A Refresher on “Apostolic Succession”

Thomas Hobbes said “The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof”.

History has borne out this statement. The question of “authority” is at the heart of every discussion between Protestants and Roman Catholics since the time of the Reformation, and yet the Church of Rome (“Roman Catholicism”) bases all of its claims to authority upon “apostolic succession” … the notion that there was an unbroken succession of “successors” from the time of the Apostles till now.

Bryan Cross has said “The Church always had the concept of apostolic succession.”, but that is an equivocation of terms, and it is based upon another, older, different equivocation of terms.

For a long time, Roman Catholicism claimed a direct succession from Peter, through a line of popes. However, the study of history has turned that “direct succession” story into a puff of smoke. More recently, the doctrine suggests that “the Apostles were a ‘college’, and this ‘college’ had unnamed successors – but the real authority of the Apostles”. That, too, is bankrupt.

We actually have a speech from Paul, in his address to the elders in Acts 20, that describes what the earliest church understood “succession”. Does he say, as the CCC says, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time”?

There is not a hint of “continuous line of succession until the end of time” in Acts 20. Instead, what we have are admonitions to “pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock ...” This is an admonition that is set aside any time a Roman Catholic makes an appeal to suggest that Protestants are “Donatists”...

Paul continues “fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from your own selves [‘those of you “within”, who have positions of teaching’]” will arise men speaking twisted things.”

The “twisted things” are clearly shown over and over again among Roman Catholic doctrine and practice.

“The word of his grace” is able to “build you up” -- but this is not a guarantee of “a continuous line of succession until the end of time”. It is a warning to be diligent, for ministers to “work with their hands” ...

This shift of both concept and language from “pay careful attention to yourselves” to “continuous line of succession for all time” has its foundations in the Gnostic concept of “διαδοχἡ” (“succession”). That is not a biblical word, and Ratzinger equivocates by first equating the non-biblical “διαδοχἡ” with the biblical “παράδοσιν” (“paradosis” or “tradition”).

In truth, the concept of “διαδοχἡ” (“succession”) becomes swapped for “παράδοσεις” (“tradition”) in the Roman Catholic view – it is an unexplained and unexplainable (from extant sources) swap that merely duplicates the method that the Gnostics of the day were already using.

As Hans Von Campenhausen pointed out, “it is the Gnostic Ptolemaeus (who died prior to the time Irenaeus wrote) who provides the earliest evidence known to us of this new, theologically oriented usage. In the Letter to Flora he speaks explicitly of the secret and apostolic tradition (παράδοσεις) which supplements the canonical collection of Jesus’s words, and which by being handed on through a succession (διαδοχἡ) of teachers and instructors has now come to “us”, that is, to him or to his community. Here the concept of “tradition” is plainly used in a technical sense, as is shown particularly by the collocation with the corresponding concept of “succession”.

That is an illegitimate way to twist the language. The apostles gave no concept of “succession of persons” to the early church – especially not “a continuous line of succession until the end of time”.

But that illegitimate illusion is the focal point of the only explanation that Rome has for its own claims to authority today.

Kruger vs Ratzinger: The Show So Far

In my last several posts, I’ve noted a few things, which I’d like to summarize and clarify here. I’ve noted that the Roman Catholic concept of “Apostolic Succession” was not present as a “tradition” “from the beginning”. Rather, Hans Von Campenhausen has also established that in formulating the principle of “apostolic succession”, the 2^nd century church at Rome relied on, actually borrowed, a Gnostic concept which had been in place in the “philosophical schools of thought” for some time.

I’ve also noted that this account is not disputed by Ratzinger. In fact, he affirms it. He says, “We see quite clearly here how in fact succession is equal to tradition: succession is holding fast to the apostolic word, just as tradition means the continuing existence of authorized witnesses”

But Ratzinger here relies on a “bait-and-switch”. Ratzinger speaks of the word διαδοχἡ, which signified both “tradition” and “succession”. And he builds his case upon this word. However, this word is not found in the New Testament. The New Testament concept, found in Paul’s teaching on the “content” of the “apostolic tradition” (“παράδοσιν”, 2 Thess 3:6, for example), is frequently simply “switched” with the same concept.

