In debates with Catholic and Orthodox interlocutors, a Protestant will encounter the appeal to oral or otherwise unwritten tradition. There are different variations, but it usually goes something like this: in the apostolic era and subsequent generations, important doctrinal information was not exclusively contained in Scripture. Especially through apostolic succession, this non-scriptural information is preserved alongside the record of the Bible, such that the Church can, has, and should teach this information as credenda.[1] Although no one really disputes that oral tradition existed and served a significant purpose in first-century churches, this model goes rather further by suggesting that crucial information may have “escaped” Scripture’s purview to crop up at later point in time. (Naturally, this idea tends to dovetail with notions of doctrinal development, though I’m mostly going to bracket that off for this particular discussion.)
While I know of earlier, more ambiguous iterations, the oldest and most full-throated example of this reasoning I have ever found in my own research comes from the author Pseudo-Germanos, who composed a homily on the Dormition of Mary. The real Germanos, to whom the oration is dubiously attributed, is probably Germanos I, bishop of Constantinople (715–730) who did indeed write other works on the Dormition; by looking at texts of similar theme, I think it is safe to suppose this particular text was composed sometime in the seventh or eighth centuries.
Although Mary’s cult had been growing in importance since at least the 500s, early medieval advocates of the Dormition/Assumption of Mary faced a practical problem: it appeared nowhere in the Bible, nor was there much at all to draw upon even in the patristic writings. From what little Scriptural information existed, some even inferred from Luke 2:35 that Mary did indeed die. Compared to, say, the ideas about Mary’s perpetual virginity, which began gaining real (though hardly universal) traction in the second and third centuries, the Dormition/Assumption was a relative latecomer on the theological landscape.
Unsurprisingly, that would raise questions about the doctrine’s historicity, particularly if one’s church began formally celebrating the event in the liturgical calendar. As often happened with the saints, people started bringing stories forward to backfill the missing history, and the Dormition was no exception. Ps. Germanos takes this issue on directly at the outset of his homily:
We were in any case wanting to learn what the gathering of the present festival is, not as ones not knowing anything at all, but as ones not knowing word-for-word or knowing precisely those things that were accomplished on this day, since it is not reported in the divine scripture, and none of the holy apostles or even one of the ancient holy fathers left anything in writing about it. Otherwise, it is only the holy Dionysios the Areopagite writing a letter to Timothy about the inspiration of Hierotheos, and this was itself rather murky. For that reason, as in apocryphal writings, some dared to commit literary forgery regarding the things that actually happened on this day according to their own sectarianism. But where the holy apostles and holy teachers are concerned, we offer a defense of ourselves. We are both telling and panegyrizing the true narrative of the clear tradition that came to us, with Christ supplying his favor. And, if necessary, we shall first defend ourselves: why did the apostles not publish in writing about the dormition of the all-holy Theotokos, nor even their attendants and followers among the ancient fathers?[2]
At this point in the text, our author takes an inventive turn, positing that the apostles did not stress this tradition for practical reasons:
For with idol-mania then holding sway everywhere, and with both Hebrews and the most shameful sectarians oppressing the truth, such that neither the very proclamation of the mystery concerning Christ nor the very confession of the holy, homoousios, and life-making Trinity—for all of that, the divine apostles were giving milk to drink and not food, because the faithful were not then able to receive it, like Paul the blessed Apostles said to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:2).[3]
“Germanos” assures his readers that the apostles were “eager” to write this material down, or else pass the story on through oral retelling. He then quotes some scriptural passages, such as Luke 1:2, that support the importance of oral transmission. Then, in a remarkable development of his reasoning, the author then points out that Scripture does not contain all necessary beliefs:
For many things came to us from tradition explaining the very truth of the contents of divine Scripture, and accordingly, they deserve faith (τὴν ἀξιοπιστίαν ἔχοντα), manifesting them as clear even to ignorant. For that reason, it is necessary to accept, believe, and heed them. For from there have we learned to say the number of the three hypostases in a substance of a single nature (ἐν ὁμοουσιότητι τῆς μιᾶς φύσεως) of the Holy Trinity. And hence, we understood clearly the mystery in the divine economy, and our fathers related to us to speak graphically [perhaps “as scripture” for γραφικῶς?] whatever we heard in our ears to speak graphically. And we have heard, seen, and contemplated their proofs, and our hands felt about for the word of life.[4]
After discussing how the apostles were witnesses to the miracle of the Dormition, “Germanos” concludes by circling back to the celebration of the Dormition itself:
But even from that place into the whole earth, where the voice of the blessed apostles came, where their words were heard, even to the ends of the settled world, a custom was given to us Christians, to perform these things and to keep a festival in this very month and on these very days according to the very following of tradition and not of scriptural exposition. All of these things testify that the tradition is true, and that the account is guileless, and that the oration is both plain and clear.[5]
In closing, I’ll refer to a prior post on the much earlier Cyril of Jerusalem and his words about necessity of backing even the elements of the creed with Scriptural support. More thoroughly, my next entry will contrast Ps. Germanos’s theory of Tradition and Scripture with that of Irenaeus.
