An Apologetical Explanation of the

Deposit of Faith

What is the Deposit of Faith?

There are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (Jn 21:25)

Brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word or mouth or by letter. (2 Thes 2:15)

“Behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20)

God is the only source of Revelation. The Deposit of Faith is the truth of God’s Revelation as expressed in Sacred Scripture, which is the inspired and written Word of God, and Sacred Tradition, which is the Word of God as taught and transmitted through the teaching authority of the Church.

There exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. (DV 9; CCC 86, 97)

Sacred Scripture is the Word of God, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, contain in the collection of sacred books that have God as their true author and are entrusted to the Church (cf. DS 3006). Sacred Tradition (from the Latin traditio, meaning “to hand on’) is the Word of God as received from Christ himself through the Apostles and transmitted to us without alteration–as it were, from hand to hand–by the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit (cf. DS 1501; DV 9). Sacred Tradition must not be confused with the “traditions” of a pious, devotional, theological, or disciplinary nature. (Cf. CCC 76-78, 81-83, 2033)

Both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are to be regarded with equal reverence and devotion. Sacred Tradition are to be regarded with equal reverence and devotion. Sacred Tradition preceded the New Testament writings; the first Christians had no written Gospels and only the preaching of the Apostles, the oral tradition, to instruct them about Christ and his teachings. Through Tradition we know which books are inspired by the Holy Spirit, that is, the list, or canon, of the books that make up Holy Scripture. (Cf. CCC 83)

Testimonies of Tradition date back to the first centuries and have been preserved in either ancient liturgical or disciplinary texts and practices or the writings of early Christian authors. (Cf. CCC 120, 175)

The Catechism addresses this question in paragraph 80.

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