By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 11
Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are the two sources of knowledge about divine Revelation within the Catholic Church. Martin Luther invented the novel doctrine of Sola Scriptura — the Bible alone, no Church being necessary — and managed to deceive a great many Catholics in his day, Catholics who were already in a process of doctrinal and moral decadence, and were looking for someone to put their discontent into words.
Contrary to the new heresy, the Church has always taught from the first centuries that both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are equally important sources of the one — and only one — Revelation given by Christ to His apostles.
The relationship between Scripture and Tradition (here we use Tradition with a capital “T” to distinguish it from the traditional customs and practices adopted by the faithful over the centuries) can be defined in simple terms:
Sacred Scripture is the message of God that was committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Sacred Tradition transmits integrally the word of God orally entrusted to the apostles and their successors by Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Magisterium that was established by Christ Himself interprets both sources infallibly.
Another important difference: Sacred Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, whereas Sacred Tradition is not. Sacred Tradition is protected from error by the Holy Spirit. The Magisterium of the Church of God, “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), interprets Tradition and in so doing is protected from error by the same Holy Spirit.
Consequently, Sacred Scripture must always be interpreted “in the Church” and never outside or against the Church; and Tradition must always be expounded in conformity with Scripture and never contrary to it.
Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition form together a single sacred Deposit of the Word of God, which Christ entrusted to His Church, and never to individuals.
Sacred Scripture is known and understood through Sacred Tradition, that is, it is by means of the Sacred Tradition that has come down to us over that centuries that we know which books are inspired and which books are not. We live nearly 2,000 years after the New Testament was written: How can we know which books were inspired by the Holy Spirit?
Some Protestant writers assert a kind of individual “inspiration,” as Luther claimed in his revolution; Mrs. Ellen Gould White, the foundress of the Seventh-day Adventists, also claimed “inspiration,” so much so that her writings are placed beside the Bible in their churches; Joseph Smith, not a Protestant but a Mormon, also claimed to have received the Book of Mormon from an angel, and so on and so forth.
But all of these, and many others, are just late-arrival myths. It is the Sacred Tradition that comes to us from the apostles themselves that gives us the correct interpretation of Sacred Scripture.
It is Sacred Tradition that guarantees that Sacred Scripture is inerrant, not the local Protestant pastor speaking to his congregation. In this sense, there is only Sacred Tradition: the one committed to writing by some of the apostles, known as Sacred Scripture or the Bible, and the one we received from the apostles orally, which we call Sacred Tradition itself. That is what St. Paul exhorted us to hold fast to, the Traditions we received both orally and in writing, when he said: “Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (1 Thess. 2:15).
This is most important to emphasize, because not everything Jesus taught the apostles was committed to writing; rather, just a minimal part of His deeds and teachings were written down. St. John tells us: “But there are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written” (John 22:25).
What was written down by the inspired writers we call the written Tradition — the Bible; what was passed on orally by the apostles and their successors we call oral Tradition. As simple as that!
The beauty of having both Traditions is that one explains the other, that is, it is through Sacred Tradition that we understand and apply Sacred Scripture, as there are many things in the Bible which cannot be understood apart from Sacred Tradition, which provides norms for interpretation and an equally binding rule of faith.
You remove Sacred Tradition, and the helm is taken away from the boat, which goes here and there according to the whims and preferences of the readers. That is why we have today so many tens of thousands of Protestant denominations in the world today. Without the guidance left by the apostles — Sacred Tradition — individuals go astray from the path of truth and virtue.
The Council Of Trent
But how can we know the teachings of Sacred Tradition today? Simple. Tradition is known through the unanimous teachings of the early fathers of the Church, who received Scripture and the oral teachings from the apostles, studied them, interpreted them, and passed them on to the generations after them, guided by the Magisterium of the Church. The very life of the Church is rich in the teachings of oral Tradition, which apply Sacred Scripture in the Church liturgy, catechism, and moral principles in general. Sacred Scripture guides Sacred Tradition, and Sacred Tradition interprets Sacred Scripture.
The Canon of the Bible is the list of those books that have been inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is a fixed collection of books recognized by the Church as being inspired. From the post-apostolic times until the fourth century, there were many books in circulation among the various Catholic communities: Some historical or even apocryphal books were regarded as inspired, while a few inspired ones were not accepted by all.
It was in the famous Council of Carthage, in 397, when the bishops of the Catholic Church defined the current canon of the New Testament, keeping four Gospels and rejecting 11 or so. There were many more epistles and acts and apocalypses, but the Catholic Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, kept the ones we have today.
Therefore, when a Protestant believes that the Bible is the written word of God, he is accepting a decision of a council of the Roman Catholic Church.
But since Luther removed seven books of the Old Testament and disputed some of the New, the Church made a dogmatic definition in the Council of Trent in 1546, recognizing the definition of the Council of Florence in 1442 and of Carthage in 397.
Next article: Differences between the authentic Catholic Canon and the new Protestant one.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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