You are talking about a hierarchy of authority- Period.
Thank you for picking that up. That is exactly what I'm trying to assert, that there is a hierarchy of authority within Holy Tradition.
Councils do not "create" Tradition, they discern it.
Yet the very act of discerning Tradition often creates Tradition. We believe in the dogma of the Holy Trinity because this is present in the public doctrine of Christ and the Apostles, but our belief in the dogma is also based on the authority of the Council of Nicea, is it not?
Councils are only "part of Tradition" insofar as the "Concilliarity" or "Synodical Nature" of the Church is a Tradition; but a Council itself is not a "Tradition", it merely seeks to discern what is Tradition. Such decrees of what is Tradition are clearly spelled out in the Oecumenical Councils. Other decrees of Councils are not Tradition, but merely Canons guiding the Church. These two are easily (and often) confused. For example, receiving Holy Communion via a Spoon is actually not a Holy Tradition. It's a custom which has simply come to be universally practised, and in fact, the only Canon of an Oecumenical Council which does mention the method of reception of Holy Communion decrees that we should receive it in the hand. So if all the decrees of Oecumenical and Local Councils were "Traditions", then we should receive Communion in the hand, monks should have their heads shaved, and your Bishop should arrive at your Parish Church on a white donkey.
ISTM that you just gave a very good distinction between
dogmas and
canons. Both are equally part of Tradition, but only the former are eternally authoritative and binding on the faithful. The latter are merely attempts to apply the truths of the former to specific circumstances the Church faces in place and time, but this does not make the latter any less part of Tradition.
Whenever we read the term "Holy Tradition", we should always interpret it as "What has been given to us by the Apostles"- whether in Scripture, "apocrypha", oral history, etc. Just because something is not in the Canon of Scripture does not mean it was not handed down to us by the Apostles.
Agreed.
