apostolic succession and the magisterium

apostolicity

" When the Creed speaks of “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,” it is referring to something that Christ founded, and that continued to exist in each century, including the fourth century (when the Creed was formulated at the first and second ecumenical councils), and through the rest of the millennium, and then to the sixteenth century. That Church that Christ founded did not cease to exist between the first century and the sixteenth. Nowhere, in those sixteen centuries, did the Church ever say anything equivalent to or entailing that the Church is the group of persons “that best conforms to Scripture.” Every heretical group on the planet, during those sixteen centuries, would have been delighted if the Church had ever made such a claim, because they could have then justified their own existence by claiming that they were the ones who best conformed to Scripture, and thus that they were the Church. The ‘apostolicity’ of the Church was always understood by that Church of the first sixteen centuries as requiring a succession of authority from the Apostles, not merely a claim to have the doctrine of the Apostles (since any heretical group could make such a claim)."

from comment 95 here

Also a great article demonstrating the early history of Bishops and Popes http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-first-and-second-century-papacy.html

Here is an explanation of apostolic succession :from comment 89 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/john-calvins-worst-heresy-that-christ-suffered-in-hell/comment-page-2/#comment-3030

As you know, to be an Apostle, one had to have seen the Lord. This gave the Apostles the unique authority that comes from being an eyewitness of the incarnate Christ. But, being an eyewitness was not sufficient to be an Apostle. One had to be sent by Christ. This was a different kind of authority from the authority of an eyewitness. (The two kinds of authority do not compete; they are fully compatible.) This second kind of authority we (Catholics/Orthodox) call “Holy Orders.” Eyewitness authority could only endure for 70 years or so after the resurrection of Christ. But, Holy Orders were not limited to eyewitnesses, and hence can (and do) endure to this day, by succession. The Apostles ordained many persons to succeed them, not as Apostles, but with the apostolic authority they themselves had received from Christ, through what we call Holy Orders, i.e. the divine authorization to teach and govern the Church in Christ’s name, as His representatives, binding and loosing with His authority. Apostolic succession, as we use the term, does not mean that all the successors of the Apostles have seen the Lord as eyewitnesses. Because these successors have not seen the Lord as eyewitnesses, they are not Apostles in the strict sense, but are subordinate in authority to the Apostles, from whom they received the apostolic deposit. Apostolic succession, as we use the term, refers to the succession of apostolic authority, which the Apostles gave through ordination to those bishops whom they chose to succeed them as stewards and teachers of that apostolic deposit, and as shepherds of the Church Christ had founded.

So, what gave the later ecumenical councils authority is exactly what gave the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 authority, not eyewitness authority, but the authority of Holy Orders. We see also here in the Jerusalem Council the role of Peter, who gives the final verdict. This is a necessary condition for any subsequent ecumenical council to be ecumenical.

and from  comment 385 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/#comment-97257

189 A.D., St. Irenaeus wrote these words about apostolic succession and the importance for *all churches, everywhere* to agree with the specific church *in Rome*:

It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about” (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).

“But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul—that church which has the tradition and the faith with which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition” (ibid., 3:3:2).

(Source: http://www.churchfathers.org/category/the-church-and-the-papacy/apostolic-succession/)

below from  an article here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/11/sola-scriptura-a-dialogue-between-michael-horton-and-bryan-cross/#ScriptureTradition

 St. Irenaeus wrote:

But, again, when we refer them [the heretics] to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. 

....................................................................................He goes on to explain how the Apostolic Tradition was to be found, to whom it was entrusted, and how it was preserved:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to “the perfect” apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.²²

a quote from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/hermeneutics-and-the-authority-of-scripture/

It is interesting to note that St. Paul says that the Church is founded on “the Apostles and Prophets,”⁹ but Calvin renders it “the teachings of the Apostles and Prophets.” He does not allow the passage say what St. Paul actually says: the men themselves and the authority given to them by God are the foundation of the Church. This divinely appointed authority is what gives weight to their teaching and gives authority to their interpretation, and is thus more foundational to the Church  than the teaching itself. This is why St. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to hold to both the written and unwritten traditions of the Apostles¹⁰. Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find the common Protestant assumption that all the essential information concerning Christ and the Apostles’ teaching would be codified in written form.

It should be noted, however, that although the authority of the Church’s Magisterium is foundational and binding, the Church still holds the Scripture in the highest place of honor and authority. The Magisterium is the servant of the Scripture, and, as the Catechism says, “with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully.”¹¹

quote below from comment 381 found here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/i-fought-the-church-and-the-church-won/#comment-38861

 "But the recognition of apostolic authority can be seen in the response to the letters written by other successors to the apostles. We can see from history that the letters of Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, and Irenaeus were accepted, not as canon, but nonetheless, as authoritative. The authority of these men was recognized because they were the leaders chosen by the apostles. And we can see the recognition in the continuity between their writings and what is taught today in the Church. The definition of schism as separation from the bishop, the real presence in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, etc. are clearly taught in these letters, and are still believed by the Church today even though Protestants would argue that these doctrines go beyond what is taught in scripture. Irenaeus recognized the four true gospels, and spoke out against the false ones. That what they taught was believed to be true shows in their recognition as saints, whereas if they had fallen into heresy (like Marcion), then they would not have been so recognized. If the teachings of these men had been innovations, or if the teachings were not recognized as authoritative, then we should be able to find in the churches some early controversy about these doctrines. But we don’t find such a controversy (unless you want to appeal to the gnostics, the docetists, the Montanists, or the Marcionists).

If bishops were not recognized as having authority in the early Church, then we would have seen much more fracturing than the early heresies and schisms, something like we have seen since the Protestant reformation. But the early Church, compared to today’s explosion in denominations, was surprisingly unified in faith. As attested to in the early documents, a single apostolic faith was passed on and preserved from east to west through persecution after persecution. If baptismal regeneration or the authority of the bishop were heretical inventions, then it is very surprising that such inventions spread homogeneously through all the original churches founded by the apostles.

Regarding an early primacy among bishops (before 450), have you read Adrian Fortescue’s book “The Early Papacy”? Who do you think had the authority to determine that Marcion was heretical, or that Tertullian and the Montanists were indeed in schism? Who did the early Church appeal to in cases of disagreement? Fortescue makes a pretty strong case from the surviving documents that the bishop of Rome, at least from the time of Clement, and onwards, was recognized as having jurisdictional authority over exactly these sorts of cases. I can’t make a better case than this book, so I’ll just leave it at that."

from comment 395

Do you think it’s also helpful to consider differences between Protestant traditions, even confessional Protestant traditions? Say an average lay Protestant Christian father (like myself) who honestly wants to follow the Apostles’ teaching on the essentials of the gospel is having a hard time with some things. He can’t determine if God wants his children baptized or not (and if so, what God does through it). He also isn’t sure whether he should teach his children that they can or cannot fall from grace. He looks to various confessional teachers and sees people who love Jesus and have dedicated their lives to studying the Scriptures in the original languages, studying church history and theology. He sees that these experts reach mutually exclusive opinions on these issues. He knows these are serious basic gospel questions (if the Lutherans and the Anglicans are right, not baptising a baby is a pretty big deal). He knows that some of these confessional traditions will not allow members of other traditions to take communion in their churches. He knows that all of these traditions acknowledge that their interpretations are fallible. If he goes with what seems right to him he knows he has no reason to have confidence in his opinion. Yet, he knows the Holy Spirit cannot lead men to contradictory positions. And he knows that as a Protestant he’s supposed to hold that the Scriptures are perspicuous on the essentials of the Gospel.

Given all these things that this man sees and knows, I do not see how he can maintain that sola scriptura is the means God has chosen for conveying His divine truth (by sola scriptura, I mean studying the Scripture, prayer, listening to tradition, listening to the “church,” and having the Holy Spirit). If a paradigm cannot give clear direction to average Christian parents about the status of their children and what is to be done with their children, what good is it? What would you say in response to this man’s concerns?

from comment428

 But the most reasonable conclusion from the realities of history and logic is that the canon itself does not suffice to rationally “demonstrate” what belongs in the canon–any more than it tells us how the parts and the whole of it are supposed to interpret each other–and that both Tradition and the teaching authority of the Church herself are also needed. That is how the Fathers generally proceeded.........................

inspiration entails infallibility but infallibility does not entail inspiration; thus, the Catholic Church does not teach that when she teaches infallibly she is divinely inspired, as though post-apostolic magisterial documents belonged in the canon. Rather, on the Catholic HP, God ensures that what the Church teaches with her full authority conveys the same deposit of faith that the Apostles etc. had received from Christ and conveyed in their truly inspired writings. If such magisterial teaching were also claimed to be inspired, it would indeed follow that divine revelation, and therefore the canon, is ongoing not once-for-all. But the Church has always denied that.

from comment 431:

In #402, you wrote:

I realize this is going to be unsatisfactory–obviously such debates have not led to universal agreement in the Church. Nevertheless when we examine these debates retrospectively we can see how the Spirit has been guiding the church–for example, on the issue of the deity of Christ.

So said the Arians, and so say the Jehovah’s Witnesses of today. All you’re doing is picking as ‘Church’ those who come out agreeing with your interpretation of Scripture. So in this way, your “Spirit guides the Church” criterion is ad hoc and self-serving. What it amounts to is the assertion that the Spirit guides you, an assertion any heretic could make. This is precisely the problem I pointed out withChristianity Today‘s senior managing editor Mark Galli’s position last year. That’s why when in #403 you treat the question of infant baptism as adiaphora, you are presupposing, on the basis of Trent’s non-conformity to your own interpretation of Scripture, that the Spirit was not guiding the Church when the Church promulgated the thirteenth canon on baptism from the Seventh Session of the Council of Trent.

from comment 434:

the major problem with this claim is that it runs contrary to five hundred years of empirical evidence. Protestant history is a history of fragmentation upon fragmentation, dividing not over what was believed to be secondary issues by those separating, but over what was believed to be orthodoxy/heresy. People do not break communion over issues they themselves believe to be secondary (adiaphora or indifferent). You could claim that in each such case someone was failing to engage in honest exegesis, but it seems to me that such a claim would be ad hoc. There is no good reason to believe that in each case of Protestant fragmentation, one or both sides were being dishonest in their exegesis of Scripture. The evidence is to the contrary. Likewise, you could claim that in each case of Protestant fragmentation one or both sides did not have the anointing. But again, that would bead hoc. Moreover, honest exegesis in the present is not bringing denominations back together. Given all the exegetical work published in academic journals and books over the last few centuries, which Protestant denominations have reconciled because of it? None if any. And again it would be ad hoc to claim that they are not doing so only because of dishonesty or exegetical ignorance. Do we see all Protestant New Testament scholars moving toward one denomination’s theological position, over the past 500 years? No. All this shows that personal interpretation of Scripture is not a reliable way of distinguishing fully and accurately between orthodoxy and heresy.

..................

