The order of revelation; Tradition comes first, later comes inspiration and the making of scripture.

[Ceallaigh]

Yes I can; each is a Dogma, each is well documented, and some have lovely paintings depicting the event.

But you can not cite any evidence that those traditional views were established by the Apostles. Only that they were established long afterwards.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Way to contradict yourself.

Only to an interlocutor who does not understand that in a set of many elements some may be described one way and others in different ways. Some Apostolic Traditions were eventually written, and some were not or have not yet been written.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

But you can not cite any evidence that those traditional views were established by the Apostles. Only that they were established long afterwards.

No written evidence is needed.

 

[Ceallaigh]

No written evidence is needed.

I said that you can not cite any evidence that those traditional views were established by the Apostles.

That's through no fault of your own through. It simply doesn't exist.

 

[Ceallaigh]

That is not a problem; I make no claim that citations are possible because many sacred traditions are not written and citation requires writing.

You're saying that you know about traditions that no one is able to write down.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I said that you can not cite

Citation requires a document to cite.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

You're saying that you know about traditions that no one is able to write down.

Far from it; they can be written in many cases.

 

[Ceallaigh]

Far from it; they can be written in many cases.

But they're not so that's why you can't cite them.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

But they're not so that's why you can't cite them.

I did cite a number, you seem to have ignored them.

 

[dzheremi]

But they're not so that's why you can't cite them.

Do you discount the existence of oral tradition as a thing, as opposed to just deeming it less trustworthy? That'd be mighty odd, since everything that is eventually written down obviously starts out its life as oral tradition, assuming it's not composed later and then back-dated (in recognition of the fact that people won't take things seriously just because they're written down).

 

[Ceallaigh]

Do you discount the existence of oral tradition as a thing, as opposed to just deeming it less trustworthy? That'd be mighty odd, since everything that is eventually written down obviously starts out its life as oral tradition, assuming it's not composed later and then back-dated (in recognition of the fact that people won't take things seriously just because they're written down).

What's being claimed is there is oral tradition in the church today that's been passed down from the apostles that's never been written down so it can't be cited but it's not secret because it's always been out in the open.

 

[Ceallaigh]

I did cite a number, you seem to have ignored them.

You cited post apostolic traditions. Along with post apostolic saints, councils, creeds and catechisms. But nothing that's apostolic. That's okay though. No one is expecting you to do the impossible.

 

[dzheremi]

What's being claimed is there is oral tradition in the church today that's been passed down from the apostles that's never been written down so it can't be cited but it's not secret because it's always been out in the open.

Is that what's being claimed? Maybe I'm not reading the OP correctly, but it seems to me that something being oral tradition is not somehow robbed of that status by its being written down. Take, for instance, things like the sayings of the desert fathers. Obviously since that's the standard way they're referred to, we can tell that they're a corpus of sayings (oral tradition) that are have been eventually written down. In some cases, we even know the names of people who collected them (e.g., St. John Cassian). This does not somehow keep them from being oral tradition, since that's the medium by which they were given, and yet just the same they could be cited quite easily. My copy of them is probably the standard copy that every modern person in the English-speaking world has, translated by Sister Benedicta Ward and published in the early 1980s (this is what you'll find on Amazon, for instance), though this is not the only collection of them that is available, and there are some notable differences between the corpus that exists in, say, Sahidic Coptic (the language that many of the fathers spoke natively) and that which exists in Greek (the language in which most visitors would have communicated, owing to Egypt's status as a part of the eastern Roman empire, where Greek predominated as the language of the cultural elite and cross-cultural communication).

 

[Ceallaigh]

Is that what's being claimed? Maybe I'm not reading the OP correctly,

Things have been said during the course of this thread that aren't in the original post.

but it seems to me that something being oral tradition is not somehow robbed of that status by its being written down. Take, for instance, things like the sayings of the desert fathers. Obviously since that's the standard way they're referred to, we can tell that they're a corpus of sayings (oral tradition) that are have been eventually written down. In some cases, we even know the names of people who collected them (e.g., St. John Cassian). This does not somehow keep them from being oral tradition, since that's the medium by which they were given, and yet just the same they could be cited quite easily. My copy of them is probably the standard copy that every modern person in the English-speaking world has, translated by Sister Benedicta Ward and published in the early 1980s (this is what you'll find on Amazon, for instance), though this is not the only collection of them that is available, and there are some notable differences between the corpus that exists in, say, Sahidic Coptic (the language that many of the fathers spoke natively) and that which exists in Greek (the language in which most visitors would have communicated, owing to Egypt's status as a part of the eastern Roman empire, where Greek predominated as the language of the cultural elite and cross-cultural communication).

