Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to again be talking about apostolic succession. This is part two of the series. Last night, we looked at what the Bible had to say on the subject. And tonight, we're going to be looking at what the early Christians had to say on the matter. Now last night, I related how in the process of compiling the dictionary of early Christian beliefs, I found no scriptural support for the doctrine of apostolic succession.
However, as I continued to work on the dictionary, I came to the further conclusion that the pre-Nicene early Christian writings don't teach apostolic succession either, at least not in the sense of the seven principles or tenets that we spoke about last night. So now I want to share with you some of the surprising things I found in the early Christian writings about apostolic succession. That is, they were surprising to me at the time because at the time I did believe in apostolic succession.
First of all, was Ignatius. Now, Ignatius writes a lot about bishops and be obedient to your bishop. Don't do anything without your bishop, et cetera, et cetera. And after I had been persuaded to believe in apostolic succession, I read apostolic succession into everything he said about bishops. However, when I went back and compiled the dictionary and was expecting to be pulling all of these quotes from Ignatius, I soon discovered that he said absolutely nothing about the matter.
He emphasizes that people should not celebrate communion or do other similar things without their bishop, or at least without his approval. But nowhere does he talk about ordinations, apostolic succession, nor even that a bishop has to be the one to consecrate communion or somebody ordained by him. He doesn't say any of those things. There's no sense of a priestly office in Ignatius' writings. Well, even more surprising is what I found in First Clement.
Now the setting of the letter from Clement was at sometime around the year 100, the church in Corinth had dismissed from office the leaders that they had, some of whom had been appointed by the apostles, and they selected a whole new slate of new leaders. But not everyone in the congregation was supportive of this. So those people wrote the church in Rome to see if they could give them any help.
Now under the doctrine of apostolic succession, the ordination of those new leaders would have been invalid because they didn't have apostolic succession. So I was expecting to find in First Clement some discussion about the invalidity of their orders. Now, it had been 10 years since I had read the letter of Clement to the church in Corinth.
And I didn't remember all of the details, but I was expecting to find in it some discussion about the invalidity of the orders of these newly appointed elders there in Corinth because the old leaders certainly would not have ordained the new ones. And there's no mention made of any other church being involved in the matter or of ordaining the new leaders. However, Clement never says a word about any of the deficiencies in their ordinations if there had been such a deficiency.
He doesn't say that their communion is no longer valid, which is what the doctrine of apostolic succession would say. His only criticism is that there had been no good reason to remove the previous leaders whom the apostles had appointed.
This is what he said," Through our Lord Jesus Christ, our apostles knew that there would be strife over the office of oversight or Episcopacy." Accordingly, since they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those men already mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that if they should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.
Therefore, we are of the opinion that those appointed by the apostles or afterwards by other acclaimed men with the consent of the whole church and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ in a humble, peaceful, and disinterested spirit and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. It's in volume 1, page 17 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Now, did you notice, as we've pointed out before, he uses the word appoint, not ordain, and he talks about being appointed not only by the apostles, but also by other acclaimed men. Those are his words. He doesn't say other bishops or other people with succession, just other acclaimed men. In other words, people who were viewed highly by the church. And as we've already seen, he seemed to only know two classes of leaders, bishops, which were the same as presbyters. He uses the words interchangeably and deacons.
Plus, his letter shows that an ordination is not irrevocable. He doesn't say," Oh, once they've been ordained, you can't do anything about it." He just says," You can't change their ordination.
You can't change their appointment unless you have good cause." Now, some have tried to make a case for apostolic succession from this quote because Clement makes the statement," Accordingly, since they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those men already mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that if they should fall asleep, that is, those men who've been appointed, other approved men should succeed to their ministry." But there's nothing in that statement, even remotely,
applying to the modern doctrine of apostolic succession.
He doesn't talk about who ordains those men. He just says," We've ordained these men when they die, then other men should follow after them, should succeed them in office." Okay? I should mention that when he talks about the apostles, he's not necessarily talking about the twelve. He may be, that's not for certain, but the early Christians referred to Paul, Barnabas, Timothy, men like that as apostles.
But again, the significance of 1 Clement is this was a perfect situation to explain the doctrine of apostolic succession if the early Christians had truly believed in it. And yet, even though it's a fairly lengthy letter, he goes into a lot of detail. Nothing is said about any of these tenets of apostolic succession. They're not even hinted of. Instead, the letter consists of admonition on remaining humble and not causing schisms in the church, that we should follow God's order rather than doing things disorderly.
And it's very noteworthy that the letter is addressed from the church at Rome, collectively, to the church in Corinth. It's not from the bishop of Rome to the bishop of Corinth. Now, tradition says that Clement was the one who actually penned the letter, but the letter itself doesn't even say that. Certainly, if Clement had occupied the position of a bishop, he would have wanted to put his name on it because it would have carried more weight.
