Sponsored by the Vincentian Community (Congregation of the Mission) and the Missouri Knights of Columbus.  We offer free correspondence courses on the Catholic Faith, courses that are faithful to the magisterium. Reprinted with permission.

THE CRUCIAL STAGES of any institution are those when one generation succeeds another. Not readily does one age accept the views and customs of another; often there appears even a direct reaction or bias by sons against their fathers' cherished ideas. It is the proof of a divine institution to have survived such a changing of the guard, such as handing on of the baton in life's relay race, such an exposure of truths old and new to the critical judgment of oncoming generations.

It is not enough to remark that by the twentieth century the Catholic Church has survived for nineteen centuries; it has also run the gauntlet of some sixty to seventy-five generations estimating a generation at twenty-five or thirty years.

It has just been seen that Christ's Apostles and disciples carried on His teaching and spirit for a generation after the Ascension, counting from 30 A.D. to 67, when Sts. Peter and Paul were martyred under Emperor Nero. These men, the Apostles and disciples, could live on memory and personal experience: they had been eyewitnesses of the deeds and teaching of the Founder.

A critical moment occurred when they must die. Could they pass on this sacred trust successfully; could they convince their successors of the precious nature of the deposit of faith that they were delegating to them?

In 2 Peter, we read of St. Peter gravely admonishing: "I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to arouse you by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. And I will see to it that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Pet. 1:13-17).

St. Paul is conscious of the same obligation: "For this gospel I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, and therefore I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us" (2 Tim. 1:11-14).

MINISTERS OF CHRIST

St. Clement of Rome, who knew both of these Apostles personally, himself asserted: "The apostles have preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the Apostles by Christ . . . Our apostles also knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For this reason, they appointed those (ministers) already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions that other approved men should succeed them in the ministry" (Letter to Corinthians, 42; 44).

Clement's namesake of Alexandria in like manner speaks of the organization of the Church in Asia Minor: "When he (St. John the Evangelist) returned to Ephesus from the Isle of Patmos after the tyrant's death, he visited the neighboring nations by request, partly to appoint bishops, partly to organize and form whole churches, partly also that he might enroll in the clergy any of those whom the Spirit had designated" (How Shall the Rich be Saved!, 42).

Clement of Alexandria wrote a century after John's death, but a hundred years previously this same notion of episcopal authority in the Church in succession to the Apostles had been stressed by St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who knew John personally: "Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop . . . Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude (of faithful) also be, even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church" (Smyrneans, 8).

Here about 107 A.D. occurs the first use known of the term "Catholic." By coincidence the name seems to have originated in Antioch, first point of contact of the Church with the Gentile world, where already it had received the name Christian: "In Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11:26). Later St. Pacian of Barcelona correlated these terms: "Christian is my name, and Catholic my surname."

To return to St. Ignatius, he insisted: "Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the will of the Father, as also bishops settled everywhere to the utmost bounds, are so by the will of Jesus Christ" (Ephesians, 3). "Let all revere deacons as the command of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, and the priests as the senate of God and the council of the apostles" (Trallians, 3).

Roman primacy among the episcopal successors of the Apostles continued after St. Peter's death. Evidence for the succession of the Bishops of Rome to Peter's office is reasonably abundant. Lists of these episcopal successors are available in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, (III-VII). Eusebius, of course, derived these lists from predecessors, and in regard to Rome had the information of St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (177-202), disciple of St. Polycarp and "grand-disciple" of St. John the Evangelist.

RECORD OF TRADITION

Against second century Gnostic heretics who pretended to an inside information about Christian doctrine not confided to the original Apostles, this Irenaeus forcibly set forth the record of tradition: "It is within the power of anyone who cares to find out the truth and to know the tradition of the apostles, professed throughout the world in every church. We are also able to name those who were appointed bishops by the apostles in the churches, and their successors down to our own times . . . But inasmuch as it would be very tedious in a book such as this to rehearse the lines of succession in every church, we will put to confusion all persons who, whether from waywardness or vainglory or blindness or perversity of mind, combined wrongfully together in any way, by pointing to the tradition derived from the apostles of that great and glorious church founded and organized at Rome by the two glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, and to the faith declared to mankind and handed down to our own time through its bishops in their succession. For unto this church, on account of its commanding position, every church, that is to say, the faithful from everywhere, must needs resort, and in it the tradition that comes from the apostles has been continuously preserved by those who are from everywhere" (Against Heresies, III, 3).

Assertion of Roman primacy by a successor of St. Peter had taken place during the first century, in the lifetime of the Apostle, St. John, who would have been the first to protest if this had been a usurpation contrary to the mind of Christ.

ROMAN INTERVENTION AT CORINTH

The occasion for the first known Roman intervention in another episcopal see was given by the church at Corinth, that turbulent port which had given St. Paul much trouble by its factions. Not thirty years after Paul's death, the Corinthians are once again challenging the authority of their ecclesiastical rulers.