(c): How many more centuries of Protestant fragmentation would it take to falsify the thesis that “honest exegesis” is sufficient to distinguish accurately and fully orthodoxy from heresy? Or more simply, what, exactly, would it take to falsify the “honest exegesis is sufficient to distinguish accurately and fully orthodoxy from heresy” thesis?

from comment 437

If Christ can do the greater, He can do the lesser. If He can so move men that the words they freely write are God’s very own words, then a fortiori He can imbue certain men with a charism of truth regarding the content of the Tradition, and authorize those men to speak as His representatives regarding the deposit of faith. In that way someone other than the Author of Scripture can hold interpretive authority, and it is not “impossible” for the magisterium of the Church to exercise interpretive authority.

on the same thread from comment 456 (below):

"The reason why “there is no reliable, generally agreed-upon method for testing” claims to transmit divine revelation is that such revelation is supernatural, not natural. Accordingly, human reason cannot discover the truth of revelation on its own, so that there is no rational method for verifying, as items of knowledge, propositions meant to express divine revelation..That leaves us with no alternative but to trust some authority....................................................That’s because private interpretation that is not checked against Scripture’s wider context of interpretation–i.e., Tradition and ecclesial teaching authority–can only yield affirmations which cannot, even in principle, be distinguished from personal and provisional opinions, which are neither items of knowledge nor articles of divine faith.

Below comment from comment 457 :

"So since objective truth exists and can be known (despite human frailities and our own fallible belief-generating processes), one cannot simply claim that one’s decision to become Catholic is potentially wrong and, hence, being Catholic offers no epistemic advantages over being Protestant. More argumentative work needs to be done. This, I take it, is where Dr. Liccione’s argument is salient. (I offer my summary of it below – he is free to correct me, but I summarize it since many in this thread apparently haven’t thought carefully about his position’s implications).

There are some Christians (Adam potentially among them? – if not, many others exist) who think that being a Christian entails only believing “the Gospel”, and that the Gospel is an extremely small set of propositions. (I myself largely came of age in Nazarene churches [Wesleyan] – and one of the emphases in the Nazarene churches I attended was that one did have to believe the Gospel – but most everything else was audiaphora). What happened in the sacrament of Communion was audiaphora, when baptism should take place was audiaphora, how the church should be organized was audiaphora, etc. The good part of this wider evangelical spirit is, I think, its strong emphasis on the saving Gospel message of Christ. And thank God for that! The downside, though, is its deemphasis of pretty much everything else (including issues which, in any historical period prior to the last 100 years or so, were not audiaphora). Most (not all) Reformed Christians do not fall into this camp – they think that sacramentology is not audiaphora, ecclesiology isn’t audiaphora, etc. Calvin, among others, certainly did not think these issues were audiaphora in the slightest.

So if one thinks that sacramentology, say, is not fundamentally audiaphora, then one needs some mechanism by which to distinguish between orthodoxy and heresy on questions of sacramentology (or ecclesiology, or Christology, or soteriology, etc).

The Protestant method of distinguishing heresy from orthodoxy is, in the main, for Christians to read the Bible and discover the truth there within the community of believers. Note that the Bible isn’t being appealed to as a way to settle disputes over what one must actively believe to go to Heaven (that you are a sinner and that Christ died for your sins, etc), but is instead being appealed to as a means of settling specific doctrinal controversies, viz., “Is the office of Bishop one of the church’s offices?” or “How many natures does Christ have?” or “Is it allowable to have statues in sanctuaries?” or “Was Mary the God-bearer or the Christ-bearer?” On this paradigm, individual believers put the church in the dock and feel themselves capable to judge the church’s orthodoxy. Dr. Liccione’s point, I take it, is that even on this paradigm orthodoxy cannot be separated from heresy since whatever means one uses to understand the Bible are explicitly acknowledged to be fallible. Church councils are fallible, church leaders are fallible, an individual believer’s understanding of the Bible is fallible, etc.

So, if one thinks that such things aren’t audiaphora and if one thinks it is possible to distinguish heresy from orthodoxy, Protestantism ain’t gonna cut it. (One can, of course, avoid the problem by making everything audiaphora or saying that it is not possible to distinguish orthodoxy from heresy [thus, effectively, making everything audiaphora]). Or one can “join” a church in “submission” to it but mentally reserve the right to leave the church if and when you decide that it is not sufficiently orthodox. But by taking either of these moves one implicitly rejects any heritage whatsoever coming from confessional Reformed protestantism. Moreover, it is possible to distinguish heresy from orthodoxy – and these kinds of fundamental questions are not audiaphora – so something’s got to give.

The Catholic method of distinguishing heresy from orthodoxy is, in the main, for laymen, theologians and bishops to read and study the Bible – and then it falls to the bishops of the church to collectively distinguish between heresy and orthodoxy. They (the collective of those bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome) are able to do so in virtue of a special power given by Christ to his apostles, and by his apostles to their successor bishops, and by their successors to (eventually) those individuals presently holding the office of Bishop. When those bishops collectively speak with their full teaching authority (or when their head, the Bishop of Rome so speaks), God will ensure that what they teach is not in error. Consequently the church puts individual believers in the dock and the church feels itself capable to judge the individual’s orthodoxy.

The advantage “the Catholic method” has over and against “the Protestant method” is that, in principle, the Catholic method is capable of distinguishing heresy from orthodoxy. Thus, if one thinks all (or most, or many) theological controversies aren’t fundamentally “audiaphoric” and if one thinks it is possible to distinguish orthodoxy from heresy, then the advantage of the Catholic method is that it provides a means to accomplish this. Protestantism, however, is intrinsically incapable of “exegeting away” all the heretics – it didn’t work for the Donatists, it didn’t work for the Arians, and it won’t work any better today.

Everyone is familiar with the following phenomenon: two Christians of equal maturity, intelligence, good will, etc read the same passage of Scripture and come to opposing conclusions. I’m told (I’m no scholar in this area) that John Wycliffe believed that the two main reasons why this happened were: 1) One or both sides had failed to read the Bible carefully, and 2) One or both sides did not understand logic. In a way, this strikes me as amazingly naive. Wycliffe thinks the reason Luther and Erasmus disagreed, or the reason that Augustine and the Donatists disagreed, or the reason a Protestant and Catholic disagree about the meaning of “On this Rock I will build my church”, is because one or both havn’t read the Bible carefully enough or doesn’t understand logic well enough. If the last 500 years of Protestantism have shown us anything, neither more logic nor (especially!) more exegesis are going to resolve these kinds of differences – because more exegesis (in the Protestant context) just results in more and more Christians putting each individual church in the dock. If one sees the proliferation of denominations as a fundamentally good thing, then so be it – but one has thereby implicitly decided that many (or most?) of Christianity’s fundamental historical disagreements are simply matters of audiaphora. If one thinks that is false, then one has good reason to prefer Catholicism to Protestantism.

Sincerely,
~Benjamin"

from comment 470:

On the Catholic understanding, what’s divinely inspired is the Word of God that the Holy Spirit caused some people to express in written form as the norma normans for other expressions of divine revelation. The infallibility of the Church, on the other hand, is the Spirit’s gift whereby he prevents the Church from teaching with her full authority any proposition that purports to interpret the Word (whether Scripture or Tradition) truly but would do so falsely. Inspiration is thus the divine activity that supplies divine revelation’s written expression, which is normative for subsequent interpretations thereof. Infallibility is the divine gift that prevents false interpretations thereof from being imposed on the Church by her leadership. Inspiration thus positively contributes to the deposit of faith; infallibility-sans-inspiration does not. It merely ensures that the deposit of faith given once-for-all is not obscured by falsehoods propagated after revelation’s being given...........................................................

If “the Church” since the Apostles, whichever visible body that is, did not inherit the teaching authority of the Apostles, then believers can only identify “the Church” as the people who agree with our account of what conveys the apostolic tradition and how to interpret such conveyances. That reduces the identity of “the Church” post-apostolic to a matter of opinion, so that ecclesial bodies have only such authority as individual believers studying the sources choose to concede to them on the basis of such a study. That destroys any principled distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, and with it any principled distinction between divine revelation and human opinion.

see also: http://nannykim-catholicconsiderations.blogspot.com/2012/09/about-church-authority.html

also from comment 24 here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2015/12/fulton-sheens-biblical-account-of-the-catholic-church-as-christs-mystical-body/#comment-201856

1.  Clement is clearly under the impression that the apostles appointed successors to “succeed their ministry.” He says as much a little earlier:
   “Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect fore-knowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry.”
   “Through our Lord Jesus Christ” is the clincher. 

and  here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/

This particular dilemma is not unique to Baptists; it follows from the very nature of Protestantism, because Protestantism, like Mormonism, presupposes ecclesial deism. Deism refers to a belief that God made the world, and then left it to run on its own. It is sometimes compared to “a clockmaker” winding up a clock and then “letting it run.” Deism is distinct from theism in that theism affirms not only that God created the world, but also that God continually sustains and governs all of creation. Ecclesial deism is the notion that Christ founded His Church, but then withdrew, not protecting His Church’s Magisterium (i.e., the Apostles and/or their successors) from falling into heresy or apostasy. Ecclesial deism is not the belief that individual members of the Magisterium could fall into heresy or apostasy. It is the belief that the Magisterium of the Church could lose or corrupt some essential of the deposit of faith, or add something to the deposit of faith.

Why is ecclesial deism intrinsic to Protestantism and Mormonism? Because any person who chooses to leave the Catholic Church or remain separated from her, while intending to remain a Christian, has to claim that the Catholic Church has fallen into heresy or apostasy, so that separating from her is justified. We can find this idea throughout the history of the Catholic Church. The Gnostics of the second century justified being separated from the Catholic Church by claiming that even the Apostles had perverted Christ’s teachings. St. Irenaeus (d. AD 200) writes:

But, again, when we refer [the heretics] to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; . . . It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition.¹¹

and here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/09/what-therefore-god-has-joined-together-divorce-and-the-sacrament-of-marriage/#comment-48820

It is no accident that there is a correlation between believing in the possibility of divorce and remarriage, and believing some form of ecclesial deism. If the bond between Christ and His Church can be broken, then how much more can the sign of that bond be broken.⁵⁰ Where we find ecclesial deism, there, undoubtedly, we should expect to find acceptance of divorce with remarriage. But where the indissolubility of Christian marriage is preserved, there we should expect to find a belief in the indefectibility of the Church. And so it is. The indissolubility of Christian marriage is a testimony to the world of Christ’s unfailing love for His Church, and therefore to the sure promise of eternal life in the world to come, for all those who believe and are baptized.⁵¹The indissoluble union of Christ and His Church is a consequence of the indissoluble union of Christ and His human nature. Hence ecclesial deism’s rejection of the indissoluble union of Christ and His Church is an implicit denial of Christ’s resolve never to give up His humanity.⁵²

and here comment 27 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/

Thanks again for your reply. I’m assuming you’ve read the epistles of St. Ignatius, and St. Irenaeus’ Against Heresies and Tertullian’s The Prescription Against Heretics. If so, you’ve seen that the Church Fathers at the end of the second century speak and write as though apostolic succession is the universal belief and practice of the Church, and has been so since the Apostles. (The whole idea of apostolic succession wouldn’t even make sense unless it went back to the Apostles.) And of course this was the universal practice of the Church at Nicea in AD 325, as we can see in the canons of that council. And it can be seen in Eusebius’ Church History as well.

Can you provide a list of unbroken apostolic successors for that time period as well?

St. Irenaeus does just that in his Against Heresies. And Eusebius does as well. Each of the Apostolic churches preserved the list of their bishops, as Rome has done, where Peter and Paul are buried.