It's been said that there are unwritten oral apostolic traditions in the Catholic church. But they can't be cited since they're not written. However there's been going back and forth and contradictions regarding that.

Can you name an apostolic tradition that's taught/practiced in the church, that's not mentioned in their gospels and epistles?

 

[dzheremi]

Can you name an apostolic tradition taught/practiced in the church, that's not mentioned in their gospels and epistles?

Explicit worship of the Holy Trinity. (NB: Not things that Christians can cite as evidence for it in the scriptures.)

 

[Ceallaigh]

Explicit worship of the Holy Trinity.

Knowledge of the Trinity is based on and rooted in scripture.

(NB: Not things that Christians can cite as evidence for it in the scriptures.)

I don't know what that means.

 

[dzheremi]

Anything other than the Trinity which is the only example I've ever seen brought up?

I'm sorry...is that example not good enough somehow? I mean, it is the most important theologically-distinctive thing that we do as Christians.

OK, then. Praying the Agios/Qadishat. In the Coptic tradition in particular (not 100% about others; the Syriacs have something similar, though I can't remember the details at the moment), this prayer is said by Joseph and Nicodemus as they removed the body of our Lord from the cross, so obviously this is something that would be dated back to the apostolic period, but it is nowhere found in the Holy Bible itself. We know this is the authentic tradition of our Church, however, as it is preserved in the text of the ancient burial hymn for Good Friday, "Golgotha", the relevant portion of which reads in English: The righteous Joseph and Nicodemus came took away the body of Christ, wrapped it in linen cloths with spices, and put it in a sepulcher and praised Him saying, "Holy God, holy Mighty, holy Immortal, who was crucified for us, have mercy on us."

 

[dzheremi]

Knowledge of the Trinity is based on and rooted in scripture.

Absolutely not. Worship of the Holy Trinity (which is what I wrote; "knowledge" is not worship...you can know a lot of things without engaging in worship of those things) is based in the revelation of God Himself, not on the words of any book. We worship God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) according to how He has revealed Himself to us, not out of fidelity to the written text of a book, even a book that we very highly and very rightly venerate greatly for the truth and guidance contained therein.

In every morning hour of the Agpeya (Coptic daily prayer book akin to the Byzantine Horologion or the Latin Hours), we pray the following, which appears in modern printed copies of the book in English under the heading "The Faith of the Church":

One is God the Father of everyone.

One is His Son, Jesus Christ the Word, Who took flesh and died; and rose from the dead on the third day, and raised us with Him.

One is the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, one in His Hypostasis, proceeding from the Father, purifying the whole creation, and teaching us to worship the Holy Trinity, one in divinity and one in essence. We praise Him and bless Him forever. Amen.

+++

By the bolded portion, we recognize that it is GOD Who teaches us to worship the Holy Trinity. Our God is not a book. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh, not the Word made text.

I don't know what that means.

I meant by that to maintain a distinction between what you asked for (a practice that is apostolic in vintage but not mentioned in the scriptures) and what can be argued for by the common reading of passages that are said to point to that thing. In other words: Yes, we can agree that Christians can and do find support for the worship of the Holy Trinity in the scriptures, but we should still recognize that we don't find explicit report of it in them (i.e., there's no verse where we read "And St. Peter worshipped the Holy Trinity" in a manner analogous to what many people demand to substantiate things that they don't agree with that other Christians do).

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Do you discount the existence of oral tradition as a thing, as opposed to just deeming it less trustworthy? That'd be mighty odd, since everything that is eventually written down obviously starts out its life as oral tradition, assuming it's not composed later and then back-dated (in recognition of the fact that people won't take things seriously just because they're written down).

What puzzles me is that I get demands for citations of oral traditions and complaints when I cite a written tradition because it is written. And, how exactly would one write down a demonstrated action that is a part of tradition? There are plenty of demonstrated actions in holy tradition but these protestant interlocutors act as if it is all too strange for words! It's odd behaviour I reckon.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

You cited post apostolic traditions.

At this point in the conversation I shall withdraw, there is nothing to be gained by going in circles. You will not accept sacred tradition and I shall not reject it. Let us go our separate ways, maybe later, in a few months or years, we can return to the topic and see if the circles can be broken.