Everybody has a tradition. The United States has a cultural tradition. Certain businesses have "traditions of excellence." Our English word "tradition" comes from the Latin traditio, meaning "a handing down." The Greek word used in the Bible both positively and negatively, paradosis, means the same thing as the Latin. Thus, whenever somebody learns something from someone else, tradition occurs. If you are a Christian, you have some type of tradition, whether it is the "Baptist tradition," "reformed tradition," or even the "anti-tradition tradition." Catholic and Orthodox Christians place special emphasis on Tradition, so much that we often call it "Holy Tradition." We say this because we believe that just as the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible, the Holy Spirit has guided the Church throughout history, and today, producing Tradition.
As a background, without the work of the Holy Spirit through the Christian Tradition, most churches would not be the same. We would not have a coherent doctrine of the Trinity. We would not have the Bible as we know it, since the Church chose the books that it contains (The Bible did not come with a Table of Contents). Even many other minor matters we often take for granted come from tradition: celebrating Christmas and sitting in pews. Thus, Tradition has influenced the way in which we view many doctrines, practices, and ethics. Even those in denominations that came from the radical Protestant Reformation (such as the Anabaptists) owe a large debt to Tradition, even though many are slow to admit it.
In opposition to Tradition, some quote Jesus when he says to beware of the "traditions of men." Jesus did indeed warn against manmade traditions, however, he also followed many of the Jewish traditions without question, including the Festival of Lights, which had its origins in the period during which the book of First Maccabees was written. St. Paul also had good things to say about tradition. He exhorted his readers to adhere to the written and verbal traditions that he and other Christians had received (1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15, 3:6) (1). Paul freely quoted from Jewish tradition that is not in the Bible, when he named the magicians in Exodus as Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim 3:8). Thus, the Bible distinguishes between good, Apostolic, Tradition and bad tradition. An analysis of early Christian writers shows that Scripture and Tradition were equally revered and seen to complement, rather than contradict, one another. One early Christian writer, Papias (c. 150 AD), said he preferred the many oral traditions about Jesus to written books. We must remember that in the ancient world, very few people were literate. A sizeable number of Christians were probably illiterate, and the oral traditions would have been the normal means of communication for them. Also, since the Gospels were written between 60-100 AD, the Church relied heavily upon oral Tradition, namely the preaching and teaching of the Apostles and their followers, even before writing down the truths they knew.
Many Christians have been shaped by the Reformation tradition of sola scriptura, which views the Bible as the sole foundation of Christian belief, although to be accurate, the subjective interpretation of the Bible by the individual reader, a kind of tradition, plays a huge role. So many ask, "if scripture is the foundation, then how can tradition have a place?" In a sense the Scriptures have a place that later Tradition does not, since they are the earliest written testimony to God's activity. However, we must remember that The Church is not static: she is a living. We are a part of the same Church that met in Jerusalem in the book of Acts, and that convened at Nicaea. As such, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have never put up a wall between Tradition and Scripture, seeing them both as integral to the Church's beliefs. As the Catholic Catechism says,
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