You may remember the Roman Catholic quote that I read last night that they see from this letter that at that time both Rome and Corinth were still governed by a body of prospers or elders. Now let's move to the Didache, again, one of the very early writings after the close of the New Testament. This is what I saw in the Didache. It says," Concerning the Eucharist, give thanks like this," and then the writer gives a simple model prayer.
Then he continues," After you are filled, give thanks like this." Then He gives another simple model prayer. After that, He says," But permit the prophets to make thanksgiving as much as they desire." So that shows that communion was often celebrated by the prophets who would not have had any form of succession. But see, one of the cardinal tenets of the modern doctrine of apostolic succession says that a layperson, whether he's filled with the Holy Spirit or not, could not consecrate the bread and the wine.
It'll still just be an ordinary meal. It will not be a true communion or Eucharist.
In fact, reading the Didache, it became obvious that prophets and teachers had been leading the churches before bishops and deacons had been appointed, at least in the area that this work was written to, because it says," Appoint, therefore, for yourselves, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are meek and not lovers of money, and truthful and proved, for they also rendered to you the service of prophets and teachers." You see, they were used to prophets and teachers.
Now he says," Okay, now it's time to start ordaining bishops and deacons." He says," Despise them not therefore as the bishops and deacons, for they are your honored ones together with the prophets and the teachers." So this idea that originally every church had somebody who had been appointed by the apostles, and then they ordained the next person to follow them, just doesn't fit the historical evidence.
Instead, you had teachers and prophets who were leading the churches celebrating communion, performing all of those offices, that the doctrine of apostolic succession says that only an ordained bishop or a presbyter ordained by a properly ordained bishop can do.
And did you notice that the Didache says," Appoint for yourselves, bishops and deacons." Nothing is said about," Oh, you need to have a bishop from a neighboring church come over and ordain them." He just says," Appoint for yourselves." He uses, again, the ordinary Greek word" appoint." And again, you notice there's just a twofold office, bishops and deacons that he talks about. All right, now let's move to Irenaeus.
In Irenaeus, we have the earliest reference to keeping a list of the succession of bishops for a congregation, and this dates to about the year 180. And it was these lists that first caught my attention when I read the early Christian writings for the first time back in 1985. So let me read to you several quotes from Irenaeus. These are a bit lengthy, but these are very important.
So notice what it says." It is necessary to obey the presbyters who are in the church, those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles. For these presbyters, together with the succession of the bishops, have received the certain gift of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But we should hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever.
For they are either heretics of perverse minds or else they are schismatics who are puffed up and self-pleasing. Or perhaps they are hypocrites acting this way for the sake of money and vainglory. Therefore, it behooves us to keep aloof from all such persons and to adhere to those who, as I have already observed, hold the doctrine of the apostles, for they, together with the order of presbyters, display sound speech and blameless conduct for the confirmation and correction of others.
So here we have our first mention in the early Christian writings of a succession of bishops or a succession of presbyters. It's very interesting that he mentions presbyters in this succession as well as bishops, which doesn't fit again the modern-day teaching of apostolic succession. We'll talk a little bit more about the significance of his quote. Let me read to you a few more that are similar. That first one was on page 497 of volume one.
Another quote, he says," Therefore, it is within the power of all in every church who may wish to see the truth to examine clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to reckon up those who were instituted bishops in the churches by the apostles and the succession of those men to our times. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, they would have delivered them, especially to those 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. Okay, that's on page 415 of Volume 1.
On page 508, we read," True knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles and the ancient Constitution of the Church throughout all the world and the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops by which they have handed down that church which exists in every place." And one last one from Irenaeus. The blessed apostles then, having founded and built up the church, committed into the hands of Linus, the Office of Episcopate. He's talking about the church in Rome.
He says 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. To this Clement, there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus, then sixth from the Apostles Sixtus was appointed after him. Telesphorus, who was gloriously martyred, then Hyginus after him, Pius then after him, Anicetus.
Soter, having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the 12th 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. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now and handed down in truth.
Now, when I read those passages from Irenaeus for the first time back in 1985, my initial thought was," Oh, we non-Catholics have misunderstood the doctrine of apostolic succession." I was thinking that it meant that anyone with apostolic succession, such as the Pope, stood in the same shoes as the apostles and therefore had the authority to make new doctrine and all of that. So I'm thinking," No, that's not what apostolic succession means.
It only refers to the continuation of the apostles' teaching by being handed down through the leaders who date back to the time of the apostles." In contrast, the heretics were saying that their doctrine was apostolic, but they had appeared out of nowhere. They hadn't succeeded anyone in office of church leadership. It was only later that I found out, no, when people say apostolic succession, the churches who believe in it, they definitely mean more than that.
