The Gap Theory and Apostolic Succession

[Lorarose]

Other bishops from neighboring areas would come to confirm that choice, and make it official by the laying on of hands.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
As I understand it - the process of selecting bishops has not always been the same process.
The process of selecting the individual who would become the bishop of Rome has not always been the same.
What has remained the same is this laying on of hands by the bishops.

 

[Pax]

Here is another angle on the power to forgive sins and why it would not die out with the death of the last apostle. Confession is rooted in the Old Testament and necessarily continues in the New Covenant.

In the book of Genesis we read all about the fall of Adam and Eve and about Cain killing Able. While God knew exactly what had happened and what sins had been committed, God still asks Adam and Eve [see Gen 3:11-14] what they had done. Again, when Cain kills Able in Gen 4:10, God asks Cain “What have you done?” God wants us to confess and it is therefore necessary for us to do so.

So where does the priest fit in? In Leviticus 5:5-6 we have a solid prefiguring/foreshadowing of confession and this is carried over into the New Covenant. In Lev. 5:5-6 it says, “When a man is guilty in any of these, he shall confess the sin he has committed, and he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord for the sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.” Note how the penitent must confess and take his sin offering to the priest, and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin. This requires knowledge of the sin on the part of the priest.

In the New Testament we have a number of verses that refer to the authority to forgive sins. In Matthew 9:6-8, we read “But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins”–he then said to the paralytic --“Rise, take up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men." Notice how scripture says that such authority had been given to men. This is significant and is not merely a coincidence. This is the inspired word of God.

The question of authority and power to forgive sin is given obviously to Jesus and this is further affirmed in Matthew 28:18 where we are told, "And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

So just how is this authority transfered to the apostles and their successors? In John 20:21-23 "Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This is an incredible set of verses. They are rich in meaning and power. Notice that Jesus sends the apostles in the same way that the Father sent Him. The Father sent Jesus with all power and authority which included the power to forgive sins. So also Jesus sends the apostles. Jesus breathes on the apostles and says, “receive the Holy Spirit.” There is only one other time in all of scripture where God breathes on man, and that is in Genesis when God breathes life into Adam. This is a significant moment in the upper room and it is at this moment that Jesus says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven: if you retain the sins of any they are retained.”

Later in the new testament scriptures we find additional verses that speak to confession and reconciliation. The most significant are the following:

2 Corinthians 5: 17-20
Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

James 5:14-15
Is any among you sick? Let him call for the presbyters [priests] of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (“presbyter” is the root word from which we get the term priest)

James 5:16
Therefore confess you sins to one another….

Matthew 18:18
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (In Jewish culture and faith the power to bind and loose carries a juridical dimension and has application to the forgiveness of sin)

cont. on next post

 

[Pax]

cont. from prior post

It’s logically goofy to assume that scripture would give us a powerful message concerning confession with application only to those Christians that lived during the life times of the apostles. Is it even the least bit logical to believe that if Jesus established a Church that His Church would cease to function in this very important ministry? Have the gates of hell so easily prevailed against His church that confession or any other function of Christ’s Church would cease at the death of the last apostle? This would happen only if Jesus was not who He said He was, or if He was otherwise “unable” to keep His promises. It just won’t fly!

 

[philipmarus]

As time passed, more and more churches were established without the direct involvement of Apostles, scriptures both real and fabricated became more widespread, and there was a need to create a heirarchy to rule on what were proper traditions, and what constituted proper scripture, to condemn heresy, and to maintain communication with the rest of the world so that the Church would be united in these decisions.

To address the OP, your friend is correct that independent Protestant churches are in some ways closer to 1st century churches that the modern Catholic Church. There was not the bureaucratic heirarchy that we have in place today; bishops had some authority, but churches were free to do many things in their own local way.

What about St. Ignatius (107 A.D) talking about “do nothing without the bishop” in several his Letters. He says in his Letter to the Smyranaens, “Nor is it permitted without the bishop to either baptize or celebrate the agape…so whatever is done will be secure and valid”. It seems to me there can be no valid eucharist (ie,Transubstantiation occurs) without the one presiding being ordained by a bishop who has a direct connection to the apostles. This is one reason why my Protestant friends seek to attack Apostolic Succession and the idea teaching authority being present today in the Church.

