That the Scriptures were never intended to teach complete Christian doctrine:
“Hence it is plain that the Apostles did not deliver to us everything by their epistles, but many things without writing. These are equally to be believed. Wherefore let us believe the tradition of the Church. It is tradition. Seek no further.”
St John Chrysostom, (commenting on 2 Thess. 2:14) Hom. iv.in 2 Thess.
Can't go too wrong with that dear old moralist Chrysostom (though I don't like that he accused Mary of vainglory). To my mind (and the conciliar docs of Vat II do teach), Christ is ~the~ Revelation, complete and full. he is the sola "Everything". All else is a witness to (and understanding of) that Revelation that is Christ, and is called tradition. Canonical writ sprung from that tradition; the Scriptures are a feature of tradition, an expression of it, a facet, just as the liturgical, papal, and conciliar spects of the church are facets of that tradition. It's the only logical way to view Scripture, beyond thinking that fully-formed Bibles floated down from heaven on gilded platters for the faithful, instead of tongues of fire in the Upper Room at Pentecost. Sola Scriptura is the most indefensible bit of silliness our separated brethren have ever tried to propogate. Then again, they had no choice. But knowing what we now know, particularly, concerning the history of the formation of the canon, sola scriptura is all the more grievously untenable.But, I kid ye not: Bibliolatry is alive and well. I debated with a Pentecostal last year who claimed that the Word of God (i.e. "Bible") is actually "Jesus-Made-Pen & Ink". Seriously, this fellow's sect believes that the Bible ~is~ Christ the Logos incarnate. I have a feeling that a certain smidge of that galling error inhabits many of the more mainline church sentiments, to a degree. Astonishing. But a true story.
It has always seemed to me that sola scriptura was the argument of a man (Luther) who refused to admit he was wrong even when it was clearly proven. The next step, when he was shown to be in error on solely scriptural grounds, was to trim the scriptures to exclude what he could get away with (the Deuterocanonical books of the O.T.) and to dismiss the Letter of James as a “thing of straw”. In England this kind of thing is called “moving the goal posts”. Luther’s was the mother of all conspiracy theories. Take away sola scriptura and the whole theory collapses.
Chrysostom! Man, every little nugget I have read from him is awesome! He reminds me of my wife strangely… He will have nothing to do with making church beautiful, if the poor, the orphan and widow are first cared for… love that!He always looks a little miffed in his icons though… what is that all about? Perhaps he had a had an irritable bowel towards falafels?-g-