of revealed truths. It can be defined as "a spontaneous affective impulse of the Christian people which, under the influence of the habit of faith and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (especially intellect, knowledge and wisdom), with the control of the magisterium, adheres to certain truths, interesting the teaching Church in them." The sensus of the faithful is in the affective sphere, but its ultimate roots are of an intellectual order, even if at present not perceived. It is explained by St. Thomas as a kind of "connaturality" to supernatural realities, not yet well defined, of which, however, the intellect and the heart feel as it were a need and to which the devotion of the simple bends by natural adaptation (Sum. Theol., 2ᵃ-2ᵃᵉ, q. 45, a. 2). Especially in the field of Marian theology it has had a notable influence, as Pius XII explicitly affirms in the constitution Munificentissimus Deus (AAS, 42 [1950], p. 758).

IV. INTERPRETATION OF THE MONUMENTS OF TRADITION

From what precedes, the essential part that the magisterium of the Church has always had, "ex natura rei," in giving validity to the various instruments of t. is already evident. It is logical, therefore, that of their dogmatic content, even today, only the Church can give a definitive judgment, she who yesterday guaranteed such content.

Settimio Cipriani