Apostolic Succession (Part 1): Introduction

(This will be a fifteen-part series.)

In his recent series of articles responding to me, Dave Armstrong made comments such as the following about apostolic succession:

The authoritative Church also includes apostolic succession. The true apostolic tradition or deposit is authoritatively passed down....

If there is such a thing as the Church and the indefectibility of that Church (as there assuredly are), then we can certainly believe that this extends through history.

How do we do that? By following the line of apostolic succession and determining what was believed everywhere and by all, and the true line of development of doctrine. If an office was valid in the New Testament, then it was intended for the Church perpetually, not just for New Testament times....

There was little disagreement among the fathers and early Church on apostolic succession, but Protestantism either ditched that or completely redefined it....

Arius agreed with the Protestant rule of faith, and he did so for the same exact reason: if one can't trace his beliefs back through an unbroken chain of apostolic succession and tradition (Arius, being a denier of the Trinity clearly couldn't do that), then one must become a-historical and pretend to arrive at one's heresies by Scripture Alone....

In other words, if he [Irenaeus] were here today, he would tell me to separate from a Protestant pastor if he doesn't adhere to the succession of unbroken doctrine, and teaches heresy. He would recognize Jason as a heretic insofar as he espouses false doctrine. But he would recognize me as one of his own party: a Catholic....

When we go to Eusebius (III, 39) to see what exactly Papias stated, we find an explicit espousal of apostolic succession and authoritative tradition....

The additional element is what we call indefectibility. It is a root assumption of apostolic succession: that the truth will never be lost; it will always be preserved....

Patristic data doesn't have to exhibit explicit awareness of infallibility because it was just the kernel or early development of that idea. It was not inconsistent with infallibility, which is aligned with many similar concepts: authority, binding power, reliability, indefectibility, tradition, certainty of truth, doctrinal assurance, apostolic succession, orthodoxy, the standard over against heretics, etc. Jason's mistake is what I noted early on: he irrationally expects to find the full-blown oak tree when it is only reasonable to find the acorn or small tree. (sources here, here, and here)

And he links to some other articles in which he discusses the subject, such as here and here.

As I address Dave's claims about apostolic succession in the coming days, keep the following in mind:

- Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy aren't the only modern groups that claim some sort of apostolic succession. Such claims are also made by Anglicans, Lutherans, and others. See here, for example.

- Apostolic succession can be defined in many ways. Dave criticizes Protestants for "completely redefining" it, and he refers to concepts he thinks are associated with or implied by apostolic succession. Ask yourself whether Dave is being sufficiently specific. Do the sources he cites define their terms as he does? Is he consistently arguing for his own view of apostolic succession, or does he sometimes claim without justification that a different view supports his own?

Gregory Rogers, an Eastern Orthodox pastor, differentiates between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic concepts of apostolic succession and criticizes Augustine for his role in developing the Roman Catholic view. He writes:

"The concept of apostolic succession, by the way, shifts between the Eastern and the Western view with Augustine. The Western view adds a legal consecrator's emphasis to apostolic succession. The Eastern view reflects the patristic heritage prior to Augustine, which places the emphasis upon the Church itself - as a eucharistic community headed by a bishop - as the vehicle of succession, not the consecrator....This [the Western view] has led to the proliferation of numerous groups, usually small, who claim to be in the apostolic succession but are in communion with no one. These bishops are called episcopi vagantes, wandering bishops." (Apostolic Succession [Ben Lomond, California: Conciliar Press, 1994], pp. 22, 33-34)

- How important is apostolic succession to modern proponents of the concept? Though they often speak in a highly negative way about other groups that misdefine the concept or who don't profess to have such a succession, they'll often allow for the possibility that those other groups have a succession or that they're Christians without one. Gregory Rogers writes:

"Thus, for the Orthodox, the episcopi vagantes are not within the succession. Nor are the Anglicans or the Roman Catholics necessarily seen as fully in the succession, although in practice the Church has received Catholic priests without requiring them to be ordained in the Orthodox Church....So, given the established patristic theology, how do we relate to contemporary Christians who are outside of this line of apostolic succession? Most modern Orthodox thinkers, when looking at the tragedy of a divided Christendom, say that while we can say where the Church is, we can't always say where it isn't....[quoting the Eastern Orthodox bishop Timothy Ware] While there is no division between a 'visible' and an 'invisible' Church, yet there may be members of the Church who are not visibly such, but whose membership is known to God alone. If anyone is saved, he must in some sense be a member of the Church; in what sense, we cannot always say. [end of Timothy Ware quote]...We can say, 'This is the visible and continuous Church.' But we can't always say who is in and who is out." (pp. 34, 37)

Notice the qualifiers. Anglicans and Roman Catholics aren't "necessarily" part of the succession "fully". Protestants and other non-Eastern-Orthodox who are Christians are part of the church, but not visibly. Other proponents of apostolic succession, such as Roman Catholics, make similar qualifications.

