Apostolic Succession

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Apostolicity as a note of the true Church being dealt with elsewhere, the object of the present
article is to show:
That Apostolic succession is found in the Catholic Church.
That none of the separate Churches have any valid claim to it.
That the Anglican Church, in particular, has broken away from Apostolic unity.

Roman claim
The principle underlying the Roman claim is contained in the idea of succession. "To succeed" is to be
the successor of, especially to be the heir of, or to occupy an official position just after, as Victoria
succeeded William IV. Now the Roman Pontiffs come immediately after, occupy the position, and
perform the functions of St. Peter; they are, therefore, his successors. We must prove
that St. Peter came to Rome, and ended there his pontificate;
that the Bishops of Rome who came after him held his official position in the Church.
As soon as the problem of St. Peter's coming to Rome passed from theologians writing pro domo su
into the hands of unprejudiced historians, i.e. within the last half century, it received a solution which
no scholar now dares to contradict; the researches of German professors like A. Harnack and
Weizsaecker, of the Anglican Bishop Lightfoot, and those of archaeologists like De Rossi and Lanciani,
of Duchesne and Barnes, have all come to the same conclusion: St. Peter did reside and die in Rome.
Beginning with the middle of the second century, there exists a universal consensus as to Peter's
martyrdom in Rome;

Dionysius of Corinth speaks for Greece,

Irenaeus for Gaul,
Clement and Origen for Alexandria,
Tertullian for Africa.
In the third century the popes claim authority from the fact that they are St. Peter's successors,
and no one objects to this claim, no one raises a counter-claim.
No city boasts the tomb of the Apostle but Rome.

There he died, there he left his inheritance; the fact is never questioned in the controversies between
East and West. This argument, however, has a weak point: it leaves about one hundred years for the
formation of historical legends, of which Peter's presence in Rome may be one just as much as his
conflict with Simon Magus. We have then to go farther back into antiquity.
About 150 the Roman presbyter Caius offers to show to the heretic Procius the trophies of the
Apostles: "If you will got the Vatican, and to the Via Ostiensis, you will find the monuments of
those who have founded this Church." Can Caius and the Romans for whom he speaks have
been in error on a point so vital to their Church?
Next we come to Papias (c. 138-150). From him we only get a faint indication that he places
Peter's preaching in Rome, for he states that Mark wrote down what Peter preached, and he
makes him write in Rome. Weizsaecker himself holds that this inference from Papias has some
weight in the cumulative argument we are constructing.
Earlier than Papias is Ignatius Martyr (before 117), who, on his way to martyrdom, writes to the
Romans: "I do not command you as did Peter and Paul; they were Apostles, I am a disciple",
words which according to Lightfoot have no sense if Ignatius did not believe Peter and Paul to
have been preaching in Rome.
Earlier still is Clement of Rome writing to the Corinthians, probably in 96, certainly before the
end of the first century. He cites Peter's and Paul's martyrdom as an example of the sad fruits of
fanaticism and envy. They have suffered "amongst us" he says, and Weizsaecker rightly sees
here another proof for our thesis.
The Gospel of St. John, written about the same time as the letter Clement to the Corinthians,
also contains a clear allusion to the martyrdom by crucifixion of St. Peter, without, however,
locating it (John 21:18, 19).
The very oldest evidence comes from St. Peter himself, if he be the author of the First Epistle of
Peter, of if not, from a writer nearly of his own time: "The Church that is in Babylon saluteth
you, and so doth my son Mark" (1 Peter 5:13). That Babylon stands for Rome, as usual amongst
pious Jews, and not for the real Babylon, then without Christians, is admitted by common
consent (cf. F.J.A. Hort, "Judaistic Christianity", London, 1895, 155).
This chain of documentary evidence, having its first link in Scripture itself, and broken nowhere, puts
the sojourn of St. Peter in Rome among the best-ascertained facts in history. It is further strengthened
by a similar chain of monumental evidence, which Lanciani, the prince of Roman topographers, sums
up as follows: "For the archaeologist the presence and execution of Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome are
facts established beyond a shadow of doubt, by purely monumental evidence!" (Pagan and Christian
Rome, 123).

