Why the “oral tradition” of the Apostles had to be written down

I’m continuing to address the question of why the “oral tradition” mentioned by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 had to be written down. This is used as a Roman Catholic proof text for its own version of “Tradition”. But there is a huge difference between what Paul is saying and the “Tradition” that Roman Catholic doctrine talks about.

Here is that verse:

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter

In previous articles, I’ve gone to some length describing how Jewish “oral tradition” worked (with reference to the the different kinds of Jewish oral tradition were (Mishnah, the Halakah, midrash, the Gemara, etc.), what Jesus thought about Jewish “oral tradition”, and the fact that the various forms of Jewish “oral tradition” was actually written down at some point.

The notion is that in the earliest church, there was a parallel situation. For example, there was not simply “oral tradition”; this was comprised in part of “apostolic tradition” and, for the sake of simplicity, “non-apostolic traditions” or if you prefer, “ecclesiastical", or “church-originated” traditions.

Oscar Cullmann is very careful to articulate this difference In his work “The Tradition: The Exegetical, Historical and Theological Problem” in “The Early Church”, London: UK, SCM Publishing, 1958.

Regarding the first, he notes that Paul writes in various places, especially 1 Corinthians 11:23, “I received (the tradition) from the Lord” (“ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου”). This means, he says, “I received it through a chain of tradition which begins with the Lord”. 1 Cor 15:3 and 1 Thess 2:15, for example, also describe a part of this “apostolic tradition” which is “from the Lord”.

Why “from Kyrios”? Why not “from the Church”?

This passage is usually, but wrongly, treated in isolation, and has given rise to two different interpretations. The one maintains that the passage is not concerned with tradition in the usual Jewish sense, which would necessitate the presupposition of a chain of successive human intermediaries, from whom Paul received the account, but that is a question of a direct, immediate revelation from the Lord. This came to Paul in a vision, just as in Galatians 1.12 he asserts that he has not received the Gospel from men, but by a direct revelation, an apokalypsis--an obvious reference to Christ’s appearing on the road to Damascus (60).

Cullmann himself takes a second view: that Paul does have in mind “tradition in the usual Jewish sense”, but with a whole new content. Not the “halakic” content, but instead, a new tradition “from the Lord”.

I shall show that, seen in this perspective, the designation Kyrios (1 Cor 11:23) can be understood as not only pointing to the historical Jesus as the chronological beginning and the first link of the chain of tradition, but to the exalted Lord as the real author of the whole tradition developing itself within the apostolic church (62).

This, according to Cullmann, “best explains St. Paul’s direct identification of the apostolic paradosis with Kyrios: the Lord himself is at work in the transmission of his words and deeds by the church; he works through the church” 62).


Cullmann is very careful at this point to outline the rest of his argument:

The course of our argument in this chapter will now be as follows. In the first section we shall undertake to show that for Paul the paradosis, in so far as it refers to the confession of faith and to the words and deeds of Jesus, is really Church tradition which has a parallel in the Jewish paradosis. [Cullmann notes here in a footnote that “this point seems important because J. Danlielou (his Roman Catholic interlocutor) is inclined to reserve the word ‘tradition’ for the post-apostolic tradition, and to call the apostolic tradition “from the Lord” [spoken of here] as ‘revelation’. While justifiable to a certain extent in principle, this use of the words seems to me to lack precision. The objective “revelation” is the person and work of the incarnate Christ”.]In the second section we shall bring out the relation of this tradition to the direct apokalypsis of the Lord to the apostles. In the third section we shall examine this conception of paradosis against the background of Pauline theology and see if it is paralleled in Johannine thought. Finally, in the fourth section, we shall discuss the relation between this tradition and the apostolic office (62-63).

Some of this should not be in question for either side: Jesus rejected Jewish tradition; Christ himself (“the exalted Lord”) is the real author of the whole tradition developing itself within the apostolic church. This concept of “tradition” is “attested in the rest of the New Testament”. After an analysis of John 14:26 and 16:13 he suggests is precisely concerned with “the relation between the historical Jesus and the risen Lord … “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you [men in front of me] all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (that is, you men who are sitting here in front of me: apostles whom I have chosen and whom I will send). (71).

Crucial, however is “the relation between this tradition and the apostolic office”. This promise (and I’ve heard “infallibility” defended based on John 16:13) was not made to “the Church” which came after the Apostles.

Christ himself distinguished “these men sitting in front of me” both here (“all that I said to YOU”), and in John 17:20 (“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word…”

Without getting too long here, there was an “apostolic tradition”, the content of which was “from the Lord”.

Fourthly, he discusses “the relation between this (apostolic) tradition (“from the Lord”) and the apostolic office”.

For those who are squeamish about challenges to “the Catholic paradigm”, feel free to tune out here.