When you say there was need to “create heirarchy” are you saying the papacy founded upon Peter was not the intention of Christ? It obvious that Paul is passing on some authority to Timothy through office of Bishop. In Paul’s Letter to Philemon we see Paul writing on behalf Onesimus, a runaway slave Paul befriended. In St. Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Epheasians he refers to Onesimus as the its Bishop. The Biblical scholar
F.F Bruce (Paul, Apostle of the Free Spirit, 1977, P. 399-406)agrees that the bishop Ignatius writes (Onesimus) is the same man that Paul befriended in his Letter to Philemon.

 

[Maccabees]

Lorarose:

That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
As I understand it - the process of selecting bishops has not always been the same process.
The process of selecting the individual who would become the bishop of Rome has not always been the same.
What has remained the same is this laying on of hands by the bishops.

Exactly the apostles threw dice to select Mathias I mean we don’t do that today but doesn’t mean the succession isn’t valid anymore because the selection process has evolved.
A modern analogy would be the amerian presidential election only rich white men who owned land could vote for president many things have change you don’t have to own land, you don’t have have to be white and you don’t have to be a man. That doesn’t mean the elections from George Washington till JFk were invalid becaue until the civl rights act of the lat 60’s blacks were not allowed to vote without threat of a lynching in the deep south.

 

[twf]

The titles, in the early first century, were still in flux. The terms ‘presbyter’ (elder) and ‘bishop’ (overseer) were used interchangably; this, however, does not take away from the Catholic position. It is not the title that matters, but the actual office itself. Regardless of what they were called, both offices do exist in the New Testament. Presbyters were appointed in each down, but we see in Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus, that he left them in their respective regions to govern over the Church with authority. They were to rebuke with authority, teach, and uplift the faithful, and were instructed to ordain presbyters (and deacons, in Timothy’s case). They were not among the 12 Apostles (nor were they an apostle like Paul commissioned directly by Christ, as far as we can tell), but they had authority superior to that of a presbyter. By the early second century, and perhaps earlier, based on the writings of St. Igantius (c. AD 107 or so), we can see that the title bishop was used in reference to the chief shepherd of the local church, while the title presbyter was used for his co-workers, the other priests that assisted the bishop in his ministry as head of the local church.

Someone mentioned above that Paul gives different qualifications for bishops and presbyters in his letter to Timothy. This is not true. 1 Tim 3 seems to suggest that there is only ‘the bishop’, however, we know from Phil. 1:1 that Paul does use the term ‘bishop’ in the plural, suggesting that all priests could be referred to as bishops in this early period of the Church. (The title does not matter, only the office, remember). Paul seems to use the two titles interchangably in his letter to Titus. In Tit. 1:5 he instructs Titus, who clearly has a position superior to that of the ordinary presbyters, and thus a bishop in the modern sense, to appoint presbyters for every town, and then in verse seven uses the term overseer.

Even today, in the Catholic Church, we have a plurality of presbyters. The individual diocese is the modern equivalent of a local Church in the NT, under a bishop, aided by a group of presbytes or priests. It’s just that today, the local church (diocese) covers a wider area in many cases.

 

[chevalier]

1. Succession lists of Catholic Bishops (and of the early Popes) have gaps in them and therefore Apostolic Succession is not completely unbroken. I’m not sure where they are getting this particular allegation.

I’m not aware of a single instance of a Catholic priest being ordained by a priest and recognised as such by the Church. I’m not aware of any bishop exercising strictly episcopal functions (i.e. sacramental, not just governance or wearing purple or being addressed as bishop) without ordination by at least one validly ordained bishop and being recognised by the Catholic Church. Protestants believe priests can ordain priests but we don’t. And even those Protestants who have bishops believe those need ordination. So to claim that we have bishops or priests taken out of thin air sounds like conspiracy theory.

