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

We have thus far proved that ecclesiastical authority resides not in the people, but in the hierarchical body of bishops, priests, and deacons. Now, however, we must speak of the episcopate in particular. The question is, namely, whether sacred authority belongs equally to the threefold grade of the hierarchy, or whether the bishops, excelling the other clerics by divine right, are the head and summit of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. That very many non-Catholics defend the former position against Catholics, we are taught by the history and the state of the question.

1°. History of the question. In the fourth century Aërius, an Arian priest, affirmed that priests and bishops are equal in order and jurisdiction. This heresy St. Epiphanius¹ calls a "dogma beyond human grasp, frenzied and monstrous," opposed to the institution of Christ and the common teaching of the Church.² The same error was nonetheless repeated in the fourteenth century by Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, and in the fifteenth century by Wyclif and Hus — the former condemned by John XXII, the latter by Martin V.³

In the sixteenth century Calvin, and with him the Presbyterians in England, contended that the bishops at first were altogether equal in authority to the priests, and afterwards received from the priests themselves, by human consent, a special title and a certain directive pre-eminence, yet no jurisdiction or dominative authority.⁴ The Council of Trent proscribed this opinion, declaring that "besides the other ecclesiastical grades, bishops, who have succeeded in the place of the apostles, belong to this hierarchical order, and have been placed, as the apostle says, by the Holy Spirit to rule the Church of God, and are superior to priests".⁵ The rationalists of our age savor much of Calvin. Others, holding various opinions, explain the origin of the "catholic" episcopate quite commonly in this way: In the primitive Church, besides the "enthusiastic" teachers, three offices were gradually introduced — the presbyterate, the episcopate, and the diaconate. To the priests belonged a certain prefecture of morals or custody of discipline; the bishops with the deacons were the administrators or treasurers of the communities. Soon it came about of itself that certain bishops, because they had charge of the treasury and excelled in other gifts, were enrolled also in the college of priests. Indeed, when the "enthusiastic" teachers finally failed, these same bishop-priests either seized the office of preaching for themselves or received it from the communities. When this had been done, all ecclesiastical power was held in one hand, and hence the monarchical episcopate was complete, having arisen against the will of Christ by a purely natural process of evolution.⁶

From this rationalistic opinion the Modernists differ scarcely at all, and their theory Pius X both comprehended and condemned in these words: "The elders, who discharged the office of oversight in the Christian assemblies, were instituted by the apostles as priests or bishops, to provide for the necessary ordering of the growing communities, not properly to perpetuate the apostolic mission and power".⁷ With these preliminary remarks on the history of the question:

2°. The state of the question is to be set forth more fully. The Catholic doctrine on the episcopate is comprised in this thesis: From the apostolic age bishops possess the supreme hierarchical power in the Church; whence they are true successors of the apostles in the ordinary pastoral office. It is said:

From the apostolic age, inasmuch as the bishops did not gradually seize for themselves, or acquire from others, the office and power which they now enjoy, but on the contrary obtained them from the apostles as the interpreters of Christ's institution.

The bishops possess the supreme hierarchical power, inasmuch as they are superior to the other clerics in this sense, that both the deacons and also the priests are only auxiliaries of the bishop, from whom they borrow the power of governance.

In the Church, inasmuch as the bishops, each one singularly, rule his own particular church by his own right, but all taken together govern collegially the universal Church of Christ.

Whence they are true successors of the apostles by the very fact that the first bishops received the supreme hierarchical office from the apostles and in turn handed on the same office to others in a succession never interrupted. Nevertheless, the bishops succeed the apostles only: In the ordinary pastoral office, not indeed in the extraordinary gifts with which the apostles excelled. For Christ indeed ordained that the ecclesiastical government handed down to the apostles should be perpetual, but not that the privileges connected with the apostleship should pass to others.⁸

That this doctrine on the episcopate is genuine is evident from the historical documents of the first and second centuries.