So now, whereas for Paul, the “tradition” referred to “the content” of the teaching, by the middle of the second century, the concept of “‘who’ was handing along the content” rather came to the forefront. And it is this second century concept upon which Rome bases its current “authority”. Paul’s first century concept, that the actual message was what was most important.

Here, Ratzinger says, while von Campenhausen may have been correct about διαδοχἡ (successio/traditio) being a 2^nd century concept, he is in “error” if he thinks that “a later and thus secondary theology of successio/traditio” was “preceded by a biblical theology” (25). In Ratzinger’s argument, this plays itself out in his statement:

This open situation of the existence of recognized New Testament writings without the existence of any New Testament principle of Scripture or any clear notion of the canon lasted until well in the second century—right into the middle of the period of the conflict with Gnosticism. Before the idea of a “canon” of New Testament Scripture had been formulated, the Church had already developed a different concept of what was canonical; she had as her Scripture the Old Testament but this Scripture needed a canon of New Testament interpretation, which the Church saw as existing in the traditio guaranteed by the successio (Ratzinger, 25-26).

That was from his 1961 article, which, conceptually, was reproduced in the 1994 “Catechism of the Catholic Church”:

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition [emphasis added].

In the heavily footnoted CCC, this paragraph, interestingly, has no footnote, and as best as I can tell, this language comes right from Ratzinger.

In my next couple of blog posts, I’d like to spend some time clarifying some of these definitions further – the concept of an oral, “apostolic tradition” which was written down in the New Testament, as well as the development of “ecclesiastical traditions”, which, like Ratzinger’s concept of διαδοχἡ, which was added later, in the 2^nd century.

* * *

This concept of whether “a biblical theology” came prior to this second century concept of “successio/traditio”, of course, is clarified, with a great deal of evidence, by Michael Kruger in his work Canon Revisited. But this isn’t the only element that’s in place. What Rome offers in place of “a written New Testament” is “the process of living Tradition”, which, in today’s language, means “the Magisterium du jour” gets to make up things as it goes. That is a concept that is far, far away from even what was meant by successio/traditio in the second century.

I’ll get into this in greater detail next time. 

Kruger vs Ratzinger 2: “Apostolic Succession” is the adoption of a Second Century Gnostic Concept

 Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
    inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
    it may be an everlasting witness. (Isaiah 30:8)

Michael Kruger notes, “the movement toward a written text” (in the shift from authority in “oral tradition” to authority in written texts “would have been driven by the very function of the apostolic office as the foundation for the ongoing ministry of the church (Eph. 2:20)” (Canon Revisited, 180).

I’ll have more of this in a future blog post, Lord willing. But this is precisely the opposite of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. Referring to my previous article, which provided the CCC’s treatment on the topic of the transmission of Divine Revelation, (Scripture, Tradition, “Apostolic tradition” and “ecclesial tradition”, etc), I’d like to break some of these out further, because in conversations I’ve seen about these with Roman Catholics, there is a general lack of understanding on both sides.

In that section, I reproduced, to some degree, what the Roman Catholic official teaching is regarding the relationship between Scripture and Tradition:

The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition [emphasis added].

What we’ll see below, however, is that, while “the content” of “the teaching” (the Apostolic teaching) was paramount in the mind of Paul and the Apostles, in the second century, what became more important was the “who” of the persons doing the transmission of the teaching. And further, this concept was not an Apostolic concept; rather, it was a wholesale adoption of a Gnostic practice by “the church” which set the concept of “apostolic succession” in place.   

