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Adonis Abelard O. Gorospe

撮要

在教會詮釋聖經上，傳統擔當甚麼角色？諾斯底主義挑戰教會的權威，聲稱個別使徒從主那裏領受祕密啟示，而這些啟示透過口述傳統，從使徒時代的教師，無間斷地流傳至諾斯底主義者的時代。諾斯底主義者堅定認為，聖經是殘缺的，意義模稜兩可，並不權威，而諾斯底本身的祕密傳統始能正確詮釋聖經。諾斯底主義者的兩項聲言，使愛任紐重構「傳統」這詞的理念，讓這詞特別指向教會的口述講道，與聖經所載者有別。愛任紐不贊同祕密口述傳統，反對教會宣稱從使徒承接的口述傳統仍然存在，由主教從追溯至使徒時代的偉大教區所傳遞。對那些沒法接觸聖經的人，他們得以透過教會所宣講的福音而信道，其實已經足夠。教會宣講的福音，便是從使徒的教導流傳下來的口述。愛任紐稱這傳統為「真理的正典」，言簡意賅地開列基督信仰啟示的關鍵，成為一套形式靈活，內容扎實的信仰守則。總的來說，由於口述傳統與聖經所保留的使徒傳統相同，故此，能讓教會正確詮釋聖經的，乃「真理的正典」所敘述的法則和傳統，而非諾斯底的祕密傳統。

ABSTRACT

What role does tradition play in the interpretation of Scripture in the church? Gnosticism challenged the authority of the church by claiming that each individual apostle received a secret revelation from the Lord which was preserved as oral tradition by the unbroken succession of teachers from the time of the apostles to that of the Gnostics. The Gnostics affirmed that Scripture is corrupt, not authoritative, and ambiguous, and that the Gnostics’ own secret tradition provides its correct interpretation. These two claims of the Gnostics led Irenaeus to restructure the sense of the word “tradition,” so that it specifically refers to the Church’s oral preaching as distinct from that contained in Scripture. Against the secret oral tradition of the Gnostics, he opposed the public oral tradition which was alive in the Church’s proclamation of what had been received from the apostles, and was passed on by the bishops in the great sees going back to the apostles. For those who had no access to the Scriptures, it was sufficient for faith that they hear the Gospel proclaimed by the Church, i.e. the oral handing on of the teaching of the Apostles. This tradition was expressed in what Irenaeus called “the canon of truth,” a condensed summary which set out the key-points of the Christian revelation in the form of a rule, fluid in form but fixed in content. This rule and the tradition it summarized, not the secret tradition of the Gnostics, provides the correct interpretation of Scripture by the church because the content of this oral tradition is identical to the apostolic tradition preserved in Scripture.

原載於《教牧期刊》第27期及《建道學刊》第34期合刊（2010年7月），頁147-164。