St. Peter's successors in office

St. Peter's successors carried on his office, the importance of which grew with the growth of the
Church. In 97 serious dissensions troubled the Church of Corinth. The Roman Bishop, Clement,
unbidden, wrote an authoritative letter to restore peace. St. John was still living at Ephesus, yet neither
he nor his interfered with Corinth. Before 117 St. Ignatius of Antioch addresses the Roman Church as
the one which "presides over charity . . . which has never deceived any one, which has taught others."
St. Irenus (180-200) states the theory and practice of doctrinal unity as follows:

With this Church [of Rome] because of its more powerful principality, every Church must
agree, that is the faithful everywhere, in this [i.e. in communion with the Roman Church]
the tradition of the Apostles has ever been preserved by those on every side. (Adv.
Haereses, III)
The heretic Marcion, the Montanists from Phrygia, Praxeas from Asia, come to Rome to gain the
countenance of its bishops; St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, threatens to excommunicate the Asian
Churches; St. Stephen refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, and separates himself from various
Churches of the East; Fortunatus and Felix, deposed by Cyprian, have recourse to Rome; Basilides,
deposed in Spain, betakes himself to Rome; the presbyters of Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria,
complain of his doctrine to Dionysius, Bishop of Rome; the latter expostulates with him, and he
explains. The fact is indisputable: the Bishops of Rome took over Peter's Chair and Peter's office of
continuing the work of Christ [Duchesne, "The Roman Church before Constantine", Catholic Univ.
Bulletin (October, 1904) X, 429-450]. To be in continuity with the Church founded by Christ affiliation
to the See of Peter is necessary, for, as a matter of history, there is no other Church linked to any other
Apostle by an unbroken chain of successors. Antioch, once the see and centre of St. Peter's labours, fell
into the hands of Monophysite patriarchs under the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius at the end of the
fifth century. The Church of Alexandria in Egypt was founded by St. Mark the Evangelist, the
mandatory of St. Peter. It flourished exceedingly until the Arian and Monophysite heresies took root
among its people and gradually led to its extinction. The shortest-lived Apostolic Church is that of
Jerusalem. In 130 the Holy City was destroyed by Hadrian, and a new town, lia Capitolina, erected
on its site. The new Church of lia Capitolina was subjected to Caesarea; the very name of Jerusalem
fell out of use till after the Council of Nice (325). The Greek Schism now claims its allegiance.
Whatever of Apostolicity remains in these Churches founded by the Apostles is owing to the fact that
Rome picked up the broken succession and linked anew to the See of Peter. The Greek Church,
embracing all the Eastern Churches involved in the schism of Photius and Michael Caerularius, and the
Russian Church can lay no claim to Apostolic succession either direct or indirect, i.e. through Rome,
because they are, by their own fact and will, separated from the Roman Communion. During the four
hundred and sixty-four between the accession of Constantine (323) and the Seventh General Council
(787), the whole or part of the Eastern episcopate lived in schism for no less than two hundred and
three years: namely from the Council of Sardica (343) to St. John Chrysostom (389), 55 years; owing
to Chrysostom's condemnation (404-415), 11 years; owing to Acadius and the Henoticon edict (484519), 35 years; total, 203 years (Duchesne). They do, however, claim doctrinal connection with the
Apostles, sufficient to their mind to stamp them with the mark of Apostolicity.

The Anglican continuity claim

The continuity claim is brought forward by all sects, a fact showing how essential a note of the true
Church Apostolicity is. The Anglican High-Church party asserts its continuity with the preReformation Church in England, and through it with the Catholic Church of Christ. "At the
Reformation we but washed our face" is a favourite Anglican saying; we have to show that in reality
they washed off their head, and have been a truncated Church ever since. Etymologically, "to continue"
means "to hold together". Continuity, therefore, denotes a successive existence without constitutional
change, an advance in time of a thing in itself steady. Steady, not stationary, for the nature of a thing
may be to grow, to develop on constitutional lines, thus constantly changing yet always the selfsame.
This applies to all organisms starting from a germ, to all organizations starting from a few
constitutional principles; it also applies to religious belief, which as Newman says, changes in order to
remain the same. On the other hand, we speak of a "breach of continuity" whenever a constitutional