1. The Early Church (Particularly in the East) were under a Body of Men (Presbyteros) as in the New Testament. They argue that in N.T speaks of Presbyteros (Plural) appoint in every town. This in their mind refutes any notion of a local Church under one Priest. In their mind, the present day Non-denominational Fundamentalist churchs more closely resemble the New Testament Church in form governance.

And perhaps the form of governance in Asia Minor under Roman supremacy more resembles the current form of governance in our civilisation than does, well, the current form of governance in our civilisation? Hehe.

Also, there’s no such thing as non-denominational. A layman who chooses what to believe and what to give a pass is making up his own church and he takes quite a lot bigger step in it than schismatic bishops who are, after all, in apostolic succession. Laymen are hardly so.

Notice also that presbyteros means just elder. There used to be a problem with calling Christian clerics some else than the ancient Hebrew clerics to avoid confusion. Judeochristian “Founding Fathers” of the Church would attend Jewish services in the temple headed by those ancient priests. One needed to make some difference. A safer noun is hiereus. It always means an ordained priest unless it’s limited to bishops (the first type of Christian clergy in existence) or used metaphorically in addressing the universal priesthood of the faithful. The Latin noun sacerdos is perfectly clear. Apostle means bishop. Presbyteroi are not amongst apostoloi but they still consecrate the Body and Blood so much as apostoloi (episcopoi) do, so this is pretty much self-explanatory.

Another thing you can do is ask about female ministers, gay ministers and so on. You will surely find some Protestants who believe that it’s a sin to have sex during the woman’s period but will have no trouble ordaining an actively homosexual minister and allowing him to preside no matter how clear Leviticus is on that.

1. Any authority given to the Apostles like the power to forgive sins (Jn 20:22) ended with the Death of the Last Apostle.

So what about the Apostles ordaining Matthias Apostle after the Death of Judas (which is basically an epispocal ordination in the Scripture, by the way)? Sola Scriptura, heh.

Protestants make one basic error: It’s not like bishops were ever made above common priests. Bishops were created first. Priests were added later. You could have a perfectly valid Catholic clergy made totally of bishops without a single priest. Why not. But you can’t have priests without bishops. Priesthood is derived from episcopacy. Bishops aren’t superpriests, priests are subbishops, so to say. Priests have never been given power to ordain anyone, so presbyters in presbyterian churches aren’t even valid presbyters unless they are converted Catholic or Orthodox priests.

 

[jimmy]

Christian4life:

I struggled with this question as well. I hope you get some good replies. I think I’ve read some things from the early church fathers on that would dispel it, but for the life of me I can’t remember what they were.

Like Irenaeus giving the line of all the bishops of Rome in Against Heresies book 3 chapter 3. He named the first 12 or 13 popes.

It does not matter whether there is a gap in time between popes. There is a gap between every pope. Sometimes it is shorter than other times. Apostolic succession follows the line of bishops, not popes. The pope is a bishop, not a completely different level of ordination. So, really there have never been any gaps in apostolic succession since there have always been bishops since Christ. There has not been a time when there were not bishops.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Lorarose:

Understood - but I think we’re drifting into a different debate - does the Church have a “plan b” for papal succession? - that I do not know.

I am trying to address the original question concerning alleged gaps between popes.
These aren’t “gaps” in terms of apostolic succession because there wasn’t a case of us having the bishops die off before they replaced a pope.
There were periodic vacancies - but there was not a break in succession.

As for your hypothetical situation - that would make an interesting topic of its own.

The problem is we’re dealing with a typical Fundamentalist tactic – begging the question. They want to start a debate about a gap in historical terms – and if you join in, you have willy-nilly accepted the underlying proposition that a “gap” MATTERS.

If they can then show that there WAS some sort of a “gap” at sometime or other, people who have been arguing there was not are refueted and having already unknowingly bought into their REAL argument are trapped.

So the answer to their argument is to simply refute the REAL argument – that a “gap” matters. The best way to do that is to point to the period between the Crucifixion and Resurection and ask if THAT “gap” matters. If it doesn’t, then gaps in general are non-issues. And if it DOES matter, then Christianity collapses.

