tradition

tradition. In the early Fathers tradition means the revelation made by God and delivered by Him to His people through the prophets and apostles. It denotes something ‘handed over’, not something ‘handed down’. From the 3rd cent. it was sometimes expressly identified with the Gospel record contained in Scripture.

In a more modern sense tradition means the continuous stream of explanation and elucidation of the primitive faith, illustrating the way in which Christianity has been presented and understood in past ages. It is the accumulated wisdom of the past. In the Reformation period the relation of unwritten tradition and Scripture became a matter of controversy. As against the Protestant belief in the sole sufficiency of the Bible, the Council of Trent appeared to lay down that Scripture and unwritten traditions were to be received as of equal authority. The Second Vatican Council minimizes the distinction, stating that Scripture and tradition ‘flow from the same divine well-spring, merge into a unity and tend to the same end’.