Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus II (Pars Altera): Demonstratio Catholica

The apostles exercise the hierarchy received from God by their deeds, assert it by their words, and communicate it to other men.

1. The apostles exercise the hierarchy received from God by their deeds both collegially and individually. Collegially they act immediately after Pentecost as presidents of the Church. First of all, completing the apostolic college itself, in the place of Judas the traitor, under God's auspices, they choose Matthias "to take part in this ministry and apostleship".¹ Straightway they preach the Christian religion, wash believers with baptism, and preside over the Church growing day by day.² When the number of Gentile converts had grown, certain Jewish Christians attempted to impose the Mosaic law upon all. The controversy thence arising the apostles authoritatively settle in the council of Jerusalem and prescribe a peremptory decree to be observed by all the faithful.³ Individually, too, each of the apostles exercises the sacred primacy. Peter constantly increases the assembly of the faithful by preaching and baptizing⁴ and, passing through, visits "all".⁵ Paul, traversing a great part of the Roman empire, everywhere founds and governs churches, giving various precepts,⁶ rooting out abuses,⁷ excommunicating the unworthy.⁸ In a word, the apostles act both collegially and individually as having hierarchical authority over the faithful.

2. The apostles assert the hierarchy received from God by their words. The disciplinary decree of the apostolic college begins: "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us ..."⁹ With these words they proclaim the divine origin and authority of the hierarchy. Peter names himself "an apostle of Jesus Christ".¹⁰ Paul insists many times that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the will of God,¹¹ chosen not by men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.¹² He discharges a legation in the place of Christ;¹³ he does not speak in persuasive words of human wisdom,¹⁴ but in the name and power of God; what he himself commands, the Lord commands;¹⁵ what he writes are the commandments of the Lord;¹⁶ what he works, Christ effects;¹⁷ the power which he uses he has received from God.¹⁸ And he says the same of all the ministers of the Church: "He (Christ) himself gave some indeed as apostles, some as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ."¹⁹ Whence he concludes: "Let a man so esteem us as ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God."²⁰

3. The apostles communicate the hierarchy received from God to others, constituting in the individual churches a local clergy and handing over to it its own authority. The supreme authority in the churches the apostles indeed reserve for themselves, and either themselves immediately²¹ or mediately through their vicars²² they exercise it. Yet through all the churches they constitute a local clergy, that is, a college of presbyters, who together with the apostles, or even in the place of the apostles, should feed the flocks of the faithful.²³ In Jerusalem already in the first days deacons are chosen²⁴ and soon (at least after the Herodian persecution about the year 46) presbyters or elders,²⁵ so that with the apostles as leaders they might rule that primitive church.²⁶ At Philippi bishops and deacons presided.²⁷ At Ephesus there was found a college of presbyters²⁸ or of bishops.²⁹ "In each of the churches" founded on his first journey Paul appointed "presbyters".³⁰ That presbyters were present also in the Jewish-Christian churches of the first period, Peter and James testify. Peter: "Elders (presbyters), feed the flock of God which is among you;"³¹ James: "Is any one sick among you, let him bring in the presbyters of the church."³² Finally, so that clergy might be at hand everywhere, the apostles moreover command their disciples to appoint presbyters in all the cities. Thus Paul writes to Titus: "I left thee in Crete, that ... thou shouldst appoint presbyters in every city",³³ namely bishops³⁴ and deacons,³⁵ whose qualities the teacher of the Gentiles delineates.

Thus the apostles set over all the churches local and stable hierarchs, who are called either simply presbyters, or expressly bishops, presbyters, and deacons.³⁶

The clerics, however, thus constituted receive hierarchical authority not by mandate of the people, but by the imposition of the hands of the apostles and their disciples. By the imposition of hands already in the Old Testament there were conferred rights, privileges, and offices proper to the one imposing.³⁷ In the same way to the presbyters of the New Testament the power of order and of jurisdiction is handed over through the imposition of the hands of the apostles and their successors.³⁸ Thus the first seven men, already to be ordained, they "appointed before the face of the apostles, and praying they imposed hands upon them".³⁹ They ordained Paul and Barnabas, "fasting and praying, and imposing hands upon them … And they indeed, being sent by the Holy Spirit, went away".⁴⁰ Again Paul and Barnabas, "imposing hands, appointed presbyters in each of the churches".⁴¹ And those upon whom he had imposed hands Paul addresses: "Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops, to rule the church of God".⁴² Paul admonishes Timothy: "Do not neglect the grace that is in thee, which was given to thee … with the imposition of the hands of the presbytery … I admonish thee, that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of my hands".⁴³

"Impose not hands hastily on any man [when ordaining a presbyter]".⁴⁴

The apostles therefore, taught by Christ himself on this matter, understood without hesitation that the Church must at all times consist of clergy and people, of superiors and subjects, that is, that the hierarchical constitution was established in perpetuity. Whence they exercised the hierarchy received from God by their deeds, asserted it by their words, and communicated it to others.

In like manner they proclaim that the hierarchical constitution of the Church was conceived by all Christians of the already primitive age: