What the Early Church Believed: Apostolic Succession

In Scripture

To ensure the apostles' teaching would be passed on after their deaths, Paul told Timothy to entrust what he had heard to faithful people who could teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). This describes three generations of succession: Paul's, Timothy's and those Timothy would teach.

Why the Fathers appealed to it

Heretics put their own interpretations, even bizarre ones, on Scripture, so something besides Scripture was needed as the ultimate test of doctrine. The Fathers, themselves links in the chain, appealed to apostolic succession. Protestant historian J. N. D. Kelly explains that the apostolic testimony was handed down publicly, not secretly as the Gnostics claimed, entrusted by the apostles to their successors. For the Fathers, the unbroken succession of bishops in the great sees guaranteed the tradition's identity with the original revelation, with the Holy Spirit as an added safeguard; the bishops had "an infallible charism of truth."

The witness of the early Church

• Pope Clement I (80): the apostles appointed bishops and deacons and provided that, at their deaths, other approved men should succeed to their ministry, because they foresaw strife over the office of bishop.
• Hegesippus (180) traced the succession of the bishops of Rome and found in each city the teaching of the law, the prophets and the Lord.
• Irenaeus (189) says the apostolic tradition can be found by listing the bishops the apostles instituted and their successors. He points to Rome, founded by Peter and Paul, with which all churches must agree, and to Polycarp, appointed by apostles in Smyrna. One must obey the presbyters who have succession from the apostles and the certain gift of truth, and be suspicious of those who depart from it.
• Tertullian (200) says the apostles founded churches from which all others derive the faith; doctrine agreeing with the apostolic churches is true. He challenges heretics to produce the roll of their bishops going back to an apostle, as Smyrna does with Polycarp, placed by John, and Rome with Clement, ordained by Peter. Even a forged list would fail, since their doctrine contradicts the apostles'.
• Cyprian (253): Cornelius succeeded Fabian by lawful ordination, while Novatian, succeeding no one, "sprang from himself" and is not in the Church.
• Augustine (397): the succession of priests from Peter's see, to whom the Lord entrusted his sheep (John 21:15-17), keeps him in the Catholic Church.