The Case Against Apostolic Succession

Hello everyone. This is what your pastor didn't tell you. Today I'm on with Dr. Step Nish. We're going to be talking about Apostolic Succession. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that right. Uh, basically, this is a, a very, very important view held by many Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and, and this is very important toward their views. Basically saying that, that, uh, they, they have like the, the importance of the claim is that it means that they would have a tradition from the apostles. And what that also means is for, for Protestants, is that Protestants would be missing information that would be really important, like good, important theological questions about what the early church did and what the apostles were saying. Uh, so this also has, uh, important matters for other things like women in ministry and, and just like how we conduct history and all that kind of stuff. So, uh, Dr. Nish, thank you for coming on here. How are you doing today?

Thank you for having me. I'm doing very well, thank you.

Awesome. All right. And, uh, so let's, let's go ahead and just start it off. Like, what is Apostolic Succession?

So, Apostolic Succession, as I use the term, refers to the idea that the Bishops in the post-apostolic churches, so the, the churches after the apostles have died, are the successors of the apostles. Now, what that means is that they occupy the same position of authority and power in the church that the apostles did. Uh, they don't have quite all the same privileges or tasks as the apostles did, since, for example, the apostles purportedly went from place to place, and Bishops tend to stay in just one place. Likewise, an apostle would presumably have authority wherever he goes, whereas strictly speaking, Bishops, with the exception of the Bishop of Rome in Roman Catholicism, have authority only within their own dioceses. So there are some differences between apostles and Bishops. They're not exactly the same sort of thing. Uh, but nevertheless, the idea of Apostolic Succession means that Bishops do have certain other apostolic powers or prerogatives. For example, the power to teach bindingly, to make decisions about what is and isn't Christian doctrine, um, or else to celebrate the Eucharist, to confect the Eucharist, um, which is valid, um, and also to ordain people. So Apostolic Succession is the idea that certain special authorities and powers that the apostles had in the time of Jesus continue in the present day in the church, specifically in the person of the Bishops. Not everybody has these powers, but just the Bishops.

Okay. And, and of course, um, this is important because if, if you're a Protestant Christian and you're, you're only going off what the Bible says, not specifically what maybe like the early church fathers said, is, uh, if the early church fathers are saying, "Hey, we have the tradition from the apostles," and, and like, and if this is a legit claim, then, then you're missing out all on not information. Um, this is a big reason why many Catholics convert, um, like they become Catholic. And, um, like, very, very important thing. Um, so, um, in regards to importance, people maybe not feeling like this is something that really they should care about, um, is there anything else worth adding there?

Well, um, maybe it would help to explain the historical context where the idea of Apostolic Succession first arose, and then maybe people can see what was going on, um, in the second century, and especially in the city of Rome. Uh, there were very many debates about various points of Christian doctrine. Okay. In fact, there were a number of different schools set up, just like in ancient Greek philosophy, you have different schools, you have the Stoics, the Platonists, the Peripatetics, and so on. There were different schools of Christian theology set up in Rome, and the theologians who belonged to each school, uh, debated with each other about this or that idea. For example, one of the common ideas that they debated is whether the God of the Old Testament is the same God that Christ calls his Father. Some of them thought yes, some of them thought no. Um, one of the questions that they might have asked was, for example, uh, what sort of flesh did Christ have? If he did have flesh, uh, what was his resurrection like? Um, do we resurrect in our bodies or just in our souls? Or, you know, questions like these. And there were, especially these were especially conflicts having to do with whether some particular idea went back to the apostles or not. Okay.

So one of the contested ideas going on in these debates was, "Are these doctrines Apostolic? Are these what the, uh, the apostles taught?" Some people in these discussions thought that the apostles had a secret doctrine which they would pass on only to certain disciples. So they had a public teaching that they taught to more like, bless everybody, and then they had private doctrines or secret doctrines that they would only teach to specific students of theirs. Um, and if the apostles had done that, that would not have been out of the ordinary, because that was a common thing for people in that time to do. You would have a public, what's called an exoteric doctrine, uh, and then you would have a private or esoteric secret doctrine that only the most advanced of your students would know about. Um, other people in these debates said that the apostles themselves were imperfect, and they didn't know everything, and it could very well be that some doctrines that the apostles taught need to be corrected and improved in various ways. And then still other people, you know, disagreed with all this. So Irenaeus, who was the Bishop of Lyon, and he wrote around the year 180, he steps into this debate and he argues that we can tell what the apostles' doctrines are. Okay? We don't need to debate these. We know what the apostles' doctrines are. And he says, well, well, first of all, how would, how would we know? He says that the apostles, after Jesus rose from the dead, were given superpowers, basically, by the Holy Spirit, and they were granted a complete knowledge of all things. Then they went about preaching one and the same gospel in all the different parts of the world. So all of them preach exactly the same thing. Um, and then after they were preaching the gospels were written. Two of them were written by apostles, namely Matthew and John, and two of them were written by friends of the apostles, namely, uh, Mark and Luke. Uh, so, uh, this is how you get the apost, the the gospels from the apostles, either directly or indirectly. Um, and then what happened is the apostles also appointed Bishops in various cities. So the word for Bishop is "episcopal," overseer, somebody who overlooks, you know, oversees something. Irenaeus says that the, the, the apostles appointed Bishops in various cities, being careful to choose only the best persons for this position, because otherwise, if the, you know, the bishop should go south, then it would be very bad for the church. And Irenaeus says that even if we disagree about how to interpret the gospels, okay, so obviously we all know that in theology, you can disagree about how to interpret the Bible. He says, even if we disagree about how to interpret the Bible, we can still tell what the apostles' doctrine was, because we can look at the churches where they appointed Bishops and we can see the succession of Bishops that exist even to the day, um, and we can see what doctrine those people teach. And if those people were appointed Bishops by the apostles, then obviously they have the apostles' doctrine too. Uh, so, um, you know, this is a way in which the notion of Apostolic Succession was important for Irenaeus. It served to, uh, it, you know, establish conclusions in theology. If you couldn't prove something purely on the basis of scripture alone, you could point to the, uh, succession of Bishops in the churches that the apostles founded and look at their teaching, and that must have been the teaching that came from the apostles. And of course, there are other ways in which the doctrine of Apostolic Succession is important too. Um, so, for example, other people like Ignatius, or possibly a person pretending to be Ignatius in the second century, will argue that it's illegitimate to engage in sacramental activity apart from the Bishop of your church. So, you know, there are lines in in Ignatius' epistles that say, "Don't do anything without the Bishop. Don't do a Eucharist without the Bishop. You know, don't get married without the Bishop," and so on. Have the Bishop there when everything is happening. And so some people later take this to mean that there are no sacraments except where there's a duly consecrated Bishop. So if you have the Lord's Supper in your church, but you don't have a Bishop who, you know, is in succession to the apostles, then you don't really have the Lord's Supper. You just have a pretend thing. You have a meal, but it's not the real thing. Um, and the reason why they say this is because they think that there's a special superpower from the Holy Spirit that is used to convert the bread and the wine of the communion into Christ's body and blood, and this superpower is passed on from the apostles through the Bishops. So if you're going to be able to do this, you have to be a consecrated Bishop by another Bishop who himself was consecrated Bishop by another Bishop, and so on, all the way to the apostles, who were the first ones to have the superpower from the Holy Spirit. So although there would be more things to say, these are at least a few of the reasons why people consider the question of Apostolic Succession important. First, because it supposedly provides a way to get beyond interpretive disputes and to come to definitive answers about questions of doctrine. And second, because it supposedly makes the difference between a Christian gathering with real sacraments and one with fake sacraments.

Yeah, and those fake sac, or sorry, those sacraments in general, like, you know, many Catholics believe that that's what essentially plays a part in your salvation, right? Like, so this is the difference between being a Christian or not being a Christian for a lot of people. Uh, so, um, on, on that distinction there, so, um, could you talk about maybe the differences between the, the Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and I guess just like, maybe the Protestant view of of this topic here?

Sure. We can consider basically a scale of views from the lowest possible interpretation to the highest possible interpretation. Um, I think the lowest possible interpretation of Apostolic Succession is the idea that it consists in nothing more than believing and passing on the same doctrine as the apostles themselves. Okay? So that's all there is to Apostolic Succession. It's a succession of doctrine. You believe the very same things that the apostles did, and that's what you teach in your church. Um, going a step above that, perhaps a middling interpretation is the idea that churches not only pass on the, the apostles' doctrine, but they also preserve a particular system for organizing churches, namely, for example, one with a Bishop and deacons, right? So some people might think that not only do we pass on the apostles' doctrine, we also pass on the form of church government that the apostles themselves proposed, namely a distinction between Bishops and deacons. So we don't just have like a council of elders or whatever, we have one guy at the top, and then we have deacons who help him out. That might be one way of thinking about it. Um, or you could have a single Bishop who's in charge of a network of churches. They might think that also is a way of thinking about it. Now, the highest possible interpretation of Apostolic Succession is the idea that it consists in sacramental or consecration continuity between every real Bishop and the apostles themselves. So, in other words, the idea is that no one is a real Bishop unless he was legitimately, validly made Bishop by someone else who was legitimately or validly made Bishop by someone else who was legitimately or validly made Bishop, and so on and so forth, all the way back to an apostle. So the idea here is that for you to be a real Bishop, you have to be able to trace a line from your consecration to the episcopate back to an apostle by means of other duly consecrated Bishops. Okay? So you have to have been made Bishop by a person who was made Bishop by a person who was made Bishop by the apostles, right, going all the way back. Now, the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, and the high-church Anglicans will accept this high interpretation, right, of consecration continuity going back all the way to the apostles. Um, I would imagine that most Protestants, most classical Protestants, non-Anglians, would accept something like the middling or low interpretations. So they'll think that, you know, at most, Apostolic Succession, the only thing that really counts is, uh, preaching and teaching the same things as the apostles, right? Whatever your system of church government. Or they might say that not only preaching and teaching the same things as the apostles, but also having the system in place in governing your church that the apostles themselves set up. Roman Catholics, however, will differ from Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans when they add to this the idea that the Bishop of Rome plays a special role of primacy among all the Bishops. So, for Roman Catholics, to be a legitimate Bishop, you not only need to be capable of tracing your consecration back to an apostle by means of other legitimate Bishops, but you must also be in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Okay? So the Eastern Orthodox obviously deny this. However, even, even Eastern Orthodox will say that not only do you have to be validly consecrated a Bishop, you also have to maintain the tradition of the church. Um, so instead of having communion with the Bishop of Rome, you have to maintain the tradition of the Orthodox Church. So the different churches will maybe add little special caveats here and there, little qualifiers, but the basic idea for the, the historic churches, the Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, is that a legitimate Bishop has to be able to trace his consecration to the episcopate back to an apostle by means of other Bishops. And that's a point where Protestants, whether they take the middling or the lower interpretation of Apostolic Succession, will probably disagree.