It was St. Clement, third successor to St. Peter at Rome (91-100), who called the Corinthians to order: "Blessed Paul the Apostle... wrote to you concerning himself and Cephas and Appollos, because even then you were given to faction . . . It is disgraceful, beloved, and unworthy of your training in Christ, to hear that the stable and ancient church of the Corinthians, on account of one or two persons, should revolt against its priests . . . You, therefore, who laid the foundation of rebellion, submit to the priests, and accept chastisement for repentance . . . But if some should disobey the words which have been spoken by Him (Christ) through us, let them know they will involve themselves in no small transgression and danger, but we shall be innocent of this sin . . . You will afford us joy and gladness if you obey what we have written through the Holy Spirit . . . Send back to us quickly our legates, Claudius Ephebus and Valerius Vito, together with Fortunatus, in peace with gladness, so that they may speedily announce the peace and harmony which we have prayed for and desired..." (Letter to Corinthians, 47, 57, 59, 63).

No mere co-equal bishop would dare write such an authoritative instruction to an apostolically founded church like Corinth unless he possessed jurisdiction over the entire Church of Christ by his succession to Peter, leader and prince of the Apostles. Incidentally, it may be noted that already in the first century the Roman see is accustomed to send legates to outlying churches, just as Pope Sylvester would do for the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325.

Even if it could be imagined that the universally respected St. Clement of Rome would seize an authority not rightfully his, he would never have been obeyed in that turbulent Corinth which had challenged St. Paul for a time unless the Corinthians understood that Clement's was the authority of Christ and of Peter. And Clement was obeyed. Some seventy years later, Bishop Dionysius of Corinth told Pope Soter that Pope Clement's letter was still being read in the churches as a reminder (Eusebius, History, IV, 23).

ST. IGNATIUS

If any bishop could set up a rival claim to being Peter's successor in the primacy, it would be St. Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, where Peter labored for some time before going to Rome. Yet far from claiming any authority over the Roman Church, Ignatius displayed respect: "Not as Peter and Paul do I issue any orders to you. They were apostles; I am a convict; they were free, I am until this moment a servant" (Romans, 4).

On his way to martyrdom, Ignatius composed seven letters to Christian communities. In these writings he simply saluted "the Church that is at Smyrna," "the Church that is at Philadelphia," etc., but when he came to salute the Roman Church, Ignatius' style changes: "To the Church that is beloved and enlightened through the will of Him Who has willed all things that are, according to the love of Jesus Christ our Lord, even to her that presides in the region of the Romans worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of prosperity, worthy of her purity and presiding over the brotherhood" (lbid., 1).

Roman intervention in the affairs of other churches was not confined to the Corinthian incident during early Church history. Pope Victor ( 189-199) insisted on the celebration of Easter according to the Petrine and Roman tradition in the face of the episcopate of Asia Minor who retained a custom which they credited to St. John the Evangelist himself. The Roman tradition became that of the universal Church.

Pope Stephen I (254-257) encountered difficulty with the famed St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in a dispute about rebaptism of converts from heresy. Cyprian, whose theology rather than charity was at fault, eventually was reconciled with Rome. The Council of Arles in 314 upheld the Pope's decision against Cyprian's opinion (Eusebius, History, X, 5).

Even pagan Roman emperors were well aware of the leadership of the Christian Church; Emperor Decius (249-251) is reported to have preferred to hear of the appearance of a rival for his throne rather than of the election of a new Bishop of Rome.

Aurelian (270-275) expelled the usurping Paul of Samosata from the episcopal residence at Antioch because he failed to have the authorization of the Bishops of Rome and Italy.

Of the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325, it is reported that: "The prelate of the imperial city ( Pope Sylvester) was prevented from attending by extreme old age, but his priests were present and supplied his place" (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III, 7). The acts of the council placed first Bishop Hosius of Cordova in Spain and the Roman priests, Victor and Vincent, presumably because they signed not in their own name, but in the name of the Pope. "Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, wrote: 'I so believe as was written above. Victor and Vincent, Roman priests, for the venerable man, our holy pope and bishop, Sylvester, have signed, believing as written above"' (Mans), Collectio Conciliorum, II, 692).

The Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) saw over 600 bishops salute the message of Pope St. Leo the Great: "Peter has spoken through Leo."

As for patristic confirmation, it is found on every side; let St. Augustine sum it up. Having sent two conciliar condemnations of the Pelagian heresy to Rome, from Carthage in 416, Augustine awaited Pope Innocent's decision. At last St. Augustine was able to report to the faithful: "On this case, two councils were sent to the Apostolic See; the replies have come from there. The case is closed" (Sermon 131). If the greatest of the patristic doctors declared a case closed once the Bishop of Rome had decided, certainly he regarded that bishop's authority pre-eminent and his teaching infallible.