My argument was that if a person denies apostolic succession, then he or she faces a difficulty. The difficulty is that the record of the Fathers at the end of the second century indicates apostolic succession to be universal, and of course it wasn’t an issue at Nicea in 325, precisely because it was universal. So, if a person denies apostolic succession, he or she must believe that the Church not onlyuniversally fell into error on this point by the end of the second century, and clearly by 325, but that this universal falling into error was entirely silent. Either that, or we must posit that the history books were scrubbed by the victors.

from comment 28 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/03/brantly-millegan-reviews-brad-gregorys-the-unintended-reformation-how-a-religious-revolution-secularized-society/#comment-49724  :

 Tertullian challenges the heretical sets to unfold their rolls of bishops, to see whose go back to the Apostles:

But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men,– a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind.

from comment  107        here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/12/signs-of-predestination-a-catholic-discusses-election/
 in reply to the first paragraph below:

We must take scripture as superseding everything else. If we don’t do that, we are no longer with the Apostolic teaching.

That conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise; it would follow only if you added an additional premise, namely, that the Apostolic teaching was handed down only in Scripture. Because the Apostolic teaching is also contained in the oral Tradition that was handed down alongside Scripture, and recorded in the Church Fathers, we should allow that Tradition to inform and guide our interpretation and understanding of Scripture. In addition, because Christ entrusted His Church to the Apostles and their authorized successors, we are bound to submit our interpretations of Scripture to those of the successors of the Apostles in communion with the successor of the Apostle to whom Jesus gave the keys of the Kingdom, and upon whom He said He would build His Church.

another post on the subject: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/05/apostolic-succession-and-historical-inquiry-some-preliminary-remarks/#comment-50745

from comment 17

Given the state of the evidence up to the end of the 2nd century, the Catholic view of AS is historicallyplausible but not historically demonstrable. Many critics suppose that’s a problem for Catholicism, but it is not. For one thing, and as you point out, the same could be said about the Resurrection, a doctrine that nobody here denies; so, to fault the doctrine of monepiscopal AS for being historically plausible but not historically demonstrable is to apply a double standard. For another, the absence of demonstrative evidence that early church polity did embody monepiscopal AS does not entail that early church polity did not embody monepiscopal AS; to hold otherwise would simply be an argument from silence. From a purely historical point of view, the best evidence that early church polity was monepiscopal AS is that, after the 2nd century, it was generally assumed to have been so.

Many Protestants seem willing to concede that point, but some of course argue that, by the 3rd century at the latest, the Church as a whole had got the will of Christ regarding essentials of church polity wrong. That, as you say, entails ecclesial deism. That some don’t see that as a problem is itself a problem.

from comment 21:

You write:

Andrew argues that because the early church believed it was founded by Christ that it was of the essence of the Church. I don’t doubt that many of them thought this, but just because they believed it doesn’t mean that it was so…

I have one and only one parallel in mind, but it’s important. The NT contains not “eyewitness accounts” of the Resurrection itself, but accounts of an empty tomb and appearances of Jesus to his followers afterward. Assuming the sincerity and general accuracy of those accounts–which many do not–Jesus’ followers clearly inferred, and by that means believed, that he had risen bodily from the dead. But that does not make their inference correct, and thus does not make the inferred belief true. The totality of the evidence that Jesus had risen bodily from the dead–which includes how the Apostles, ordinary men all, gave their lives for it in the course of spreading the Gospel and the Church–suffices to make that belief plausible to us who weren’t there and didn’t see what his followers saw. But it does not suffice to demonstrate it. We believe it by faith, partly through the Church that wrote and canonized the NT. Epistemologically, the same goes for the Catholic belief in monoepiscopal AS in the post-apostolic church. The totality of the historical evidence–after as well as during the first two centuries of the Church–suffices to make that belief plausible, but not to demonstrate it. Necessarily though in part, we believe it because we believe the Church. Given that parallel, then, I still claim you’re applying a double standard.

from comment 25:

You wrote:

What I mean by “Apostolic Succession” is that there was a lineage of ordained men who had the power to ordain other men. … But in my reading I have never heard anyone object that ordination is ordinarily passed down from the minister to minister.

I agree that within Reformed tradition and practice, ordination is ordinarily by way of the laying on of hands, by ordained men. But it seems to me that there are [at least] two important and related differences regarding our respective conceptions of apostolic succession. First, in the Reformed tradition, it is not essential that the ones ordaining have themselves been ordained in an unbroken succession of ordinations extending back to the Apostles. It is merely a custom [in Reformed practice] that ordinarily only ordained persons ordain. In a pinch, as you seem to acknowledge, any baptized persons can ordain. Second, in the Reformed tradition, in the rite of ordination the one being ordained is not receiving a spiritual or ecclesial authority or power from the Apostles through the ordained men who are ordaining him. The two points are related obviously, because if the ones ordaining were by this act conferring some spiritual power or authority on the ordinand, it would be essential that they themselves have this authority, since no one can give what he does not have. But if all persons had this power by baptism, then ordination would be entirely superfluous. If, however, this power does not come through baptism, but through ordination, then only those having received ordination from those having an unbroken succession from the Apostles, can ordain others.

Consider what Berkhof says on page 588 of his Systematic Theology, in the section titled, “The officers’ induction into office.” Berkhof, quoting Hodge, writes, “Ordination is the solemn expression of the judgment of the Church, by those appointed to deliver such judgment, that the candidate is truly called of God to take part in this ministry …. ” The mere expression of a judgment, no matter how solemn, is not the conferring of a grace or spiritual or ecclesial authority. Nor is the “external call” a conferral of authority passed down from the Apostles through a succession of ordinations.

Berkhof goes on in the section titled “Laying on of hands,” and shows that the Presbyterian conception of ordination makes the laying on of hands “optional.” He writes,

Ordination is accompanied with the laying on of hands. Clearly, the two [i.e. ordination and laying on of hands] went hand in hand in apostolic times …. In those early days the laying on of hands evidently implied two things: it signified that a person was set aside for a certain office, and that some special spiritual gift was conferred upon him. The Church of Rome is of the opinion that these two elements are still included in the laying on of hands, that it actually confers some spiritual grace upon the recipient, and therefore ascribes to it sacramental significance. Protestants maintain, however, that it is merely a symbolical indication of the fact that one is set aside for the ministerial office in the Church. While they [Protestants] regard it as a Scriptural rite and as one that is entirely appropriate, they do not regard it as absolutely essential. The Presbyterian Church makes it optional”. (Berkhof, p. 588)

Reformed theology’s non-sacramental conception of ordination seems to make ordination ultimately optional, because ordination doesn’t give any grace or power or authority to the ordinand. It is merely symbolic. Declaring the candidate “elected” (i.e. externally called) would be sufficient. If nothing is being given by those laying on hands, the laying on of hands seems contrary to what it symbolizes. I understand that you think something is given to the ordinand, from the Apostles, through a succession of ordained men down to those ordaining him. But I don’t see that notion as part of Reformed theology. Rather, I see the opposite, because of the Reformed (and Protestant) denial of ordination being a sacrament. The difficulty for your position, then, from my point of view, is not only showing its compatibility with Reformed theology, but also explaining why ordination (given your notion of Apostolic succession), is not a sacrament. As St. Thomas says (in the Supplement),

Further, “the cause of a thing being such, is still more so.” Now Order is the cause of man being the dispenser of the other sacraments. Therefore Order has more reason for being a sacrament than the others. (Q. 34 a.3)

In other words, if baptism and the Eucharist are sacraments, then that by which a man is made to be the dispenser of them has more reason for being a sacrament, because “the cause of a thing being such, is still more so,” and the minister is a cause (not the only cause, of course) of the sacraments being such.

Calvin’s treatment of ordination (Institutes IV.3.10-16) is quite the same as Berkhof’s. Calvin writes:

But though there is no fixed precept concerning the laying on of hands, yet as we see that it was uniformly observed by the apostles, this careful observance ought to be regarded by us in the light of a precept, (see chap. 14, sec. 29; chap. 19, sec. 31.) And it is certainly useful, that by such a symbol the dignity of the ministry should be commended to the people, and he who is ordained, reminded that he is no longer his own, but is bound in service to God and the Church. Besides, it will not prove an empty sign, if it be restored to its genuine origin. For if the Spirit of God has not instituted any thing in the Church in vain, this ceremony of his appointment we shall feel not to be useless, provided it be not superstitiously abused. Lastly, it is to be observed, that it was not the whole people, but only pastors, who laid hands on ministers, though it is uncertain whether or not several always laid their hands. (Institutes IV.3.16)

In Calvin, ordination is merely ceremonial and symbolic, “useful for the dignity of the ministry” by showing the people that the person ordained is set aside by the Church for pastoral ministry. (Institutes IV.3.16). Yes he says that it will “not prove an empty sign” if it is “restored to its genuine origin” (i.e. if it is done as he prescribes). But that’s the closest he comes, so far as I can tell, to saying that ordination does anything.

Your position, by contrast, sounds more like that of Trent:

Since from the testimony of Scripture, Apostolic tradition and the unanimous agreement of the Fathers it is clear that grace is conferred by sacred ordination, which is performed by words and outward signs, no one ought to doubt that order is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of holy Church. For the Apostle says: “I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sobriety.” (Session XXIII.3)

So I agree that in Reformed ordinations only ordained men lay on hands. But it seems to me that in Reformed theology ordination is not by way of apostolic succession (as you conceive of apostolic succession), because of the Reformed belief that ordination is not a sacrament, the Protestant notion of the “priesthood of all believers” (more precisely the Protestant rejection of the ministerial priesthood), and thus that in Reformed theology nothing is uniquely conferred upon the ordinand by those ordaining him, except permission to minister in their denomination (or pulpit sharing denominations). For many many years the Reformed practice has not concerned itself with ensuring that only those who have ordinations in an unbroken succession of ordinations from the Apostles, participate in ordinations. Therefore, how could there be any possible trust that those Reformed ministers now participating in ‘ordinations’ have the Apostolic authority/power that is passed down through apostolic succession? A theology that denies apostolic succession (and redefines it as ‘apostolicity,’ i.e. conformity to the Apostles’ doctrine) affects the practice of the tradition that adopts it, and thereby in subsequent generations undermines any credible claim to having apostolic succession, without reacquiring valid Holy Orders through faith traditions (e.g. Catholicism, Orthodoxy) that do. If I were seeking ordination, and I believed in apostolic succession (as you conceive of it), I wouldn’t be seeking ordination from a group of men within a tradition that has not maintained (as an infallible part of Tradition) that doctrine, because I would have no good reason to believe that they themselves were validly ordained, and thus to believe that they could give to me what they themselves did not have.

I understand that you’re in the process of working this question out. I’m not really laying out any implications of your position. I’m merely arguing, for what its worth, that the position you are tentatively taking seems to me more in agreement with Catholic/Orthodox conceptions of AS, and less compatible with the Reformed tradition.

and from comment 30:

Refprot, (re: #29)

I was prompted to comment on this thread by your statement in #15:

As has been noted elsewhere, there is not disputing that the normative way in which ordination occurred in the early church was through “apostolic succession.” I did not understand that is the argument you were attempt to put forth because there is no dispute here.

