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Irenaeus of Lugdunum and the Apostolic Succession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Einar Molland
Einar Molland
Affiliation:
Professor of Church History and Dean of the Faculty of Theology in the University of Oslo, Norway
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Extract

In order to grasp the idea of the Apostolic Succession underlying Irenaeus' utterances on this subject we shall first analyse two different conceptions of the Succession which we meet with in modern times. I think it will be a help to see him against this background since it will enable us to perceive the specifically Irenaean idea of what the ‘succession from the apostles’ implies.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1950 , pp. 12 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950

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References

page 14 note 1 Works, vol. vi, 1866, p. 478. Cf. his criticism of the theory in ‘Gladstone on Church and State’, Works, vol. vi, p. 361 sqq.

page 15 note 1 Den christelige Dogmatik, 3rd ed., 1865, p. 355.

page 15 note 2 The texts are put together in Turner's essay, ‘Apostolic Succession’ in Essays on the Early History of the Church and the Ministry, ed. by H. B. Swete, 1918, p. 200.

page 15 note 1 a principali successione: van den Eynde has shown in Les normes de I'enseignement chrétien dans la littérature patristique, 1933, p. 172 sqq., that principalis in the contexts in Irenaeus dealing with successions (of bishops or of generations) means ‘primitive, original’; in most cases principalis is the word used by the Latin translator to render ρχαῖος.

page 20 note 1 It is to be regretted that this excellent book is accessible only to scholars who read Danish. A synopsis of it, together with some critical remarks, was given in the Journal of Theological Studies, vol. XIII (1912), p. 574 sqq.Google Scholar, by V. Ammundsen.

page 20 note 2 Les normes de I'enscignement chrétien dans la littérature patristiquc, 1933, p. 261.

page 23 note 1 In Irenaeus' letter to Victor of Rome, preserved in Eusebius Hist, eccl., V. 24, Victor's predecessors, the bishops Anicetus, Pius, Hyginus, Telesphorus, and Sixtus, are Styled οἱ πρ Σωτρος πρεσβὑτεροι ο προστντες τς κκλησας ἦς σù νν φηγῇ.

page 23 note 1 This is Lightfoot's theory concerning the character of the bishop's office in the second century. It has been taken up by Headlam, A. C., The Doctrine of the Church and Christian Reunion (Bampton Lectures, 1920), p. 98 sq. Cf.Google ScholarThe Ministry and the Sacraments, Report issued by the Faith and Order Theological Commission 1937, p. 336. The existence of an early stage in the development of the ministry when the official styled episkopos was ‘only the president of the local presbytery’ is also admitted by Gregory Dix (The Apostolic Ministry, ed. by Kenneth E. Kirk, 2nd ed. 1947, p. 293, cf. p. 218).

page 23 note 3 Turner's explanation of the alternative use of presbyteri and episcopi in IV. 26. 2–5 is that ‘a more general word for office than πσκσπσς is here designedly used, because he will not give the name of bishop to those who are not true bishops’ (Essays, p. 124 n. 1). But this explanation is unsatisfactory, for neither will Irenaeus recognize heretics and schismatics as presbyters when he says qui vero crediti sunt a multis esse presbyteri (IV. 26. 2). And Turner's suggestion cannot explain the alternative use of the two designations in Book III.

page 24 note 1 It is Turner's merit to have suggested the right interpretation of the episcopal lists. Headlam rightly says of the idea of succession in the second century: ‘It implies no more than a succession of rulers, each lawfully appointed to his office, or a succession of teachers in a school. It does not imply any succession by ordination…. The important point was correct and public appointment to the office.’ Dix also states that ‘there is in this way of reckoning the matter no emphasis whatever on the sacramental “succession” of a bishop to those bishops from other Churches who had consecrated him to the episcopate by the laying on of hands’ (The Apostolic Ministry, p. 202, cf. p. 206). Whether it is probable that bishops from other churches participated in the laving on of hands, as supposed by Dix, will be discussed below.

page 24 note 2 Erich Caspar: Die älteste römische Bischofsliste (Scriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschqft, Geisteswiss. Kl. II. 4) 1926, p. 222 sqq., 247 sqq. Caspar thinks (p. 256) that the list originally was not a list of bishops, but a list of those men whom the local church considered as bearers of the apostolic tradition and guarantors of the genuineness of the tradition, without necessarily being bishops. This suggestion hardly recommends itself. Caspar himself (p. 251) admits that the men on this list have been understood to be bishops by Irenaeus and all subsequent authors. And what other office might these ‘bearers of tradition’ have held? It is the late emergence of the monarchical episcopate in Rome which has occasioned his hypothesis. But the difficulty is solved by Lightfoot's theory of a body of presbyter-bishops with a president whose office increases until he finally emerges as a ‘monarchical’ bishop and is styled ἠπσκοπος in contradistinction to his fellow-presbyters. The list of Roman bishops is a catalogue of presidents of the presbytery and, from Anicetus onwards, of monarchical bishops. Cf. the criticism of Caspar's hypothesis by van den Eynde, p. 195.