Okay. All right. And that was a lot to talk about there. Um, uh, just really, really quick answer here, just, uh, would help us get us into this discussion. What, what would you say is, is the first time that we see an early church writer outline like a full view of Apostolic Succession?

Um, well, I will try to be brief, um, but I, I think that you can really note three stages. Okay? I think you can discern sort of three stages in the evolution of the idea of Apostolic Succession in the second century. In the first place, in the Didache, Bishops are not the successors of the apostles at all, but they are only congregationally appointed replacements for itinerant prophets and teachers. So in the Didache, the instruction to appoint Bishops is so that congregations don't depend on people coming to them to teach, they can just have their own teachers. Um, in First Clement, Bishops likewise are not successors of the apostles, but they are persons whom the apostles appointed in the churches themselves for the sake of maintaining good order. So, in the, in the First Clement, the addition to the idea of Bishops and, um, uh, deacons is the idea that the apostles themselves appointed such persons. And then finally, well, you can also find this same idea in the Acts of the Apostles, that the apostles appointed Bishops. I know people will disagree with me about this, but I think that the Acts of the Apostles and First Clement were both written to the early middle 2nd century, so I don't think that they are first-century documents. I think they were written in the earlier middle second century. So you see this idea sort of evolving in different places at the same time. And then finally, in, um, Irenaeus of Lyon, in the year 180, and Hegesippus, who's writing about the same time as him, well, in Hegesippus and Irenaeus, you have the idea that you can construct a list, a successional list. You can say, "Okay, in this church, first was this person, Bishop, appointed by some Apostle. And then second, this guy. And then third, this guy. And then fourth, this guy." And then finally, with Irenaeus, Irenaeus is the first person to say that the Bishops are successors to the apostles' place of government. So he not only says that the apostles appointed Bishops, which First Clement says and Didache does not, but he also says that the apostles occupy the same sort of position of government, excuse me, the Bishops occupy the same position of government in the church that the apostles did, and have sort of the same position of government over the church that the apostles did. So that's with Irenaeus that you first get that. However, I will say this, you do not find the idea that a Bishop has to be capable of tracing his consecration back to an apostle by means of other Bishops in the second century at all. You don't find that until at least well into the third century, fourth century. So even in Irenaeus, you don't find that idea. And that idea is actually central to the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and high Anglican position. So strictly speaking, that position that all those churches have in common does not exist until maybe the third or fourth century.

Hah, wow. Okay. Uh, so we're going to go into more detail about that. Um, but, um, could you just give us just like your five-minute summary, um, of how you take that data and, and maybe additional arguments, like, what is your view on this topic?

My view, very simply stated, is that the idea of Apostolic Succession is a myth. Um, I mean that in two senses. First, it's a myth in the technical, academic sense, that this is a story that a community of people tells itself, you know, to understand their own origins and their own claim of identity. But in the second place, it's a myth in the less technical sense of a story that's just false. These things just do not exist. Um, I don't know why these balloons are showing up. Sorry about that. Um, so here are my reasons for thinking why this is a myth. First, there is no reason to think that the earliest Bishops had to be able to trace their consecration back to an apostle by means of other Bishops. Um, none of the earliest sources say this. Okay? So First Clement doesn't say this, Didache doesn't say this, Hegesippus doesn't say this, Irenaeus doesn't say this, Tertullian doesn't say this. So none of the earlier sources that talk about Apostolic Succession in any detail say that a Bishop has to be able to trace his consecration back to an apostle by means of other Bishops. In the second place, if it were true that a legitimate Bishop had to be capable of tracing his consecration back to other Bishops, back to an apostle by means of other Bishops, we would certainly expect these sources to mention it at least once. The reason why is that it would have given them the strongest possible argument against their opponents. So whether it's the seditious new presbyters that First Clement is talking about in Corinth, or the heretical groups that Irenaeus and Tertullian were warring against in their own writings, the entire discussion could have been put to rest in a single sentence. They could have said, "These persons are illegitimate because they cannot trace their consecration back to an apostle." Okay? But no one ever says this. None of these sources say this. They never give this argument. Actually, they give other arguments that are far weaker. Okay? So they had a really strong argument at their disposal, and they use weaker ones instead. Now, why wouldn't they argue like this? I think the best explanation, as far as I can tell, is that people were being made Bishops by persons who weren't themselves Bishops. All right? There was no rule that you had to be able to trace your consecration back to an apostle by, by means of other Bishops. So I think that just was not the rule in those days. And then third, I think that there is significant reason to think that early Bishops were being made Bishops by persons who are not themselves Bishops. Okay? I'll give you some examples. In Didache chapter 15, the churches are told to appoint for themselves Bishops and deacons. And if they're being told to appoint Bishops, that would imply that there aren't already Bishops there. All right? Because if the Episcopal system were already in place, you wouldn't need to, you know, it sort of propagates itself naturally. Um, now, if there were not already Bishops there, that means that there was no one to do the appointing except persons who are not Bishops. So in the Didache, you have the, you're you're given the impression that people are going to be appointing Bishops who are not themselves Bishops. You know, um, now, we can't say that there's some sort of implicitly understood distinction between appointment and consecration, which does exist later on in other places. The reason, because the reason is, none of the second-century sources that talk about Apostolic Succession know this distinction. Nowhere in any of these texts do you find that distinction between consecration and appointment. Right? So it's not like the Didache is saying, "Choose, you know, who you want to be a Bishop, and then we're going to send some guy over to ordain him." That, that is not what the text is saying. There is only the appointment. That's the only word that is used in these sources. So appointment means ordaining. They are picking someone to be their Bishop, and they are themselves ordaining him, even though they are not themselves Bishops. Okay? So in the Didache, I think it's very clear. Now, in First Clement, the author says that people were being made Bishops either by apostles or by "other reputable men with the approval of the whole assembly." Now, notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say that they had to be consecrated by other Bishops. He very easily could have said this, right? If that's what was true in the time of First Clement, he could have just said, "You must be appointed either by an apostle or by another Bishop. The reason these persons are illegitimate is because they were not appointed by another Bishop." But Clement doesn't say this. Okay? So his argument is weak. His argument is needlessly weak. If it were true in his time that you had to be appointed by another Bishop, his argument implies that you did not have to be appointed by an apostle or by another Bishop. You could have been appointed by some other person, as long as the whole church agrees to it. Hegesippus is another second-century source that we know of from Eusebius's Church History. He quotes fragments from Hegesippus's work. Hegesippus says that after James's death, uh, the Christians in Jerusalem made Simeon the Bishop because he was a relative of Jesus. Now, that sure sounds a lot like non-Bishops making someone Bishop, right? Because why would they make him a Bishop if they already had Bishops? Um, it sounds a lot like the club model, right? It's like members of a club are electing one person in their club to be their Treasurer, right, and he has privileged access to the, the group's funds, or they're electing somebody to be the leader of the club, and he gets to decide things for, on the, you know, the club, on the club's behalf. So that's what it sounds like is going on in Jerusalem. All the people in Jerusalem are picking Simeon to be their leader, um, and to occupy that position for whatever reason. Um, here's another thing, right? Neither Irenaeus nor Tertullian ever mention who made whom a Bishop, with two exceptions. They mention that Polycarp of Smyrna was made Bishop, was made Bishop by apostles, according to Irenaeus, or by John, according to Tertullian. And they say that Irenaeus says that Linus was made Bishop of Rome by Peter and Paul. Tertullian says that it was Clement. Okay? So those are the only two people where they ever mention who made them Bishop or who, uh, who consecrated them Bishop. But apart from that, they never mention anybody. They don't even say who, Irenaeus never even says who made him a Bishop. Okay? So we're going to talk about this more later, but Tertullian also has a line where he seems to imply that there are people, Bishops in his day, who are not able to trace their consecration back to an apostle by means of other Bishops. So for all these reasons, I think that Apostolic Succession is a myth. I think that it's a myth that developed in the course of the second century as the quote unquote proto-Orthodox Churches battled with Valentinians, Marcionites, and other forms of heretics. And in order to deal with the diversity of beliefs among Christians, some of them invent this story about Bishops being appointed persons appointed by Apostles to carry on the apostolic teaching in their place. Only with Irenaeus do you find the idea that Bishops are successors to the apostles' place of government, um, and can be appealed to as deciding factors in theological disputes. But even with Tertullian in the third century, you do not find the idea that a legitimate Bishop has to be able to trace his consecration back to an apostle by means of other Bishops. So the idea of Apostolic Succession was born in the second century, and it evolved over time to become what the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches believe today, but it was not like that from the beginning. Um, in fact, it changed over time as the role of the Bishop became more and more and more important, and more and more weight was put on the Bishop to, you know, ensure church unity or ensure doctrinal purity, and so on.

Much appreciated. All right. That was, that was a long survey, but I really appreciate that. Uh, so you actually did a, a video on this very topic, ran an hour long. You read exhaustively through the, the sources. Um, so context shouldn't be an issue there, but, um, people can check that out in the description. It's already there. Um, we're going to dive into that. There's going to be a few objections we're going to talk about, and, um, I want to hear your response to them. I won't be able to ask everything. That's just because there are just so many different arguments for this position. Um, some better than others. But we'll, we'll try to get to the, to the best one today. And if you, somewhere in the description, in the comments, says, "Oh, what about this argument?" Go ahead and present it, and we, uh, we'd be happy to respond or talk about it. And, you know, if it, if it's good enough, Dr. Nish said he's going to convert today, right? I'm sure why not. If you can convince him. Yeah, right. Okay. Um, so you heard it here first, guys. All right. Um, so, uh, so a, a very, very important thing here, um, when, when you start talking about this subject, is that lots of people think that we must have Apostolic Succession because otherwise, they think that you're saying that, that the, the early church basically fell into total error. Like you've got, you know, all these, like salvation doctrines that we're losing out on, the, the early church is like wrong. Of course, you know, if they're wrong about this, then what else are they wrong about? And, and when, when that basically would mean to, to a lot of these people, is they would be basically saying that the Christians being wrong about such important concepts like the Eucharist, baptism, etcetera, and that God hasn't been guiding the church, and it has basically been this way since the entirety of, of Christianity, outside of the New Testament. Um, so a lot of people, that like freaks people out, and it's like, "Well, of course we have to have this Apostolic Succession then." So what do you think about that logic there?