1. As to the name. In general it must be said that the hierarchical names of the New Testament do not take their origin from the hierarchical terminology of the old covenant. Nowhere in the writings of the apostles are Christian superiors called high priests, priests, and Levites. The reason seems to be that, from the same name thus taken over, the faithful might suspect that the Christian hierarchy was a continuation of the Aaronic priesthood. Afterwards, however, when the temple of Jerusalem had been overthrown and the old priesthood abolished, as the first century drew to its close the Christian hierarchs began to be compared to the high priest, the priests, and the Levites,¹ and finally, from the third century on, the clergy of the New Testament are frequently designated by these names.²

The name of deacon, i.e. minister, derives from the office which the clerics of the third grade discharged, because it was the deacons' task to "minister", namely to help the apostles and their successors in temporal affairs,³ in preaching⁴ and in baptizing.⁵ The name of presbyters or elders arises from the manner of speech of the Jews. Already in the Old Testament⁶ and especially in the age of Christ, the colleges of superiors, who in individual places took charge of religious affairs (the magistrates of the synagogues) and civil affairs (the magistrates of the cities), were called presbyters or presbyteries.⁷ Whether the presidents of these presbyteries were sometimes called bishops, i.e. superintendents, overseers, presidents, is not clear. Certainly, however, in the Septuagint version a certain prefect of the priests and Levites,⁸ or even of soldiers,⁹ was called by the word bishop, while by the word episcopate was meant the prefecture itself, or the charge or office of the prefect.¹⁰ And indeed it was from the Septuagint version that the apostles adapted this word episcopate to the Christian hierarchy.¹¹

Yet the name of bishop in the New Testament does not constantly designate a hierarch of the first grade. For the title of bishop is given now to Christ,¹² now to the apostles,¹³ and finally to presbyters simply, whether of the first or of the second grade.¹⁴ Hence the name of bishop was not yet a technical term by which only the highest hierarchs were called; indeed all the hierarchical names were often interchanged. E. g. Peter and John are called "presbyters",¹⁵ Peter, "a fellow presbyter", beseeches the "presbyters" to feed the flock of God, "overseeing" (ἐπισκοποῦντες) not under constraint, but willingly;¹⁶ Paul and Apollo are called "deacons",¹⁷ and everywhere in the New Testament the whole apostolic office is called a ministry (διακονία). Therefore, since the nomenclature of the hierarchical offices in the New Testament and in the other writings of the first century was not yet constant, from the current name of bishops one certainly cannot conclude that the episcopal office strictly so called was already present.

Yet:

2. As to the episcopal office, these things are established from the writings of the apostles. The apostles, as we have shown, established stable presbyteries in all and each of the Christian communities, whose members were adorned with either priestly or episcopal dignity. The supreme direction, however, the apostles reserved to themselves.¹⁸ Hence the first bishops of all the churches were the apostles themselves. Soon, however, as the number of the churches grew, the apostles delegated certain of their vicars, who, endowed with supreme episcopal power, would pass through the churches, visiting them, enacting laws, judging offenders, imposing hands on those to be ordained.¹⁹ Gradually, in many places, they placed standing bishops, who would preside over the churches in the place of the apostles and succeed them. Thus Paul established Timothy at Ephesus as president of the neighboring churches;²⁰²¹ He left Titus in Crete, "that he might set right the things that were wanting, and appoint presbyters in every city".²² In like manner the apostle John instituted bishops in various churches of Asia Minor, namely at Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea²³ For the "angels" of these churches, to whom John is bidden to write in the Apocalypse, were, by the common consent of interpreters, monarchical bishops.²⁴ The truth of this interpretation, moreover, is fully confirmed from elsewhere. For that three of those seven churches mentioned in the Apocalypse were episcopal sees a few years after John is evident from the epistles of s. Ignatius.²⁵ That the apostle John set Polycarp over Smyrna, Papias over Hierapolis,²⁶²⁷²⁸ and other bishops over other churches, is well established. Likewise it is established that Dionysius the Areopagite was set over the Athenians by the apostles,²⁹ that Simeon succeeded the apostle James at Jerusalem, that Annianus succeeded Mark the Evangelist at Alexandria, that Evodius succeeded the apostle Peter at Antioch, that Linus succeeded the princes of the apostles, Peter and Paul, at Rome.³⁰

But how many and which churches already then had bishops is not established.³¹ S. Clement of Rome, writing as the apostolic age drew to its close, seems indeed to hint that a hierarch of the first grade presided over each of the Christian churches in place of the high priest of the Old Testament: "For to the high priest his own offices were given, to the priests a place of their own" was assigned, and the Levites have their ministries incumbent upon them.³² Yet it is certain that not all, but only the more important Christian communities were diocesan sees, in much the same way as happens today.³³ For the rest, the college of bishops could properly succeed the college of the apostles and fully develop itself only after the death of the apostles.³⁴

Indeed, scarcely had the last apostle died when St. Ignatius instructs us splendidly concerning the episcopate; to him, about the middle of the second century, certain most ancient catalogues of bishops are added, as well as, toward the end of the same century, St. Irenaeus.

1. St. Ignatius († c. 107) teaches that the threefold grade of the hierarchy is of apostolic origin and institution. Concerning the monarchical episcopate in particular he hands down these things:¹

a) Individual churches are governed by one bishop. Ignatius admonishes the Philadelphians: "Strive, therefore, to use one Eucharist; for one is the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup in the unity of His blood, one altar, just as one bishop together with the presbytery and the deacons."² Whence he says that the one bishop Onesimus bears the person of the whole Ephesian church: "I have therefore received in the name of God your whole multitude in Onesimus, a man of inexpressible charity, but your bishop in the flesh."³ And indeed, according to Ignatius, this monarchical episcopate is found everywhere in the world. For although the holy martyr makes express mention only of those bishops whose churches he visited while journeying to Rome, he nevertheless speaks of the episcopal constitution of the church without qualification; nay, he testifies that bishops were established even to the farthest parts of the earth: "The bishops," he says, "established throughout the tracts of the earth (οἱ ἐπίσκοποι, οἱ κατὰ τὰ πέρατα ὁρισθέντες), are in the mind of Jesus Christ."⁴

b) The bishop presides over all ecclesiastical affairs. "It is necessary, therefore, just as you also do, that you do nothing without the bishop."⁵ "The Spirit announced these things, saying: Do nothing without the bishop."⁶ "Apart from the bishop let no one do anything of those things which pertain to the church. Let that Eucharist be held valid which is performed under the bishop or under him to whom he himself has granted it ... It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate the agape; but whatever he has approved, this also is well-pleasing to God."⁷

c) All the faithful and even the whole clergy must be subject to the bishop. "Attend to the bishop, that God also may attend to you."⁸ "All of you obey the bishop, as Jesus Christ obeys the Father ... Wherever the bishop appears, there let the multitude also be, just as wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic Church."⁹ "For when you are subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ, you seem to me to live not according to man, but according to Jesus Christ."¹⁰ "For it befits each of you, and especially the presbyters, to refresh the bishop in honor of the Father, of Jesus Christ, and of the apostles."¹¹ "It befits you to concur in the mind of the bishop, which you also do. For your memorable presbytery, worthy of God, is so fitted to the bishop as strings to a cithara."¹²

d) The bishop presides over the church in the place and stead of God. "I exhort you to strive to accomplish all things in the concord of God, the bishop presiding in the place of God."¹³ "Let all revere ... the bishop, who is a type of the Father."¹⁴ "Let us strive, therefore, not to resist the bishop, that we may be subject to God ... for whomever the Father of the household sends to govern His family, him we must receive just as the one who sends him. It is manifest, therefore, that one ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself."¹⁵ "It is good to honor God and the bishop. He who honors the bishop is honored by God; he who does anything secretly without the bishop serves the devil."¹⁶ "But it befits you also not to make free with the bishop's youth, but in respect of the power of God the Father to impart to him all reverence, just as I have learned that the holy presbyters also do not abuse his manifest youthful condition, but as men prudent in God yield to him — not to him, however, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, the bishop of all. In honor, therefore, of Him who loves us, it befits us to obey without any hypocrisy; for one does not deceive this visible bishop, but strives to deceive the invisible One."¹⁷