page 24 note 3 Caspar (p. 229 sqq.) tries to prove that διαδοχ in Hegesippus does not mean a series of successors, but is a synonym to παρδοσις. His thesis and argument are not convincing. C. the critical remarks of van den Eynde, p. 169.

page 24 note 4 The Church and the Ministry, p. 60.

page 25 note 1 principalis consessio = πρωτοκαθερα, as Harnack suggested very plausibly in Sitzungsberichte d. Preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. 1893, p. 949. Cf. van den Eynde, p. 183 n. 2.

page 25 note 2 Les normes de l'enseignment chrétien, p. 181 sqq.

page 26 note 1 The Apostolic Ministry, p. 209 sq., cf. the use made of this text by Dix, p. 210, 212, 293 sq.

page 26 note 2 ‘Das Charisma veritatis und der Episkopat bei Irenäus,’ in Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wiss., 1924, p. 216 sqq.

page 26 note 3 Hist. eccl. V. 4, i: τν Ερηναῖον, πρεσβὐτερον ἥδη ττʼ ντα τς ν Λουγδονῳ παροικας ….

page 26 note 4 Hist. eccl. V. 4, 2: ɛἰ γ⋯ρ ᾔδɛιμɛν τ⋯πον τιν⋯ δικαιοσ⋯νην πɛριποιɛἴθαι, ώς πρɛσβ⋯τɛρον ⋯κκλησ⋯ας, ⋯πɛρ ⋯στ⋯ν ⋯π᾽ αὑτῷ, ⋯νπρώτοις ἂν παρɛθ⋯μɛθα.

page 27 note 1 Hist. eccl. V. 5, 8: Ποθɛινο⋯ δἠ ⋯φ ⋯λοισ τ⋯ς τ⋯ς ⋯π⋯ Γαλλ⋯ας μαρτυρ⋯οασιν τɛ λɛιω⋯ντος, Eἰρηναῖοσ τ⋯ς Λο⋯γδουνον ἦς ⋯ Ποθɛιν⋯ς ⋯γɛῖο παροικ⋯ας τ⋯ νπισκοπ⋯ν διαδ⋯χɛται

page 27 note 2 Hist. eccl. V. 23, 3 : κα τν κατΓαλλαν δ παροικιν, ἂς Εἰρηναῖος πεσκπει. The designation παροικαι (plur.) here is not used in the technical meaning of ‘diocese’. It only means groups of Christians. See L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, t. I, 2nd. ed., 1907, p. 43.

page 27 note 3 Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, I, p. 39 sqq.

page 27 note 4 Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècles, 2nd ed., t. 3, Paris 1721, p. 619Google Scholar.

page 27 note 5 De viris illustribus, c. 35.

page 27 note 6 It has been abandoned by F. Vernet in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, VII: a, col. 2395. Charles Gore, The Church and the Ministry, p. 100, n. 4, still holds the opinion that Irenaeus could have been consecrated in Rome.

page 27 note 7 Irenaeus of Lugdunum, 1914, p. 8.

page 27 note 8 This is the opinion of C. H. Turner, p. 107: ‘We have no reason at all to doubt that, so far back as “succession” was emphasized at all, two factors and two only were implicitly assumed as necessary elements in the case. To belong to the succession, a bishop had first to be lawfully chosen by a particular community to occupy the vacant cathedra of its church, and secondly to be lawfully entrusted with the charisma of the episcopate by the ministry of those already recognized as possessing it. When the neighbouring bishops met to bestow on the bishop-elect the laying on of their hands, they in fact ratified with the sanction of the Church at large the choice of the individual community.’

page 28 note 1 Grabe found an allusion to an ordained ministry in V. 20, 1: omnibus … eandem figuram eius quae est erga ecclesiam ordinationis custodientibus. But in this context ordinatio means ‘Church order’.

page 28 note 2 Roman Catholic historians like F. Cabrol in Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, t. I, col. 1204 sqq., and Jacques Zeiller in Histoire de l'Eglise depuis les origines jusquʼá nos jours ed. Fliche et Martin, t. I, p. 377, discuss the Alexandrian consecrations without bias, whereas the discussion found in Charles Gore, The Church and the Ministry, p. 115 sqq., 315 sqq., is rather dogmatic. An undogmatic discussion of this historical question is found in J. B. Lightfoot's famous excursus in his Epistle to the Philippians, 4th ed., 1878, p. 230 sqq., and in Headlam, p. 102. C. H. Turner (Cambridge Medieval History, vol. I, p. 161), followed by B. J. Kidd (History of the Church to A.D. 461, vol. I, p. 381 sq.), thinks the irregular thing about the consecrations in Alexandria was that the presbyters possessed the right to propose the candidate at episcopal elections which in other churches belonged to the people, rather than that they should have had the bishops' right to consecrate. But who, then, performed the act of consecration in Alexandria? Mgr. Duchesne thinks, in his Histoire ancienne de l'Eglise, t. I, 3rd ed., p. 94, that consecrations of bishops by presbyters probably occurred not only in Alexandria, but at an early stage also in Antioch, Rome and Lugdunum.