Well, this reminds me of a story. Okay, Galileo announced in the year 1610 that he had discovered mountains on the moon. But the philosopher Cesare Cremonini refused to look through Galileo's telescope and see for himself because he argued that Aristotle had already proven that the moon could only be a perfect sphere. Okay? So what, what is going on? It's a refusal to admit the facts out of a preference for one's own theory. Or consider this example, another hypothetical example. Suppose you're head in love, your head over heels in love with a woman. Okay? Uh, and you're convinced that she loves you too. And let's say you even have some evidence for thinking that she loves you too. And then one day you see her on a date in a romantic restaurant with someone else. And suppose you were respond to this by saying, "No, that can't be right. If that were right, then she wouldn't love me, and I would be wrong about this thing that's so important to me. No, that can't be right. It must be that my eyes are deceiving me. Right? I'm undergoing a hallucination." Right? From my point of view, that sort of response sounds pathetic. And that's how I see this other response also. In the case of Apostolic Succession, the simple fact of the matter, as far as I can tell, is that God lets people be wrong about things, and even about things we think are important, for a very long time. In fact, he lets a lot of worse things happen all the time without intervening at all. All right? You have some knowledge of philosophy, you know about the problem of evil. It's enough to talk about it for five minutes, or it's enough to pick up and read the news. Right? Just today, I saw a picture of a Palestinian who's holding his baby, and his baby's brains are pouring out of his head. Why? All right? That's much worse than being wrong about the Eucharist, frankly, if I'm being honest. Uh, but God doesn't do anything about it. This is just the way things are. You know, I do not answer for God. I cannot give you an explanation why God lets things happen the way they do. I don't know any more than anyone else does. But this is just the way things are. Um, and so I think that we don't do ourselves any favors by refusing to face up to the facts out of preference for our pet theories. Okay? We cannot assume that we, and our communities, inhabit some sort of providential safe space where misfortunes and mistakes don't ever happen on a large scale. I think that's delusional. And I would say, however, I would add to this a second point. In my way of thinking, I do not limit the church to the particular community that upheld the myth of Apostolic Succession. Okay? Because not everybody believed in Apostolic Succession. Um, I don't think, for example, that the church includes only Irenaeus and not also the people that he was arguing against. My conception of the church is broader than that. So, given that I don't agree with this very narrow definition of the church, my proposal does not commit me to the thesis that the church fell into total error or anything like that. I do not think that everybody was wrong from the very beginning. Um, what I would say is that some persons were wrong about some things that they happened to think were very important for a long time. But in my opinion, the things themselves are not actually that important at all. I realize people don't agree with me about this, but that doesn't matter. The facts of history are what they are, right? And the, the actual history of Apostolic Succession is what it is. Um, so you can refuse to look in the telescope out of preference for Aristotle's theory that the moon has to be a perfect sphere, or you can be Galileo, looking and seeing with your own eyes that the, you know, the moon has mountains on it. Um, and I think at this point, you just have to take a choice, like, what sort of person are you going to be?

Well, thank you. That's very, very blunt. I appreciate that. So, um, so what, what is the earliest instance we have of an early church writer saying a Bishop must be made Bishop by another Bishop, and the laying of hands? Do, do you know off the top of your head?

You have some documents that mention this. The Apostolic Tradition, chapter 2, section 3, and Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 8, 24. Those are books of church order, so they describe how to do things in the church, how to ordain Bishops, how to ordain deacons, how to celebrate the Eucharist, and so on. And those Bishop, those documents say that when a person is ordained Bishop, other Bishops should be there and put their hands on him. Um, but those documents date to the third and the fourth century. Okay? They are not that early. And the earliest documents that we do have, for example, the earliest church order document that we do have is the Didache. And when it says something about ordaining, uh, Bishops, it says the churches should choose people for themselves to be their own Bishops and to appoint them themselves. MH. So that they don't depend on itinerant teachers. Right? So the earliest, um, church document, church rule that we have does not express this rule. The first ones that I know of that do talk about this rule are only in the third and fourth centuries. Irenaeus, First Clement, Didache, Hegesippus, Tertullian don't say that.

Wow. Okay. So what you're basically saying is that if you want to hold this view, Apostolic Succession, what you're basically claiming is that people for what, the first two, 300 years of Christianity, just didn't mention this idea, this like very fundamental, very important idea. They just didn't mention it. But it doesn't necessarily, well, you've made some arguments that that would conflict with that idea. Um, it seems like some people would say, "Okay, yeah, they may not be aware of those arguments or whatever." They would say, "Just because it doesn't mention it doesn't mean they didn't hold to it." But those same people would also have to say, like, it just isn't mentioned for 300 years or so, and that, that is pretty crazy, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, I mean, think about it in any other situation. All right? So I have a theory, and you present arguments against the theory. Like I'm saying, right? You say, for example, "Listen, there's not very much strong evidence for your theory where you want it to be. Even where we would expect it to be, there's no evidence. And there's also some evidence against your theory." And I respond by saying, "Yeah, but it's still possible that I'm right. It could be that the evidence was, you know, just covered over somehow, or, you know, I'm still possibly right." Yeah, that's true. Strictly speaking, any proposition is possibly right. Okay? Because you can just take whatever works against it and deny those things. Right? So even if your proposition is contradictory, you can just say, "Oh, but contradiction can be true." So it's, it's like, at the, at the strict level, like any proposition is possibly true in the broadest possible sense of possible. But the real question is, where does the evidence point? The evidence that we actually have, where does it point? All right? If I were to say that I'm possibly right, even though there is no evidence for my, not even where I would expect it to be, and even though there's considerable evidence against me, at that point, I think I'm just being desperate. Right? I'm just refusing to, to give up my theory. Um, and I don't think that that's rational. Um, I will, I will say this, Zack. The truth is, I think that most people are not rational about their religious beliefs. I don't mean that most people are irrational. I mean that they are not rational. They're not, they're not operating in rationality mode. Okay? They don't proportion their degree of belief to the evidence. Um, nor do they really let the evidence dictate what they should think. What they are, when they talk about religious beliefs, they're in apologetics mode. And what I mean by that is that they already know what they believe. Their beliefs already do something for them, right? They're important, they're cherished, they are personally meaningful to them. Yeah. And they don't want to change their minds if they can help it, especially because if you have strong religious beliefs, that also has a lot to do with your social embedment, or, you know, embedded, I suppose, or whatever, you know, where you go to church every Sunday, how you get along with your parents and with your friends, and, you know, what you do, your sense of identity, and so on. So people don't want to change their religious beliefs if they can help it. Uh, they only want to know evidence that supports their belief and helps them to feel surer about their beliefs, or else they want to find ways of minimizing the potential negative impact that a consideration of the evidence could have on their beliefs. All right? So they want either to find evidence that supports their beliefs, or ways of defending themselves against counterarguments. Um, but the whole point when you are in apologetics mode is for you to preserve beliefs. Now, I'm willing to admit a person who is like that and who thinks like that is not going to be convinced by what I'm saying about Apostolic Succession. And the reason why is because a person is not being rational about their religious beliefs. What I mean by that is not they are not setting out specifically to believe in accordance with the evidence. Rather, they are trying to find ways of preserving their belief, right, despite the evidence at times. Now, I don't think rationality is simply a way of finding every possible avenue for preserving the beliefs that you actually have. For me, rationality means at least in part being open to changing your beliefs out of an interaction, or as a result of an interaction, with the available evidence. And I think that if a person with that attitude considers the question of Apostolic Succession, they're going to come to the conclusion that I did, that it's a myth that first appears in the second century and evolves over time, and eventually becomes something that it was not from the beginning, and it was not that for a very long time. Um, so it may be that people are not convinced. Maybe it maybe people say, "Well, you know, in spite of all this, it's still possibly true." Yeah, anything is possibly true. But the question is, given the actual evidence that we have, what makes the best sense? And I think what makes the best sense is the idea that Apostolic Succession was a myth invented in the second century. It evolved, it grew bigger and bigger and bigger over time, but it has no basis in the facts.

Wow. Okay. Oh, yeah. Thank you for that discussion there. So, um, let's talk about the, the Didache and, and Clement. So, this is according to you, instances where we have a Bishop that weren't made Bishop by another Bishop. So, so this is like an exception to the rule, essentially. This is like, this is evidence against that Bishops were required to be made Bishops by other Bishops. So, um, first, uh, Clement, well, let's, let's go to Didache 15. So that is on slide 19. And let's do there. All right. So, uh, this is this is early first. Some scholars argue it's even late as second century, but therefore, appoint for yourselves Bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are humble and not avaricious and true and approved, for they too carry out for you the ministry of the prophets and teachers. You must not therefore despise them, for they are your honor, men along with the prophets and teachers. So this is evidence. Could you explain that and like, specifically by what he's saying here?

Sure. So, um, when people date the Didache to the late second century, it's not that the whole thing was written at the late second century, but rather that there are portions in it that are late, um, because there are also portions in the Didache that seem quite early. Um, so it's basically the idea is that it's a document that was composed in stages, and parts of it can be quite late while other parts of it are earlier. Now, one of the interesting things about the Didache is that it contains a long discussion in the previous chapters about how to receive guests. Okay? If somebody says that he's an apostle, or if somebody says that he's a prophet, and he comes and he stays with you for longer than three days, then he's a false prophet. Kick him out. But if he stays shorter than three days, then he's a real prophet. If he comes to you and he asks for money, he's a false prophet. Kick him out. But if he's willing to work for money or willing to work for food, then he's a real one. Keep him. So, right, it has all these instructions before chapter 15 about how to deal with people who are coming to visit your church. Right? And then in chapter 15, it says, "Appoint for yourselves Bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are humble and not avaricious and true and approved, for they too carry out for you the ministry of the prophets and the teachers." So the prophets and the teachers are these people who are visiting the churches, all right, people where you, you can't be sure if they're reliable or not, if they're real or not. And the Didache says, "Appoint your own people, right, choose your own people so that you don't depend on outside teachers, and they can do the same work for you. You don't need somebody else to come in and celebrate the Eucharist for you. You don't need someone else to come in and do the teaching for you. You can teach yourselves and you can celebrate the Eucharist by yourselves. Just choose people to do this stuff for you in your own churches." Now, notice the Episcopal system, okay? The Bishop system in the churches is like a virus. As soon as it exists somewhere, um, it propagates itself naturally. All right? As soon as you have a Bishop, then you have somebody who cares that there's going to be another Bishop after him. So the very fact that the Didache says to these churches, "Appoint for yourselves Bishops and deacons," means that they don't have these people already. These offices do not exist in these churches. They're just people hanging out, meeting up, celebrating the Eucharist, listening to some sermons, they have visitors every now and again, right? So, given the fact that they say, "Appoint for yourselves Bishops and deacons," yep, that means that there's no Bishops already there. That means that whoever is going to become Bishop has to be made Bishop by people who are not Bishops. The Didache does not say, "We are going to send Apostles over to consecrate them for you." No document in the second century says there's a distinction between appointment and consecration. All right? That distinction does exist later on in history in other places, but none of these documents talk about that. So when the Didache says, "Appoint for yourselves Bishops and deacons," that's all there is to it. It's an appointment. And if the people, if they don't already have Bishops there, that means that people are being appointed Bishops by, by persons who are not Bishops. Okay? So this is a very clear example, um, of, of a case where people are being made Bishops by per, by persons who are not themselves Bishops.