By every way and means, therefore, St. Ignatius teaches that bishops in their churches possess the same supreme power of governing which the apostles held after the ascension of Christ. This apostolicity of the episcopate the following also prove irrefutably:

2. The catalogues of bishops. Besides the names of the bishops who, as has been said, governed the various churches while the apostles were still living or scarcely dead, there are at hand several most ancient series of bishops succeeding one another in one and the same church. Such catalogues are extant from the Ephesian, Alexandrian, Antiochene, Jerusalem, and Roman churches.

The catalogue of the Ephesian church is incomplete, to be sure, but absolutely authentic. At Ephesus, therefore, after Paul, Timothy was the first to sit.¹⁸ After him St. John the apostle presided there and died there.¹⁹ His place was held in the time of St. Ignatius by Onesimus.²⁰ In the course of the second century eight bishops, sprung from one and the same family, succeeded Onesimus; of these the last, Polycrates, writing about the year 195, says:²¹

"I too, the least of you all, Polycrates, from the tradition of my kinsmen, some of whom I have even followed [in the episcopate]; for seven of my kinsmen were bishops, and I am the eighth ... I therefore, brethren, being sixty-five years old in the Lord, who have often conferred with the brethren dispersed throughout the whole world ... I could also make mention of the bishops who are with me ... whose names, if I were to write them down, would seem an immense number."²²

Therefore not only was an immense number of bishops found by the year 195, but Polycrates, born c. 130, already had seven predecessors in the episcopate from his own family; nay, from the apostolic age monarchical bishops always presided over the Ephesian church.

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 324) presents the catalogues of the patriarchal churches of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome.²³ Yet Eusebius himself did not compose them, but copied them from the Chronography of Julius Africanus, who in the year 221 arranged these series of bishops from an older source of the second century. That source comprised the bishops down to Pope Eleutherus (174-189) and is perhaps the very Commentaries of Hegesippus.²⁴ Hegesippus, journeying to Rome under Pope Anicetus (c. 155-166), "visited very many bishops" and through each city investigated the "successions of bishops" (catalogues, series). Coming at length to Rome, he first made a series of the pontiffs down to Anicetus. When the latter died, he completed the catalogue by adding the names of Soter (166-174) and Eleutherus (174-189). Hegesippus, moreover, set such great store by the episcopal catalogues of the individual churches, and especially of the Roman church, because from the apostolic succession of bishops he concludes that the apostolic doctrine is everywhere preserved.²⁵ Whatever, in the end, the critics dispute about the origin and authenticity of these episcopal catalogues, all are easily convinced that the catalogues of the four principal churches already existed in the second century. These catalogues, moreover, by the fact itself prove the absurdity of the adverse opinion about the origin of the episcopate. The adversaries maintain that down to the middle or end of the second century the churches knew no monarchical government of bishops. On the contrary, the most ancient catalogues of bishops: 1°. proclaim that in the middle of the second century no one doubted the apostolic succession of the bishops of the four principal churches; 2°. bring forward the very names and the very series of the bishops who from the apostolic age presided over the four first churches of the Christian world; 3°. testify that the apostolic succession of bishops was already during the whole second century of such value that it was used as an argument and criterion of the apostolicity of the doctrine itself spread through the individual churches. Which St. Irenaeus indeed splendidly confirms.

3. St. Irenaeus about the year 180 wrote his most celebrated work "Adversus haereses". He refutes the Gnostic heresies of the first and second centuries by appealing to the episcopate instituted by the apostles.

