I'm surprised this quote isn't more popular. I'd be more than a little pleased to see it in more pamphlets on the topic. I certainly plan to keep it at hand for future use.
If someone wants to be protected from tricks and remain healthy in the faith, he must confine his faith first to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and secondly to the Tradition of the Church. But someone may ask, is not the canon of Scripture sufficient for everything, and why should we add thereto the authority of Tradition? This is because not everyone understands the Scriptures in the same way, but one explains them this way and another that way, so that it is possible to get therefrom as many thoughts as there are heads. Therefore it is necessary to be guided by the understanding of the Church ... What is tradition? It is that which has been understood by everyone, everywhere and at all times ... that which you have received, and not that which you have thought up ... So then, our job is not to lead religion where we wish it to go, but to follow it where it leads, and not to give that which is our own to our heirs, but to guard that which has been given to us.
- St. Vincent of Lerins
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I believe it is less popular than one might expect because there is very little "which has been understood by everyone, everywhere and at all times". Florovsky has something about the way in which this should be taken that also lessens the apologetic usefulness one would expect such a quote to provide in Orthodox hands.
ReplyDeleteI think we can point to some core tenets of our faith (to some degree formed in a preparatory way before the Incarnation) that we have understood and expressed throughout our relationship with the Godhead. Certainly heresies have forced us to further articulate truth when we might have otherwise left the terminology less specific than we have today, but I don't think we can say we've learned new truths or that there is a "doctrinal development" as sometimes understood in an extreme way.
DeleteThis is because not everyone understands Tradition in the same way, but one explains it this way and another that way, so that it is possible to get therefrom as many thoughts as there are heads. Therefore it is necessary to be guided by the understanding of the Truly True Holy Orthodox Church of Greece, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, in an apartment just down the street from the KFC where the Metropolitan works as the night manager...
ReplyDeleteOr something like that. What 123 said.