But I felt, and I still do, that Irenaeus' argument was excellent. That is, it was excellent for the year 180. The problem is that it's quite easy to demonstrate from history that what the churches were teaching in the year, 180, is quite different from what churches who claim apostolic succession are teaching today. In fact, what the church taught in the year 180 is quite different from what it taught in 380. So really, the whole argument loses its validity after a century or two.
And Irenaeus only says that having this succession of bishops or presbyters is strong evidence that those churches are teaching what the apostles handed down in contrast to the Gnostics who said their doctrine was apostolic, but they had popped up out of nowhere. But what is important to us this evening is what Irenaeus does not say. He doesn't say anything about those seven tenets or principles of apostolic succession that we discussed last night. Let's review those seven tenets.
The first one is that ordination is a sacrament. It's not simply an appointment to a ministerial office. A bishop or presbyter holds a priestly office very similar to the Old Testament priests, okay? See, Irenaeus says nothing about any of that. The second tenet was, ordination can only be validly performed by a bishop who has been ordained by one or more other bishops, each of whom have a list of ordainers that can be traced back to the apostles. Now, does Irenaeus say anything about who ordained any of those men?
Not a word. The third tenet was that in ordination, a special grace is transferred to the ordinand, leaving a special indelible mark on his soul or something like that. Does Irenaeus say that? Not a word. Tenet number four, was only a bishop or presbyter ordained with apostolic succession can validly consecrate the bread and wine at communion. That is, Christ will truly be present only in that type of communion. And only people who partake of such a communion will receive grace from God through the sacrament.
Well, Irenaeus says not a word about the communion. He doesn't say that the communion held by other people is invalid. Principle number five, a bishop or presbyter can leave the church that ordained him, become a heretic, live an ungodly life, even be excommunicated, and yet he still has this priestly power. Of course, not a word from Irenaeus on that. Tenet number six, the sacramental grace works automatically.
If the right procedures are followed with the right ordainers, the ordinand becomes a priest or bishop, regardless of whether he has any living faith in Christ or regardless of his character. And number seven, the validity of his ordination depends almost exclusively on this lineage and on the formula and method of ordination, not on his personal qualifications, his lifestyle, or his orthodoxy. And again, Irenaeus says nothing about any of those things.
In fact, Irenaeus' argument of succession was collective rather than individual. He spoke of the succession of presbyters plural or presbyters and bishops plural. He didn't make the succession depend upon a mono episcopacy. And the succession he is talking about concerns doctrinal truth and life, not the validity of the sacraments. So when I first read Irenaeus, I didn't come to any of those seven tenets of apostolic succession from him because he doesn't say anything about them.
So you may be wondering, well, how did I eventually come to believe in those seven tenets? Well, shortly after writing the book" Common Sense" in 1992, a number of Christians who read the book and liked it contacted me. And most of those Christians were people who belonged to sacramental churches who teach apostolic succession. In fact, nearly all of these people who contacted me were former evangelicals who had converted to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or to Anglicanism.
So those people began sharing with me these seven tenets of apostolic succession. And eventually, then I began reading those principles back into the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. And I convinced myself that," Oh, those tenets were there all along, but my Protestant prejudices had blinded me to see them." Well, I realize now that the truth of the matter is that I had violated two of the cardinal principles that I preach so much about. One, don't go beyond Scripture for doctrine.
Use the early Christian writings only as very helpful commentators and for post-New Testament history. The second principle I preach a lot about that I violated was always read a document with a blank slate. Don't start off with a doctrine and then begin reading because you're going to read that doctrine into what you're reading, whether it's the Scriptures or the early Christian writings. Now, I want to come back to Irenaeus and his list of bishops in a minute.
But first, let me read to you a quotation from Tertullian who argues basically the same thing as Irenaeus. Tertullian wrote," Let them, the heretics, 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 the first bishop of theirs can show for his ordainer and predecessor, one of the apostles or apostolic men, a man moreover who continued steadfast with the apostles.
For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers. For example, the Church of Smyrna records that Polycarp was placed there by John. Likewise, the Church of Rome demonstrates Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way, the other churches similarly exhibit their list of bishops, whom as having been appointed to their Episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. It's in volume 3, page 258 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
It's important to note that Tertullian, like Irenaeus, argues the succession of bishops only from the standpoint of doctrine. He does not talk about valid orders or invalid orders. He says nothing about sacramental grace and nothing about ordination whatsoever. In fact, on that same page, he said," Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind," that is, a list of bishops. However, even if they were to produce such a contrivance, they will not advance even one step.