For Roman Catholicism, the interactions among “apostolic tradition”, “ecclesial tradition”, “apostolic succession”, and the New Testament writings, are detailed by [none other than] Joseph Ratzinger, in a 1961 essay entitled “Primacy, Episcopacy, and Successio Apostolica”. This essay was reproduced in the recent publication  of the work “God’s Word: Scripture-Tradition-Office” (San Francisco: Ignatius Press ©2008; Libreria Editrice Vaticana edition ©2005).

In it, Ratzinger notes the following:

The concept of succession was clearly formulated, as von Campenhausen has impressively demonstrated, in the anti-Gnostic polemics of the second century; its purpose was to contrast the true apostolic tradition of the Church with the pseudo-apostolic traditions of Gnosis. It is therefore, from the outset, closely connected with the question of what is truly apostolic; in particular, it is clear that successio and traditio were originally neighboring terms; the two concepts were at first practically synonymous (Ratzinger, 22-23).

I’ve already noted this much. At this point, Ratzinger speaks of the word διαδοχἡ, which signified both “tradition” and “succession”. And he builds his case upon this word.

“Tradition” is indeed never a simple and anonymous handing on of teaching, but is linked to a person, is a living word, that has its concrete reality in faith (Ratzinger, 23).

This is the introduction of the concept of the “who” of the persons doing the transmission of the teaching. Von Campenhausen discusses this word at some length. He describes the very first known usage of this word in a technical theological sense:

The decisive step on the development of the concept of tradition was taken … about the middle of the second century. It is about this time that the ideas of “transmitting” and “receiving” tradition acquire new theological importance and a markedly technical meaning. The origins of this phenomenon are, however, not to be sought in the circles which elaborated the ecclesiology of the Great Church [a common name given to the orthodox Roman church of the second century]; instead they take us into the world of the gnosis and its cult of the free individual teacher. At any rate, within the Christian world it is the Gnostic Ptolemaeus who provides the earliest evidence known to us of this new, theologically oriented usage. In the Letter to Flora he speaks explicitly of the secret and apostolic tradition (παράδοσεις) which supplements the canonical collection of Jesus’s words, and which by being handed on through a succession (διαδοχἡ) of teachers and instructors has now come to “us”, that is, to him or to his community. Here the concept of “tradition” is plainly used in a technical sense, as is shown particularly by the collocation with the corresponding concept of “succession” (158).

Note this well. The first and only usage of the concept of “a succession (διαδοχἡ) of teachers and instructors” [within the context of Christianity] prior to Irenaeus is found in the Gnostic Letter to Flora of the Gnostic teacher Ptolemaeus (c. AD 90 – c. AD 168). Von Campenhausen notes in a footnote, “this is the only pre-Irenaean attestation of that conception of παράδοσεις [tradition being handed on] which from now on is the determinative one” (von Campenhausen, 158).

Von Campenhausen elaborates the concept within Gnostic writers of the second century:

To name the original witnesses, and even the intermediaries, by whom such secret traditions were disseminated, presents no problem. Basilides appeals to Glaucias, Peter’s interpreter, and through him to Peter himself; Valentinus is supposed to have been instructed by Theodas, a disciple of Paul; the Carpocratians appeal to Mariamne, Salome, or Martha, the Naasenians to Mariamne, to whom James, the Lord’s brother, “handed on” the teaching. All these inventions exhibit the same method, and have the same end in view: they justify the unfamiliar and exceptional features, which might make a particular teaching suspect as “innovation”, by deriving them from a definite tradition, and they validate the tradition itself by identifying witnesses and chains—at first still fairly short—of witnesses by name.

This, then, is where the concept of “apostolic succession” was developed. At the time of these writers, we are well within the middle of the second century. “The concept of tradition, of ‘handing on’ and ‘receiving’ a teaching from the distant past, was not of course something new invented by the Gnostics. It was not, however, Judaism which they took as their model, nor did they, at a century’s distance, resume the connection with Paul, who in any case used different terminology to refer to the concept.