Yes, there was “apostolic” tradition (“from the Lord”). But, there was also a non-apostolic tradition – in the words of Cullmann, “ecclesiastical” traditions. Here, he asks, “Does this favorable estimate of the apostolic paradosis justify the attribution of the same normative import to later ecclesiastical paradosis? The Catholic Church claims that it does; and this is because it identifies the authority of the post-apostolic Church which preserves, transmits and interprets the apostolic message with the authority of the apostles”. He cites his interlocutor, above, J. Danielou, as saying “In this transmission and interpretation of the message, the Church enjoys a divine, infallible authority as did the apostles as recipients of Revelation”. (Of course, note that he wrote this prior to the time when Dei Verbum was written).

But is this identification justified? In order to answer this question we must inquire into the relation of the apostolic office to the Church.

The problem of the relationship between scripture and tradition can be viewed as a problem of the theological relationship between the apostolic period and the period of the Church. All the other questions depend on the solution that is given to this problem. The alternatives—co-ordination or subordination of tradition to scripture—derive from the question of knowing how we must understand the fact that the period of the Church is the continuation and un-folding of the apostolic period.

Here he acknowledges that (as a Lutheran) he takes a very “Catholic” view of Church and sacraments. “In fact, I would affirm very strongly that the history of salvation is continued on earth (through the Church). I believe that this idea is present throughout the New Testament, and I should even consider it the key to the understanding of the fourth Gospel”. (He later wrote a work entitled “Salvation History”).

Nevertheless, he says,

The time within which the history of salvation is unfolded includes the past, the present, and the future. But it has a centre which serves as a vantage-point or norm for the whole extent of this history, and this centre is constituted by what we call the period of direct revelation, or the period of the incarnation. It comprises the years from the birth of Christ to the death of the last apostle, that is, of the last eye-witness who saw the risen Jesus and who received, either from the incarnate Jesus or the risen Christ, the direct and unique command to testify to what he had seen and heard. This testimony can be oral or written (76).

Richard Bauckham, in his “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony” (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co, ©2006) confirms this account at great length.

Bauckham concludes, “In this book, I have followed Samuel Byrskog in arguing that the Gospels, though in some ways a very distinctive form of historiography, share broadly in the attitude to eyewitness testimony that was common among historians in the Greco-Roman period. These historians valued above all reports of first-hand experience of the events they recounted. Best of all was for the historian to himself have been a participant in the events (direct autopsy). Failing that (and no historian was present at all the events he needed to recount, not least because usually some would be simultaneous, they sought informants who could speak from firsthand knowledge and whom they could interview (indirect autopsy). This, at least, was historiographic best practice, represented and theorized by such generally admired historians as Thucydides and Polybius (479).

Thus, as a cut-off point, the concept of “history still within living memory” “was the only point of history that should, properly speaking be attempted” (479).

The value of getting history from “participant eyewitness testimony” was thus a key in the production, especially, of the Gospels.

He uses “the Holocaust”, and the eyewitness testimony of the survivors,to say, “the testimonies of the survivors of the Holocaust are in the highest degree necessary to any attempt to understand what happened. The Holocaust is an event whose reality we could scarcely begin to imagine if we had not the testimonies of survivors”.

“Authentic testimony from participants is completely indispensable to acquiring real understanding of historical events” (499). And, “the exceptionality of the event means that only the testimony of participant witnesses can give us anything approaching access to the truth of the event” (501).

This is why Cullmann is (and others are) able to “cut off” the period of “revelation” at the death of the last of the apostles.

Papias knew this. He said that he preferred oral testimony. But in describing some very bad “oral traditions” that Papias was relating, Cullman wrote, “Above all there is the obscene and completely legendary account [in Papias’s oral tradition] of death of Judas Iscariot himself.”

The period about 150 is, on the one hand, relatively near to the apostolic age, but on the other hand, it is already too far away for the living tradition still to offer in itself the least guarantee of authenticity. The oral traditions which Papias echoes arose in the Church and were transmitted by it. For outside the Church no one had any interest in describing in such crude colours the death of the traitor. Papias was therefore deluding himself when he considered viva vox as more valuable than the written books. The oral tradition had a normative value in the period of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses, but it had it no longer in 150 after passing mouth to mouth (Cullmann, 88-89).

This is why, after this period, the only “apostolic tradition” that existed was that which was written down. This is Kruger’s “canonical core” – written documents which reliably carried the “apostolic witness”, the “apostolic tradition” which came “from the Lord”. “Oral tradition” was not sufficient to guarantee it.

Even the Jews, in writing down “the Talmud” (and other sources prior to it), knew that “oral tradition” that “repeating”, was not sufficient to guarantee that the correct message was being “handed on”. It had to be written down, and only written sources from the Apostles and their immediate representatives (i.e., Luke, Mark) could accurately recount that message.

By that point, the value of “oral tradition” had ceased.