For when their very doctrine is compared with that of the apostles, its own diversity and discrepancy proves that it had neither an apostle nor an apostolic man for its authorship. The heretics will be put to this test by those churches who, although they do not have as their founder, the apostles, or apostolic men, as being of a much later date, for they are in fact being founded daily. Yet since they agree in the same faith, they are considered to be no less apostolic because they are alike in doctrine.
Now see, this second quote is highly significant. He's saying that even if you had a list of bishops, that wouldn't help you at all. Because the point is, do you have the same faith that the apostolic churches hold to? If you don't, whether you have a list of bishops or not, it makes no difference. In contrast, even if you don't have such a list of bishops, he says, you know the new churches that are being founded, he said," They're no less apostolic." Why?
Because someone from the apostolic churches came and ordained their bishop? No, he says nothing about that. He says," Because they agree in doctrine. They have the same faith, so they're considered just as equally apostolic." So then what happens if a church today has that list of bishops but does not teach the same faith that was believed throughout the church in the year 180 or 190? Well, from Tertullian's argument, they're not apostolic.
So again, we can't read this modern-day doctrine of apostolic succession in its various tenets back into these quotes because that's not what they're talking about. Now, I told you I wanted to return to Irenaeus and after we'd read Tertullian. Let's do that. You know It was four years after I compiled the dictionary of early Christian beliefs that I realized that I had overlooked a very significant factor about Irenaeus' list. And I couldn't believe that I had overlooked it for so many years.
But I also realized that just about everybody else who argues apostolic succession overlooks it as well. And what is that that I overlooked? Well, it's this. Today, when you look at a bishop's line of succession, which I've done, do you know what you see? What you see is a list of who ordained whom. For example, the list of succession for the bishop who ordained me reads as follows. This is just part of it. Bishop Hugh George. Wilmot Newman, who on May 31, 1950, consecrated Bishop H.P.
Nicholson, who on April 14, 1952, consecrated Bishop PCS Singer, who on November 14th, 1954, consecrated Bishop C. Breerley, who on April 23rd, 1969, consecrated Bishop A.L. Barbeau, and then et cetera, et cetera, down to the bishop who ordained me. Okay, that's how it reads at the end of this long list of succession. But when I went back to the beginning of this list, it reads as follows.
At the beginning, it starts off the Apostle John, who in circa 97 consecrated Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor, who in about the year 156 consecrated his pupil, Pothinus, as the Bishop of Lyon. And then it has the list of Bishops of Lyon: Bishop Pothinus, Bishop Irenaeus, Bishop Zacharias, Bishop Elias, Bishop Faustinus, Bishop Venus, Bishop Julius. And finally, Bishop Ptolemy, and it goes on beyond that. Now, I had remembered from my early Christian research that Pothinus had been martyred.
So it was not possible that Pothinus ordained Irenaeus. Because bishops didn't retire back then. They served until they died. So Irenaeus was not ordained as bishop until after Pothinus had been killed, and that's made very clear by Eusebius' history. But looking at the beginning of this list even further, I realized that it did not even purport to be a list of who ordained whom. It was a list of the various bishops of Lyon, which is in modern-day France. It was like a list of the U.S.
presidents showing who followed whom in office, George Washington, followed by John Adams, followed by Thomas Jefferson, et cetera. Well, this got my curiosity up, so I went back and examined that list that Irenaeus furnishes. And I saw that it, too, was not a list of who ordained whom. It was a list of the various bishops in the city of Rome of who followed whom in office. In other words, Irenaeus wasn't concerned about who ordained each of these successive bishops.
His only concern was to show that they followed each other in office, that the truth of the gospel had been passed from one bishop to the other through discipleship, through being in the same church, not through ordination. Okay. Do you see the difference here or have I lost you? I know I've tried to explain this distinction to others, and they didn't grasp what I was trying to say. So if you're struggling to see the difference, don't feel bad because, like I say, I didn't catch the distinction at first either.
In fact, there's a whole host of very educated theologians who haven't caught the distinction. But let me say there are other scholars who have noted the same thing and have written about it. I just wasn't aware of their writings until after I had fleshed this out for myself. And then later, I realized," Okay, others have pointed this out too." So let me go over it again. Let's go back to our illustration of the United States Presidents.
Now, suppose that our Constitution says that a man isn't truly inaugurated as president unless an oath of office has been administered to him by an ordained minister. Okay, let's just suppose that's what it is. And now further suppose that some person prepares a list showing that the Reverend so-and-so administered the oath of office to George W. Bush. And then Reverend So-and-so had previously administered the oath of office to Bill Clinton.