This, too, is another Roman Catholic bait-and-switch. Paul’s teaching on “tradition” (“παράδοσιν”, 2 Thess 3:6, for example), is frequently lumped in with the same concept. But as von Campenhausen notes, Paul (like the rest of the New Testament) never speaks of διαδοχἡ (“diadoche” and “successio”) but rather of παρέλαβον (as in, the “content” of the teaching). Rather, it is this Hellenistic, Gnostic usage that makes its way into the early church’s concept of authority.

For centuries the concepts of paradosis and diadoche had figured in the philosophical education of antiquity in order to explain the, as it were, genealogical reproduction of traditional teaching from the original master in his disciples and the later heads of the school. For no more than the Church did ancient philosophy know of a communication of teaching without the idea of a community within which this could take place, or at least a personal contact between the earliest figure and his successors. Exactly in the later lists of bishops these philosophical diadochoi are, when the occasion requires, numbered by their “generations” from the founder of the school, and the term diadoche no longer signifies (as paradosis does) the content of the teaching, but instead the link created by the process of handing on and receiving, and so the philosophical school itself … (von Campenhausen, 160).

So, whereas for Paul, the “tradition” referred to “the content” of the teaching, by the middle of the second century, the concept of “who was handing along the content” rather came to the forefront.

Let’s just let this sink in for a while. 

A definition of “apostle”, and the New Testament canon as “the real heir of the apostles’ authority”

The message of redemption in Jesus Christ was entrusted to the apostles of Christ, to whom he gave his full authority and power: “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16, pg 109).

In Kruger’s analysis, one of the “criteria for canonicity” is “Apostolic origins”. What does it mean if a writing has “apostolic origins”?

In the conflict between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, the point at which “the rubber meets the road” lies within terms like “apostolic authority” and “apostolic succession” and “apostolic tradition”. As I pointed out last time, Joseph Ratzinger was hanging the whole Roman Catholic ball of wax on the point that “The idea of a ‘New Testament’ as ‘Scripture’ is still quite inconceivable at this point—even when “office”, as the form of the paradosis (tradition), is already clearly taking shape”.

So then, then it makes sense to define and clarify our terms.

But I don’t want to give just a dictionary definition. I want to explore what really was meant by the term “apostle”. In later blog posts, Lord willing, I’ll look at terms like “authority” and “succession” and “tradition”. The word “apostolic” can serve as a modifier for those, but there are other modifiers, too, for those words.

Here is one definition of “apostle”, from the Lutheran writer Hans von Campenhausen, in his Ratzinger-approved work, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries, trans. J. A. Baker (London: Black, 1969, Hendrickson Edition, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. pgs 22-23).

In what then did the distinctive character and activity of an apostle consist? In every case the apostles are missionaries, and to that extent, the popular conception of apostolate and of ‘apostolic ministry’ is entirely correct. Preaching is of the essence of the apostolate; no apostles are known to us who are not at the same time missionaries. But the modern concept of a missionary is not wide enough to characterize fully the status and weight of apostolic authority. For the apostles are quite plainly vested with the direct power and dignity of their Lord himself. The very word ‘apostle’ is nothing other than a literal translation of a Jewish legal term with a definite meaning, namely shaliach, which denotes the person of a plenipotentiary representative, whose task it is to conduct business independently and responsibly for the one who has assigned him these powers for a particular service [emphasis added]. The apostles are thus the plenipotentiaries of their heavenly Lord; and their authority, therefore, does not derive from any human call or contingent developments…

I don’t believe any Roman Catholics would take issue with this at this point. The “calling” to be an apostle, von Campenhausen argues, is the result of “a call by the Risen Christ himself, who, we are told, appeared to Cephas, to the Twelve, to James, and also ‘to all the apostles’.