And this indeed Irenaeus maintains:

a) In the government of the Church the bishops are the successors of the apostles. For, in order to rout the heresies by a simple fact, Irenaeus says: "All these [heretics] are far later than the bishops to whom the apostles handed over the churches."²⁶ And descending to individual examples, he speaks thus of the Roman bishops: "The blessed apostles, then, founding and building up the church, handed over to Linus the episcopate of administering the church ... After him [Anacletus], in the third place from the apostles, Clement obtains the episcopate ... Next, Xystus was constituted the sixth from the apostles ... Now, in the twelfth place, Eleutherus holds the episcopate from the apostles."²⁷ In this manner of speaking Irenaeus affirms that not only those bishops who were immediately created by the apostles, but also those who were afterwards duly constituted, are the true successors of the apostles in the government of the churches. But in order that it may be established which bishops are duly constituted:

b) The successions of bishops from the apostles down to us can be exhibited: "The tradition of the apostles, then, manifested in the whole world, is present in every church for all to behold who wish to see the truth; and we are able to number those who were instituted bishops by the apostles, and their successors down to us ... For they wished those to be very perfect and irreprehensible in all things whom they left as successors, handing over to them their own place of teaching ... But since it is very long in a volume of this kind to enumerate the successions of all the churches, we confound [the heretics] all, pointing out the tradition which the church of Rome — the greatest, most ancient, and known to all, founded and constituted at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul — has from the apostles, and the faith announced to men, coming down to us through the successions of bishops."²⁸

c) The apostolic succession of bishops is like a token and pledge of the apostolicity of the doctrine preached by the Church: "By this ordination and succession the tradition which is from the apostles in the Church and the proclamation of the truth has come down to us. And this is the fullest proof that it is one and the same life-giving faith which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now and handed down in truth."²⁹ "It behooves us to obey those presbyters who are in the Church, those who have the succession from the apostles; who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the sure charism of truth ... Where, therefore, the gifts of the Lord have been placed, there it behooves us to learn the truth, namely with those in whom is the succession of the Church which is from the apostles."³⁰ "The true knowledge is the teaching of the apostles (ἡ τῶν ἀποστόλων διδαχή) ... according to the successions of the bishops, to whom they [the apostles] handed over the church which is in each place."³¹