And it shows all the way back to Abraham Lincoln who administered the oath of office to each president. But then, at Abraham Lincoln, suppose that this list suddenly changes and simply states that Abraham Lincoln succeeded James Buchanan in office, who succeeded Franklin Pierce, who succeeded William Fillmore, etc., and it goes all the way back to George Washington. And then let's suppose this person says," See, I've demonstrated that each U.S.
president has had the oath of office administered to him by an ordained minister." He has? No, he's only shown it from George W. Bush back to Abraham Lincoln. Prior to Abraham Lincoln, his list only shows who succeeded whom in office, not who administered the oath of office. Okay? Well, all of the modern-day lists of apostolic succession are the same way.
From the 21st century back to the Middle Ages, they show or purportedly show that a particular bishop was ordained by another bishop who had been ordained by a prior bishop, etc. But when you get to the Middle Ages, or sometimes you go all the way back to the 4th or 5th century, but somewhere in there, the list suddenly changes course in midstream. Now it becomes a list of who followed whom in office, not who ordained the person in office.
And as I said, this is true of all lists of Episcopal Succession, even the list for the Pope himself. And why is that? It's because no one kept lists of ordainers prior to the 4th century. In fact, in most places, no one kept any lists until after the 5th or 6th century or even later. And why didn't they keep a list of who ordained whom? Because they did not hold to the present-day doctrine of apostolic succession. Who ordained a particular bishop wasn't particularly important to them.
What was important was that they were connected back to the apostles through a chain of teachers and presbyters. That's why Irenaeus mentions the succession of presbyters the same as he does the succession of bishops. It was handing down the teaching of the apostles that was important to them, not who ordained whom. But even when it comes to who followed whom in office, very few churches kept those kind of lists. In fact, Irenaeus was only able to produce one such list, the one for Rome.
He didn't even produce a list for the city of Lyon where he was bishop, which makes me suspect there wasn't one at that point because it's rather odd that he wouldn't have produced a list for the very church that he was bishop of. So what he did do was to produce the list for the church at Rome, showing that their doctrine had been passed down from the apostles, or at least arguably it had. And then he said that every church should agree in doctrine with the church in Rome.
And that statement is often misquoted by Roman Catholics today saying," See, way back then, they said everyone had to agree with Rome." No, he was only making the point that they had a list of who followed whom in office. Since he couldn't produce one for anyone else, he says," Well, we have authenticity or a pedigree of authenticity for the Roman church.
And so if everyone else agrees with them in doctrine, then we know we're all on point." But he's talking about agreeing with what they taught there in the year 180. He's very specific, Irenaeus, that the faith cannot be modified in any way. It cannot be added to, it cannot be taken away from. It was complete when the apostles handed it down. Now, when I reflected on those matters, I realized that my own list of succession is almost certainly not genuine.
I say that because it contains information that's not in any early Christian writing anywhere. In other words, it has information in it that has no historic basis. For example, it says that the Apostle John ordained Polycarp around the year' 97. Now, there is some historic evidence that the Apostle John ordained Polycarp, but no one knows the date. Someone's just taken a reasonable guess and stuck it there in the list of succession. But that's a relatively minor issue. The next issue isn't so minor.
This list of succession for me says that Polycarp ordained Pothinus as Bishop of Lyon. But there's not a shred of historical evidence to support that. Neither Polycarp nor Irenaeus nor Eusebius, the church historian, say anything about that. What we do have is that Irenaeus says that he was a pupil of Polycarp when he was a young man, when Irenaeus was a young man. And at that time, he lived in the Mid East where Polycarp lived.
Eusebius tells us that Irenaeus became Bishop of Lyon after Pothinus, the prior bishop of Lyon, was martyred. Ah. So since the names of Irenaeus and Polycarp are linked only because Irenaeus had once been a pupil or had sat under instruction from Polycarp, someone has conveniently made Polycarp, who lived in the Middle East, the ordainer of Pothinus, who lived in Gaul in modern-day France. Not likely. And again, there's a made-up date based on the approximate year of Polycarp's martyrdom, but it's just made up.
But see, without that first link, the whole chain becomes meaningless. They don't know who ordained Pothinus. And so no one could prove that the list of bishops in the city of Lyon went back to the apostle John or to any apostle because we don't know. Someone made up that link. And then after that, like I say, it doesn't say who ordained anyone else. It just says who followed whom in office. We don't even know who ordained Irenaeus.
So let me summarize some of the facts about the lists of succession totally apart from any doctrinal issues. Number one, nobody anywhere has a list of who ordained whom which can trace someone's chain of ordainers all the way back to the apostles. They can only trace who ordained whom back to the Middle Ages, that is, from the 21st century back to the Middle Ages. And for a few churches, they can prepare a list of ordainers from the 21st century back to the fourth.
