Good question. The tradition of Cajetan, for example, disagreed with what became official dogma canonizing the Apochyphra. If you go all the way back to the post Apostolic age there is no "universal" tradition that is binding on the Christian conscience outside of Scripture because there never was any "unanimous consent of the fathers in the first place" regarding certain dogmas currently promulgated by the Roman Church. To the the extent there was anything resembling a unanimous consent in the teachings of the fathers, it repudiated papal ecclesiology.
Cordially,
There absolutely was such a univeral tradition, and in particular one which you I'm sure would most strenously call a particular innovation of the Roman Church--the dogma that the bread and wine literally are changed into the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
No Church Father taught anything against this idea. Not one. And if that were not enough, the case is further proved by the historical fact that the Churches which separated from the Roman communion (whether the Eastern Orthodox around the 11th century, or the "monophysite" Churches which left around the 4th-5th centuries) all believe in the Real Presence. The ancient faith has been held in common inheritance among all of these Churches from the early days to the present. And it goes right back to the Apostolic Age and can be seen not only in the Didache, but also in the letter of Ignatius of Antioch.
You will never, never find any Church Father, for instance, who said anything like the Black Rubric of the Book of Common Prayer of 1552:
For as concernynge the Sacramentall bread and wyne, they remayne styll in theyr verye naturall substaunces, and therefore may not be adored, for that were Idolatrye to be abhorred of all faythfull christians.This perhaps was not a new teaching in Christianity, but we do find that all those who taught it in the earliest centuries were most vociferously condemned for doing so.