What are the names of those who succeeded the 12 Apostles? For Mormon friends

[MichelleTherese]

Hello everyone

My Mormon friends insist that when the 12 Apostles died, there was no one to replace them and the early church died with them.

Please, can anyone help me find the NAMES of the successors of the 12 Apostles?

And possibly the names of the 3rd generation of Apostles/Bishops as well?

I’ve searched Catholic Answers and Google and every other possible source and nothing gives me the NAMES of these successors ~ and without actual names my counter-argument is useless.

Thank you so much for your help!
God bless!
~Michelle

 

[Stephen_says]

Hello everyone

My Mormon friends insist that when the 12 Apostles died, there was no one to replace them and the early church died with them.

Please, can anyone help me find the NAMES of the successors of the 12 Apostles?

And possibly the names of the 3rd generation of Apostles/Bishops as well?

I’ve searched Catholic Answers and Google and every other possible source and nothing gives me the NAMES of these successors ~ and without actual names my counter-argument is useless.

Thank you so much for your help!
God bless!
~Michelle

If the church died, Christianity would no longer be in existence…I’m confused by your friend’s argument.

 

[cstheriot]

This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but we can see the first succession in the bible. Right in the beginning of Acts, the apostles have to find a replacement for one of the original 12, Judas. They then chose Matthias. So, there is one place we see a succession, we know that the apostles continued in that tradition after.

 

[MichelleTherese]

Dear Deacon Jeff,

Thank you so much, your post is SPOT ON! Who on Earth can argue with that quote from 80 A.D.? How much closer can you get to the Apostles then that?

And the 2nd quote follows on this perfectly!

I know the truth of course, it’s just that I live on a remote island in Scotland and have pretty much zero access to hardly any Catholic historical information. And searching on the Internet is nearly hopeless!

 

[landon13]

Well…if you want to look at it this way, Peter throughout the early church and as seen in the book of Acts was the leader of the 12. He was bestowed the keys to the Kingdom by Christ and was the Rock upon which the Church is built. For a guide to apostolic succession, there is a continuous line from St. Peter to Pope Francis today. This list might be helpful.

 

[MichelleTherese]

This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but we can see the first succession in the bible. Right in the beginning of Acts, the apostles have to find a replacement for one of the original 12, Judas. They then chose Matthias. So, there is one place we see a succession, we know that the apostles continued in that tradition after.

I’m sitting here kicking myself ~ how did I forget about this?? But I’m not a great apologetics debater so I tend to go into deer-in-the-headlights mode. I was speaking with two Mormon elders, an older couple. They were asking a load of questions and I did my best. But now I can hand them some actual historical documentation of my claim that, “The Apostles appointed successors.” Including… this in the Bible itself!

 

[cstheriot]

I’m sitting here kicking myself ~ how did I forget about this?? But I’m not a great apologetics debater so I tend to go into deer-in-the-headlights mode. I was speaking with two Mormon elders, an older couple. They were asking a load of questions and I did my best. But now I can hand them some actual historical documentation of my claim that, “The Apostles appointed successors.” Including… this in the Bible itself!

I have been there. I know that deer-in-the-headlights feeling quite well. Glad I could help a little bit

 

[MichelleTherese]

Well…if you want to look at it this way, Peter throughout the early church and as seen in the book of Acts was the leader of the 12. He was bestowed the keys to the Kingdom by Christ and was the Rock upon which the Church is built. For a guide to apostolic succession, there is a continuous line from St. Peter to Pope Francis today. This list might be helpful.

Yes, I did show them the List o’ Popes in the back of my Bible (gee, now I understand why it was put there!) but I wanted to show them the successors of the other Apostles as well. And totally forgot that this was right in the book of Acts.

Was St. Timothy a Bishop? Or a Priest? St. James ~ was he a Bishop?

 

[MichelleTherese]

I have been there. I know that deer-in-the-headlights feeling quite well. Glad I could help a little bit

It’s been a WEIRD 2 days!

Last night I was grilled by two younger folk from the Church of Scotland about EVERYTHING to do with us Catholics,
Then today, my Mormon friends.
Then in the midst of things the Jehovah’s Witnesses also showed up!! I was serving cups of tea all around… and my husband, we are farmers, he stuck his head in the door and his eyes about popped out of his head. He told me later all he could think was, “Oh boy…” as he went back to feeding the cows and sheep.

I was sweating! But in the end I held my own just fine ~ not because I am a brilliant apologist, but because all of the Catholic arguments are straight forward, totally logical, easily found in the Scriptures, and we have excellent historical documentation to back us up.

It does help that I have combed the Catholic Answers forums since 2004… and read tons of their books! Whew! at the rate things are going over here, I am glad I did!

 

[MichelleTherese]

If the church died, Christianity would no longer be in existence…I’m confused by your friend’s argument.

And I am shocked that the Mormon Church would not have looked into this claim, to see if it is true or not??

Especially with the Apostles appointing some successors right there in Acts??

 

[jediliz]

And I am shocked that the Mormon Church would not have looked into this claim, to see if it is true or not??

Especially with the Apostles appointing some successors right there in Acts??