It seemed to me initially, upon reading that statement, that you were not understanding exactly what Andrew meant by ‘apostolic succession,’ and thus that the two of you were talking past each other when you claimed that there is no dispute [presumably between the Reformed and Catholic traditions] that the normative way in which ordination occurred was through apostolic succession. And my preliminary judgment is being confirmed by your subsequent comments.

When you use the term ‘apostolic succession,’ you mean only that the practice presumably handed down from the Apostles is that only ordained men ordain other men. You do not mean that any grace or divine authority or divine gift is conferred through ordination per se upon the soul of the ordinand; only that the ordinand is given permission by these ordaining men (and those whom they represent) to minister in their communion. Because (a) you hold that having been ordained is not a necessary condition for ordaining (i.e. “… in these rare cases the church, by virtue of her baptism, would be able to ordain men …”), and (b) you agree with Berkhof that the laying on of hands in ordination “is merely a symbolical indication of the fact that one is set aside for the ministerial office in the Church,” and (c) one cannot give what one does not have, such that if baptized but non-ordained persons can give x, then if the ordinand is already baptized, he already has x, therefore it follows that in your position the ordinand does not receive any spiritual gift or Apostolic authority in ordination. Hence, as I explained above, ordination (on this view) does not confer anything beyond what is given in baptism, except permission to minister in that communion. Ordination, on this view, is merely a rite, but is entirely unnecessary. A mere public declaration by the ecclesial leaders that the ordinand has been given permission to minister in this communion would be equivalent, and do what the rite does, without the symbolism.

But when Andrew or myself (or any other Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox, or Oriental Orthodox) use the term ‘apostolic succession,’ we do not mean merely giving permission to minister or merely the practice in which only ordained men ordain others, but rather we refer to a sacrament whereby a sacramental grace and Apostolic authority is given, as something over and above what is given in baptism. This authority is handed down from the Apostles not through baptism (contra Wilson – see the link in #18), but through the sacrament of Holy Orders, i.e. through ordination, and thus through the unbroken succession of ordinations extending back to the Apostles. This is a fundamental difference in our (yours on the one hand, and Andrew’s and mine on the other hand) conceptions of the term ‘apostolic succession.’

Moreover, it seems to me that you use language in a somewhat sloppy and misleading (equivocal) way regarding ‘apostolic succession’ even in describing your own position. So, you say:

What I mean by “Apostolic Succession” is that there was a lineage of ordained men who had the power to ordain other men. .. I have never heard anyone object that ordination is ordinarily passed down from the minister to minister

There you seemingly speak of a power being passed down from minister to minister, much more like the Catholic and Orthodox conception of apostolic succession, and not in agreement with the Calvinist/Berkhof position described above. To be sure, you don’t exactly say that, but it is seemingly implied. Then, however, you say:

So when I use the words “Apostolic Succession” I’m referring to the fact that Paul ordained Timothy who ordained someone else, etc.

And there you imply that by ‘apostolic succession’ you are referring only to the practice in which ordinarily, only ordained men ordain. And that minimalistic conception of apostolic succession iscompatible with Calvin/Berkhof, but not with the Catholic/Orthodox notion of apostolic succession. By describing apostolic succession in both ways, you can make it seem as though you’re in agreement with Andrew regarding apostolic succession (and thus we can jump forward to questions of the episcopacy and the papacy), while at the same time when necessary use your minimalistic definition (i.e. merely the practice of only ordained men ordaining) in order to say that nothing in your position is incompatible with Calvin/Berkhof. But you can’t have it both ways. Either ordination imparts a spiritual gift / Apostolic authority beyond what is given in baptism, and more than mere permission to minister in that communion, or it does not. If it does, then what you are saying goes beyond Calvin and Berkhof, and is faced with the difficulty of explaining why ordination is not a sacrament. But if according to your position ordination does not impart any such gift, then it is not true that, as you said in #15, “there is no dispute here” regarding apostolic succession.

So the disagreement is not only logically prior to the papacy question, and logically prior to the question “Can only bishops ordain?” The disagreement is over what ‘apostolic succession’ means, and what is happening in ordination. And in my opinion, it is important not to leap over this more fundamental disagreement (somewhat hidden by our respective ability to use the same term ‘apostolic succession’ in different senses), when attempting to resolve the disagreement regarding whether only bishops can ordain, or whether the bishop of Rome has some unique authority among the bishops.

and  comment 31:

In addition to underscoring the sacramental nature of Apostolic Succession (something that I repeatedly referred to in the post), Bryan’s comment makes explicit something that I was content to leave implicit in my depiction of the “gist of Apostolic Succession”; namely, that it is the bishop alone who has the authority to ordain, having been uniquely “ordained to ordain.” The reason that I left this implicit in the post is that I was purposefully abstaining from entering into the question of the distinction between bishops and presbyters, which is something that Tim has already addressed with respect to the fluidity of terminology–from the New Testament’s connotative use of the terms in reference to the ordained ministers to the later denotative use of the same terms in reference to distinct offices–in his article on Holy Orders. In an upcoming post, already in the works, I hope to make more explicit the significance of the distinction between presbyter and bishop with respect to the Apostolic ministry of the early Church.

In the meantime, I’ll simply note that the Reformed theologian Francis Turretin admitted that the tactile succession itself, i.e., the unbroken succession from the Apostles of ordination by the laying on of hands, was not preserved even by way of presbyteral ordinations in the Reformed communities. Thus, Turretin argued that this visible succession in office, while in some sense optimal, is by no means necessary for the preservation and propagation of the Christian ministry. (See Francis Turretin, “The Call of the First Reformers”, in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 3, trans. James G. Frazer, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1997], 235-45.)

from comment 38

My intention, as I pointed out above, was to make sure that we’re not talking past each other by using the same term in different senses. I think that’s cleared up now. You are using the term ‘apostolic succession’ to refer only to the fact that the ordinary practice has been that only ordained men ordain. Andrew, in his post above, is using the term to refer not only to that practice, but also to what those who engaged in this practice understood themselves to be doing in ordination, and not merely the fact that ordinarily only ordained men ordained others. So at least we’re now clear, I think, that your sense of the term is not exactly the same as Andrew’s. So now, when using the term, we will all be more conscious of the particular sense in which it is being used. And in my opinion, that is very important.

But let’s consider the role of history in this question. You wrote:

The theological value of that historical reality is a point of dispute, as you have pointed out.

And then:

Of course, this theology of ordination is derived from an historical argument, that there is an order of those ordained to ordain. Andrew is correct here that there is dispute about this. and the way to resolve this dispute is not to discuss the theological merits of each position, but to first discuss the historical viability of this thesis of AS.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “historical viability” (nor do I think such an ambiguous metaphorical criterion is of any worth) but I agree that if there were some incompatibility between the historical data and the Catholic understanding of apostolic succession, that would be a problem for the Catholic position.

Maybe by ‘historical viability’ you mean that history supports only the minimalistic sense of ‘apostolic succession’ that you have been using (i.e. that the normative practice was that only ordained men ordain), and that the Catholic conception of apostolic succession (which includes the conferring of a grace and authority from the Apostles) is not supported by the historical evidence. If that’s what you mean, that I beg to differ, because I think that exactly the opposite is true. What we find in history relevant to this question is not merely *that* the ordinary practice was that only ordain men ordain, but also what the Church thought ordination did, and the reason *why* only ordained men can ordain. The theology according to which ordination imparts a grace and authority, is part of the historical evidence we find in the writings of the Church Fathers. And this theology-within-history is much more than merely the fact that only ordained men ordain.

What the history and consensus of the Fathers teach regarding the mere fact that only ordain men ordain, is something compatible with both the Reformed and Catholic doctrines concerning apostolic succession. (If you disagree, and think that what the history and consensus of the Fathers teach regarding the mere practice is incompatible with the Catholic doctrine concerning apostolic succession, then please cite that evidence.) But what the consensus of the Fathers teach regarding the doctrine of apostolic succession is compatible with (and preserved within) the Catholic tradition and practice, but is incompatible with the Reformed doctrine. The Catholic can affirm what the Church Fathers taught on apostolic succession, but the Reformed must (in order to remain Reformed) claim that though the Fathers retained the apostolic practice (that only ordained men ordain) they got the theology of succession all wrong, by treating it as though it imparts a grace and an authority from the Apostles, when in actuality it is merely a symbolic rite that imparts nothing beyond what has been given in baptism, except permission to minister.

Let’s consider some examples. St. Irenaeus writes:

For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught to the elite secretly and apart from the rest, they would have handed them down especially to those very ones to whom they were committing the self-same Churches. For surely they wished all those and their successors to be perfect and without reproach, to whom they handed on their authority (Against Heresies 3.3.1)

A bit later in the same work he writes:

It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the Apostles; those who have received, with the succession of the episcopate, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion (ibid 4.26.2).

Why, in the liturgy of ordination in St. Hippolytus in the third century, is ordination even a prayer? If ordination is fundamentally granting permission by the elders, to the ordinand, it should be spoken to the ordinand, not to God. It should simply be “We recognize that you have been called by God, and we hereby grant you permission to minister in our churches …” Of course the candidates must be evaluated, and screened, etc. but that’s not the *essence* of ordination (in the patristics); that’s the prerequisite for ordination. The ordination is in its essence the prayer with the laying on of hands, as St. Chrysostom points out

Observe how he avoids all that is superfluous: he does not tell in what way it was done, but that they were ordained (ἐ χειροτονήθησαν) with prayer: for this is the meaning of χειροτονία, (i.e. “putting forth the hand,”) or ordination: the hand of the man is laid upon (the person,) but the whole work is of God, and it is His hand which touches the head of the one ordained. (Homily 14 on the Acts of the Apostles)

As I pointed out previously, the form of the practice (i.e. both the prayer — the fact that it is a prayer — and the laying on of hands), performatively contradicts the non-sacramental conception of apostolic succession.

In the mid-third century, Firmillion of Caesarea writes:

But what is his error, and how great his blindness, who says that the remission of sins can be given in the synagogues of the heretics, and who does not remain on the foundation of the one Church which was founded upon the rock by Christ can be learned from this, which Christ said to Peter alone: “Whatever things you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed in heaven;” and by this, again in the gospel, when Christ breathed upon the Apostles alone, saying to them; “Receive the Holy Spirit: if you forgive any man his sins, they shall be forgiven; and if you retain any mans sins, they shall be retained.” Therefore, the power of forgiving sins was given to the Apostles and to the Churches which these men, sent by Christ, established; and to the bishops who succeeded them by being ordained in their place (Letter to Cyprian 75.16)

St. Gregory of Nyssa writes:

The bread again is at first common bread, but when the sacramental action consecrates it, it is called, and becomes, the Body of Christ. So with the sacramental oil; so with the wine: though before the benediction they are of little value, each of them, after the sanctification bestowed by the Spirit, has its several operations. The same power of the word, again, also makes the priest venerable and honourable, separated, by the new blessing bestowed upon him, from his community with the mass of men. While but yesterday he was one of the mass, one of the people, he is suddenly rendered a guide, a president, a teacher of righteousness, an instructor in hidden mysteries; and this he does without being at all changed in body or in form; but, while continuing to be in all appearance the man he was before, being, by some unseen power and grace, transformed in respect of his unseen soul to the higher condition.” (On the Baptism of Christ)

St. Chrysostom writes:

See how even among the seven one was preeminent, and won the first prize. For though the ordination was common to him and them, yet he drew upon himself greater grace. And observe, how he wrought no (signs and wonders) before this time, but only when he became publicly known; to show that grace alone is not sufficient, but there must be ordination also; so that there was a further access of the Spirit. For if they were full of the Spirit, it was of that which is from the Laver of Baptism. (Homily 15 on the Acts of the Apostles — on Acts 6:8)

St. Augustine writes:

In like manner as if there take place an ordination of clergy in order to form a congregation of people, although the congregation of people follow not, yet there remains in the ordained persons the Sacrament of Ordination; and if, for any fault, any be removed from his office, he will not be without the Sacrament of the Lord once for all set upon him, albeit continuing unto condemnation. (On the Good of Marriage, 24:32)

If ordination were merely permission, it could be rescinded by the elders. But if ordination imparts an indelible character by the finger of God, then that cannot be removed by men.