change takes place. A Church enjoys continuity when it develops along the lines of its original
constitution; it changes when it alters its constitution either social or doctrinal. But what is the
constitution of the Church of Christ? The answer is as varied as the sects calling themselves Christian.
Being persuaded that continuity with Christ is essential to their legitimate status, they have devised
theories of the essentials of Christianity, and of a Christian Church, exactly suiting their own
denomination. Most of the repudiatae Apostolic succession as a mark of the true Church; they glory in
their separation. Our present controversy is not with such, but with the Anglicans who do pretend to
continuity. We have points of contact only with the High-Churchmen, whose leanings toward antiquity
and Catholicism place them midway between the Catholic and the Protestant pure and simple.

England and Rome

Of all the Churches now separated from Rome, none has a more distinctly Roman origin than the
Church of England. It has often been claimed that St. Paul, or some other Apostle, evangelized the
Britons. It is certain, however, that whenever Welsh annals mention the introduction of Christianity into
the island, invariably they conduct the reader to Rome.
In the "Liber Pontificalis" (ed. Duchesne, I, 136) we read that "Pope Eleutherius received a letter from
Lucius, King of Britain, that he might be made a Christian by his orders." The incident is told again and
again by the Venerable Bede; it is found in the Book of Llandaff, as well as in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle; it is accepted by French, Swiss, German chroniclers, together with the home authorities
Fabius, Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, and Giraldus Cambrensis.
The Saxon invasion swept the British Church out of existence wherever it penetrated, and drove the
British Christians to the western borders of the island, or across the sea into Armorica, now French
Brittany. No attempt at converting their conquerors was ever made by the conquered. Rome once more
stepped in. The missionaries sent by Gregory the Great converted and baptized King Ethelbert of Kent,
with thousands of his subjects. In 597 Augustine was made Primate over all England, and his
successors, down to the Reformation, have ever received from Rome the pallium, the symbol of superepiscopal authority. The Anglo-Saxon hierarchy was thoroughly Roman in its origin, in its faith and
practice, in its obedience and affection; witness every page in Bede's "Ecclesiastical History". A like
Roman spirit animated the nation. Among the saints recognized by the Church are twenty-three kings
and sixty queens, princes, or princesses of the different Anglo-Saxon dynasties, reckoned from the
seventh to the eleventh century. Ten of the Saxon kings made the journey to the tomb of St. Peter, and
his successor, in Rome. Anglo-Saxon pilgrims formed quite a colony in proximity to the Vatican, where
the local topography (Borgo, Sassia, Vicus Saxonum) still recalls their memory. There was an English
school in Rome, founded by King Ine of Wessex and Pope Gregory II (715-731), and supported by the
Romescot, or Peter's-pence, paid yearly by every Wessex family. The Romescot was made obligatory
by Edward the Confessor, on every monastery and household in possession of land or cattle to the
yearly value of thirty pence.
The Norman Conquest (1066) wrought no change in the religion of England. St. Anselm of Canterbury
(1093-1109) testified to the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff in his writings (in Matthew 16) and by his
acts. When pressed to surrender his right of appeal to Rome, he answered the king in court:
You wish me to swear never, on any account, to appeal in England to Blessed Peter or his
Vicar; this, I say, ought not to be commanded by you, who are a Christian, for to swear this
is to abjure Blessed Peter; he who abjures Blessed Peter undoubtedly abjures Christ, who
made him Prince over his Church.
St. Thomas Becket shed his blood in defence of the liberties of the Church against the encroachments