This is the Claim of the “Apostasy”…that with the death of the last apostle…the church died until Joseph Smith “restored it”. The fact is, they can’t back up THEIR own claims with evidence to meet their claim…like th exact year of the death of the church cause it was still going strong when John died of old age…This is.because there is none…as there was persecution going on, there were always going to be successors appointed. The first one is mentioned early on in Acts of course…Matthias…who replaced the betrayer Judas.

 

[MichelleTherese]

Can you please help me: what do these numbers mean? For example:

Titus 1/I 5 → When I look up Titus 1:15 it doesn’t say anything about Titus or Dalmatia and Crete.

Timothy II 4/iv 12 → what does the “iv 12” mean?

Sorry, I am a bit of a dunce.

 

[PeaceBeWithU]

Tell your friends to scan the letters of Paul written to all the other churches. He names plenty of his followers by name, including Luke, who wrote one of the gospels, Titus, and a handful of others.

Also pick up a copy of Eusebius’s History of the Church. It’s a great addition to anyone’s library and tracks many of the disciples and early church martyrs (like St. James, who was the bishop of Jerusalem in the 1st century)

 

[NHInsider]

Michelle - as others have pointed out, there are several successors to the Apostles named in the Bible itself. Others can be determined by chasing back the chain of bishops in the ancient city-states of the Roman Empire. It’s not entirely straightforward one-to-one because, of course, the Apostles for the most part travelled widely, proclaiming the gospel “to the ends of the earth,” and either ordaining local leaders to the churches when they moved on, or sending trusted associates to lead them.

Here are a few of those with the cities they served:

Lucius was one of the converts at Pentecost, he was later ordained to the see of Cyrene by the Apostles. Another early convert, Quartus, was the first bishop of Beirut. Rufus, the son of Simon who was forced by the Romans to help Jesus carry the Cross, was later bishop of Thebes.

Peter ordained Evodius in Antioch, who was in turn succeeded by Ignatius.

Peter ordained Ancletus and Clement as co-leaders in Rome, after his death he was succeeded by Linus (Paul’s assistant in Rome) and then by Ancletus and Clement (the order is not certain and they may well have served together).

Andrew ordained Stachys as bishop of Byzantium/Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Paremenas as bishop of Soli.

James son of Zebedee is supposed to have ordained Peter of Braga in Portugal.

John, son of Zebedee, ordained Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, he was succeeded by Papirius.

Philip ordained Narcissus as bishop of Athens and Papias in Phrygia (although Papias may have succeeded Stachys, who was ordained by Bartholomew aka Nathaniel, or they may have co-led that region).

Paul, of course, ordained a bishop to lead the church in every major city in which he evangelized, many of whom are named in Scripture - Timothy in Ephesus, (who was succeeded by Onesimus, possibly the same one named in Philemon). Paul ordained Titus and sent him to settle things in Crete. He ordained Aristarchus and Jason to servce in Apamea and Tarsus in Syria, Crescens in Galatia, Epaphroditus in Philippi, Clement in Sardis, and probably others whose names have been forgotten. Apollos may have served as bishop of Corinth.

The Mormon faith depends almost essentially on the belief that the true faith was lost within a generation of the death of the apostles and was restored by a vision to Joseph Smith, which is why they reject the Apostolic Succession. (Ironically, their doctrines have a lot in common with the gnostic heresies that were such a threat to the Church in the immediate post-apostolic era.)

 

[MichelleTherese]

The Mormon faith depends almost essentially on the belief that the true faith was lost within a generation of the death of the apostles and was restored by a vision to Joseph Smith, which is why they reject the Apostolic Succession. (Ironically, their doctrines have a lot in common with the gnostic heresies that were such a threat to the Church in the immediate post-apostolic era.)

Thank you SO MUCH for all of your help! You have given me exactly what I was searching for. I knew several of the 2nd generation Apostles’ names, but I really wanted to share an impressive list.

My Mormon friends said that it comes down to only 2 churchs, theirs and the Catholic Church because either there was a great apostasy ~ and if so, then the Mormon church is right ~ or there were successors of the original Apostles and the Catholic Church is right.

I am really truly shocked that Mormons can go for so long without ever once observing documented history of the Early Church ?? Let alone every single generation of Christians from Christ, “On this Rock I will build My Church” to now?? How do they miss all of this?? I’m a rather dumb cookie and I still found it all when I was trying to find the Church that Christ founded on that Rock that He spoke of in the Bible! If I can figure it out… pretty much anyone can!

 

[MichelleTherese]

This is the Claim of the “Apostasy”…

I guess they must know this information exists but they must have to choose to willingly ignore it ~ because evidence of Apostolic succession is overwhelming!

 

[MichelleTherese]

I find this idea that the Christian church outside of Europe was somehow ignorant, illiterate, and so careless as to lose the real Faith… to be totally Euro-centric and dare I suggest that this is racist as well? This idea that only the later Europeans of the 1400s and 1500s were able to get it right?? There is a serious arrogance to this Protestant idea that the idiot early Church lost the Faith like a bunch of bumbling fools, and that the Fathers of the Early Church “don’t matter” and are totally irrelevant.

 

[MichelleTherese]

Thank you!