 

[Maccabees]

Making apostolic succession null and void makes Christ a liar he said he will be with the church till the end of time and in every age and the gates of hell will never prevail against the church. Tell me where in the Bible does it say the power of binding and loosing that christ gave the church and of course the keys he gave to Peter had an expiration date?
THe typical rant is that after the last apostle died (John) the church went down the tubes and had no real apostolic succession. That doesn’t make sense given the promises of Christ made to the church. This fundamentilsim when thought out to its fullest degree has one reclaiming the once lost apostolic succession and a reestablishment of the church surely Christ would never leave us in this mess forever ergo the Mormon religion.

 

[philipmarus]

A Catholic friend of mine gave me this argument.

1. Confession depends upon Apostolic Succession.
2. Jesus gave the Apostles the authority to forgive sins (Jn 20:23)
3. Some Fundamentalists will tell you one hand that the power to forgive sins ended with last Apostle, but at the same time will say confession of sins to a Priest and the accompanying penance is wrong because it takes away the completeness of Christ suffering. They will say we no longer have to go through a middle-man (ie, a Priest)
4. My Catholic friend’s rejoinder was that if Christ suffering did eveything, what sins were the Apostolic generation to confess to an Apostle? Why would the First Christians be confessing to an Apostle, but then after the Apostles all died everyone would be confessing to God alone.

 

[Church_Militant]

philipmarus:

Yes, I’m aware that Dr. McGee is dead however he has almost a cult following with people I know. To them to try to demonstrate people like Dr. Mcgee while a well meaning man , are wrong about things such as that Catholics re-crucify Christ at evey Mass or the Bibilical basis of the Rapture - is to these people, an attack on Holy Bible itself.

Anecdote: To give example - Last night I was having a discussion with a close Protestant Family member. The discussion got on subject to the EXODUS and whether Ramess II was the pharoah of the exodus. To put it briefly, My friend maintained all the great building projects of Egypt were done with Jewish slaves. My friend maintained that Ramess II was believed to be Pharoah of the Exodus and he was known as a “great builder” . I pointed out that according to Holman’s Bible Atlas written by a Protestant (and any Historian) the Great Pyramid was built around 2600 B.C, a full 600 to 700 years before the Hebrews were in Egypt. My friend accused me of listening to “liberals” and then claimed he followed the “inspired word of God”. I thought where in the Bible does it say that the Hebrews built all the Pyramids?

Sorry if my anecdote is off the thread a bit. How does one demonstrate that there are no Gaps in Apostolic Succession lines without finding a chart that traces my bishop all the way back tot he New Testament ordinations with people that are stubborn. Or that the office Apostle did not completely die out with John and just leave us with a Bible.

Y’know…Philip, this is a real prize winner.
I see this alot and it bugs me no end. Have ya had them say that Thomas Aquinas and Augustine were humanists? I almost fell over…
I think this is one of the great pitfalls of those who try to live by Sola Scriptura because it seems to mean that they have to have an answer for everything from the Bible. (Good example: “Dr. Dino” Kent Hovind from right here in Florida. He has to prove that evolution is wrong and that there really are dinosaurs in the Bible. BTW did you know that he also alleges in his tapes that we Catholics believe that we “become God” and even proves it with a passage of the CCC? Yep! Looks good too, right up until you pull out the CCC and check it for context…and then notice that he cites Jack Chick Publications for it in his onscreen footnote. “Dr. Dino” doesn’t do his own homework. :tsktsk: )

The rejection of real church history is one of the most frustrating aspects of dialog (or apologetics) with n-Cs and Prots.

Oh yeah! BTW, get the Pocket Catholic Dictionary by Fr. John Hardon, S.J. it has a full list of all the popes and when they reigned beginning on page 476. It’s also a great resource investment.
Pax vobiscum,

 

[lsburk]

The problem with fundamentalists is that they always want to point to the Bible for everything. What they overlook is how the early church looked at confession of sins. If this were something that was invented and instituted with no real history to it, where is the protests of the early church members. There is none because this was an accepted practice. Actually it was an encouraged practice.