Much appreciated. All right. So, uh, 19, or my slide 19, um, this is talking, that's really awkward. All right, we'll try this again. Uh, First Clement. All right. So this is, um, a similar instance, um, where it seems like this is evidence, evidence against the, you talk about this. Uh, could you go into a little bit more detail here?

Sure. So First Clement, um, is a very interesting letter. It is written in response, supposedly in response to problems taking place in Corinth, where some persons had, um, sort of overthrown the existing, uh, presbyters in Corinth and installed themselves in their place. Okay? And Clement says, "This is not the way to go about it. Um, we should follow the apostles' examples." And notice what it says here. He says, "Our Apostles likewise knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the Bishop's office." Right? Where is that in any of the Gospels? It doesn't happen. All right? But they, Clement says, anyway, that Jesus told the apostles somehow about how people would, you know, compete with each other for becoming Bishop. So, whatever. For this reason, therefore, having completed, received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the leaders mentioned earlier, Bishops and deacons, and afterwards they gave the offices a permanent character." What does that mean? That means that if they should die, other...

approved men should succeed to their Ministry now. Here is there, here there is an interpretive ambiguity because this sentence right here can be interpreted in different ways. What does it mean? That is, if the apostles should die, other approved men should succeed to their Ministry, or if the Bishops should die, other approved men should succeed to the Bishop's Ministry. So, there are two ways of interpreting it. Um, it's ambiguous. It seems to me the more natural interpretation is that if the Bishops should die. All right, that's why they made the office of permanent, of a permanent character, because they appointed Bishops and then they made the bishop, the Bishop's office a permanent one, and they say, "If this guy dies, replace him with somebody else." Okay. These, therefore, who were appointed by them, or later on by other reputable men with the consent of the whole church, and who have ministered the flock of Christ blamelessly, blah, blah, blah. These we consider to be unjustly removed from their Ministry. So, this is what Clement is going on. Persons who were appointed by the apostles, or by other reputable men with the consent of the whole church, you should not take them out of the office if they're doing their job correctly. Okay.

So, notice what Clement says. He says that a person can have been made Bishop by an apostle, or by other reputable men, as long as the whole church agrees to it. Now, he does not say that this reputable man is a bishop. He just says that it's somebody that everybody knows and respects. Okay. So, you did not have to be appointed Apostle by an appointed Bishop by by another Bishop. You could have been appointed by some other guy, as long as everybody else in the church agreed to it. So, Clement also, he does not say that, um, you had to be made Bishop by a bishop or by an apostle. He says that you can be made Bishop by a reputable man, as long as everybody agrees to it. So, here's another example where it's clear that people are being made Bishops by persons who are not themselves Bishops, because otherwise Clement could easily have said, "by another Bishop," if that was the rule. He could have said it, and it all would have been over in a sentence. Yeah, right.

Okay. Uh, so, the, um, later on in church history, we have Hippolytus in 215 AD, if, if I'm correct, at least, who says, "Bishops should be chosen by the people, but then the bishop, uh, place his hands." I think you referenced this. Um, so, uh, the, the text is specifically, "Let the bishop be ordained after he has been chosen by all the people. When someone pleasing to all has been named, let the people assemble on the Lord's Day with the presbyters and with such Bishops as may be present, all giving assent. The Bishop shall impose hands on him, and the presbyter shall stand by in silence. Indeed, all shall remain silent, praying in their hearts for the descent of the Spirit." Uh, so, you referenced this earlier. Um, I mean, like, isn't this technically compatible with, with, with the other texts? Um, I mean, if, like, just because this whole thing of mentioning hands and, um, specifically doing by Bishops, like, just because like it says reputable men, but technically that could be a bishop, right? Right, it can be. But that's not what Clement says. That's what Hippolytus says. And that, of course, depends on whether you think Hippolytus wrote this, because, for example, um, in Alistair Stewart's translation of the Apostolic Tradition, he argues that it was not written by Hippolytus, and that it's actually later on into the third or fourth century. So, there, there are academic debates about when these documents come from and if they were written, really written by the people that they say. But I will only say this, um, you do not have a statement like this in any of the documents in the second century. All right, this is a third-century document, given the most generous possible reading, it's a third-century document. Um, even Tertullian doesn't know about this rule. Um, so, Tertullian provides evidence, which we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about later, that there were people being made Bishops who could not trace their way back to an apostle by means of other Bishops. So, it's very possible that this rule about having other Bishops present was invented in the third century. Early on, it became more popular over time. Eventually, it made its way into this book. Um, but, of course, these things always try to pass themselves up as apostolic, because that was the premise, right? Gnostics also try to present their teaching as apostolic. Valentinians also presented their teaching as apostolic. Everybody was doing this, right? So, it's not as if because these people claim that they come from the apostles, they're therefore believable. Um, you know, so, the, what I would say is that, yes, this is strictly speaking compatible with, um, you know, what happens in the second century, but what's, what's in the second century is not there. I'll give you an evolutionary, uh, metaphor. We, as human beings, are evolutionarily, are the qualities that we have and so on are compatible with, let's say, like, really primitive mammals, because that's what we come from. But that doesn't mean that we're the same thing, and that doesn't mean that there have always been human beings around, right? So, ideas evolve in the same way that species evolve. In history, what comes around later is compatible with what was there from the beginning, because it had to come from that. Uh, but it's not the same thing as that. So, what was there in the second century, and the sources that we can, that we know of, and that we have, is certainly compatible with what Hippolytus is saying, but it's not the same thing. And the reason why it's not the same thing is that the idea has evolved. By the time you get to here, there's been a new thing added in the evolution of the idea that not only do you have to have a bishop, not only does he have to be elected by the people, not only does everybody have to agree to it, but also he needs to be made Bishop by another Bishop. So, that's a new thing that's being added, right? The reason why it's being added is because it makes it convenient to fight against heresies. All right, you just introduce this rule that none of them can satisfy, because of course, nobody can satisfy. But you don't say that part out loud, um, and then you've, you've won the debate, you know. But I would like to see, you know, this is, this is my argument for people who are interested in this topic. I would like to see, um, somebody prove that he can trace his consecration back to an apostle by means of other Bishops. The Roman Catholic Church has records. They only go back to the 1300s. After that, there was a fire, and all the records were lost, right? Um, and we have no, we, we have no reason to think that even though they can go back 700 years, they can go back another 1300 after that, right? So, I mean, at some point, this stuff is just unbelievable. It's true that you get the rule about Bishops ordaining other Bishops later, but you don't have it beginning, because the idea evolves, just like species evolve in the world of biology. You have human beings now, and the way human beings are now is consistent with earlier stages in human evolution, but we were not back then, right? We were not some, you know, four-cell organism at the very, you know, billions of years ago that eventually became human beings, even though what we are now is consistent with that, because it came from that. So, that's, you know, that's what I would say about, about this issue. Yeah.

So, you, you kind of touched on it. Um, maybe I don't know if you'd say use the word lying specifically, U, but like, I, I think we, we know like with really strong confidence that like someone doesn't even have to be lying about this to to believe it's true. Like, like someone like the previous bishop might have said, "Hey, this is what I think it is," or, like, "This is why I believe it, this is, this is true." And, and the guy next might have been said, "Okay, sure, like, that's true." And because he said it, and I have no reason to not believe him, right? Because, like, these guys aren't like historians, right? They're not, they're not looking at each of the different texts and, and, like, making probabilistic judgments. Um, um, did you have anything to add on that topic specifically? Well, I'm glad that you brought this up, because I, I've been thinking about this myself. I mean, think about in the present day, right? For at least almost 10 years now, maybe 10 years, people have been complaining that they don't know what to believe anymore, and that the media is unreliable, and that everything in the media is lies, you know. And people, like, all of a sudden start believing crazy stories that are not true, but they believe it in the, you know, in their heart of hearts, you know, down in their bones, because the right person said it to them, and it sort of makes sense with their worldview, so they go along with it, right? We live in an age where misinformation spreads so fast, and people are, um, people are so, you know, disinclined to do even minimal investigation, even though they have all the resources at their disposal, that they'll believe lies. And this goes on both sides, right? Um, for example, as far as I know, it's a myth that Donald Trump said that there are good people on both sides about the, you know, uh, the, you know, you know, that event, whatever, whatever happened in Charlottesville, or wherever it is, where some guy ran over people with a car, and he says, "There are good people on both sides." He did not say that, and include the Nazis or whatever protesters there were there. He actually excluded them just before saying that. But even Kamala Harris, in the debate recently, said the same thing after, you know, Donald Trump brought it up in the first debate against Joe Biden, right? So, they just repeat lies. It's not true that he said, "They're good people on both sides" about the Nazis and about the protesters, but they just repeat the lie, and people still believe it. And the same thing happens in the other direction also. People believe stuff about Haitians eating cats and so on, even though there wasn't any evidence of that, you know. And people just believe it because it worked for them. And even now, people are still, you know, would rather believe lies than believe the truth. There is no reason why somehow in the world of religion, this doesn't also happen. There's no reason why in the second century, where misinformation was even less susceptible of verification and correction in the present day, that this also wouldn't happen. So, strictly speaking, like you said, it doesn't have to be some guy lying. It could be any, it, it could have just come up somehow. One guy found it believable, it fit, he took it as the truth, and then he propagated it from there forward. And that's all that it takes for it to become a tradition. So, you know, this is just how things happen in the world. It's like, I said earlier, we cannot just presume that we somehow live in this protected, providential, safe space where errors never happen and God protects all of our thinking. That's delusional. That's, that's basically me trying to abdicate responsibility for my thinking and my responsibility to proportion my evid, my belief to the evidence. That's my wanting to just take my beliefs, whatever they are, and defend them against all objections, no matter what, right? Because of course, I'm right. I'm protected by God. I couldn't be otherwise. Because if I weren't protected by God, I might be wrong. It's crazy. It's delusional. So, if we can see it happening every day in front of us, in an age of information where everybody can fact-check anything instantly, how much more could something like this happen in the second or third century, where there are no fact-checkers, where it's not easy to make sure that you've got the right information, you don't have the internet at your disposal, right? And lies like these could get propagated and become, uh, widespread, just because they're advantageous. So, you know, I, you know, it's like you said, we don't have to say that there was some guy who made up the lie, um, but, um, certainly there's nothing stopping a false rumor or a false story from becoming very popular if it's advantageous and fits with what people believe. Yeah.

