Scripture itself tells us to hold fast to traditions handed on by word of mouth, not only by letter. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, "Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours." The early Church existed for decades before a single Gospel was written, and it was three centuries before the canon of Scripture was formally settled, at councils guided by the very Tradition skeptics want to discard. The Catechism explains that Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition "are bound closely together and communicate one with the other" as a single deposit of faith (CCC 80).