But they can't go any further because no such lists existed before then. Number two, nearly all patristic scholars, many of whom are Roman Catholic, doubt the authenticity of even those lists that merely purport to show who followed whom in office in various cities. Why? Because there's no evidence for their existence back at an early date. As I said, Irenaeus was only able to present one such list, the one for the city of Rome.
Eusebius himself, who had access to so many records that aren't even in existence today, was able to furnish lists for only the four largest or historically significant churches, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. And again, those are lists of who followed whom in office, not a list of who ordained him. But even those lists of Irenaeus and Eusebius are open to some question.
Number one, you may have noticed when I was reading, if you have sharp ears, that Irenaeus says that Peter had ordained Linus as the bishop of Rome. But Tertullian says that the list of succession shows that Peter had ordained Clement as bishop of Rome. So on the very first link, those two ancient sources differ from each other. So scholars question whether even those lists are genuine, which have nothing to do with a succession of ordination.
For example, Irenaeus, when he lists who was a sixth bishop of Rome, he says his name was Sixtus. Well, that may be true. That may be quite a coincidence. On the other hand, he may not have had a name, and so it was easy just to call him Sixtus. The other problem scholars have with these lists is that they purport to show mono Episcopacy, that is, a city being ruled by a single bishop, all the way back to the year AD 33. But we know that wasn't the case.
We've already looked at the evidence from Scripture and from the early Christian writings, that in those early years, there was not a monarchical bishop in the various cities. It's always a group of presbyters, a group of bishops. The first reference we have to a monarchical bishop is in the writings of Ignatius, which date to the year 100 or even later.
As we read from those various Roman Catholic scholars, they're acknowledging that what Ignatius describes there in Asia Minor was not the pattern at that time throughout most churches. For example, Clement of Rome never refers to himself as a bishop in his letter. And as we've said, he seemed to only know two offices, bishop or Presbyter and Deacon. He always speaks of the bishops in a plural sense and equates them with presbyters.
So it's an anachronism to be tracing mono episcopacy all the way back to the year 33 AD. I think today every patristic scholar acknowledges that. So the plain truth is that no one can trace the ordination of their bishop through a line of ordainers all the way back to the apostles. Nobody can state with any kind of certainty that their bishop truly possesses apostolic succession in this modern sense. That's because if there's even one broken link in the chain, then the whole succession is destroyed.
Before leaving the subject of what the early Christian writers had to say on the subject of apostolic succession, I want to look briefly at what we find in the third century. That would be between the year 200 and 299. What I noticed from the very first time that I read the early Christian writings is that there's a definite change as you get into the third century.
One of the changes you find is that people begin addressing bishops by the title" Father." For example, in a letter from the church in Rome to Cyprian, this was around the year 250. It reads in part," We have been informed by Crementius, the subdeacon, who came to us from you that the Blessed Father Cyprian has withdrawn for a certain reason." And that's in volume 5, page 280 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, page 307 of that same volume. You find this at the beginning of a letter from the Roman clergy to Cyprian.
It starts off," The Presbyters and Deacons abiding at Rome to Father Cyprian." That's a very disturbing development because Jesus expressly told us," Do not call anyone on earth your Father. For one is your Father, he who is in heaven." And yet now they start calling their bishops by the name Father. Another change that I see around the year 200 is that people began viewing bishops and presbyters as priests.
Now, early on, you'll find references in the writings of the early Christians in which they make an analogy to the leaders in the church, to the Levites and priests that were the spiritual leaders in Israel in the Old Testament. I don't have any problem with that. But around the year 200, that changes from just being an analogy to suddenly now the bishops and presbyters are priests. They hold a priestly office that separates what they do from what, say, the deacons do or anybody else.
For example, in the apostolic tradition of Hippolytus, which is not in the ante-Nicene Fathers, written about the year 215, we read this," We order that the bishop alone shall lay hands at the ordaining of a deacon for this reason, that he is not ordained for a priesthood, but for the service of the bishop." In Cyprian about the year 250, page 448 of volume 5, we read," When we meet together with the brethren in one place and celebrate divine sacrifices with God's priest, we ought to be mindful of modesty." So now
everything is being thought of in this priestly sense, which is a development in the church.
It's an alteration and apostatizing from the true New Testament faith. And when you combine that then with the discussion of needing a succession of bishops, you start seeing the developments of what later became the modern doctrine of apostolic succession. It's still in a very infant stage. But notice this quote from Cyprian," He cannot be reckoned as a bishop who succeeds to no one, for he has despised the evangelical and apostolic tradition springing from himself.
For he who has not been ordained in the church can neither have nor hold to the church in any way. How could he be esteemed a pastor who succeeds to no one but begins from himself? For the true shepherd remains and presides over the Church of God by successive ordination. Therefore, the other one becomes a stranger and a profane person, an enemy of the Lord's peace. This is volume 5, page 398.
