What Has Been Handed Down

The Christian faith is participation in the life of Christ, not an adaptation to the spirit of the age. It is received reality, not constructed system. It is inherited, not innovated. St. Vincent of Lérins, in his Commonitorium (AD 434), famously described the faith of the Church as, “What has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.” So, as Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky taught, Christian renewal is not reinvention but return to the Fathers. Not archaeological imitation but re-entering the mind of the Church.

The word that describes this is tradition, the relationship between what has been received (paralambano) and what has been handed on (paradidomi). Our English word, “tradition,” comes from the Latin, tradere, “to deliver, or hand over” (from trans- “over” + dare “to give”). The Greek word for it is paradosis (para, “over” + didomai, “to give”). We find it and comparable forms in several places in the New Testament.

For I received [paralambano] from the Lord what I also passed on [paradidomi] to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread ... (1 Corinthians 11:23) 

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received [paralambano] and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For I passed on [paradidomi] to you as of first importance what I also received [paralambano] – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures ... (1 Corinthians 15:1-3)

Whatever you have learned or received [paralambano] or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:9)

I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions [paradosis] just as I passed them on [paradidomi] to you. (1 Corinthians 11:2)

So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions [paradosis] we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust [paratithiemi] to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2:2) 

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted [paradidomi] to God’s holy people. (Jude 3) 

Scripture itself is part of the tradition, passed on to us by the Church, but we can see in the above passages that the handing down of the Christian faith was not through Scripture alone but also through liturgical act, through preaching, through what was heard and seen and was practicable. It was oral and visible as well as written. This was not the tradition of men but divine revelation, the faith handed down from the apostles to the saints.