From these statements it is evident that the doctrine which holds that the government of each church was entrusted from apostolic institution to one single bishop stands most firmly, according to Irenaeus. Nay, not only according to Irenaeus, but — as Irenaeus intimates — according to the whole Catholic Church and even all the heresies. For in this matter he everywhere invokes the consensus of the whole Catholic Church and appeals to the assent of all the heresies. Whence we conclude that both Catholics and Gnostics of the first and second centuries acknowledged the apostolic origin of the monarchical episcopate. And here we make an end of the argument. For the writers who flourished after the second century — for example Tertullian,³² Clement of Alexandria,³³ Origen,³⁴ St. Cyprian³⁵ and all the rest — extol the "catholic" episcopate, and not even the adversaries themselves dare to deny it. In one only, St. Jerome, do they glory, objecting that he teaches a human origin of the episcopate. But even if they rightfully objected this authority, they would reap no advantage from it, and we should suffer no loss. For since Jerome comes alone and later, his opinion simply does not deserve to be attended to. Whence, for the sake of mere completeness, we recite and weigh the opinion of St. Jerome on the origin of the episcopate. St. Jerome the priest, on a given occasion, attempts to show that the presbyterate wonderfully surpasses the diaconate, and is but slightly subject to the episcopate.³⁶³⁷ To show this, carried away by the heat of the dispute beyond his own measure, he does not restrain his words, but brings forward some things which can indeed be explained in a sound sense, yet afford a handle to an unsound interpretation. This holds especially of the following words, in which the whole opinion of Jerome about the episcopate, set down in various places, is contained: "Let the bishops hear, who have the power of constituting presbyters in each city, under what law the order of the ecclesiastical constitution is held ... The presbyter, therefore, is the same as the bishop [according to the letter to Titus 1, 5-7]; and before partisanship arose in religion at the instigation of the devil, and it was said among the peoples: 'I am of Paul, I of Apollo, I of Cephas',³⁸ the churches were governed by the common counsel of the presbyters. But after each one thought those whom he had baptized to be his own, not Christ's, it was decreed throughout the whole world that one of the presbyters, chosen, should be placed over the rest, to whom all the care of the church should pertain, and that the seeds of schisms should be removed ... As, therefore, the presbyters know that by the custom of the church they are subject to him who has been set over them, so let the bishops know that they are greater than the presbyters more by custom than by the truth of the Lord's disposition, and that they ought to rule the church in common, imitating Moses, who, although he had in his power to preside alone over the people of Israel, chose seventy with whom he might judge the people."³⁹ With these words the holy doctor first delineates the historical development of the episcopate, then establishes a theological conclusion about the episcopate. As to the historical development of the episcopate, Jerome says that at the beginning "presbyter and bishop were the same" and that "the churches were governed by the common counsel of the presbyters". But afterwards, when the Corinthian dissensions had arisen, "it was decreed throughout the whole world that one of the presbyters, chosen, should be placed over the rest, to whom all the care of the church should pertain". Now indeed it is true that at the beginning bishops and presbyters were the same and were called the same, and that the churches were governed by the common counsel of the presbyters, only in that sense in which we have proved that the apostles reserved to themselves the supreme, i. e. episcopal, government in the churches, so that those clerics who, besides the apostles, were called "bishops" were distinguished from the presbyters neither in office nor in power. But that afterwards, on the occasion and by reason of the Corinthian factions, an apostolic decree came forth instituting and introducing everywhere the monarchical episcopate — this Jerome contends less correctly. For nowhere is it read that bishops were created because of dissensions that arose at Corinth or elsewhere; nay, by this assertion Jerome destroys another assertion of his, namely that at first, when Paul wrote to Titus, monarchical bishops were not yet present, although the letter to Titus is later (c. 60) than the first letter to the Corinthians (c. 52-57). This alone is established — as we have shown and as Jerome himself supposes — that while the apostles were still living bishops were gradually set over the various churches, and that, when the apostles had died, a college of bishops succeeded them everywhere in the world. As to the theological conclusion about the episcopate, Jerome says that the bishops "are greater than the presbyters more by custom than by the truth of the Lord's disposition, and ought to rule the church in common, imitating Moses, who, although he had in his power to preside alone over the people of Israel, chose seventy with whom he might judge the people". Certainly Jerome very well admonishes the bishops that, notwithstanding the monarchical right, they should imitate Moses, who himself also of his own accord chose seventy counselors.⁴⁰ He speaks ambiguously, however, in that he says bishops possess the supreme hierarchical power more by the custom of the church than by the Lord's disposition. He should have said precisely that the Lord disposed that the supreme hierarchy granted to the apostles should perdure, without expressly naming bishops; but that by apostolic disposition and custom that hierarchy was handed over to the bishops. In this sense even Jerome is to be understood. For he had stated before that, on the occasion of schisms arising while the apostles were still living, "it was decreed throughout the whole world that one of the presbyters, chosen, should be placed over the rest". Soon after he equates the bishops with Moses, who by divine right had "in his power to preside alone". Elsewhere too Jerome adds: "That we may know that the apostolic traditions were taken from the Old Testament, in that Aaron and his sons and the Levites were in the temple, this to themselves CHAPTER II. ON THE MONARCHICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH.

⁴¹

We have now proved that the Church is hierarchically constituted, so that the clergy presides over the laity, and that monarchical bishops, who alone possess the supreme apostolic power of governing, preside over the clergy itself of the individual churches. Now the question is whether individual bishops are absolutely independent in governing their churches, or