Apostolic Succession

               How did the early Christians view it?

        The first Christians had no doubts about how to determine which
claimant, among the many contending for the title, was the true Church.
The test was simple: Just trace the apostolic succession of the
claimants. The simple procedure worked every time. (Why not try it
yourself?)

CLEMENT OF ROME  (A.D. 80)

    Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they
    appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be
    bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for
    bishops and deacons had been written about a long time
    earlier....Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that
    there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason,
    therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed
    those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added further
    provision that, if they should die, other approved men should
    succeed to their ministry.  (Epistle to the Corinthians
    42:4-5,44:1-3).

HEGESIPPUS  (circa A.D. 180)

    When I had come to Rome, I [visited] Anicetus, whose deacon was
    Eleutherus. And after Anicetus [died], Soter succeeded, and after
    him Eleutherus. In each succession and in each city there is a
    continuance of that which is proclaimed by the Law, the Prophets,
    and the Lord. (Memoirs 4:22:1).

IRENAEUS  (inter A.D. 180-199)

    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 times, men who neither
    knew nor taught anything like which these heretics rave
    about....Surely they wished all those and their successors, to whom
    they handed on their authority, to be perfect and without reproach.
    (Against Heresies 3:3:1).

    For all these [heretics] are of much later date than are the bishops
    to whom the apostles handed over the churches, and this fact I
    pointed out most carefully in the third book. It is of necessity,
    then, that these aforementioned heretics, because they are blind to
    the truth, walk in devious paths, and on this account the vestiges
    of their doctrines are scattered about without agreement or
    connection. The path of those, however, who belong to the Church
    goes around the whole world, for it has the firm tradition of the
    apostles, enabling us to see that the faith of all is one and the
    same.  (Ibid. 5:20:1)

    Polycarp was instructed not only by the apostles and conversed with
    many who had seen Christ, but was also appointed bishop of the
    church in Smyrna by the apostles in Asia. I saw him in my early
    youth, for he tarried a long time and when quite old departed this
    life in a glorious and most noble martyrdom. He always taught those
    things which he learned from the apostles and which the Church had
    handed down and which are true. To these things the churches in Asia
    bear witness, as do also the successors of Polycarp even to the
    present time.  (Ibid. 3:3:4).

    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 the espiscopate, the
    sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father.
    But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession [of
    bishops] and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in
    suspicion....The true gnosis [knowledge] is the doctrine of the
    apostles, and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the
    whole world, and the manifestation of the body of Christ according
    to the succession of bishops, by which succession the bishops have
    handed down the Church which is found everywhere. (Ibid. 4:26,33:8).

FIRMILIAN  (inter A.D. 255-256)

    But what is his error and how great his blindness...who does not
    remain on the foundation of the one true Church which was founded
    upon the rock by Christ, can be learned from this, which Christ said
    to Peter alone, "Whatsoever things you shall bind on earth shall
    also be bound 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 man's sins they shall be retained."
    The power of forgiving sins was given to the apostles and the
    churches which these men, sent by Christ, established and to the
    bishops who succeeded them by being ordained in their place.
    (Epistle to Cyprian 75:16).

JEROME  (inter 374-379 A.D.)

    Far be it from me to speak adversely of any of these clergy who, in
    succession from the apostles, confect by their sacred word the Body
    of Christ and through whose efforts also it is that we are
    Christians.  (Epistle to Heliodorus 14:8).

GREGORY I  (A.D. 590-591)

    The disciples receive as their lot the preeminence of celestial
    judgment, so that, in God's stead, they retain sins for some and for
    some they forgive them [John 20:22-23]....Certainly it is now the
    bishops who hold their place in the Church. They receive the
    authority of binding and loosing, who have as their lot a degree of
    governing. It is a magnificant honor, but that honor carries with it
    a heavy burden. (Homilies on the Gospels 2:26:4).


Taken from "The Fathers Know Best" from the Sept. 1992 issue of _This
Rock_, published by Catholic Answers, P.O. Box 17490, San Diego CA
92177.  (619) 541-1131.  Permission to reproduce is granted provided
textual integrity is retained.