Apostles are “not simply preachers and teachers, but also founders of Christian communities, and as such know themselves, as Paul at least clearly indicates, to be permanently responsible for their congregations. As witnesses, messengers, and personal representatives of Christ the apostles are the principal and most eminent figures in the whole primitive Christian Church, and in Jerusalem and among the Gentile congregations alike theirs is the supreme authority” (22).

Is Paul Stuttering?

1 Cor 15:5-8: ... and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born …

What’s the difference between “the Twelve” and “all the apostles”?

… again and again the decisive factor is the encounter with the Risen Lord, which was frequently both experienced and understood as a special call or commission. The number of eye-witnesses who had seen the Risen Christ ran into hundreds; but the ‘apostolic’ men of the primitive community had not merely seen him, they had been constituted by him public witnesses to his resurrection and person. Ringed with the iron of their testimony, the Church’s faith in Christ could never be shattered. To this extent not only Peter and the Twelve, but also James and ‘all the apostles’, right through to Paul, the last apostle, are in fact part of the ‘gospel’. With their testimony, therefore, they are in truth earlier than the Church, which is based on that testimony, and must continually renew its relationship (23).

Again, in that last paragraph, the apostles, with their testimony, are earlier than “the Church”, and “the Church” must continually renew its relationship with “the testimony of the apostles”.

They are, indeed, the inaugurators and foundation stones of the Church, despite the fact that their importance, their position, and their personal quality vary considerably in other respects, and that not even their number can be established with certainty.

Directly implicit in this once-for-all character of their function is the fact that the rank and authority of the apostolate are restricted to the first ‘apostolic’ generation, and can be neither continued nor renewed once this has come to an end (23).

I don’t think that Roman Catholics would contest this, either.

The Resurrection is a unique event set in historical time, the certainty of which is not (as might be quite conceivable in the abstract) confirmed and kept alive by constantly repeated manifestations of Christ. Instead, once experienced and attested, it has simply to be handed on, ‘safeguarded’ and ‘believed’. It is true that the temptation to extend the apostolate beyond the apostolic generation was not entirely avoided; here and there attempts were made to turn the title of ‘apostle’ into a kind of professional designation for missionaries and for ascetic men of the spirit. In the long run, however, all these attempts proved abortive. The holders of the ‘apostolic’ office of bishop, who ultimately secured the government of the Church, did not describe themselves as apostles; they are simply the successors, or at most the representatives, of the apostles, and as such they too remain bound by the original apostolic word and witness, which finds its definitive form in the New Testament canon. It was the latter which in a certain sense became the real heir of the apostles’ authority (23-24). 

Christ did not found a visible church

Did Christ found a “visible church”? Let’s look at some of the exegetical evidence.

Joseph Ratzinger, destined to be pope, in an essay entitled “Primacy, Episcopacy, and Successio Apostolica,” in the work “God’s Word: Scripture-Tradition-Office” (San Francisco: Ignatius Press ©2008; Libreria Editrice Vaticana edition ©2005), says “The concept of [apostolic] succession was clearly formulated, as von Campenhausen has impressively demonstrated, in the anti-Gnostic polemics of the second century; [and not, as some Roman Catholic writers assert, in the first century] its purpose was to contrast the true apostolic tradition of the Church with the pseudo-apostolic tradition of Gnosis” (pgs 22-23).

<---------------- Yes, that’s Pope Joseph Ratzinger’s picture over there, on the book cover, stating for all the world to see, “The concept of Apostolic Succession was clearly formulated in the second century.” (Even though he wasn’t yet pope when he wrote that, some enterprising publisher put his picture, and name as pope! on the cover, with the hope that more people would buy it!)

The work he is referring to is Hans von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries, trans. J. A. Baker (London: Black, 1969), pgs 149-177. Hmm. And look at that recommendation from Ratzinger, who was still only a “brialliant theologian” when he wrote that endorsement. “Clearly formulated … impressively demonstrated…” That’s a very fine endorsement indeed.

We look now at what von Campenhausen says: