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By Archibald Robertson.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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76 Pages (Part II)
Page 32
(c) On the sufficiency of Scripture for the establishment of all necessary doctrine Athanasius insists repeatedly and emphatically (c. Gent. 1, de Incarn. 5, de Decr. 32, Vit. Ant. 16, &c., &c.); and he follows up precept by example. 'His works are a continuous appeal to Scripture.' There is no passage in his writings which recognises tradition as supplementing Scripture, i.e., as sanctioning articles of faith not contained in Scripture. Tradition is recognised as authoritative in two ways: (1) Negatively, in the sense that doctrines which are novel are prima facie condemned by the very fact (de Decr. 7, note 2, ib. 18, Orat. i. 8, 10, ii. 34, 40, de Syn. 3, 6, 7, and Letter 59, S:3); and (2) positively, as furnishing a guide to the sense of Scripture (see references in note on Orat. iii. 58, end of ch. xxix.). In other words, tradition with Athanasius is a formal, not a material, source of doctrine. His language exemplifies the necessity of distinguishing, in the case of strong patristic utterances on the authority of tradition, between different senses of the word. Often it means simply truth conveyed in Scripture, and in that sense 'handed down' from the first, as for example c. Apol. i. 22, 'the Gospel tradition,' and Letter 60. 6 (cf. Cypr. Ep. 74. 10, where Scripture is 'divinae traditionis caput et origo.'). Moreover, tradition as distinct from Scripture is with Athanasius not a secret unwritten body of teaching handed down orally [94] , but is to be found in the documents of antiquity and the writings of the Fathers, such as those to whom he appeals in de Decr., &c. That 'the appeal of Athanasius was to Scripture, that of the Arians to tradition' (Gwatkin) is an overstatement, in part supported by the pre-Nicene history of the word homoousion (supra, p. xxxi. sq.). The rejection of this word by the Antiochene Council (in 268-9) is met by Athanasius, de Synod. 43, sqq., partly by an appeal to still older witnesses in its favour, partly by the observation (S:45) that 'writing in simplicity [the Fathers] arrived not at accuracy concerning the homoousion, but spoke of the word as they understood it,' an argument strangely like that of the Homoeans (Creed of Nike, ib. S:30) that the Fathers [of Nicaea] adopted the word 'in simplicity.'
[94] The idea of a mysterious unwritten tradition is a legacy of Gnosticism to the Church. Irenaeus, in order to meet the Gnostic appeal to a supposed unwritten Apostolic tradition, confronts it with the consistency of the public and normal teaching of the Churches everywhere, of which the Roman Church is a convenient microcosm or compendium. The idea of a paradosis agraphos is adopted by Clement and Origen, and passes from the latter to Eusebius, and to the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil de Sp. S. 27, applies it only to practical details), Epiphanius, and later writers. Details in Harnack ii. 90, note, cf. Salmon, Infallibility, Lect. ix. On the somewhat different subject of the 'Disciplina Arcani,' see Herzog-Plitt. s.v. 'Arkan-Disciplia'
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/athanasius-life-arianism-2.asp?pg=32