- Claiming that one concept grew from another as an oak tree grows from an acorn isn't the same as demonstrating it.

- Papias illustrates the significance of these distinctions I'm making, which is one of the reasons why I chose to focus on him early on in the process of responding to Dave. Though Dave claimed that "we find an explicit espousal of apostolic succession" in Papias, he left the discussion without justifying that claim. When I asked him to support his assertion, he cited Eusebius' comment in section 3:39 of his Church History regarding how Papias had "received the doctrines of the faith from those who were their [the apostles'] friends". I discussed the nature of Papias' consultation of these sources, such as his attaining of information about miracles from individuals like the daughters of Philip and his attaining of information on premillennialism. To call such consultation of "friends" of the apostles "an explicit espousal of apostolic succession" is unreasonable. What we find in Papias isn't even an acorn. As I've said before, it's more like a mustard seed that Dave is trying to misappropriate as an acorn to argue for his denominational oak. He criticizes Protestants who "completely redefine" apostolic succession, yet he's doing a lot of redefining himself with Papias. Shortly before he left the discussion, Dave wrote, "the word 'explicit' was relative insofar as someone that early can only be so explicit. 'Direct' would have been a better term to use in retrospect, because of the meaning of 'explicit' in discussions having to do with development of doctrine". Dave never justified the conclusion that there's even an acorn of his concept of apostolic succession in Papias. His claim that Papias was explicit "insofar as someone that early" can be explicit seems to be another way of saying that Papias wasn't explicit. Dave hasn't shown that Papias supports his position on apostolic succession explicitly or directly.

- Is Dave adding qualifiers that his sources don't mention or suggest?

- Is Dave neglecting qualifiers that his sources include?

- One authority can be subordinate to another. Parents and states have authority, for example, but a child shouldn't obey a parent who tells him to become a Muslim, and a citizen shouldn't obey a state that tells her to have an abortion. There's a hierarchy of authorities. We obey a higher authority when it comes into conflict with a lower authority. If a church father appeals to apostolic succession, is he appealing to it as some sort of lesser authority that can be overridden by a higher authority in a manner similar to what we see in the parent and state examples cited above?

- Qualifiers not mentioned in one context may be mentioned somewhere else. Scripture often tells us to obey our parents, the state, or church leaders, and sometimes no qualifiers are mentioned in the immediate context. But qualifiers are mentioned elsewhere.

- What's the reasoning behind the appeal to apostolic succession? Does the source in question claim that the apostles taught that all future churches must have an unbroken succession of bishops? Or does he argue for apostolic succession on practical grounds without claiming that the apostles taught such conclusions? Does he make an argument for apostolic succession that would be applicable to future generations? Or is he using an argument that would only be applicable in some circumstances and may not apply to Christians in general throughout church history? As I mentioned in some earlier responses to Dave, we often recognize such limitations to an argument in other contexts. The availability of reliable oral traditions about Tertullian or Abraham Lincoln in one generation doesn't prove that reliable oral traditions about those men would be available in every generation.

Some of the points I've made above were illustrated in my earlier discussion of Papias. I want to close this introductory post with another example, Clement of Rome. He wrote:

"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 foreknowledge 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. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties." (First Clement, 44)

Why would Evangelicals disagree with such a concept of apostolic succession? Clement was writing to the church of Corinth in a context in which the leaders being opposed hadn't done anything wrong. Who would deny that there should be an ongoing succession of church leaders in such a context? He isn't addressing what should happen if the leaders would become corrupt, though his comments suggest that he would allow exceptions if corruption was involved. And the fact that some churches, such as Corinth, were founded by apostles doesn't imply that every church must have a line of bishops going back to the apostles. The only way to make this passage in Clement of Rome inconsistent with Evangelicalism is by reading assumptions into the text that neither the text nor the context implies.

And it should be noted that the Roman church at the time of Clement probably didn't have a monarchical episcopate. See here and here, for example. Just after what I've quoted from Clement above, he refers to those who hold "the episcopate" as "presbyters", and earlier he had referred to only two offices, bishops and deacons (First Clement, 42).