And there are many other examples in the Church Fathers showing that they believed that ordination was not merely a symbolic rite, but conferred a grace beyond what was given in baptism, and that only those who had received authority in succession from the Apostles could give this authority to others by ordination. So the idea that history leaves us with nothing but the mere fact of succession stripped bare of a theology of succession, is just not true. The historical evidence pertaining to apostolic succession not only is compatible with, but strongly supports the Catholic/Orthodox conception of apostolic succession, but it is incompatible with the Reformed notion that ordination is merely a symbolic rite and that apostolic succession is merely the normative practice that ordinarily only ordained men ordain other men.

end quote

from same source comment 46:

Apostolic Succession in the Christian ministry via the laying on of hands does locate that ministry within the ambit of history. And the available data from the first century indicates that this succession did in fact occur; cf. the ordination of Matthias, Paul’s ordination of Timothy (which Eric cited in comment #36), and Clement’s remarks to the church in Corinth concerning the “succession” in ministry.

The data from the second century, most notably Irenaeus, more than adequately confirms this principle by tracing the episcopal succession in Rome from Peter. The only exceptions (for which we have any direct evidence) to this principle of succession in office as a criterion of ecclesial authority are the Gnostic, Montanist, and perhaps some other early sects. Otherwise, the actual evidence that we have from the first two centuries, in contrast to arguments from silence, indicates that Apostolic Succession occurred and was a criterion of the Church that Christ founded, and therefore a criterion of true doctrine.

In addition to the testimony of Irenaeus, see Stephen Ray’s collection of patristic statements in Upon This Rock (pp.63-96) to the effect that Peter (along with Paul) established and ministered in the Church in Rome, was martyred there, and was succeeded in office by Linus, Anacletus, Clement, and so forth. There are no patristic witnesses that contradict these accounts. Thus, insofar as it depends upon an historical succession of bishops from Peter in Rome, the papacy’s claim to ecclesial authority rooted in visible continuity with Christ through the Apostles is on very solid footing. Competing claims about the history of the Church in Rome, while they cannot be ruled out absolutely on historical grounds alone, lack direct evidence, and are therefore more conjectural (and consequently more subject to the biases of the historian, most notably the hermeneutics of suspicion and hostility towards hierarchy) than the historical judgment that affirms Apostolic Succession.

end of comment --note the commentsthat follow the link at this post above are worth the read

from comment 87 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/05/apostolic-succession-and-historical-inquiry-some-preliminary-remarks/

 I think the Church is One; Jesus did not found many Churches. And I think the Church is not only the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ, but also the Household of God and the Kingdom of God and the Family of God.

If the Holy Spirit made each bishop infallible when rendering his judgment with respect to a matter of faith or morals, then of course there’d be no need for collegiality between the bishops. You could take the matter “to the Church” at a purely local level, and get an answer, and find that no matter how far you traveled, and no matter which other Church you joined, you could never find a bishop in Apostolic Succession that disagreed.

As a matter of history, though, we know that isn’t correct: The Arian controversy is sufficient to demonstrate that. And anyway, that would be many Churches, not One Church; so it fails the test of Christ having One Body, not many bodies. Jesus is not some opposite-of-a-hydra with one Head but many bodies. Jesus is not a polygamist with many brides. There is one household of God, one family of God; God does not have a different family in each of several towns, like a nasty sort of traveling salesman.

So it is the Church that winds up being able to bind and loose — because the Church is Christ’s Body and, to borrow a phrase, when J. C. Messiah talks, people (ought to) listen. Christ’s mouth is a part of His body: So when a certain part of the Church speaks, it is Christ speaking. It is the Church which is the pillar and bullwark of the truth, holding up and defending the truth.

But the bishops have a share in that ministry of binding and loosing because they are Christ’s stewards, exercising power in His name. And the successor of Peter has an especially important role as Christ’s chief steward. Thus the chief steward authority is conferred first (and with the grandest language, and with the symbol of the “keys”) on Peter; but later conferred also on the rest of the Apostolic College. They all have a share in this binding-and-loosing authority which ultimately is Christ’s authority, but Peter’s share is the chief stewardly share and the other apostles’ share is the normal stewardly share.

Of course the context of this discussion of “stewards” is Isaiah 22, which I think everyone agrees is an important Old Testament passage Jesus has in mind when speaking to Peter in Matthew 16 and to the apostles in general in Matthew 18. But more generally, it helps to know that ancient Near East kingdoms nearly always followed a similar pattern: Kings/Sultans didn’t administer everything personally, but rather created offices of authority who administered certain provinces or departments in the king’s name, and there was one such which was the chief office, second only to the King. The Sultan had many Viziers, but one Grand Vizier; the King had many Stewards, and one Chief Steward; or (in more modern language) many Ministers, and one Prime Minister. Eliakim son of Hilkiah replaces Shebna in a Chief Stewardly office in Isaiah 22, but we see similar structures elsewhere in the Old Testament. (Joseph under Pharaoh; Haman, then Mordecai, under Artaxerxes II; Daniel and his friends at more minor levels under Nebuchadnezzar…and later Daniel appears to have been offered an office one level lower than the Prime Ministership, under Belshazzar, though he didn’t want it.)

Just like the other stewards the chief steward can bind and loose in the name of the King, but unlike the others, the chief steward has a sort of veto or tie-breaker authority. As it says in Isaiah 22: the chief steward can lock and unlock (all the stewards can), but also, what he locks/shuts/binds “no other” can unlock/open/loose; and what he unlocks/opens/looses, “no other” can lock/shut/bind. That authority is conferred by the King on no other steward save the chief steward, the one with “the keys of the House of David” on “his shoulder.”

This allows the chief steward to be like that main tent peg of a tent, driven firmly into a secure place, holding the whole tent together. In Isaiah 22 the tent is “the House of David” …not a literal building, of course, since by the time Isaiah is writing David’s been in the grave hundreds of years; the “House” of David is the Davidic Dynasty (as in the House of Tudor) and thus refers to the Davidic kingdom in general: all who are under the authority of the Davidic king (Hezekiah, I think, in Isaiah’s time, isn’t it?), all who are under “David’s roof.” They are all in “the household of David.”

Now because of the chief steward, there is unity. Imagine what happens if the Davidic King should be away leading the army, or out-of-town on a mission of state, and the stewards he put in charge of the Kingdom in his absence should have a disagreement about policy? What would the kingdom do, if all the King’s men were squabbling among themselves and the division could not be resolved?

But the chief steward has “the buck stops here” authority. This makes it possible to resolve disputes. It keeps things together, until the king gets back in town. He makes unity possible, and as it says in Isaiah 22, he serves as “a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” One could say that when the king is out-of-town, the chief steward is a “papa,” or a “pope.”

And of course the Davidic Kingdom is an Old Testament type which is fulfilled in the New Testament by the Messianic Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, which Jesus establishes. Naturally the new Davidic King will make many attributes of His Kingdom fulfill and improve upon many attributes foreshadowed in the original Davidic Kingdom. So David had stewards and a chief steward; Jesus has stewards and a chief steward. As David’s kingdom grew and the complexities of administering it increased, he added more stewards in charge of various provinces and particular matters of state…but there was always a single chief steward, also having the title “head of house.” (I think the Hebrew term is something like Al Beth or Al Beit?” My Hebrew is weak, but “Beth” is “house” as in the name of David’s city, Bethlehem, “the house of bread.”)

As in the type, so in the antitype: When a steward dies or abandons his post, another is selected to fill his office. (We see that in Acts 1, with Matthias.) What Jesus’ chief steward binds, no other steward shall loose, which allows Peter and his successors to bind what others have loose and loose what others bind: A tie breaker or veto among the bishops. But remember that St. Paul says the Church is “the household of God” and “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”; and also remember that Jesus gives a greater binding-and-loosing authority to Peter and the Church than David could ever have given to his stewards: What they bind on earth shall be bound “in heaven.”

How can that be? If a single steward makes an error, of course the others can register their disagreement and appeal the matter to the chief steward, asking him to reverse the original steward’s error. But what if the chief steward makes an error? Will God bind that? Will God agree with the error? The chief steward is “where the buck stops” because what he opens, “no other shall shut” and what he shuts, “no other shall open!” So once the chief steward has definitively ruled, there is no further appeal. What then? Can that ruling be in error? If so, then God has promised to bind/loose it in heaven.

That can’t be. The Church is the pillar and the bulwark of the truth, not an organization that writes lies in stone.

Ah, but Christ provides us with the answer in Matthew 16: “It is not man who has revealed this to you, but My Father.” And elsewhere, “the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth.”

Now what does THAT mean? The Holy Spirit will lead “you” into all truth. Who is “you?” We all have the Holy Spirit. But that does not mean that our particular role in the Church is to be decision-making conduit by which the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all truth.

And anyway, Christians disagree about doctrine, don’t they? If they all had the Holy Spirit the same way, they never would. Clearly that is not what that promise means. Look what happened to some rebels in the Old Testament when they said, “Don’t we have the Spirit in us, too?!” Clearly, merely having the Holy Spirit is not the same as being appointed to a special role of authority.

Here is what I think it means: Christ’s promise that the bindings/loosings of the college of bishops — once taken to the highest level, the final appeal, made definitive, and declared in a fashion which makes them thereafter unchangeable — would be “bound in heaven” means that He protects His Body from being a teacher of error. A layperson can be in error, and teach it, without Christ’s promise being broken. A bishop can even be in error, and teach it, without Christ’s promise being broken. For in either of those cases, the chief steward could still come in and fix the problem. The final Church-wide decision has not yet been rendered: The Church remains, arguably, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

But once the chief steward renders a decision, then if that decision were in error, not only would the Church suddenly become the pillar and bulwark of a lie, but God — according to Jesus — would have ratified that error in Heaven! Impossible.

So I think God prevents the chief steward from binding/loosing in error, in order to prevent the Church from teaching error and ceasing to be the pillar and bullwark of the truth.