I think one of the, the strongest reasons to, to take this, take the view you're claiming, like, this is these people are highly susceptible to this, is because, like, we, we literally see this, like, all throughout church history. You got people believing, like, um, all these just like wild things about what, like, people of the Bible did, when, like, there's almost zero reason to believe it. It's like, not like they have some, like, 900-year-old tradition that nobody had before that. Um, it's, it's just things that just happened, like tradition, or people just have wild different, wildly different reasons to believe in, in such things. So, yeah, that's, that's why I'm, like, some people on YouTube that I was watching on this topic, where they were like, "You know, do we trust this argument, or do we trust the, the people that were there?" And I'm just like, "Well, I don't have any specific reason to just trust them, right?" Um, I can say this much, nobody was there. Okay. Irenaeus is one of the biggest bullshitters, I think, in the history of theology. Okay, we can talk more about Irenaeus later, but he was not there for anything. Okay. By his own admission, he was a small, very small child when he saw Polycarp. Um, and yet he also supposedly remembers conversations that Polycarp had with, uh, Florinus or whoever it is that he's, he's writing a letter to. Um, and then he says, somehow, that he can remember something that happened when he was a very young child as vividly as if it were happening yesterday. That's, I'm sorry, I can vaguely remember faces of persons who went to the church that I went to when I was nine years old. Okay, maybe, maybe, maybe I could recognize them in a picture, but I don't remember anything about what they said, even if they preached every Sunday. I don't remember what their voice sounds like. I don't remember anything that they said. I couldn't tell you who they are as persons, because I haven't seen them since then. Now, Irenaeus is older than I am now when he's writing this stuff. You cannot tell me that he's honest, right? Like, if you say that you remember something from nine years old as, as vividly, more vividly than you remember things more recently, and somehow it just happens to be something that is convincing and and convenient for your theological position, you sound like a bullshitter. Irenaeus sounds like a bullshitter. I'll give you another example, because now I'm on a tiid, so I don't want to stop while I've got momentum. Irenaeus says in Against Heresies, Book Three, Chapter Three, um, Section One. Let's pull it up. Uh, yeah, you have it. You have it there. Where is it at? Uh, the one before here. Yeah, there it goes. He says, "It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the Apostles manifested throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the Apostles instituted Bishops in the Churches, and to demonstrate the succession of these men to our own times." Okay. Um, "those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these heretics rave about." He says that you can draw up a list and name everybody who has been Bishop in the churches, uh, uh, founded by the Apostles, from the first person that the Apostles themselves, um, uh, appointed. Why should you believe what he's saying? He gives you one list from the Church of Rome, which many scholars think is not even accurate, because he seems to imply that there's one Bishop over the whole church from the very beginning. And if you look at other second-century, uh, evidence, for example, The Shepherd of Hermas or Justin Martyr, you do not at all get the idea that there was one Bishop in Rome. Okay. So, Irenaeus makes up this list of the supposed Bishop of Rome going back to the Apostles Peter and Paul, that scholars today think is made up. At least some of the names, anyway, are made up. Then he says, Polycarp was made Bishop by Apostles in Smyrna. And then he also says that John was an Apostle and he was around in Ephesus for a long time. He doesn't tell you who was Bishop after Polycarp. Okay. Polycarp died during Irenaeus's lifetime. Why doesn't he tell you who succeeded Polycarp? He mentions the city of Ephesus, and he says that they maintain the true doctrine there. He doesn't tell you who Bishop there. He doesn't even tell you who made him a bishop. He doesn't even say who has been Bishop before him in Lyons. Irenaeus is, is, it's just bluster. It's just made up. He has one argument that he puts everything on this made-up Bishop list in Rome that we have no reason to believe, and contemporary scholars think is fake. Um, and then he puts his entire argument on this, and then he says that you can do this with all the churches everywhere, but he doesn't do it. He doesn't tell you who succeeded Polycarp. He doesn't tell you who has been Bishop in Ephesus. He doesn't tell you who's been Bishop anywhere. He says that it would be tedious is to provide these lists, but his book is already long. This is in the middle of a book, it only gets longer from then out, but he just refuses to do it. So, I think that he's just lying. It's just BS from him. And the same thing is true for Tertullian. Tertullian also, this is in the Prescription Against, uh, the Heretics, um, uh, Chapter 32. Uh, yeah, this one. He says, "But if there should be any heretics which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, they may therefore, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the Apostles, because they existed in the time of the Apostles. We can say, let them produce the original records of their Churches. Let them unfold the role of their Bishops running down in due succession from the beginning, in such a manner that the Bishops of this first Bishop of theirs should be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the Apostles or Apostolic men." Tertullian gives you the impression that there's been some long list of Bishops in all the churches, and that all the churches are able to tell you who has been Bishop in their Church all the way back to an Apostle. But he doesn't tell you anything that Irenaeus doesn't already tell you, which is, well, first of all, he contradicts Irenaeus because he says that Clement, not Linus, was the first one made Bishop in Rome. And then he says something that Irenaeus does not say. He says that John made Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna. Irenaeus says that it was just Apostles, uh, and then that's it. Nobody knows. Nobody knows who made who a bishop. Nobody knows who the Bishops in the vast majority of the churches are in the second century and in the early third century. Now, you do get lists in Eusebius, who, writing a whole other century later, but there are very many of those names in Eusebius's list that we don't know anything about. Nobody ever mentions them. Who knows who those persons are? They could be made up. So, as far as Irenaeus is concerned, there is no reason to think that he's telling the truth. There's no reason to think that he's reliable. Tertullian doesn't do anything but pass on the same myth that Irenaeus does, while also contradicting Irenaeus on a few points. Perhaps he's writing from memory, perhaps he has a false impression of something that he learned in Irenaeus. And they use this argument against the heretics, but it's, it's bluster. It does not exist. Tertullian doesn't tell you who is Bishop in Carthage. He doesn't tell you the succession of Bishops in Carthage. Okay. So, these, these, um, these sources are not believable. They are liars. They're people. They're just, they're engaged in polemics, religious polemics, and they lie, or else, if they don't lie, they spread falsehoods knowingly or unknowingly, because it's convenient for them and because it works for their argument. The very same thing that people do today in political discussions, just like it's politically advantageous for Joe Biden to say that, you know, Donald Trump said that, just as it's politically supposedly politically advantageous for JD Vance to say something about Haitians eating cats, even though it never happened. Um, these people are doing the same thing, just in the context of religion, which of course, we know gets people just as worked up as politics does. So, I don't think that they're reliable. I don't think that we have reason to believe them. They are making things up. There's no reason to take them at their word. Uh, I appreciate that, that, uh, boox there. Um, so, uh, this is definitely the most, uh, critics that has been on my channel so far. So, I'm not a political person, and I don't have many political opinions, but in this case, it's relevant to the subject matter, so I bring it up. H, so, I see that you watched that debate then? Yeah, I endured it. Yeah, I wouldn't say that I watched it, I endured it. Oh, man, you have more patience than I do. All right. Uh, so, um, yeah, yeah, so I, I was going to ask you like, um, you know, Irenaeus was, was able to name all these guys, all right? See if I can pull it up. Uh, it's a, it's a long list of like, all these. I think that's this is on there. There's so many words on here. Um, yeah, it's, um, my favorite one is, uh, it's six from the Apostles. Sixus was his name. Just happened to be sixth, right? So, that that one's convenient, right? The sixth from the Apostles is a guy named Sixus. Well, the thing is though, like, if he's lying, then it's like, well, nobody's that stupid to name someone on their list, Sixus. So, but that's unbelievable, isn't it? Because Sixus was a name, right? Ancient Romans, um, they would give their names, children, like, first, second, and third, right? Give them the same names. Uh, you know, Flavius Sixus, the sixth Flavius, right? They would name them after their father and then number them after that. So, it's believable that somebody would be named Sixus, and oh, what a coincidence, you just happened to be the sixth one there. So, it's, it's, it's made up, but it's like a believable lie. Um, it's, it's believable that there would be a person named Sixus, who just happened by coincidence, how funny, God's Providence works out this way, he was sixth Bishop, you know. So, it's, it's believable, even though it sounds ridiculous to us, given Roman naming habits, it's believable. Yeah, I, I just, that is so odd. It's amazing. Okay. Um, so, uh, Irenaeus says he met Polycarp, who knew the Apostle John. He explicitly uses this fact as a reason to accept what he's saying about Christianity. That's, that's just like one person away from talking directly with, with the Apostle. So, you've talked about this, like, like, where, actually, do you, do you have it in, in the PowerPoint, where he mentions that he met him or whatever? Um, you know, I don't know if I have it on the PowerPoint. Uh, it, maybe it would be in, uh, section four of chapter three. So, maybe go over one more. Do I mention it there at all? Uh, no, I don't have it. So, I don't know if I have it in the, I, you know, it would be good thing to, to look up, but, okay, I'll try to find it. Um, yeah, if you look in the Fragments of Irenaeus, I think one of the first fragments is a letter to Florinus, who I think, I think that's his name. Uh, to whom, uh, Irenaeus was writing, because this Florinus was a priest, and he was becoming sympathetic to Valentinian theology, and Irenaeus is trying to prevent him. And he mentions that this Florinus also knew Polycarp, and he talks about how he knew Polycarp in his youth and so on. But again, it's, it's baloney. All right. Polycarp was an old man. He died in the late middle to late 150s, and he was an old man. He was 80 years old. So, that means that he was born probably around 70. Okay. Um, Irenaeus was writing this work as a bishop around the year 180. So, even if he had ever met, uh, Polycarp, it had to have been when he was a little kid. Now, I teach eighth grade, okay? Um, my eighth graders see me every single day in class. I teach them Latin. When they grow up and they're 40 years old, you cannot tell me that they were one degree removed from my parents, right? Or that that's a meaningful distinction, because they happen to have me teaching Latin class, and I happen to, for example, I studied under Oliver Crisp at Fuller Theological Seminary, and then my students, my eighth graders, study under me. You cannot tell me that that eighth grader, when he grows up to be 50 years old, is for that reason going to be an authority about what Oliver Crisp teaches or thinks, because he happened to know me when he was 12 years old, right? It's absurd. It's crazy. Irenaeus, of course, can sell it. He can say, "Look, I remember just like I remember things that happened to me yesterday." Of course, that's BS. I don't remember anything from my youth. I don't remember what I was like in St. in in school. I don't remember who principles of my school were. I don't remember, you know, what my school looked like. If I were to go back to my high school today, I think I would not recognize most of what's there, not because it's new, but because I just don't remember these things. So, I don't believe Irenaeus. He says this because it's convenient, and of course, you have people who are, you know, highly credulous and they want to become Roman Catholic, no matter what. So, they, "Oh, look at Irenaeus, the way he talks, it's as if he, you know, he's only two degrees removed from the Apostles." I'm sorry, that's baloney. He was two degrees and 100 years plus removed from the Apostles. That's not the same. H, yeah.