Try this with your fundamentalist family members. Make them defend “sola scriptura”, that is, the sole rule of faith lies within the pages of the Bible. Afterall, their implication is that we should look to the Bible for all answers regarding faith. Ask them to show you where in the Bible it says that the Bible is the sole rule of faith. The best they will be able to do is to point to a passage that says scripture is “profitable” for faith.

 

[vern_humphrey]

lsburk:

The problem with fundamentalists is that they always want to point to the Bible for everything. What they overlook is how the early church looked at confession of sins. If this were something that was invented and instituted with no real history to it, where is the protests of the early church members. There is none because this was an accepted practice. Actually it was an encouraged practice.

This is what I call “Garage Sale Theology.” Fundamentalists treat the Bible as if it were just discovered – perhaps found at a garage sale. No one knows were it came from, nor any of the history behind it, but wow!http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[philipmarus]

vern humphrey:

This is what I call “Garage Sale Theology.” Fundamentalists treat the Bible as if it were just discovered – perhaps found at a garage sale. No one knows were it came from, nor any of the history behind it, but wow!http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

I’ve had Fundamentalists tell me that reason no one discovered the rapture in its pages until 1830 is that it wasn’t until the 19th Century that we began to seriously study the Biblle in depth.

 

[vern_humphrey]

philipmarus:

I’ve had Fundamentalists tell me that reason no one discovered the rapture in its pages until 1830 is that it wasn’t until the 19th Century that we began to seriously study the Biblle in depth.

The Rapture is due to a mis-translation, and a whole mythology built out of nothing around it.

The German school of “Higher Criticism” of the Bible dates to the first half of the 19th Century – but any one reading the last three books of “The Confessions of Saint Augustine” could never doubt that serious Bible study is an ancient practice.

Of course, if no one studied the Bible until the 19th Century, where does that leave Martin Luther, Calvin, and all the leaders of the Reformation?http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[philipmarus]

Y’know…Philip, this is a real prize winner.
I see this alot and it bugs me no end. Have ya had them say that Thomas Aquinas and Augustine were humanists? I almost fell over…

Church Militant:

In my area (Oklahoma City, OK) we have only a part-time radio station that will often play anti-catholic program a few hours before playing Catholic Answers Live on the same station. They had one program a few months ago, where they the guest on who was a disciple of Francis Scheafer. The guy claimed Aquinas had done the devil’s work by replacing God’s word of the Holy Bible with the godless reason of the enlightenment.

 

[vern_humphrey]

philipmarus:

Church Militant:

In my area (Oklahoma City, OK) we have only a part-time radio station that will often play anti-catholic program a few hours before playing Catholic Answers Live on the same station. They had one program a few months ago, where they the guest on who was a disciple of Francis Scheafer. The guy claimed Aquinas had done the devil’s work by replacing God’s word of the Holy Bible with the godless reason of the enlightenment.

THAT would be a good trick if Thomas pulled it off!http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

Did anybody call up and point out Thomas Aquinas died in 1247, and the Enlightenment was a 17th century development?

This is like the Professor of African Studies who claims Aristotle got all his ideas from the Library of Alexandria.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[philipmarus]

vern humphrey:

This is what I call “Garage Sale Theology.” Fundamentalists treat the Bible as if it were just discovered – perhaps found at a garage sale. No one knows were it came from, nor any of the history behind it, but wow!http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

Fundamentalists I know treat the Bible like you say - like they just discovered it. However, they will accept the NT Canon the Catholic Church somehow managed to define in 397 A.D and the Trinity but somehow the Church didn’t study the Bible in depth enough to know that Christ died ONCE FOR ALL or that Christ meant “This represents my Body” while saying “This is my Body”.

 

[Lorarose]

I’ve had Fundamentalists tell me that reason no one discovered the rapture in its pages until 1830 is that it wasn’t until the 19th Century that we began to seriously study the Biblle in depth

That just gave me a case of the giggles.
What about the men who actually WROTE the scriptures?
And the ones who first translated them?
And the bishops who first DEFINED the canon?
And Jerome! What about him!!

This is just too funny!