Has ethical teaching taken anything from holy tradition?

The apostle Paul delivered to us a tradition that contains a spiritual and ethical program. He says, “As therefore you have received ( paralambano ) Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him , rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught”(Col. 2:6–7). “Just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God” (1 Thess. 4:1). “But we command you … that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us” (2 Thess. 3:6). “The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do” (Phil. 4:9).

In the Christian tradition, faith is inseparable from spiritual and ethical life. As an archetype of the Church, St. Mary “kept the word of God” (Luke 2:19) in her heart and performed it in her life. When, in the second century, the pagan Autolycus asked Theophilus of Antioch , “Show me your God,” Theophilus wisely replied, “show me your inner man and I will show you my God.”²⁶² In other words, show me the soundness of the inner man of your heart, then you will be able to see God and I will show Him to you. Thus, he tied faith to daily life.