Thus does Peter’s office become a secure tent peg which holds the whole tent — the whole Household of God — together in unity.

from comment  196 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/05/apostolic-succession-and-historical-inquiry-some-preliminary-remarks/#comment-51750

You wrote:

I will once again list the evidence so that we can properly weigh the evidence and you can clarify my understanding:
1. Jesus founded Peter as the head of the Apostles (Matthew 16:18)
2. Peter visited Rome on multiple occasions
3. Peter was martyred in Rome

This evidence that exists for roughly 150 years after the alleged installation of Peter. After that time period we have the following pieces of evidence:

4. Irenaues c. 180 AD presents a bishop list of Peter in Rome
5. Later Church tradition argues that Peter was bishop in Rome

The fact that you leave out St. Hegesippus suggests that you didn’t read (or carefully read) the link I posted in comment #39. You also leave out the testimony of Tertullian, who says at the end of the second century that St. Clement was ordained by St. Peter. The line of bishops in Rome was also recorded and handed down by Julius Africanus (who wrote a chronology in AD 222), by St. Hippolytus in AD 234, and, in the fourth century, by Eusebius who drew from these received histories. Here’s what St. Irenaeus, who had himself visited the Church in Rome around AD 177, writes circa AD 180:

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spoke with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. (Against Heresies, III.3.3)

Eusebius claims that St. Clement was still the “head of the Roman community” in the first year of Trajan. (See History of the Church, 3.21.) According to Eusebius (E.H. 3.34), St. Clement “departed this life, yielding his office to Evarestus” in the third year of the Emperor Trajan (AD 100), having been “in charge of the teaching of the divine message for nine years in all.” So given that St. Irenaeus visited the Church in Rome around AD 177, the time between the death of St. Clement, and St. Irenaeus’s visit to Rome was about 77 years. Now let’s put that in contemporary terms. Seventy-seven years ago was 1936, when Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the Olympics in front of a displeased Hitler. This summer I’m going to visit my grandfather, whose mind is still clear. He was born in 1919, and was 17 years old when Owens won those gold medals. That event is not even history for him, but a living memory. In the same way, there may still have been in the Church of Rome, at the time of St. Irenaeus’s visit to Rome in AD 177, people who were not only eyewitnesses of all the bishops of Rome since St. Clement, but who may have remembered St. Clement himself, the way St. Polycarp in AD 155 still remembered the Apostle John. Even if no such persons were alive at the time of St. Irenaeus’s visit, surely there remained alive some persons whose parents had sat under St. Clement, and heard him explain the history of the Church at Rome. Thus to deny or disregard the testimony of Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus regarding the history of the Church in Rome, for no other reason than that they had to learn about this history from second century persons who did not themselves see Sts. Peter, Linus, and Cletus, and who did not see the apostolic ordination of these first bishops of Rome, is a skepticism that says more about what the skeptic does not want to believe than about the truth of the list of bishops of Rome provided by Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus. When a saint of the Church (whom you claim to be part of your patrimony too) gives you a cup of cold water, do you presume that it is poisoned? If you do not even treat your own parents this way, why treat the Fathers of the Church this way? Why presume that what they say is false until it is verified independently by contemporary evidence? This skepticism is at the heart of our disagreement; the problem is not the patristic evidence, but the stance of skepticism toward this evidence.

For more patristic evidence, for whatever its worth to you, see the patristic statements Stephen Ray lays out on pages 63-96 of Upon This Rock that testify to St. Peter’s leadership in the Church in Rome, his martyrdom in Rome, and that Sts. Linus, Cletus, and Clement succeeded him in the office of bishop of Rome.

end of quote

how choose a church?

 That Church that Christ founded did not cease to exist between the first century and the sixteenth. Nowhere, in those sixteen centuries, did the Church ever say anything equivalent to or entailing that the Church is the group of persons “that best conforms to Scripture.” Every heretical group on the planet, during those sixteen centuries, would have been delighted if the Church had ever made such a claim, because they could have then justified their own existence by claiming that they were the ones who best conformed to Scripture, and thus that they were the Church. The ‘apostolicity’ of the Church was always understood by that Church of the first sixteen centuries as requiring a succession of authority from the Apostles, not merely a claim to have the doctrine of the Apostles (since any heretical group could make such a claim).

The Church Christ founded, and which existed continually during those sixteen centuries, never said anything like the Church is the group of persons that “that best conforms to Scripture” or that ‘apostolicity’ reduces to agreement with the Apostles’ doctrine. That fourth mark of the Church (i.e. apostolicity) was always understood as essentially successional, that the doctrine of the Apostles was always to be found with those having the succession from the Apostles. She always said what Tertullian said at the end of the second century:

“Our appeal [in debating with the heretics], therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures; nor must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will either be impossible, or uncertain, or not certain enough. For a resort to the Scriptures would but result in placing both parties on equal footing, whereas the natural order of procedure requires one question to be asked first, which is the only one now that should be discussed: “With whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures belong? From what and through whom, and when, and to whom, has been handed down that rule by which men become Christians? (Liber de praescriptione haereticorum, 19)

Who has the right and authority to say what Scripture means? Those from whom it was handed down, i.e. the Apostles, and the successors of the Apostles, and the particular Churches governed by the successors of the Apostles. The Scriptures belong to the Church, and are rightly known in and through the Church, not through the private interpretation of every Joe Blow who thinks he knows better than the Church what the Scriptures mean.

from comment  93  here

also from a foot note 29 here:http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/06/christ-founded-a-visible-church/#why
“The bishop of the diocese is the only official teacher, guardian, and interpreter of the Catholic tradition (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 888, 894, 895, 1560; Code of Canon Law 375.1, 392.1, 393, 394.1, 394.2) While the bishop may appoint others, i.e. priests, deacons, lay people, to work and act on behalf of the Church, the task of authentically transmitting the deposit of Faith belongs to the bishops of the Church.” Source [↩]


and here  comment 11

You won’t find Apostolic Successionism in the New Testament.

That is all I find in the New Testament. Jesus taught, with His actions, how He wished His Church to be passed on. He never once commissioned the writing of a book. He chose successors, and handed His ministry off to them. So, naturally, they did the same.

also from comment 308 here

Concerning the Catholic Church’s understanding of Apostolic Succession, here are some authoritative statements:

1563 Trent, Session 23, Chapter IV.
1947 Pius XII, Sacramentum Ordinis.
1964 Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, Chapter III.
1965 Vatican II, Christus Dominus.
1983 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Sacerdotium Ministeriale [To view this document in English, use Google translator].

also here comment 322
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/#comment-57515
It is a dogma of the Church that the Sacrament of Holy Orders was instituted by Christ. (Canon 3 ofSession 23 of Trent.) The matter of the sacrament of ordination is the laying on of hands, and that is essential to the validity of the sacrament. But, as there is baptism by desire, so there is also a moral contact possible in the sacrament of ordination, on the part of the one ordaining, as Pope Pius XII notes when he says, “We command that in conferring each Order the imposition of hands be done by physically touching the head of the person to be ordained, although a moral contact also is sufficient for the valid conferring of the Sacrament.” (Sacramentum Ordinis, 6) Without that matter and the essential form, there is no valid conferring of the sacrament. And he who lacks Orders, cannot give them. Hence, it follows by necessity that there can be valid Orders today only if there is an unbroken succession of ordinations extending back to the Apostles.

  St. Ignatius says:

Now it becomes you also not to treat your bishop too familiarly on account of his youth, but to yield him all reverence, having respect to the power of God the Father, as I have known even holy presbyters do, not judging rashly, from the manifest youthful appearance [of their bishop], but as being themselves prudent in God, submitting to him, or rather not to him, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, the bishop of us all. It is therefore fitting that you should, after no hypocritical fashion, obey [your bishop], in honour of Him who has willed us [so to do], since he that does not so deceives not [by such conduct] the bishop that is visible, but seeks to mock Him that is invisible. And all such conduct has reference not to man, but to God, who knows all secrets…
Since therefore I have, in the persons before mentioned, beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and love, I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed. Do all then, imitating the same divine conduct, pay respect to one another, and let no one look upon his neighbour after the flesh, but continually love each other in Jesus Christ. Let nothing exist among you that may divide you; but be united with your bishop, and those that preside over you, as a type and evidence of your immortality.

concerning kissing a bishop or pope's ring--the above quote can apply as well as this below from comment 290 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/01/holy-church-finding-jesus-as-a-reverted-catholic-a-testimonial-response-to-chris-castaldo/#comment-62299

As for your argument, I think you may be misinterpreting why I am referring to the NT practice of the “holy kiss.” I am not using it as a “support for kissing bishops’ and popes’ hands.” Rather, I am using it as an example of customs found in scripture which Catholicism views as not binding on the conscience, but as custom, and warrant to change. My appeal to the “holy kiss” was an attempt to demonstrate to you that Protestants also view certain injunctions as custom rather than expected norm, as most do not find Paul’s injunction to engage in the “holy kiss” whenever fellowshipping as binding on the conscience, but rather also view this as custom and of a specific cultural context..................................................

 I never interpreted scripture thinking that I needed to find a perfect correlation between a practice described in scripture, and a contemporary Church practice. This is because scripture has its own cultural, linguistic, and historical context that cannot be perfectly replicated even if we would attempt it.


end of quote

from comment 39 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/10/st-ignatius-of-antioch-on-the-church/comment-page-1/#comment-11849

An answer such as “those who agree with me” again, only makes oneself the ecclesial authority.

I rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit Who will lead me into all Truth;

So do Mormons. So how do you know that your bosom-burning is more reliable than is theirs? In June of last year I addressed this Montanistic approach to spirituality in a response to Presbyterian pastor Rick Phillips, in a post titled “Play Church.”

But by relying on a man, regardless of how “gifted” that man may be, I am side-stepping the Biblical mandate to “come and see” for myself “the goodness of the Lord”.

It seems to me that Martin Luther couldn’t have said it better. And this is how any ‘Christian’ in the first century could have justified rebelling against the Apostles. “We listen to Christ, not to you mere men.” You could say the same about the sacraments; that material stuff comes between you and the God who is spirit, and makes you into a grandchild, one step removed from God. You could say the same thing about Christ’s human nature. It just gets between you and the Logos, and thus puts you at arms length from God. I hope you see the problem with this anti-sacramental way of thinking. The sacraments Christ instituted do not distance us from God, by are divinely established means by which we participate in the divine nature. Through them we draw nearer to God, just as through Christ’s human nature we have communion with His divine nature. Likewise, the bishops do not separate us from God. They have their divine authority from Christ through His Apostles, and bring Christ to us, because they speak and act in persona Christi. They do not put some kind of chasm between us and Christ, or make us into grandchildren, but rather just the opposite — they bring Christ to us, through the very authority and charisms they have received from Christ.

The kind of individualistic, anti-clerical spirituality you seem to hold looks nothing like the submission to the bishop enjoined so powerfully by St. Ignatius of Antioch. And in that respect, your position does not seem to be faithful to the dictum of St. Vincent of Lerins. [end of quote}

a new post written by a Protestant attacks this idea of apostolic succession.  It is worth the read and the comments

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/03/the-quest-for-the-historical-church-a-protestant-assessment/

In the comment section is a short reply in /from comment 15

I did a search to see if any Ecumenical Councils were mentioned and I didn’t notice any, but I think it’s important to bring them into the mix as well (if they haven’t already been mentioned). For example Canon 6 of the Council of Nicaea says: “The ancient customs of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis shall be maintained, according to which the bishop of Alexandria has authority over all these places since a similar custom exists with reference to the bishop of Rome.”

This is speaking of “ancient customs” and makes reference to Bishop of Rome in the singular. This Council took place in AD325, so the question is how ancient are these “ancient customs”? Do they go back 265 years to AD60, or do they only go back 100 years to AD225? If the former, then Rome’s claims are true, but if the latter, it would mean either the Church fell into heresy or some genuine development took place around AD225.

from comment 20

1. I think you fail to appreciate the extent to which modern academia denigrates and seeks to undermine cherished positions from earlier eras of ecclesiastical opinion. Roman Catholic scholars are not immune from this tendency. Their bias toward the past, and hostility toward theologically driven historical research has to be taken into account.

