Apostolical Succession

Apostolical Succession is a phrase used to denote one or both of two things—the derivation of holy orders by an unbroken chain of transmission from the apostles, and the succession of a ministry so ordained to the powers and privileges of the apostles. The theory of the Catholic Church is that its present bishops have the right to ordain in virtue of being the representatives of the apostles, who in their turn represented the Lord himself, the fountain of all grace; and further, that the Lord committed this right or power to his apostles only, that it might be transmitted to all future ages of the church through them, next through bishops ordained by them, then by their successors in regular order. The scriptural argument is mainly based on such passages as Matt. xviii. 18. Opponents of this theory maintain that these words of institution had no such special significance; that, moreover, history shows that God did not take means to preserve such a succession in his church, for it was not till the 4th century that the church officers became a separate class, and in early stages of its history, laymen, as well as church officials, could teach or preach, baptise, celebrate the eucharist, exercise discipline, and perform all special functions now considered valid only if performed by a priest ordained by a bishop in regular succession. They maintain, moreover, that ordination meant merely appointment or admission to office, that no writer of the first two centuries either states or implies that those ordained had any exclusive powers, and that the facility with which ordinations were made and unmade strengthens this inference. The rite now considered essential—the laying on of hands—in ancient times was not universal, and therefore could not have been a necessary element in ordination, being regarded merely as a symbol or accompaniment of prayer, without any special significance. See BISHOP, ORDERS, PRIEST; and on the destructive side of the argument, Hatch's able work, The Organisation of the Early Christian Churches (the Bampton Lectures for 1880). See also the Dissertation on 'The Christian Ministry' in Lightfoot's edition of St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (1868), where it is proved that though the episcopate was developed within the last thirty years of the first century, and cannot be dissociated without violence to historical testimony from the name of St John, yet the power of the bishops was at first merely a question of practical convenience, entirely unconnected with sacerdotalism, which was not implied in the term 'clerus,' either by Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, or any father until Tertullian, and even by the latter was qualified by his assertion of an universal priesthood in believers. Lightfoot proves that sacerdotal views were due to Gentile influences, but found support in Old Testament analogies, and that Cyprian was the first to make those sacerdotal assumptions for the clergy which have since become so prevalent within the Catholic Church.