So, I, I can see someone saying though, like, "Hey, we, we know from, like, this is an oral culture. So, they would be able to, they, they had a better idea or better ability, more, they were more practiced at remembering oral things. So, doesn't that give them the ability to, to remember these types of things?" No, because even though they're an older culture, they were also a culture. And that's how it is with other sort of pre-Enlightenment, you know, pre-modern societies, even in the present day. People don't care about the truth. They don't care if you lie. They'll remember what you said, but they don't care if it's a lie or not, or they'll pass on, they'll fabricate, they'll make stories up, they'll embellish the stories that you tell them when they retell them a second time. So, even if it was an oral culture, it was also a culture. There are people who report myths, um, about seeing, you know, Emperors ascending into heaven. No, they didn't. They never saw that, but they swear that they were there and that they saw it. So, you cannot tell me that people are like this are necessarily believable. Um, we have to remember that there was a major, major, major, um, there was a major change that took place in the Enlightenment and the new found emphasis on scientific rationality in ordinary life, okay, that the Enlightenment brought about. There is no comparing a scholar who does work in the 21st century or the 20th century with, um, a second or third-century Roman historian, you know, or somebody who writes history while they're doing something else. Even if persons are otherwise reliable, that doesn't mean that everything is, is, um, everything that they say is truthful, or that they're somehow even closer, even more in touch with the truth than, than, you know, uh, people would be in our culture, where we're not so orally, you know, um, oriented, where we don't have an oral culture like they did. They had an oral culture. They also had a culture. There are people who would believe fantastic things. That's just the way it was. So, that doesn't make them more reliable, just because they're an oral culture. They were also a nonsense culture in various ways. Um, and even, you know, for example, I'll give you an example. Eusebius, um, is one of the more authoritative figures for understanding church history. He writes a history, you know, people take him for, take him for granted in various ways, and they pay close attention to his dating. But he also grossly misdates some things. For example, he gr, he dates a certain martyr in the second century, when actually this guy died 300, 100 years later, in the third century. And the document that Eusebius himself references as a source for this guy said that he died 100 years later than Eusebius does. So, even Eusebius, who is a reliable historian, is important in various ways, gets things obviously wrong. Um, and he just passes it off like it's true, right? So, this sort of thing of like people just passing things on, and they don't actually know if it's true or not, or they just pass it on because it seems true, it seems plausible given what they think. That thing that happens in all times and all places. People are always like that. So, the fact that they're an old culture doesn't make them necessarily more reliable. It doesn't mean that Irenaeus somehow is able magically to remember things that happened, you know, 50 years, when he was 50 years earlier, when he was nine years old. I don't believe that. Even or oral cultures in all, yeah.

Okay. Uh, so, uh, this is, um, part of it. Um, so, it says, uh, "This is Irenaeus. I could tell you the place where the blessed Polycarp sat to preach the word of God. It is yet present to my mind with what gravity he everywhere came in and went out, what was the sanctity of his deportment, the majesty of his countenance, and what were his holy orations to the people. I seem to hear him now relate how he conversed with John and many others who had seen Jesus Christ, the words he had heard from their mouths." Uh, so, so, I guess this one, this plays a lot of, uh, value on what his memory, if he's actually remembering it right, U, that he's not adding any extra details. He isn't completely specific about like what he got from Polycarp. It's not like he quotes them or anything like that. And, um, then of course, that assumes that Polycarp was right, and that Polycarp had all this information. And, you know, then of course, like Polycarp was able to, like, it's not like Polycarp was like, "Yeah, so, um, this is this quote from this Apostle, and then this is what the other guy said." And like, you know, it's not like they're making some type of historical case. So, um, yeah, I think we've stressed that point enough. Um, so, it's about, we're about an hour in. Um, I've got a few other questions for you. Do you have time, or do you, have to keep going, or, or what's your thought there? Okay. All right. Uh, so, um, let's see what we have here. Um, yeah, so let's talk about, um, Jesus coming back soon, and that, that idea. So, how does that belief of the, the early church believing that Jesus was coming back shortly after Jesus was died, um, or rose again, or, or whatever, um, how does that affect this discussion? Well, um, first Clement says that the Apostles appointed Bishops and Deacons in all the cities where they went to preach the gospel. Um, my question now, I'm not committed to this, so, you know, it, it would depend. Um, but it seems to me, at least at first glance, that there's a contradiction between saying that the Apostles appointed Bishops and Deacons in the various churches, and they introduced all these rules about how to replace Bishops and so on when they die, if the Apostles also thought that Jesus was going to return in their lifetimes. Um, now, I don't want to stress this point because I didn't, uh, prepare very much to say about it in detail. But basically, if you look at the various arguments that people give for thinking that, um, for example, from Paul's letters or for the Gospels, for thinking that the return of Christ was going to be soon, that when he would return, he would install a new order, that, you know, the whole world would be changed, that they would be made to rule alongside Christ and so on. If you buy those arguments, and if you think that Paul and the other Apostles did expect Christ to return, excuse me, to return within their own lifetimes, then why are they setting up this complicated church government? Why would they do that? Right? Think about it like this. Suppose people, you know, survive a plane crash, they're on a desert island, or they're somewhere in the mountains. So long as they think that they're going to be rescued any day now, they're not going to bother to set up an alternative society with their own rules and with everybody with their, you know, special differentiated roles and so on. That sort of thought only comes up once they begin to realize that maybe no one's coming to help us anytime soon, and we need to get along here, we need to be sustainable for ourselves. So, then they decide, "Okay, you're going to be in charge of cooking the food, you're going to be in charge of hunting, you're going to be in charge of the money," and so on. Um, the idea that you would set up a society that can preserve itself in time, the way that the episcopate does, does not bode well with sort of eschatological thinking. All right, whenever you have these eschatological communities that are expecting the end of the world very quickly, they don't tend to have these complicated systems of government and ordinance, because you don't need to. Everything is coming to an end soon, right? We don't know if Jesus is coming back tomorrow, so what's the point in me being a bishop and insisting that you can't ordain anybody? But if I begin to think that Jesus is not coming back tomorrow, and in the meantime, the church is starting to look a little crazy because I've got people here teaching things that are weird, and they're claiming that it comes with the Apostles, and I don't know if I believe all that, then it begins to make sense. Okay, well, maybe we need to have one person in charge of our theology here, who's going to be in charge of, uh, teaching, and we can't just let anybody get up there, right? And we can't just have anybody ordained to be a bishop. So, we have to make sure that only Bishops can ordain other Bishops. You can see the logic of it. Once the idea that Christ was going to return any day now was off the horizon, then you need something, you need to do something about the church to prevent it from going haywire, because it's going to be here for a while. So, then you introduce this system of government. So, I think that it's implausible, if we think that the Apostles were expecting the return of Christ in their own time, it's impossible that they would have appointed Bishops and Deacons and all the churches and set up this entire government of how the church is going to be run. Um, now, you could say, "Well, Stephen, maybe towards the end of their life, uh, they were, it was revealed to them that Jesus is not going to be returning, and so they said, 'Okay, then Jesus in a special revelation told them to set up Bishops.'" Yeah, that's all possible. There's no evidence that that happened. It's possible, however, in the abstract. So, I don't mean to hold too much this argument, but the idea that the Apostles had eschatological expectations that were going to be fulfilled in their own lifetimes speaks against they're setting up a complicated, um, system of government in the churches. Okay.

