...which is an additional concern with "Holy Tradition." Aside from the question of whether legends, folklore, custom, and opinion should be made the equal of Scripture, there is also the problem that comes with "Holy Tradition" which is claiming that such things are "teachings handed down through the Apostles" when there is no way of knowing if that's true or not. It is simply stated in order to justify making such information into doctrine.
Actually, there is a consistent, if varied, body of Christian Ekklesiastical literature, beginning with the Gospels and the Epistles, that exists across the entire 2000 year history of the Faith of Christ... This is the literature of the Church Fathers and ascetics... A very good collection of these is found in the Philokalia vol 1-4/5 (I never found vol 5), and St. Isaac of Syria (His by-line is on my signature here) wrote "The Ascetical Homilies"... So when we argue Scripture, we are but bearing witness to this 2000 year body of the History of Christ in His Saints on this earth... We do not start with a book, even The Book, and then argue over what it must mean so that we can live according to the written Word... Instead we start with repentance, as we recorded in the Book, and in that enterprise, as we overcome sins from one to the next, we ask God to illumine us with understanding, and in this process of Salvation, the meaning of Holy Writ comes forth not in theory but in the actual unfolding of our lives of living repentance... Paul wrote of this: "Wherefore Brethren run the race set before you..." And IF we persevere in this very active repentance to the end of our lives, then we SHALL be saved, even as we are given an earnest of that Salvation in this life... Hence the shadow of Peter gave healing to the sick, Peter who followed Christ, as are we to follow Christ, imitating Peter, or imitating in voluntary obedience, those others who "have the Rule OVER us" who must give account for our souls...
And that in turn is why each Catholic-type denomination or church body has a different set of doctrines based on what it calls "teachings handed down through the Apostles."
If you take ALL these Apostolic Churches, and throw out from your credulity ALL these doctrinal differences, you will STILL find WAY more than a 95% congruence - In fact, a 99%+ with the Oriental Orthodox and the Coptic Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox Communions... The Latins did perhaps make it to a 5% divergence in their apostatic venture from the perspective of all the other Communions, but even so, there is hardly some "Different set of Doctrines" as you alledge... The doctrines are, in the main, congruent... Even the Ethiopian Church, which historically, to the middle east and to the west at least, disappeared for over a thousand years, to "develop" along its own lines, after separating from us at the 3rd Ecumenical Council (as my poor memory recalls) - Even this isolated Church is still 99% Eastern Orthodox in its Doctrine and Praxis... They are WONDERFUL Christians... As are the Copts... And all the others...
And all this rich historical proofs the western churches want to forsake so that they can read their Guttenberg Bibles and argue over what the passages should logically me interpreted as saying, and erect human doctrines based on that non-ekklesiastical set of understandings which each group might conclude... The Lutherans, the Zwinglians, the Calvinists, the Messianics, the Pentecostals, the... ad infinitum...
ALL the Apostolic Churches prescribe ongoing purification of the heart as the beginning and praxis of discipleship... None of them begin with reading the Bible and arguing about its meaning without the attainment of Grace that proceeds from the overcoming of sin...
Arsenios
