The answer
From the Apostolic age, the Christian Church did not neglect the living traditions of the Jews. She refused those traditions that opposed the word of God, and accepted the rest after giving them a Christian flavor, that they might serve the new faith. Here are some examples of the influence of these traditions on early Christianity:
a. In his epistle, St. Jude quotes from ancient tradition the dispute between the
Archangel Michael and the devil over the body of Moses (Jude 9), a prophecy of Enoch (Jude 14, 15), and the names of “Jannes and Jambres” (2 Tim. 3:8), who opposed Moses. The Book of Revelation mentions the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel that they might eat food sacrificed to idols (Rev. 2:14–15) which was also sourced from an ancient tradition.
b. The early Fathers were influenced by Jewish tradition. St. Justin was in contact with
the Jew Trypho and Origen consulted rabbis and borrowed some interpretations from them. Syrian literature in particular absorbed Jewish Aggadah, notably Eusebius of Emesa and St. Ephrem.
c. We borrowed many liturgical texts that are in harmony with our faith from the Jewish
tradition.261
d. The Didache (“The Lord’s Teaching to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles”) bears
a Jewish character (a treatise on the two ways).
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
261 Dom Guéranger, Examen des Institutions Liturgiques (Librairie Liturgique et Catholique de L. Lesort, 1846); Yves Congar, Tradition and the Life of the Church (London: Burns and Oats, 1964): p. 125.