And, um, there's also the question about Bishops and and Presbyters, whether they're the same thing. Uh, so, um, I don't know if we want to go into real detail there. Um, you've done other videos on it, but could you talk about just the gist of that argument, why that's relevant? Sure. Um, in contemporary Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican Church, um, uh, the idea is that the Bishop is the highest position, and then under him is the Presbyter, and then under him is the Deacon, and then the lay person. Uh, the Bishop has all the rights and authorities and powers of all the other levels below him, but he also has special rights and authorities that are only his, for example, that of ordaining, or that of teaching with binding authority. Um, now, what's interesting is that in the second-century sources, there was no distinction between Bishop and Presbyter, at least not a distinction of rank. Um, and the reason for that is because the same persons are called both Bishops and Presbyters. Um, so, for example, in First Clement, the word Presbyter and Bishop are used basically interchangeably. Um, in chapter 44, if you think that he's referring to different sorts of people in them, that's because, uh, that that totally ruins his train of thought. So, if you can't pull up First Clement 44, um, it's, it should be in the slide with First Clement, the longer paragraph. First Clement 34, is that near the end? It should be earlier on. Oh, awkward. All right, need to fix it. There we go. All right, yeah. So, notice what he says here, okay? Um, "Our Apostles likewise knew through the Lord Jesus there would be strife over the Bishop's office. For this reason, they appointed the leaders mentioned earlier, namely the Bishops and the Deacons." Blah, blah, blah. Um, "And therefore, if people do their job humbly, peaceably, and unselfishly, we consider these to be unjustly removed from their Ministry. It will be no salem for us if we dispose, depose from the Bishop's office those who have offered the gifts blamelessly in holiness." And then he says, "Blessed are the presbyters who have gone on ahead, who took their departure." So, why does he start talking about Presbyters when he's been talking about Bishops, unless Presbyters and Bishops are the same persons? Um, and interestingly, this is the only passage in all of Clement where he talks about Bishops. Everywhere else he uses the word Presbyter. That's the much more common word used in First Clement. Um, so, in First Clement, the words for Presbyter and Bishops are basically synonymous. If they're not synonymous, they at least refer to the same people. The Didache doesn't mention Presbyter at all. It only has Bishops and Deacons. Um, on my Substack page and YouTube channel, I have a long argument about how Bishop and Presbyter in Irenaeus refers to the same group of people, and I basically give five arguments. The first argument is that Irenaeus variously says that Bishops and Presbyters are the successors of the Apostles and transmitters of the Apostolic tradition. Um, the second argument is that, which, which means that he's implicitly equating them. The second argument is that Irenaeus explicitly equates Bishops and Presbyters in at least a few passages. The third argument is that Irenaeus says that Presbyters hold the chief seat in the Church, which would not be true if the rank of Bishop were higher than that of Presbyter. The fourth argument is that whenever Irenaeus recounts purportedly Apostolic traditions, he always attributes them to a Presbyter. He doesn't say that he got them from a Bishop. Right? Why would he appeal to a lower rank if the higher rank is there for him to appeal to? The fact that he appeals to Presbyters all the time seems to imply that the Presbyters just are the Bishops. And then, finally, persons who are called Bishops in other places are called Presbyters in, uh, Irenaeus's fragments. So, for these five reasons, I think that in Irenaeus, Bishops and Presbyters are the same person. In the Didache, there are no Presbyters. There are just Bishops and Deacons. Um, and in First Clement, also Bishops and Presbyters are the same persons. So, even the fact, even the idea that there is a distinction between the Bishop and the Presbyter is not an idea that you find in the second century. It only shows up later. Um, so, uh, yeah, so that, that brings up to this other question. So, I'm, of course, you've heard, um, so there's this phrase, it's like, "crack," I'm sure I'm messing it up. So, "every Bishop was a Presbyter, but not every Presbyter was a Bishop." So, like, from, just for my audience, imagine that you're in a big school. There are two types of teachers. There are regular teachers, and we're going to say these are like the, the Presbyters who help students in their classrooms. Then there's also teachers who are in charge of the whole school, and, um, and a big group of classrooms. These are like the Bishops. So, the, the ones in charge of everything, they can teach sometimes, and they can be called teachers, but it doesn't mean that they are not in charge of the whole thing. So, just likewise, like maybe a Bishop could be in charge of the whole thing, but they would also still be called a Presbyter, even though a Presbyter is more of a local thing. So, isn't that technically possible? It seemed like you made a couple arguments there that would, would be against that, right? Yeah, so it's not just that every Bishop is a Presbyter, but also that every Presbyter is a Bishop. Um, because he, again, um, I cannot go into this into very much detail here, because, um, you know, we didn't prepare to talk about this, and I, I would need to look through my, my earlier post. You can find my video on my, uh, YouTube channel or my Substack, and I talk about this. Um, uh, but we can, we can leave it at that if you want to. Yeah, we can leave it basically there are passages where the same people are talked about using both terms, and it may be true that every Bishop is a priest, but it's not true that every priest is a bishop. So, if Irenaeus is going around calling priests Bishops, that would suggest that there is no difference between Presbyter and Bishop for Irenaeus. And, but there's also another question of like, would we like it seems really odd that we wouldn't see a clear distinction in all these other texts, right? But then all of a sudden, it's only later that we see this distinction. What do you think about that type of argument? So, um, there are, uh, you can read, for example, the book by Alistair Stewart called The Original Bishops, and he addresses the question of how did the monopiscopate come about? The monopiscopate is the idea that there is the Bishop is the single ruler over a diocese. All right. So, it's not that a Bishop is like the head pastor of a single church, but he's rather the head pastor over all the churches in a single area. All right. And then the pastors of the local church might be called Presbyters, but the guy over all of them is a Bishop. He explains a theory of how that system came about, and it's not true everywhere. It seems that in Jerusalem, there was always just one guy at the top from the beginning. But in other places, it seems to have come about like this. There was, um, there would be, for example, in a city, a network of churches. Each of these churches would have been ruled by a single person called the Bishop. So, the, the pastor of the local church is called a Bishop. But at the same time, these churches were all forming a network and in communion with each other. And then when the Bishops from all the individual churches would gather and talk to each other and discuss things with each other, then as a body, they would be called Presbyters. So, from the point of view of his rule over a single church, a person is called Bishop. From the point of view of his, uh, belonging to a network with other Bishops, a person is called a Presbyter. So, basically, the two words look at the same person, but from different points of view. And then Alistair says that eventually these Presbyters would have chosen some one of their members to be the leader of the group of of dioceses. So, imagine if you had like, um, a network of local pastors who decide one of them, uh, is going to be the leader over the whole network. That's how the monopiscopate comes.

out. First of all, in the beginning, the bishop is just the the local pastor of a single church. But later, the bishop comes to be called the leader of this network of local pastors, um, who then become presbyters. Okay. Um, so, um, but, but maybe you could stress a little bit. So, like Gavin Ortland, he, he stresses this in his argument here against Apostolic succession. So maybe you can disagree or not. Um, like it seems like you can make the argument that when you look at the, the biblical text, the New Testament, any of those letters, that there's no distinction. Then you look at, you know, all the earliest texts, um, the Didache and all those other ones, it's possible that that maybe a, there is this idea where, um, not all presbyters are bishops, but it's, um, like there's absolutely no distinction made, really. Um, um, so couldn't you argue that, like, that was also a later change? And that if we're looking at, just to the historical evidence, like we, we don't have any evidence from what before 380 or 280 or whatever for, for that there was this distinction? Would, would you agree with that? Is that evidence for your position or no?

Well, I think that it is. Um, if I'm right that in Irenaeus, bishops and presbyters are the same persons, um, the system that Alistair Stewart proposes explains that. Why does it seem that, um, why does it seem that Irenaeus calls the same persons bishops and presbyters? Well, because each one individually is a bishop in his own church, and he's a presbyter when viewed from the point of view of the network of churches that he's involved with. Um, you know, so it seems to me that if you have that distinction in mind, that can also explain other passages where you have an apparent distinction between bishops and presbyters, like in Ignatius of Antioch. I don't remember what, um, Alistair Stewart says about Ignatius in his book. And there are also debates about Ignatius and the legitimacy of the various letters, right? So we don't have, like, um, we have a consensus view. This consensus view seems to be that the so-called middle recension of Ignatius' Epistles are, um, are, um, historically belong to him. But there are some scholars who argue that actually the shorter recension, uh, is what's the word, authentic, and the middle recension is an interpolated collection from later on, somebody pretending to be Ignatius. Um, if you accept that argument, then the question becomes even more complicated because some of the evidence about the episcopate from Ignatius belongs to the middle recension, not the shorter recension. And that means that it wasn't Ignatius writing those things, it was someone else, um, pretending to be Ignatius, who was trying to propose this distinction between perhaps presbyter and bishop because it was useful to him. So all these things are very complicated.

Um, it is clear that by the time you get to the Council of Nicaea, for example, there is a distinction between the bishop, the presbyter, and the deacon, and the layman. So there is this hierarchy. Well, what I mean to say is that in the second century, in First Clement, in Irenaeus, um, in Ignatius, um, in the Didache, it's not so clear. The New Testament also, you, you do a good thing to mention the New Testament, um, because in Titus and I think in First or Second Timothy, it does seem like bishops and presbyters are just different words for the same persons. Um, of course, one point where I would differ with Gavin is that I think that those particular New Testament documents were written in the second century, not in the first century. So again, for me, they enter into this, this important, you know, period where things are bubbling in Rome and these, these different theories are being developed, and some of them are being invented. Um, and that's where I would put that one also. So I don't appeal to the New Testament in the same way that Gavin does because it doesn't play the same evidential role for me.

Okay. Uh, so on that topic, um, Ignatius is this, so is this the, the, the big thing that you're mentioning that there appears to be a difference in the way that Ignatius, if, if this supposedly is Ignatius, that he sees a difference? Because it says, "Let the laity be subject to the deacons, deacons to the presbyters, presbyters to the bishop, bishop to Christ." So it seems like the bishop is the top guy. Um, so this is maybe, if this is authentic, then this would be the earliest mention of this three-fold structure, right?

Yeah, you would, yeah, assuming that Ignatius did write this, which frankly, from my point of view, is impossible. But if, assuming Ignatius did write this, then this would be an earliest mention. But again, the legitimacy of Ignatius' letters is, is highly debated. Um, the debates are complicated. The arguments, there is a consensus position in favor of the middle recension. Most people just take it for granted. But there are new arguments coming out these days, um, that argue that the earlier shorter recension is legitimate or authentic, the other ones are not. Um, so even here, you could have interpolations. Um, even here, you could have people writing from a much later time, inserting things into Ignatius that were not actually there originally. So Ignatius is a complicated. You cannot just appeal to Ignatius wishy-washy, you know, willy-nilly as if he proves something because the authenticity of Ignatius' letters are highly de, is highly debated, highly disputed matter, and it's, it's just not clear what the right answer is.

Okay. And, uh, for people interested on that topic, you can check out Marcus Vincent and what's the other guy that you mentioned? Jack Bull. Yeah, Jack Bull. All right. Uh, uh, there, there's also another interesting angle that I see here is that even if you do think this is authentic, it doesn't necessarily mean everybody believed this, right? And even then, that, that still could be like, um, it, you know, it makes it slightly harder argument, just slightly. But even then, it still could be like, this could be one of the very first times in history where this, this distinction is, is made. Uh, so, so it doesn't necessarily, you know, prove Apostolic succession and, and specifically, you know, like the whole laying of hands and all those other things that are added on to it. This is just a, a three, uh, three-tiered hierarchy here. So, um, you didn't want to add anything to what I just said, did you?

