ST. JOSEPH

Why Tradition?
Part 2

ABOUT THE IMAGE

We superimposed a traditional poster image of St. Joseph with the Child Jesus over a modern winter scene to symbolize the unchanging eternal Word versus the "change of seasons" in modern thought, most especially that of the winter that is presently inhabiting the Church, not the "Springtime" that Vatican II devotees persist in their preaching. We chose St. Joseph, not only for his chastity but because he symbolizes fatherhood, something modern man willfully neglects in favor of anti-tradition------the effemization of the Church. 

----------------Why Tradition? Continued----------------

Section 1
THE DOGMAS OF FAITH ADMIT NO CHANGE WHATSOEVER

Nothing may be taken away, or added.------Ecclesiasticus 18: 5
 

For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this Book: if any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this Book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the Book, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life and out of the Holy City.

Apocalypse 22: 18-19

You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it.

Deuteronomy 4: 2

To the Testament once confirmed, no one adds anything further. Shall another writing change God's writing?

St. Pacian

It is unlawful to add anything to the words of Holy Scripture regarding the sense.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Speak all the words I have commanded you . . . Do not leave out one word!

Jeremias 26: 2

Nothing can ever pass away from the words of Christ, nor can anything be changed in the doctrine which the Catholic Church received from Christ to guard, protect, and preach.

Ven. Pope Pius IX

It is therefore necessary to receive these Divine oracles integrally, in the same sense in which they have been kept, and are still being kept, by this Roman Chair of Blessed Peter. Mother and Mistress of all the churches, She has always kept whole and inviolate, and taught to the faithful, the faith given by the Lord Jesus Christ, showing all the faithful the way of salvation and the doctrine of uncorrupted truth.

Ven. Pope Pius IX

The Church must persist in the teaching transmitted to her by Christ.

Pope John Paul II

Our teaching may contain nothing impious, nothing diluted.

St. Gregory Nazianzen

I cannot sufficiently be astonished that such is the insanity of some men, such the impiety of their blinded understanding, such, finally, their lust after error, that they will not be content with the rule of faith delivered once and for all from antiquity, but must daily seek after something new, and even newer still, and are always longing to add something to religion, or to change it, or to subtract from it!

St. Vincent of Lerins

The nature of the Catholic faith is such that nothing can be added to it, nothing taken away. Either it is held in its entirety or it is rejected totally. This is the Catholic faith which, unless a man believes faithfully ann firmly, he cannot be saved.

Pope Benedict XV

Fly to the Catholic Church! Adhere to the only faith which continues to exist from the beginning, that faith which was preached by Paul and is upheld by the Chair of Peter.

St. Hippolytus of Rome

This Apostolic Church never turned from the way of truth nor held any kind of error. It is imperative that nothing of the truths which have been defined be lessened, nothing altered, nothing added, but that they be preserved intact in word and meaning. This is the true rule of faith.

Pope St. Agatho the Wonderworker

And I hold it not with the understanding that a thing can be held which seems better and more suited to the culture of a certain age, but in such a way that nothing else is to be believed than by the words; and I hold that this absolute and unchangeable truth preached by the Apostles from the earliest times is to be understood in no way other than by the words.

Oath Against Modernism

Diabolical error decks itself out with ease in lying colors with some appearance of truth, so that the force of pronouncement is corrupted by a very brief addition or change, and the confession of faith which should have resulted in salvation, by a subtle transition leads to death!

Pope Clement XIII

With the Father of Lights, there is no change nor shadow of alteration.

St. James 1: 17

God's Word is one and the same, and, as it is written, "The Word of God endures forever" unchanged, not before or after another, but existing the same always.

St. Athanasius

My words that I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever.

Isaias 59: 21

Add not anything to His words, lest you be reproved and be found a liar.

Proverbs 30: 6

The present or "current" teaching of the Church does not admit of a development that is either a reversal or a contradiction.

Pope John Paul II

For it is not now that the canons and statutes have been given to the churches; on the contrary, they have been well-transmitted and steadfastly handed down from our fathers. Neither is it now that the faith has begun, but it has come down to us from the Lord through His disciples.

St. Athanasius

Let us regard the tradition of the Church also as worthy of belief. Is it a tradition? Seek no further!

St. John Chrysostom

Change nothing; be content with tradition.

St. Cyprian

The preaching of the Church truly continues without change and is everywhere the same. It has the testimony of the Prophets and Apostles and all their disciples.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Therefore, no one is allowed to profess or to write up or compose or devise or teach a different faith.

Council of Chalcedon

God forbid we should falsify our faith!

St. Aithalas

Heretical teachers pervert Scripture and try to get into Heaven with a false key, for they have formed their human assemblies later than the Catholic Church. From this previously-existing and most true Church, it is very clear that these later heresies, and others which have come into being since then, are counterfeit and novel inventions.

Pope St. Clement I

Let nothing novel be introduced!

Pope Pius XII

"Avoid the profane novelty of words," St. Paul says (1 Timothy 6: 20) . . . For if novelty is to be avoided, antiquity is to be held tight to; and if novelty is profane, antiquity is sacred.

