Apostolicity
June
17, 2007
πῶς δὲ
κηρύξωσιν ἐὰν
μὴ
ἀποσταλῶσιν (And how shall they preach unless they are sent?) –
Romans 10:15
In
this verse, St. Paul says something that almost does not even make sense to our
contemporary ears. We might respond to St. Paul, "Why would a person need
to be sent, in order to preach? Why couldn't he just start preaching?" Not
having the Apostle Paul around to answer our question, we might concede:
"Fine, as long as the person is sent by the Holy Spirit."
One
contemporary form of gnosticism is the notion that the individual, his Bible,
and the Holy Spirit form a trinity sufficient for the governance of the
Christian life. This error is not very different from that of Montanism, the
second century heresy I recently discussed here.
But
the apostles were called 'apostles' because they were sent by the incarnate
Christ. (The word 'apostle' comes from the Greek word ἀποστoλoς, which means 'sent one'.) The churches they founded
were called apostolic because these churches were founded by the apostles.
The bishops in these churches were said to possess apostolic succession because
they had either received their ecclesial authority and commission directly from
one or more of the apostles, or from a bishop in a line of bishops whose first
bishop had received his ecclesial authority and commission from one or more of
the apostles. I collected a few quotations from the fathers here in
order to show how they thought about apostolicity. I wrote some commentary on
those quotations last year here.
It
is true that being an 'apostolic' church included in its meaning that that
church held and preserved the teaching of the apostles. But that was not the
primary meaning of 'apostolicity' for the fathers; that was a meaning derived
from the primary meaning. The primary meaning of 'apostolicity' for the fathers
was that the church was founded by one or more apostles. It was because the
church in question had been founded by an apostle that its doctrine was known
to be that of the apostles. Apostolicity was not identical to doctrinal
fidelity; rather, apostolicity guaranteed doctrinal fidelity, especially
in what was called the Apostolic See, where the Apostles Peter and Paul had
deposited the faith and established the primacy of episcopal authority.
When
we read the fathers on the 'apostolicity' of the Church, we see that they
understood the Church to grow organically. All the Catholic [particular]
churches were 'apostolic' because they had a succession just as did the
bishops. Either they were founded directly by an apostle, or by a church
founded by an apostle, or by a church founded by a church founded by an
apostle, etc.
The
notion that one could send oneself, appealing directly to the Holy Spirit and
bypassing the authority of the Apostles or those whom the Apostles had
appointed, is a form of Montanistic gnosticism; it is a gnostic revision of
'apostolicity'. St. Francis De Sales, who came to Geneva at the end of the 16th
century, and became its bishop, began his response to the Protestants by saying
the following:
"First,
then, your ministers had not the conditions required for the position which
they sought to maintain, and the enterprise which they undertook. ... The
office they claimed was that of ambassadors of Jesus Christ our Lord; the
affair they undertook was to declare a formal divorce between Our Lord and the
ancient Church his Spouse; to arrange and conclude by words of present consent,
as lawful procurators, a second and new marriage with this young madam, of
better grace, said they, and more seemly than the other. ... To be legates and
ambassadors they should have been sent, they should have had letters of credit
from him whom they boasted of being sent by. ... Tell me, what business had you
to hear them and believe them without having any assurance of their commission
and of the approval of Our Lord, whose legates they called themselves? In a
word, you have no justification for having quitted that ancient Church in which
you were baptized, on the faith of preachers who had no legitimate mission from
the Master."[1]
Apostolicity
is in this way a guard of ecclesial unity, because apostolicity is organic, not
merely formal. The Church is not a Book; the Church is a Body. Treating
'apostolicity' as essentially formal agreement with the Apostle's doctrine
treats the Church in essence as a Platonic form. But the fathers see
apostolicity organically, as ecclesial growth literally from the Apostles
themselves, even from their physical bodies that physically preached in those
churches that they founded. Apostolicity understood organically (i.e.
sacramentally) is a guard to unity because growth (in location, in numbers, and
in understanding of doctrine) must then always take place in unity and
agreement with the apostolic churches, especially the Apostolic See.
Jesus
warns of gnostic revisions to apostolicity when He says, "yet if another
comes in his own name, you will accept him." (John 5:43) The fathers
understood this passage to refer (in some eschatological sense) to the
Antichrist. But it also applies to the 'thieves' and 'robbers' Jesus describes
in John 10:1-5:
"Amen,
amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but
climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the
gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the
sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When
he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow
him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger;
they will turn away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of a
stranger."
Jesus
goes on to say that He Himself is the gate (vs. 7) and the good shepherd (vs.
11). The Church, as the Body of Christ, images Christ in this respect, especially
the bishops and presbyters (cf. Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2,4) and most especially
the successor of Peter (cf. John 21:15-17). They are not only the shepherds;
they are also the gate. The ministers must come with the authorization and
commission and blessing of the Church.
St.
Francis shows that the laity cannot be the source of authority for the
Protestant ministers. He writes:
"We
bring forward the express practice of the whole Church, which from all time has
been to ordain the pastors by the imposition of the hands of the other pastors
and bishops. Thus was Timothy ordained; and the seven deacons themselves,
though proposed by the Christian people, were ordained by the imposition of the
Apostles' hands. Thus have the Apostles appointed in their Constitutions; and
the great Council of Nice (which methinks one will not despise) and that of
Carthage – the second, and then immediately the third, and the fourth, at which
S. Augustine assisted. If then they [the original Protestant ministers] have
been sent by the laity, they are not sent in Apostolic fashion, nor
legitimately, and their mission is null. ... How shall they [the laity]
communicate the authority which they have not?"[2]
Nor,
argues St. Francis de Sales, did the original Protestant ministers have any
authorization from the Catholic bishops to teach and preach what they did. The
only remaining appeal, for the original Protestant ministers, was to the direct
commissioning by the Holy Spirit, in other words, to a kind of Montanistic
Gnosticism, which manifested itself more explicitly with the rise of figures
like Jakob Boehme (1557-1624) and George Fox (1624-1691). Boehme wrote:
"I
have enough with the book that I am. If I have within me the Spirit of Christ,
the entire Bible is in me. Why would I wish for more books? Why discuss what is
outside, while not having learned what is within me?"[3]