Tag: Tradition

Last week I did a post on “Peter and the Fathers” where I posted the quotations which our pastor included in our parish’s newsletter. Today is another reproduction from our bulletin on the subject of Oral Tradition:

“For wherever both the true Christian rule and faith shall be shown to be, there will be the true Scriptures, and the true expositions, of all the true Christian traditions
– Tertullian, The Prescription of Heretics, 19 (AD 200)

“Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us ‘in mystery’ by the tradition of the Apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will contradict; no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in these matters…”
– St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 27 (AD 375)

“I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith  from the falsehood of heretical depravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or anyone else should wish to detect the fraud and avoid the snares of heretics as they arise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways: first by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.
– St. Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory 2 (AD 434)