2. Are we really to prefer the musings of Eamon Duffy over Irenaeus, Origen, Ambrose, and Augustine?

3. You do not need to have a formal episcopate in place from the first-century forward to salvage the catholic position, only a functional one. Even Raymond Brown grants that Linus, Cletus and Clemens may have been singled out as prominent presbyter-bishops. So what if the more prominent presbyter-bishops were more formally designated as Monarchical bishops at a slightly later stage in some locations? James, for example, is clearly a functional bishop in Jerusalem in the first half of the first-century A.D. And in the NT era, nobody ordains pastors/elders for local churches other than apostles and others who are designated by the apostles with the authority to do so.

4. You argue that the church of the first two centuries was more or less presbyterian. Even if we grant this point, what kind of presbyterian ecclesial structure was in place? One which fixed presbyterian church government as an established means of ordering the church’s life, or one which naturally gave rise to a more formal episcopal structure in the third century and beyond? Clearly the latter. Does that not matter? Does it not matter that the Christology of the Apologists like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus organically blossomed into Nicene orthodoxy rather than some form of Arianism (even though there is some development and clarification along the way)?

5. I don’t see how Patrick Burke helps you, for he says there was no Monarchical Episcopate in place at the end of the 1st century “except in Asia Minor and Syria.” But that’s the soil of earliest Christianity! Just read the book of Acts. That seems to be a big problem for non-episcopal models of the church.

6. It doesn’t really matter if there is substantial overlap between the words bishop and presbyter in the early church. The heart of the matter is functions, not titles. In the book of Acts, there are apostles, presbyters, and deacons (if one accepts the traditional reading of Acts 6). Yes, the title “bishop” sometimes appears to be used in a manner that overlaps with presbyter. This is natural in an era when: 1) the apostles themselves are the earliest bishops (Acts 1:20b: “let another take his episcopate”), and they are not yet passed from the scene in the first century; and 2) many locations would not yet have a delegated bishop whose title and office was formally distinct from the presbyters (since this transition took time to become universally normative). In the meanwhile, the episcopal office (at least in some places) would be shared by the presbyters (one of whom would have no doubt tended to become prominent along the lines of James in Jerusalem).

7. Even if we grant that the earliest church was more or less presbyterian, one could see a natural scenario in which the death of the apostles would cause presbyter-bishops (in places without a monarchical bishop) to delegate one among them to take over the episcopal tasks of oversight of the church more broadly. The fullness of the priesthood would now be recognized in the designated bishop, and by extension to the presbyters who stand in his place in local congregations (whether they met in house churches or collectively in each city).

8. 1 Peter 5:1-4 does not help you, because if Peter is a “fellow elder” while at the same time being a distinct apostle, it just goes to show that designating one person as an elder or bishop among others would not mean he did not function with a distinct degree of authority and oversight in their midst (as Peter surely did). Hence 1 Clement, the Didache and Polycarp are no more of a problem for the episcopal view of church structure than 1 Peter.

9. 1 Clement 40-41 has obvious implications for the nature of apostolic succession in terms of a three-fold office. Especially since the idea of apostolic succession is already clear in 42:4 and 44:2.

10. We should not make too much of the terminology for church offices in the Didache (especially pitting it against Ignatius), since it may contain (or may be intended to recall) relics of the more fluid terminology of an earlier “apostolic” era before titles for church offices became more fixed and regular in Syria (by the time of Ignatius).

11. Your argument from silence about Monarchical bishops in the case of Ignatius’ letter to Rome, Hermas and 1 Clement assumes a lot about what we should expect a given writer to tell us about the titles and functions of church offices in texts that were not written to answer the questions of later historians.

12. Your argument regarding Hegesippus and Irenaeus draws a false dichotomy between a succession of bishops and chains of bearers of correct belief. Why should the succession of bishops whose office has descended directly from the apostles not be the expected transmission of chains of bearers of sound teaching? In other words, it is an obtuse way of looking at the data. Yes, these men are interesting in the transmission of orthodoxy. It does not then follow that they were not interested in the chain of historical occupants of the episcopal seats. In arguing with Gnostics, the orthodox were able to prove that their succession of bishops was a more reliable chain of the transmission of apostolic doctrine, precisely because of the principle of apostolic succession from one bishop to another.

13. Finally, it was sad to see such a dismissal of Cirlot and Dix. These men were brilliant scholars, and just because they are not taken seriously by modern academics (if that is even universally true) is no reason to dismiss them out of hand. The vast bulk of evangelical biblical scholarship could easily be thrown into the trash bin on the same grounds. You should know better.

from comment 31 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/03/the-quest-for-the-historical-church-a-protestant-assessment/

I am not clear how casting the transformation of presbyter-bishops into the monarchical episcocapy as ‘evidence of development’ shows that it is not evidence of a divinely established episcopacy. The apostles functioned autonomously after the departure of Christ, introducing innovations such as the removal of the food laws and developing the government of the church (e.g. installation of ‘elders’, cerating the diaconate). Given the admission of at least a presbyterial government, and perhaps the notion of a hierarchy within the presbytery, why should subsequent decisions carried out by the leadership appointed by the apostles not also be regarded as bearing the divine imprimatur?

from part of comment 50

 Shall we conclude there were neither bishops nor presbyters in Asia Minor at the end of the first century, since John fails to mention any of them in his letters to the churches (Rev. 2-3)? Given what we know from Ignatius, that would be impossible. Likewise, we might conclude that since there are no presbyters mentioned in the greetings of Romans 16 (or anywhere else in Romans), there must not have been any presbyters in Rome in the first century. Clearly that is wrong. Now we can make some educated guesses as to people in the list of names in chapter 16 who might be the presbyters, but we could also make an educated guess that Clement was the bishop of Rome (or presiding presbyter-bishop) when he wrote 1 Clement.

3. The transition from the apostolic age to the patristic age necessarily would involve a change of church structure. If we allow Ignatius to be our touchstone, and we take seriously the claim of Jerome, it would appear that the original three-fold office was apostle, presbyter, deacon, which corresponds to the High Priest, Priest, Levite structure of the OT (1 Clement 40-41). The apostles ordained presbyter-bishops for the churches under their care, with the apostles themselves serving as the de facto episcopate (Acts 1:20b). As the apostles began to pass away, they needed to make preparations to fill the void in leadership; so they saw to it (so far as was within their limited power and time) that each city had a presiding presbyter-bishop who was appointed from among the presbyters (the process which appears to be in view in Titus 1:5-7). These presiding presbyter-bishops were the bishops who were to “rule” the church in each city (hence the distinction between different types of presbyters in 1 Tim. 5:17). This presiding or ruling presbyter could still be spoken of as one of the bishops or presbyters, but he could also be aptly described as “the” bishop (so 1 Tim. 3:1). This is the process which the apostles themselves set in motion, which in time became the normative and universal form of the church. I don’t see anything in such a process which would conflict with orthodox Roman Catholic notions of the development of the episcopate, especially since in Western theology both bishops and presbyters to this day occupy the same order of ministry (the priesthood), though in differing degrees.

[from the same post; from comment 73 :

Insuperable practical needs, such as the rapid rise in the number of Christians during the first half of the third century and the prolonged absence of Bishops from their Churches during the persecutions in the middle of that century, led to the appearance in history of parishes, as separate, presbytero-centric Eucharist assemblies within the episcopal Church. This event brought with it corresponding developments in the functions of Bishops and Presbyters. . . . whereas originally only the Bishop was ordained to offer ‘the gifts of the episcope,’ in the fourth century this ministry of the Bishop was added into the original prayers for the ordination of Presbyters in such a way that the right to ordain was the only difference remaining between these two ministers. . . . The Presbyter thus, celebrated the Eucharist in the name of the Bishop who remained the only true head of this mystical body of the Church of God.” {I think this is from Eastern Orthodox guy]

http://www.oodegr.com/english/biblia/episkopos1/perieh.htm

from comment 75 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/03/the-quest-for-the-historical-church-a-protestant-assessment/

I can’t remember if anyone has mentioned this, but what’s to say a ‘plurality of bishops’ that are so often mentioned doesn’t simply mean 2-3 in a given city? This model has always been the case even today in most cities where there is an archbishop and one or two auxiliary bishops. And didn’t Jesus send out the disciples in pairs? So, again, a plurality of bishops says nothing against a Protos bishop among them.

from comment 80

Is your conclusion that his domicile is a church because Justin uses the words “the place of assembly” to refer the place he receives students?

It is not regarded that way in a 2007 Harvard Theological Review article, “Above the Bath of Myrtinus: Justin Martyr’s ‘School’ in the City of Rome” by Harlow Gregory Snyder. Nor is it the conclusion in another article in the Harvard Review, “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Second-Century Rome” in 2004 by Einar Thomassen. Presumably these writers pass muster on recent scholarship.

Do you have another source beside Lampe for claiming Justin’s house was a house church, because its hard to take Justin’s words in Apology 1:67:

“On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place…, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits… Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly”

as meaning the exact opposite – not one place.

from comment 82:

1. As to Irenaeus, I appreciate the clarification. It almost sounded to me like you had been saying, “Look, Irenaeus was wrong about all sorts of things, so lets not take too seriously his claim about episcopal succession in Rome.” The fact is, Irenaeus was in a better position to know such things than any modern scholar trying to reconstruct the history. At least that’s my opinion. Same goes for Tertullian. There is no patristic memory of there being only a collection of presbyters in Rome up to the time of Eleutherus (allegedly the first bishop in the catholic sense). The texts from which modern scholars infer that idea are not trying to answer that question. Whenever any patristic writer does actually intend to speak to that issue, they give more or less the same answer. And the issue of whether Peter was succeeded by Linus or Clement is a mere trifle, if we simply assume the careers of Linus and Anencletus to have been short and/or inconsequential (hence easily skipped).

2. With respect to arguments from silence, I still don’t see why we should think the absence of an explicit reference to “the bishop” matters in Ignatius’ letter to the Romans, 1 Clement, and the Shepherd of Hermas, but doesn’t mean anything in John’s letters to the churches of Asia Minor (Rev. 2-3). The fact is, we know from Ignatius that these churches had bishops, even though John fails to mention them. Furthermore, Ignatius doesn’t mention presbyters in Rome either. Does that mean there were none? His failure to mention the bishop and presbyters simply means that (for whatever reason), when writing to the church at Rome (which he sees as a singular church, not a collection of loosely associated house churches with presbyters), he does not feel the need, or does not feel qualified, to exhort them to support their pastoral leaders (cf. 4:3). Ignatius almost seems to have a bit of an inferiority complex when addressing the church at Rome (cf. 2:2).

I want to make another point here. There seems to be the presumption that if there were a plurality of house churches in a city, they could not have been under the authority of a singular bishop (whose approval would be required for the sanctioning of their eucharists). But that does not at all follow. A bishop would not have to be bodily present in each specific assembly in order for them to be under his care, for presbyters could be appointed to stand in the place of the bishop in each gathering in any given city (cf. Smyrn. 8:1).