of the Norman king (1170). Grosseteste, in the thirteenth century, writes more forcibly on the Pope's
authority over the whole Church than any other ancient English bishop, although he resisted an illadvised appointment to a canonry made by the Pope. In the fourteen century Duns Scotus teaches at
Oxford "that they are excommunicated as heretics who teach or hold anything different from what the
Roman Church holds or teaches." In 1411 the English bishops at the Synod of London condemn
Wycliffe's proposition "that it is not of necessity to salvation to hold that the Roman Church is supreme
among the Churches." In 1535 Blessed John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, is put to death for upholding
against Henry VIII the Pope's supremacy over the English Church. The most striking piece of evidence
is the working of the oath taken by archbishops before entering into office: "I, Robert, Archbishop of
Canterbury, from this hour forward, will be faithful and obedient to St. Peter, to the Holy Apostolic
Roman Church, to my Lord Pope Celestine, and his successors canonically succeeding...I will, saving
my order, give aid to defend and to maintain against every man the primacy of the Roman Church and
the royalty of St. Peter. I will visit the threshold of the Apostles every three years, either in person or by
my deputy, unless I be absolved by apostolic dispensation...So help me God and these holy Gospels."
(Wilkins, Concilia Angliae, II, 199).
Chief Justice Bracton (1260) lays down the civil law of this country thus: "It is to be noted concerning
the jurisdiction of superior and inferior courts, that in the first place as the Lord Pope has ordinary
jurisdiction over all in spirituals, so the king has, in the realm, in temporals." The line of demarcation
between things spiritual and temporal is in many cases blurred and uncertain; the two powers often
overlap, and conflicts are unavoidable. During five hundred years such conflicts were frequent. Their
very recurrence, however, proves that England acknowledged the papal supremacy, for it requires two
to make a quarrel. The complaint of one side was always that the other encroached upon its rights.
Henry VIII himself, in 1533, still pleaded in the Roman Courts for a divorce. Had he succeeded, the
supremacy of the Pope would not have found a more strenuous defender. It was only after his failure
that he questioned the authority of the tribunal to which he had himself appealed. In 1534 he was, by
Act of Parliament, made the Supreme Head of the English Church. The bishops, instead of swearing
allegiance to the Pope, now swore allegiance to the King, without any saving clause. Blessed John
Fisher was the only bishop who refused to take the new oath; his martyrdom is the first witness to the
breach of continuity between the old English and the new Anglican Church. Heresy stepped in to widen
the breach.
The Thirty-nine Articles teach the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone, deny purgatory,
reduce the seven sacraments to two, insist on the fallibility of the Church, establish the king's
supremacy, and deny the pope's jurisdiction in England. Mass was abolished, and the Real Presence;
the form of ordination was so altered to suit the new views on the priesthood that it became ineffective,
and the succession of priests failed as well as the succession of bishops. (See ANGLICAN ORDERS.)
Is it possible to imagine that the framers of such vital alternations thought of "continuing" the existing
Church? When the hierarchical framework is destroyed, when the doctrinal foundation is removed,
when every stone of the edifice is freely rearranged to suit individual tastes, then there is no continuity,
but collapse. The old faade of Battle Abbey still stands, also parts of the outer wall, and one faces a
stately, newish, comfortable mansion; green lawns and shrubs hide old foundations of church and
cloisters; the monks' scriptorium and storerooms still stand to sadden the visitor's mood. Of the abbey
of 1538, the abbey of 1906 only keeps the mask, the diminished sculptures and the stones--a fitting
image of the old Church and the new.

Present stage
Dr. James Gairdner, whose "History of the English Church in the 16th Century" lays bare the
essentially Protestant spirit of the English Reformation, in a letter on "Continuity" (reproduced in the

Tablet, 20 January, 1906), shifts the controversy from historical to doctrinal ground. "If the country," he
says, "still contained a community of Christians--that is to say, of real believers in the great gospel of
salvation, men who still accepted the old creeds, and had no doubt Christ died to save them--then the
Church of England remained the same as before. The old system was preserved, in fact all that was
really essential to it, and as regards doctrine nothing was taken away except some doubtful scholastic
propositions."

About this page

APA citation. Wilhelm, J. (1907). Apostolic Succession. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York:
Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved May 24, 2011 from New Advent:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01641a.htm
MLA citation. Wilhelm, Joseph. "Apostolic Succession." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New
York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 24 May 2011
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01641a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Donald J. Boon. Dedicated to the True
Believers of Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico, U.S.A.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur.
+John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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