The Apostolic Tradition

On Ascension Day, just before Jesus returned to Heaven, he gave this command to his Apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (NRSV, Matthew 28:19,20).

There were, however, now only 11 Apostles, for Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him, had committed suicide.  So, after the Ascension, when the Apostles were waiting in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come to them, Peter said, “…one of the men who have accompanied us throughout the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us – one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection” (NRSV, Acts 1:21,22).  So they appointed Matthias to be an Apostle in place of Judas because he had been a disciple of Jesus during his Ministry and had been a witness of his Resurrection (Acts 1:15-26).

Handing on the Christian Faith

So when the Apostles, after the first Pentecost, went into the world to plant and build the Church, they didn’t have a New Testament in their hand because it had not yet been written.  They taught what they had heard and seen themselves (Acts 4:20; 5:32).  So St Peter would say, “John and I went to the tomb on Easter Day and found it empty”.  And the people, whom he taught, in their turn would tell others and say, “Peter told us how John and he went to the tomb and found it empty”.  This handing on or delivering of the Christian Faith by the Apostles is called the Apostolic Tradition.  What the Apostles taught and handed on was what they themselves had received from Our Lord, and Our Lord in his turn had received it from God his Father.  So Jesus told his Apostles on Maundy Thursday, “…I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (NRSV, John 15:15; 17:7,8).  And St Paul the Apostle in his turn told the Christians at Corinth, when teaching them about the Eucharist, “...I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you…” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 11:23).

Teaching by word of mouth

So you can see that, in the early days of the Church the Christians had no Scriptures except for the books of the Old Testament.  They just had the teaching which the Apostles had given them by word of mouth, teaching which included, among other things, instruction about the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation (Penance) and the Eucharist.  Soon there was a need for a written record, and many accounts of Our Lord’s life were written, as well, of course, as letters (epistles) which the Apostles wrote in order to keep in touch with Christians in different places.  But the Faith itself was entrusted by the Apostles to the Bishops whom they appointed to take their place.  And the bishop of each city or town kept it safe and handed it on to his successor. 

The New Testament

Some of the ‘Gospels’ or Lives of Our Lord that were written were false Gospels, and contained many untrue and absurd stories.  Now, what the Church did was to compare all these writings with the teaching and tradition of the Apostles which had been handed down by the bishops of each place.  This teaching and tradition was everywhere the same because it was the truth, and Our Lord had promised that the Holy Spirit, who came to the Apostles at Pentecost, would guide the Church into all truth (John 16:13; 14:26).  So the Church threw out the writings which did not agree with the Christian Faith as it had been received from the Apostles, but the writings which did agree with it were kept.  By about the year 200 AD the Church in every part had in this way pretty well decided to keep the writings that we know as the New Testament, and so these were put alongside the Old Testament as the Word of God.  The space between the first Pentecost, which was in around 30 AD, is not so long as it seems.  For in 200 AD there was still alive a Bishop called Irenaeus.  Now Irenaeus had learnt the Faith from another bishop called Polycarp, and Polycarp had been taught it by St John the Apostle himself.

So it was that Bishop Irenaeus, wrote, “We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith”. (1)

So you can see that the true meaning of the Bible agrees exactly with the Faith which the Early Church had received from the Apostles.  And the teaching of the Bible is the same as the teaching of the Early Church, and that is still the teaching of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church today.

The Reformation

It was only at the Reformation in the 16th century, well over 1,000 years later, that some individuals said they knew better than the Early Church what the Bible meant and what the Christian Faith really was.  They even thought they knew better than Irenaeus did, and said that the Apostles did not appoint bishops to take their place as guardians, either of the Faith or the Sacraments, and that therefore bishops were not necessary.  They also said that a layman, who had never been ordained, was just as much a priest as an ordained priest was.  So they rejected the three-fold ministry which was formed by the Apostles, acting as Our Lord’s personal representatives.

The Bible is the Church’s Book

But the Bible is the Church’s Book and the Church’s Book alone, just as a railway timetable is the railway company’s book.  If you want to be sure of what the railway timetable means, you go to the railway company because the railway company produced it and is the only body which has the necessary authority to tell you what you want to know.  Indeed, you accept it in the first place on the authority of the railway company.

So too with the books of the Bible, and especially of the New Testament, which we accept on the authority of the Church.  If you want to know what the New Testament means and teaches, you go to the Church because the Church is the only body which has the necessary authority to tell you what you want to know.  So St Irenaeus, writing about the year 190 AD says, “…it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth: so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life”. (2)

SUMMARY

1. The Bible is the Church’s Book and for that reason only the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church has the authority to decide what it means.

2. It was the Early Church which took over the Old Testament and which chose the books of the New Testament because they agreed with the Christian Faith which had been handed down from the Apostles.  Thus the teaching of the Bible is the same as the teaching of the Early Church, and that is still the teaching of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church today.

Some notes from Early Church writers

St Irenaeus

“It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times…” (3) “Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who … assemble in unauthorized meetings…by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops.  For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere”. (4)

“…the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it.  She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.  For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same.  For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world.  But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth”. (5)

Tertullian

“Now, what that was which they (the Apostles) preached – in other words, what it was which Christ revealed to them – can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the apostles founded in person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves, both vivâ voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by their epistles.  If, then, these things are so, it is in the same degree manifest that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches – those moulds and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the (said) churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God.  Whereas all doctrine must be prejudged as false which savours of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles of Christ and God”. (6)

Origen

“…the teaching of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles, and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and tradition”. (7)

References

1. Irenaeus of Lyons (died c 202 AD) Against heresies, III, 1(1).  Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103301.htm  (Accessed 16 August 2010) (Internet).

2. Irenaeus of Lyons (died c 202 AD) Against heresies, III, 4(1).  Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103304.htm  (Accessed 16 August 2010) (Internet).

3. Irenaeus of Lyons (died c 202 AD) Against heresies, III, 3(1).  Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm  (Accessed 16 August 2010) (Internet).

4. Irenaeus of Lyons (died c 202 AD) Against heresies, III, 3(2).  Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm  (Accessed 16 August 2010) (Internet).

5. Irenaeus of Lyons (died c 202 AD) Against heresies, I, 10(2). Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103110.htm  (Accessed 16 August 2010) (Internet).

6. Tertullian (died c 222 AD) Prescription against heretics, 21.  Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm  (Accessed 16 August 2010) (Internet).

7. Origen (died 254 AD) De Principiis (Preface), 2.  Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04120.htm  (Accessed 16 August 2010) (Internet).