3. As to Ignatius and Jerome being touchstones, what I meant is that these are two writers who give us facts to consider (facts in the sense that this is what they take to be common knowledge, and hence confidently assert). First, episcopal church order (bishop, presbyters, deacons) is the standard form of the church in the Christian world (so Ignatius). Second, originally the bishops/presbyters held the same office and duties, but in the course of time it was judged prudent to reserve certain powers for a singular bishop who was elevated above the ordinary presbyters (so Jerome). How do we get from an original equality of bishops/presbyters (during the period when the apostles were on earth) to the form of church goverment we see in Ignatius (and which Ignatius, on his way to Rome, takes as now the ordinary model)? That is the question that I think we have to answer. If we assume that Ignatius didn’t know what he was talking about (since supposedly this form of goverment was not even uniform in Syria yet), we are going to start off on the wrong foot.

To give an example, there are no references to Nazareth in non-biblical texts until the third century A.D. (and certainly no confirmation of a synagogue in Nazareth at that time for Jesus to preach in as in Luke 4:16ff.). Should we presume then that the notion that Jesus grew up in a place called Nazareth and preached in a synagogue that once was there are pious fictions? Some scholars do that very sort of thing, despite the gospel references to the location by that name set in the first half of the first century A.D. Is it not better to say that the NT writers probably knew what they were talking about, even if we don’t get extrabiblical confirmation of this until the third century?

4. As for 1 Clement 40-41, I don’t have any references off the top of my head, though I know I have seen allusions to this reading of the passage in the literature. Let me just say that it seems clear enough, for after highlighting the order of high priest, priests and Levites, and laymen, in the Old Covenant (40:5), Clement follows this up by saying: “Let each of you, brothers, in his proper order give thanks to God, maintaining a good conscience, not overstepping the designated rule of his ministry” (41:1).

5. As for the meaning of episkope in Acts 1:20b, the BAGD lexicon (I don’t have the updated BDAG with me) says (p. 299), “position or office as an overseer. . . Esp. the office of a bishop.” The occupant of the office of an overseer is of course precisely what a bishop is. I don’t see anything in the lexical reference to exclude an “episcopal” association with the office described in that verse, since when it renders it in the entry “let another take his office” it means “let another take his office as an overseer.” I doubt this exegetical subtlety can be answered by a lexicon anyway.

6. Finally, you say there is no evidence of a single presbyter-bishop presding over a city (in responding to my reading of the evidence from 1 Tim and Titus). But I am citing the biblical text as evidence (whether or not you find it convincing is another matter). In Titus 1:5-7, Titus is instructed to “put presbyters in charge kata polin” [according to city, or city by city]. While it is commonly assumed that this means there would be a plurality of presbyters in each city of Crete, it could just as well mean that each city was to have a “ruling presbyter.” And in fact, verse 7 points in that direction when it speaks of the singular “bishop” as the office to which men are being installed. This is the office I think is alluded to in 1 Timothy 5:17.

from comment 133  here  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/03/the-quest-for-the-historical-church-a-protestant-assessment/

...that we have no record of anybody arguing against the view presented by Irenaeus, which in like you say may be rooted in a polemic against the Gnostics. His view is basically that the Apostolic teaching could be known by ascertaining the knowledge of the true Church’s “elder/bishops” traditional teachings and he lists Rome as one of those Churches and includes its Apostolic pedigree while noting its importance because of the Peter and Paul Roman leadership. So Irenaeus is asserting that if your teaching is not of Apostolic origin then it is not of the Faith. I also see the point that you have made about Irenaeus’ point not being to state a doctrine of AS but to get to the truth of the Apostolic teaching. I believe that is what both mine as a Catholic and yours as a Presbyterian goal is as well. Can Irenaeus be wrong about his list? Yes, I think he can. I do not think it is as likely, but the biggest weakness I see in your view is not necessarily that he can be wrong but that his and Hegesippus premise of ascertaining the Apostolic teaching by AS is not the true response of the Church in regard to the attack on it by false teachings, in this case Gnostic teachings. The point would be that the Church’s “doctrinal proclaimation” of Apostolic Succession would be the right response to heretical teaching communities surrounding the early Church. A case of the Church truly being guided “into all truth.” Basically, AS is the right effect to the wrong view, while the belief in the Apostolic trustworthiness is the actual believed truth of the one Church. This trust of the Apostles is attested to in the Scriptures which we both receive as God’s Word, “He who receives you receives Me…” and “Go into all the world and teach…” The question we must face and decide is: Is that the same doctrinal response we should have today. I have come to the conclusion it is.

Now the other weakness I see in your view about Irenaeus’s possible mistake, which is built on Hegesippus possible erroneous view and list, which creates this “innovative” error of AS is that of the reasonableness of this not being part of the liturgies instituted by some of the Apostles. It is reasonable to think Irenaeus as a Bishop has knowledge of the history of his own Church in Lyon. This is probably how he has the idea and certainty of his own position as a bishop. This is an assertion of course. I don’t know if we have a record for his position. But, I think this is a reasonable conclusion when we consider that Peter’s Apostolic See is not the only seat record that is recorded. We have the historic line of Mark’s See in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

Mark the Apostle, Anianus, Avilius, Kedron, Primus, Justus, Eumenius, Markianos, Celadion, Agrippinius, Julian, Demetrius I, Heraclas, Doinysius, Maximus, Theonas, Peter, Achillas, Alexander, and then Athanasius who died in 373 A.D. which we are all quite familiar with I would imagine…

St Andrew’s See in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Andrew the Apostle, Stachys, Onesimus, Polycarp I, Plutach, Sedekion, Diogenes, Eleutherius, Felix, Polycarp II, Athenodorus, Efzois, Laurence, Alympius, Pertinax, Olympian, Mark I, Philadephus, Cyriacus I, Castinius, Eugenius I, Titus, Dometius, Rufinus I, Probus, Metrophanes, Alexander who died 337 A.D. and the list goes to today.
Peter’s See of Antioch in the Patriarch of Antioch.

Peter the Apostle, Evodius, Ignatius, Heron, Corelius, Eros, Theophilius, Maximus, Serapion, Asclepiades, Philetus, Zedinnus, Babylas, Fabius, Demetrius, Paul, Domnus, Timaeus, Curil I, Tyrannion, Vitalius, Philogonius, Eustathius who died 330 AD and the list goes to today.

James of the Jerusalem council in the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.

James of Acts 15, Simeon I, Justus I, Zacchaeus, Tobias, Bejamin, John I, Matthew I, Philip, Senecas, Justus II, Levi, Ephriam I, Joseph I, Judus, Mark, Cassianos, Poplios, Maximos, Julian I, Gaius I, Gaius II, Symmachos, Julian II or Valens, Capion, Maximos II, Antonios, Valens, Dolichianos, Narsissus, Dios, Germanion, Gordios, Alexander, Mozabanus, Hymeneus, Zambdas, Hermon, Macarius who died 334 AD and the list goes to today

There are others who claim more lists, but I think you get my point. In the liturgies of the Churches usually during the year at some point all the bishop’s names are spoken by the priests in all the local Churches who have been lead by the line of bishops. It was part of their worship. You can go to Rome and hear the list read to you, all 265. My local parish Church lists all our bishops once a year at least. It is part of our local tradition. To know you are part of God’s people is something to be thankful to Him about. Having someone sent to you to teach is a gift to the people of the Church and from the beginning that has been remembered in liturgies. I can even easily go down to my local Baptist community founded in 1901 and get a list of their pastors. That’s 112 years. I believe it must be remembered that we are speaking of cultures which were largely illiterate, but were very orally shaped. They functioned under a different historical backdrop than the last 550 years after the printing press. Their culture was shaped to protect living memory more by a living community’s knowledge than by a written record.

I guess my point in this is that it is not just the traditional list of Rome that I feel you must defraud, but the tradition of the local Churches making lists from their beginnings. I feel you must show this is not part of the Apostles oral tradition given to these communities at their birth. This would be these communities obedience to the Apostles of Christ. Therefore their obedience to the chosen spokesmen of God. I can see where you can create doubt about Rome’s one list, but to create that same doubt of all the lists we have is more difficult. You would seem to be discrediting to a large degree the whole of the Christian movement’s integrity.

Do you understand my point of view and concern?

also  http://articulifidei.blogspot.com/2014/04/acouple-of-days-ago-whilst-browsing.html

and comment 163 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/03/the-quest-for-the-historical-church-a-protestant-assessment/

. I do think there is a difference between what we can demonstrate when we read the sources in a critical manner (i.e. looking at each piece of data in isolation and allowing no synthesis with later testimony) versus when we read the data from a standpoint of sympathy with the faith community from which the data arose. That is true both in biblical studies and the study of early Church history. For my part, why would I trust the early church to safely guide me to a correct consensus on the contents of the canon, and a correct definition of the Trinity, but not trust that same church to give me a reliable “storyline” of the organic connection between the original apostles ordained by Jesus and the historical episcopal structure and priesthood that emerged gradually from the soil of earliest Christianity?

from comment  34 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/06/the-bishops-of-history-and-the-catholic-faith-a-reply-to-brandon-addison/

 For instance, if you could provide documentary evidence from within the first or second century showing that the rise of monoepiscopal governance or the attempt by some presbyter to lay claim to a “Petrine office” was resisted or understood by the early Christian community as an unwarranted power grab, that would be strong evidence for your position. Similarly, if while the first and second century data remained underdetermined (which it is), all the patristic documentary evidence arising just beyond the first and second century time frame indicated that the ecclesial structure of the Church was Presbyterian rather than monoepiscopal and that no Petrine office was ever occupied , that also would be strong positive evidence in your favor. Moreover, if nearly all post first/second century writers explicitly traced a Presbyterian polity backwards historically to the apostles within multiple churches throughout the Mediterranean world, that too would be strong evidence for your position. Indeed, you would then have the methodological principle of proximate evidence on your side, since it would be incumbent upon those of us arguing for an “original/apostolic” monoepiscopal structure (which was apparently lost or corrupted) to explain why we refuse to interpret the underdetermined evidence of the first and second century in continuity with the overwhelming testimony to Presbyterian polity exhibited in all the documentary evidence standing just outside that restricted time frame. But the history is not in your favor on this point.


.................................................................................................................................... . ."" but to appeal that a Petrine office could have still existed when we read things about Peter and Paul or about a chair is anachronism, not legitimate historical inquiry."

You continue to make this assertion, but have yet to defend it. The conclusion that the Petrine office existed during the first and second century derives from the fact that later patristic writers explicitly affirm that it did, in conjunction with the following:

a.) All of the underdetermined first and second century data can be interpreted in continuity with later patristic testimony

b.) When evaluated according to proper historiographical methods respecting the evidential value of silence and the ILD principle, there is no positive data from within the first and second century corpus to warrant a conclusion discontinuous with later patristic testimony

As I wrote in my last comment, in such an evidential situation, the historiographical principle of proximate evidence demands that we embrace the testimony of those whose epistemological vantage point is superior to our own. Far from rejecting “legitimate historical inquiry”, our position is built upon careful attention to historical method. I note that you did not directly answer the question which I asked at the end of my last comment, and which I continue to consider crucial for moving the discussion forward; namely, do you or do you not accept the principle of proximate evidence (our 4th preliminary principle) which we have described in our article as a valid methodological principle for conducting “legitimate” historical inquiry