Commenting on "the rule of faith" during the patristic era, Joseph Gallegos noted that:
The rule of faith
during the post-Nicene period is essentially the same as the ante-Nicene. It
consisted of Scripture, Tradition and Church. The Fathers did not set Scripture
against Tradition, nor did they ask which authority was greater. Instead, the
Fathers consistently linked Scripture and Tradition together, showing how the
apostolic heritage is communicated to the Church. For them, Scripture and
Tradition were two modes or mediums in transmitting the single deposit of
faith. The Fathers believed that all apostolic teachings are contained within
Scripture and Tradition. The content of Tradition is coincident with Scripture,
differing primarily in its degree of explicitness and mode of
transmission.(Joseph Gallegos, "What Did the Church Fathers Teach about
Scripture, Tradition, and Church Authority?" in Robert A. Sungenis, ed., Not
By Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola
Scriptura [2d ed.; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International
Publishing, 2013], 355-451, here, pp. 405-6)
Here are some representative quotations
from the patristic sources that Gallegos provides in his lengthy essay:
Athanasius
But beyond these sayings [i.e. Scripture], let us look at the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers kept. Upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Christian, and should no longer be so called. (Four Letters to Serapion of Thmuis, 1:28)
Basil
Of the dogmas and
kerygmas preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching and
others we receive from the traditions of the Apostles, handed on to us in
mystery. In respect to piety both are of the same force. No one will contradict
any of these, no one, at any rate, who is even moderately versed in matters
ecclesiastical. Indeed, were we to try to reject unwritten customs as having no
great authority, we would unwittingly injure the Gospel in its vitals; or rather,
we would reduce kerymga to a mere term. (Basil, On the Spirit, 27:66)
John Chrysostom
‘So then, brethren,
stand fast, and hold to the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word,
or by Epistle of ours.’ Hence it is manifest, that they did not deliver all
things by Epistle, but many things also unwritten, and in like manner both the
one and the other are worthy of credit. Therefore let us think the tradition of
the Church also worthy of credit. It is a tradition, seek no farther. (On the
2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians, Homily 4:2)
Cyril of Alexandria
[W]e give thanks to
God, the Saviour of the world, rejoicing with one another that our Churches,
both our and yours, hold a faith in accordance with the divinely inspired
Scriptures and with the tradition of our Holy Fathers. (Epistle to John of
Antioch, 39)
Epiphanius of Salimis
However, none of the
sacred words need an allegorical interpretation of their meaning; they need
examination, and the perception to understand each proposition’s force. But
tradition must be used too, for not everything is available from the sacred
scripture. Thus the holy apostles handed some things down in scriptures but
some in traditions, as St. Paul says, ‘As I delivered the tradition to you,’
and elsewhere, ‘So I teach, and so I have delivered the tradition in the
churches,’ and, ‘If ye keep the tradition in memory, unless ye believed in
vain.’ (Panarion, 61)
Leo the Great
“[W]e commend you for
holding fast that teaching which has come down to us from the Blessed Apostles
and the holy Fathers. (To Proterius, Epistle 129:1)
Theodoret of Cyrus
[B]ut up to now I
have ever kept the faith of the apostles undefiled . . . So have I learnt not
only from the apostles and prophets but also from the interpreters of their
writings, Ignatius, Eustathius, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, John, and the rest
of the lights of the world; and before these from the holy Fathers in council
at Nicaea, whose confession of faith I preserve in its integrity, like an ancestral
inheritance, styling corrupt and enemies of the truth all who dare to
transgress its decrees. I invoke your greatness, now that you have heard from
me in these terms, to shut the months of my calumniators.
Augustine
But those reasons
which I have here given, I have either gathered from the authority of the
church, according to the tradition of our forefathers, or from the testimony of
the divine Scriptures, or from the nature itself of numbers and of similitudes.
No sober person will decide against reason, no Christian against the
Scriptures, no peaceable person against the church. (On the Trinity, 4, 6:10)
Vincent of Lerins
I have often then
inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and
learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to
distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical
pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to
this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and
avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete
in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two
ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of
the Catholic Church. (Commonitory, 2:4)
The ”regula fidei” (rule of faith) for the
Early Christians is antithetical to the Protestant understandings thereof,
especially those of Reformed
Protestantism. And yet, according to certain
low IQ and dishonest critics of the Church, there was no Great Apostasy but
the “gospel” (as understood by Calvinists) existed throughout the patristic era
and all other era prior to the Reformation. If you honestly think that is the
case, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I will sell to you on the cheap; I will also
throw in a tower in Paris for free, too.