Now taken out of context, that looks like Cyprian is teaching the modern doctrine of apostolic succession, but he's not in the least bit. The issue and why he was writing this was that Novatian who had been a presbyter in the church at Rome broke from the church there when another man was ordained bishop, Cornelius, who he felt was a very compromising individual. And he went and had two other bishops from churches there in Italy come and ordain him as bishop, and he set up a rival church.
So the issue wasn't having ordainers who had a" line of apostolic succession" because Novatian had that. The issue was he did not succeed anyone as bishop. Novatian came from nowhere. He started by himself. And Cyprian says," Well, you're not a true bishop if that happens." We'll get back to that in a minute.
Another quote from that time period, the year 256, volume 5, page 394, this is the writer Firmilian, who writes," The power of remitting sins was given to the apostles and to the churches which they established, having been sent by Christ, and to the bishops who succeeded to them by vicarious ordination. However, the enemies of the one Catholic Church to which we belong, who are the enemies of those of us who have succeeded the apostles, claim for themselves unlawful priesthoods in opposition to us.
And they also set up profane altars. So what else are they other than Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? Well, see, now they're talking about their ordinations as being vicarious ordinations that they succeed the apostles as priests. So it's a very dangerous developments happening there. Yet still, in the third century, you don't see anything like the seven tenets of modern-day apostolic succession doctrine that we've talked about.
And even as late as the fourth century, there are quite a number of teachings that directly contradict these seven principles of apostolic succession. For example, Cyprian, this is in the third century, wrote," In the ordination of priests, we should choose no one but unstained and upright ministers. In that way, the ministers who offer sacrifices to God with holy and worthy hands may be heard in the prayers that they make for the safety of the Lord's people.
On this account, a people obedient to the Lord's commandments and fearing God should separate themselves from a sinful prelate. They should not associate themselves with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest. This is especially so since they themselves have the power of either choosing worthy priests or of rejecting unworthy ones. It's in volume 5, page 370.
So here, Cyprian directly contradicts that tenet that," Oh, this person, no matter how ungodly he is, he's still God's priest and you should stay there underneath him even though he might even be wicked." No, back then, they said," Get away from such a person. You shouldn't have someone like that for a presbyter or bishop." And you notice he says," Since you have the power of choosing or rejecting unworthy ones." So the congregation still was the one that had the power.
It wasn't some hierarchy above who came and told them who their next bishop or priest would be. They chose the person themselves. Now we get to the fourth century. These next two quotes are quite interesting because they're after the time of Constantine. They're from the apostolic constitutions, which would date back to around the year 390 when they were compiled. It's in volume 7, page 501 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
It says," If any bishop uses the rulers of this world and by their means comes to be a bishop of a church, let him be deprived and suspended together with all who communicate with him." And again, that same page," If any bishop or even a presbyter or deacon obtains that office through money, let him and the person who ordained him be deprived and let him be entirely cut off from communion, as Simon Magus was by Peter." Now, those are interesting because when you look at the churches today that claim apostolic
succession like the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, the Coptic, the Anglican, that that's indeed what you did have, that their bishops were chosen by rulers of this world.
And that was a practice for centuries. And so the ancient church was saying, separate from them, that anyone who does that is excommunicated automatically. And anybody who communicates with him, not meaning talking to him, but anyone who has communion with him. Or if you get it by money, again, the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic, that was for centuries, a very common practice that people bid for the office of patriarch or of the pope in the case of the Roman Catholic.
And so again, all of those are cut off from communion. So let no one say that simply because a church has a lineage of bishops back to the first century, that that assures that such a church is truly Orthodox and that we should all be part of it because a succession of apostasy is in no shape or form apostolic succession.
Well, I hope by now it's clear to everyone that the modern-day doctrine of apostolic succession in its various tenets is not supported by the witness of Scripture and is not even supported by the witness of the pre-Nicene church. However, there is one last issue I want to address tonight, and that's the issue of connectedness to the ancient church. I think of the quote from Irenaeus I read to you earlier.
Let me read part of it again, where he said," We should hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, for they are either heretics of perverse minds or else they are schismatics who are puffed up and self-pleasing, or perhaps they are hypocrites acting this way for the sake of money and vainglory.
Therefore, it behooves us to keep aloof from all such persons and to adhere to those who, as I have already observed, hold the doctrine of the apostles. Now, I'm personally aware of a number of Christians who've read that passage and concluded," I need to be part of the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox Church, or at a minimum, at least the Anglican Church." And I fell into that camp at one time myself.
Now, I personally picked the Anglicans because their articles of faith expressly state that no member of that church will be required to believe anything that cannot be approved from Scripture. So I felt I would be always safe there. I would never be forced to believe anything that was not scriptural, and I never was forced to. But the sad truth is that we have no choice today but to choose one type of system or another.
