"....... And let them not flatter themselves if they think they have Scripture authority for Their assertions, since the devil himself quoted Scripture, and the essence of the Scriptures is not the letter, but the meaning. Otherwise, if wefollow the letter, we too can concoct a new dogma and assert that such persons as wear shoes and have two coats must not be received into the Church." ~ Saint Jerome (AD 347-420) The Church does not rely on the Bible for its doctrine. Let's get that straight. We don’t rely on the Bible, because the Church CAME BEFORE THE NEW TESTAMENT. The New Testament came centuries after the beginning of the Church, the Bible belongs to the Church - not the Church to the Bible - so the Church does not need to find justification for its beliefs within the Bible. The Bible is the written form of Apostolic tradition, which, before it was written down, was an oral tradition. What we know about Christ we know from the oral tradition, from various letters circulating and other pieces of paper. The Bible - the canon of texts was decided by The Church - it did not drop down from heaven. The Fathers were opening the meaning of Scripture before The Church had decided the canon of Scripture. The Fathers taught from the oral tradition, from the various letters, from the tradition of Apostolic teaching. The protestant view that all sprang from the heavenly Bible and that we must follow the letter of Scripture is just wrong. The Church existed for centuries with only the Septuagint as Scripture. And the Septuagint, not the Jewish Masoretic text, is what Jesus and the Apostles quoted from throughout the New Testament. The Septuagint - as evidenced from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other documents is the oldest Jewish tradition, far older than the Masoretic text. The New Testament is the Apostolic Tradition, the tradition that The Church lived by for centuries before the canon of New Testament writings was proclaimed by The Church."
-Abbot Michael