St. Vincent of Lerins

The ancient doctrines must be confirmed, but novel and absurd inventions must be condemned and cast aside.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Why cast yourself over a cliff, deciding in your writings about things of which you are ignorant? Why do you not keep to what you have received from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church? You introduce novelties!

St. Eusebius of Caesaria

The devil is always discovering something novel against the truth.

Pope St. Leo the Great

To announce, therefore, to Catholic Christians anything besides that which they have received has never been lawful, is lawful nowhere, and never will be lawful; and to anathematize those who announce anything besides that which has been once received has always been necessary. This being the case, is there anyone of such audacity as to teach other than that which has already been taught in the Church, or anyone of such levity as to receive anything besides that which he has once received from the Church? St. Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, cries aloud, and he cries out loud again and again, to all men, to all times, and to all places that, if anyone announces a new dogma, let him be anathematized!

St. Vincent of Lerins

Wherefore, by the authority of Apostolic power, We declare inventors of novel notions, which as the Apostle Paul has said are of no edification, but rather are practiced to beget most foolish questions, are to be deprived of the communion of the Church.

Pope St. Innocent I

I have neither permitted, nor shall I permit, the things which have been settled by the holy fathers to be violated by any innovation.

Pope St. Leo the Great

This custom has always prevailed in the Church: that, the more religious a man was, the more promptly did he withstand novel inventions.

St. Vincent of Lerins

We do not innovate anything . . . How is it that novelties are introduced which were never even thought of by our predecessors?

St. Ambrose

All novelty in faith is a sure mark of heresy.

St. Vincent of Lerins

It is impossible that I sanction any novelty against the faith.

St. Germanus of Constantinople

Any innovation in matters of faith is extremely pernicious and utterly damnable!

St. John Eudes

New revelations regarding faith or morals . . . have always been abhorred and challenged in the Church . . . Hence, the Sovereign Pontiffs, the Councils, and the Fathers have been most careful to reject all novelties or new doctrines on matters of faith which differed from those already received.

St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori

Let nothing new be introduced, but only what has been handed down.

Pope Benedict XV

Nothing new is to be accepted except what has been handed down by tradition.

St. Vincent of Lerins

Let whoever attempts to disseminate anything other than what we have received be anathema. Let no approach be open to the pernicious plans of undermining, let no pledge of revising any of the old definitions be granted, for what has deserved to be cut away . . . is clearly destined to eternal fire.

Pope St. Simplicius

Whoever does not always and everywhere keep to and hold fast as a sure protection the confession which we recorded at our first admission constitutes himself a stranger from the promises of God.

St. Basil the Great

I am fully resolved in all things touching my faith, which faith I acknowledge to be the same Jesus Christ left to His Apostles, and they to their successors from time to time, and is taught in the Catholic Church through all Christendom, and promised to remain with her unto world's end, and Hell-gates shall not prevail against it; and by God's assistance I mean to live and die in the same faith; for if an Angel come from Heaven and preach any other doctrine than we have received, the Apostle biddeth us not believe him. My faith is already stayed, and I purpose not to seek for any new doctrines.

St. Margaret Clitherow

Wherefore, as touching our faith, if there be revealed to us anything new or different, we must in no way give our consent to it, not even though we had evidence that it was spoken by an Angel from Heaven.

St. John of the Cross

But though we, or an Angel from Heaven, preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you: let him be anathema!

Galatians 1: 8

Take and hold only that faith which is now delivered to you by the Church and defended out of all the Scriptures . . . Besides this faith, never receive any other; not even if we ourselves, having changed, should contradict what we now teach-----not even if an opposing Angel, transformed into an Angel of light, should wish to lead you astray.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Neither do we allow ourselves or anyone else to alter a word which has been set down, or even to omit one solitary syllable.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

It is not lawful to differ even by a single word from the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, or to think otherwise than as the blessed Apostles and our fathers learned and taught concerning the Holy Scriptures.

Pope St. Leo the Great

You know that men who wish to assert a dogma of any kind . . . obstinately force it by their own interpretation. But the word of the Apostle, forestalling this, brands it by saying: "If anyone shall preach to you something other than that which you have received, let him be anathema" (Galatians 1: 8-9); wherefore, after the things which were delivered by the Apostles once and for all, the followers of Christ must not receive anything else whatsoever beyond that.

Diodorus of Tarsus

Nothing new is allowed, for nothing can be added to the old. Look for the faith of the elders, and do not let our faith be disturbed by a mixture of new doctrines.

Pope St. Sixtus III

Let each one of you, holding fast to the faith received from the fathers, refuse to tolerate those who attempt to innovate in opposition to the faith.

St. Athanasius

This being the state of the question, novelty should cease attacking antiquity!

Pope St. Celestine I

The rule of piety admits nothing new. All things are to be delivered to those who come after us with the same fidelity with which they were received by us. It is our duty to follow religion, not make religion follow us.

St. Vincent of Lerins

God commands us to believe . . . an unchangeable faith.

Catechism of Trent

Absolute truth must be unchangeable!

Pope St. Pius X

PART 3

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