And that's because God allowed or even moved the church at some point in time to split into various smaller churches. So you have the Roman Catholic, but the Eastern Orthodox has just as much a claim of apostolic origin and continuity as does the Roman Catholic.
I think now they finally recognize the validity of each other's orders, but I think that's only been since Vatican II in the 1960s for about a millennium before then, they had excommunicated each other and declared that by each of them that the other church was anathema and that their orders were invalid, et cetera, you have the Coptic Church that, again, has just as ancient lineage as does the Eastern Orthodox, but it doesn't recognize the validity of the Orthodox or vice versa to my knowledge.
You have the Anglican Church, which has the same lineage of apostolic succession as does the Roman Catholic Church. And so somewhere you're going to have to choose, and in the process of choosing, you are separating yourself from other branches of the ancient church or other schisms of the ancient church. So even if you go back to the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, you haven't solved the problem. Why not join a church that is teaching the apostolic faith? But back to that quote from Irenaeus.
The truth of the matter is that Irenaeus was a godly man who gave good advice for his day, but he was not an inspired writer, and he didn't claim to be inspired. And there is a huge difference between an infallible teaching of the New Testament, which applies to every day and age and godly counsel from a fallible human whose advice often applies only to a certain person or to a certain situation or to a certain age. As I've said, I absolutely agree with Irenaeus' counsel for the year 180.
But it's impossible to follow his counsel today. Why do I say that? Because he says it behooves us to keep aloof from all such persons, persons who don't meet with the historic body, and to adhere to those who hold the doctrine of the apostles. So today, like I say, either we meet with a group that can show a definite continuity all the way back to the apostles like the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. But even there, we're having to choose one split or the other.
But they do not hold to the doctrine of the apostles, which I think I've very clearly demonstrated from the series that I've done on what the early Christians believe. So today our choice is to either stick with the institutional church or to adhere to those persons who do hold the doctrine of the apostles. We can't do both today. You could in the year 180. In contrast, we can always follow the counsel of Jesus in every age and in every situation.
Irenaeus didn't know that the historic church, the one who could purportedly produce a list of bishops or elders back to the first century, that it would one day become apostate? He didn't know that the time would come when the only way to preserve the teachings of Jesus and the apostles would be to leave the church with its succession. He never dreamed that the historic church would one day be worshipping Mary and venerating statues and icons.
He never imagined that the historic church would one day be torturing and slaughtering fellow Christians who refused to follow it in its errors. If he had known those things, I think his counsel would have been a little different. In contrast, the Holy Spirit did foresee all of those developments. And that is why the inspired New Testament does not tell us to never depart from the institutional church. It never even describes the church as an institution.
I think it was because Jesus foresaw the very developments that I've been talking about that he declared to us," Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." And by that, I don't mean to say that Christians should just lightly separate from a given body or that we shouldn't submit ourselves to congregational authority.
But Jesus knew that there would be times throughout history when Christians who chose to be loyal to Him would be reduced to meeting in groups of just two or three persons. And so I believe He gave us that assurance in advance that He would be with us for that very reason. One last thing I want to say about apostolic succession before we close. As I've been pointing out the last two evenings, it certainly was not part of the faith that was once for all handed to the saints.
And that's why it's been unable to produce the type of spiritual fruit that would be evident to everyone if it were true. After all, if no one but a bishop with apostolic succession could lay hands on someone to receive the Holy Spirit, we should all be able to see quite plainly the abundance of the spiritual fruit in churches like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox and the Episcopalian. The fruit of the Spirit should be so evident there.
If this doctrine were true, the contrast in the spirituality between the churches with apostolic succession and those without it would be striking. Well, actually, the truth is that it is striking, but in an opposite way. I and I think all of you see far more evidence of the fruit of the Spirit among evangelicals, among Anabaptists, groups like that than we do among the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or Episcopalian. And it's been that way all throughout the centuries.
When I look at groups of kingdom Christians through the centuries who did not have apostolic succession, such as the Waldensians and the Anabaptists, I see far more of the life and the Spirit of Christ in them than I do in the Roman Catholic Church with its apostolic succession, so-called. A lot of seeking Christians today are asking the question," Where is the church?" But they're asking the wrong question. They're seeking the wrong thing. They should be seeking the kingdom of God, not the church.
Jesus talked about the kingdom wherever he went, but he rarely mentioned the church. He told us to seek first his kingdom. He never told us to seek the church. Because if we truly seek the kingdom first in our lives, rest assured that we will be part of His true Church. But if instead of seeking first His kingdom we seek for the historic church or the historic Episcopacy, we may very likely find ourselves outside of both His kingdom and His church.