No, you have it exactly right. The, the fact that Ignatius says something doesn't prove that he's not the first person to say it. Okay? And even if he were the first person to say it, he could still pass it on or make it sound as if he's not the first person to say it. It sounds more authoritative if you're not the first person to say it. So, right, the, it's, it's complicated. People assume that when you cite the church fathers, they're only passing on what people have already believed before them for 100 years. So if you can find Ignatius saying it, then that must mean that the apostles, you know, came up with the theory, you know, 70 years before him. That's not true. He could be the first person saying this, even if he doesn't sound that way. Um, Irenaeus, for example, is the first person to say that there are four gospels. Nobody before him says this. There are people before him who say that there's only one gospel, and then there are people in a middling period who say that there are multiple gospels, though they don't say how many. Um, Papias of Hierapolis is roughly, um, uh, is basically a rough contemporary of Irenaeus's, and he seems to say that there are two gospels. Um, the, the evidence of Papias is disputed, but Irenaeus really is the first person in history to say that there are four gospels, and he even knows who wrote them and, you know, in what order they should be in the canon and so on. But before him, there was not that opinion. So it does happen that persons in church history are the first person to say something. Irenaeus is the first person to say that there are four gospels. Even if this was written by Ignatius, which I highly doubt, he could have been the first person to say this, and he was not passing on something that was old, he was passing on something that he, you know, newly discovered or newly invented or whatever it might be. So these debates are much more complicated than the online apologetics world would have you think. They think that you can just cite Irenaeus and because he's so early, then whatever he's saying went back 180 years before him. But that's not true.

Yeah. All right. And, um, was there anything else you wanted to add about Tertullian?

Yeah, there is, um, there is this one passage. Um, if you can open up the Prescription Against the Heretics, chapter 32. Yeah, that was something else. Um, there, two, yeah, this one right here. Right. So notice the way that Tertullian talks here. We'll read what he says one more time. "But if there be any heresies which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say, let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down into succession from the churches from the beginning, in such a manner that the first bishop of theirs, that bishop, should be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles, or of apostolic men—a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the Church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the Church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit their several worthies, whom as have been appointed, excuse me, as having been appointed to their Episcopal places by Apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind. For after their blasphemy, what is there unlawful for them to attempt?"

Right. So if the heretics really go back to the apostles, they should be able to produce a list, a successional list, like all the other churches apparently can do. Go to the next one. "But should they even affect this contrivance, they will not advance a step; for their very doctrine, after comparison with that of the apostles, will declare by its own diversity and contrariety that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man, because as the apostles would never have taught things which are self-contradictory, so the apostolic man would not have inculcated teaching different from the apostles, unless they who received their instruction from the apostles went and preached in a contrary manner to this. Their test, therefore, they will be submitted for proof by those churches who, although they derive not their founder from the apostles or from apostolic men, as being of much later date (for they are, in fact, being founded daily), yet since they agree in the same faith, they are not less apostolic because they are akin in doctrine. Then let all the heresies, when challenged to these two tests by our Apostolic Church, offer their proof of how they deem themselves to be Apostolic."

So, notice Tertullian says this. He says, if the heresies truly are apostolic in origin, then the persons in these churches should be able to pull out a list that has the succession of the bishops in their churches, and they should be able to show that the first person in that list was somebody who spent a lot of time with the apostles and was appointed by an apostle. They can't do this. But even if they did, even if they could do this, I wouldn't believe them because the things that they say are so ridiculous, and they could not be apostolic teachings. All right. Then Tertullian says, "They will even be put to the test by churches who are being founded today." Right? Who cannot trace their founding back to an apostle. Now, notice what it f, what follows. Okay? If the first bishop of some church were ordained by some guy who was ordained by some guy who was ordained by some guy who was ordained by an apostle, then these churches in Tertullian's day would have been able to trace back their consecration, trace back their founding to an apostle. They would have been able to say, "Our first bishop was Primus, let's say, and Primus was ordained by Irenaeus, and Irenaeus was ordained by Victor, and Victor was ordained by so-and-so, all the way back to Paul." But Tertullian doesn't say this. He says that the churches being founded in his day, they cannot trace their founding back to an apostle or to an apostolic man. That means that even if they have a person who was duly ordained bishop, he was not ordained bishop by somebody who can trace his consecration back to an apostle. Tertullian is saying, you don't need to have this consecration chain that goes back to the apostles. What you need to have is the apostolic doctrine. And the fact that the churches founded by the apostles don't teach the stuff that these heretics teach proves that they are not apostolic. And the other churches whose founders cannot trace their consecration back to an apostle are apostolic because they have the same doctrine. So notice that for Tertullian, Apostolic succession is principally about doctrine. Right? What matters is that you are teaching the apostles' doctrine. That's what he thinks is important. Um, and he even seems to imply, as I was saying earlier, that there are persons who are bishops in his day who would not be able to trace their consecration back to an apostle by means of other bishops. So it must not have been the rule in his day. He doesn't even say that the heretics have to prove that their current bishop was ordained by another bishop who was ordained by another bishop who was ordained by an apostle. He doesn't even say that. He just has to say, he just says, you have to have a succession of bishops, and the first guy was chosen by an apostle. That's all that's needed. Okay? So this idea, which is important for the contemporary doctrine that bishops need to be made bishops by other bishops, nowhere exists in these second-century sources, or even in Tertullian, who is an early third-century source.

Wow. Okay. And, uh, you have, well, I guess there's not really an easy place for people to access all these letters, is there?

A lot of them are actually available on the newadvent.org site. So if you go to newadvent.org/fathers, there's a lot of free, uh, material from various Church Fathers. You can click on the links, you can go through the whole stuff. Um, so it's very simple. If you ever want to look up a passage, you can just ask Chat GPT, "Where does Tertullian talk about the ordination of bishops?" and it'll spit out information because Chat GPT actually uses that website as a database. Um, and I can tell because I've asked it questions to see where it's getting its information from, and it uses that new advent website as a database. So you can ask it, "Where does, you know, Irenaeus talk about this?" and it'll spit you out passages drawn from that website. So, you know, you can use that website. Of course, there are other sources that are not readily available, and the, the translations on that website are old. There are always, you know, modern translations of these things being, uh, produced all the time. Yeah. There's also a website called tertullian.org that has a lot of Tertullian writings that are for free, and you can read them online. You can read them in different languages, in Latin and English, whatever. Um, so there are a lot of sources online. You just have to do a quick Google search, you'll find a lot.

Yeah. And, um, on that topic, uh, so, uh, I don't know how to pronounce this. Rooney Phoenix. Thank you for the the question. "One problem with your theory of the episcopate being set up because of the non-occurrence of the parousia is that the apostolic fathers believed Christ would return soon, as the New Testament authors did. Sure, they had delay language used as well, but they generally believed Jesus was coming very soon. So, so what do you think about that? If, like, it doesn't make sense to say that that would be an issue for the early ap, apostles if the, when it was created, also believed that Jesus was coming soon. What do you think about that?"

Well, I would say a couple of things. First, I would say that the belief that Jesus is coming soon is not something that you easily let go of. Because even if in your everyday life, you treat it as if it's not actually true, in your, you know, in, in certain moments of your life, you might think, "No, actually, this could happen tomorrow." Because of course, we can't predict the future. So it's not even a person who has gone their entire life waiting for Jesus to come back and it never happens, still, you know, lives on with the hope that it can happen before he dies. Um, you know, so the fact that, um, it's, it's not as if like people at any point sort of gave up this hope altogether. Even people live today still are expecting Jesus to return anytime now. And there are a lot of people who are alive today who think that surely today is going to happen any day now because, you know, things have been getting so much terrible, so much worse than they were in the past. That's the sort of Christian environment that I grew up in. People were expecting Jesus's return any day now precisely because things are supposedly so much worse now than they were before. So, you know, the mere, first of all, the belief that Jesus is going to return any day now is not something that you can easily get rid of. It's always in your head, even if at the same time you find it almost implausible and you begin to suspect maybe it's not going to happen. Um, so people can have these contradictory states. That's the first thing that I would say. This, you know, the second thing that I would say is that I think very much of the New Testament was written in the second century by people in the apostolic fathers period, not in the first century. So the fact that you have both of these things there is, is not a problem for me because I think actually much of the New Testament was written during the per, per, period of the second century, um, the early, early, early middle 2nd century, the Gospels for example. So, you know, um, I would, I suppose I would, uh, begin from a different starting place than this commenter.

Yeah. Well, if that is true, then, then doesn't that undercut the, undercut the original argument?

No, because the original argument was that the apostles expected Christ to return in his lifetime, not that the New Testament documents, actual, actual apostles. Okay, actual apostles are one thing, the New Testament documents are another thing. Yeah. Okay. Something of the apostles' apocalyptic expectations comes out in the New Testament documents because not all of the New Testament documents trace back to the second century. Some of the material in the New Testament is first-century material, but some of it is second-century material. So by the time you get to the New, New Testament, you have a blend. You have people who are expecting Jesus to come back any day now, and then people who realize that, no, this is going to take some time. And then you get a blending in the New Testament. But the original apostles themselves, presumably, would have expected Jesus to return within their lifetime. So that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah. And, and there, I guess there is that idea of like, hey, the apostles, like, you know, we, we just met, we know Jesus, right? Like, surely he's coming back soon, right? And then, I mean, I don't know, I guess there is mention of the temple, but I don't know what your view on that, if that's a later, later writing. But either way, like, if, if anybody's going to be claiming, like, anybody's going to be confident about Jesus coming back, it's, it's going to be like the set of apostles, right? But, um, then later on, like, shoot, you know, it doesn't look like he's coming back, you know, 100 years later, doesn't it? He said he's probably coming back, but you, like, we don't know for sure. You might be doubting. So that, that makes sense, um, why they would be more, uh, lenient in that idea of like, okay, well, maybe we should just go ahead and set up something just in case, that kind of thing.

It's not only that they were, they were becoming accustomed to the idea of a delay of the parousia, but they also, so we're dealing with the problem of doctrinal diversity and the supposed proliferation of heresies. So there are two things going on. On the one hand, Jesus doesn't seem to be coming back anytime soon. On the other hand, uh, our house is in disarray. So we have to clean things up, right? So there are two factors here that explain the, um, the, you know, advent of the mono-episcopate and the episcopal system. It's not just one or the other, it's both of them.

I see. Okay. Awesome. All right. Well, I think that's all we have to mention. The, maybe just really, really, really quickly, um, there's claims that like, hey, you know, the, the New Testament describes Peter and, uh, you know, like, I think it's Titus and Timothy as like as as bishops, and, uh, that's that's an argument for for this position. Any, any thoughts on that?

Yeah, again, I would say that those New Testament documents trace back to the second century, around the time where these ideas are evolving and developing for the first time. Um, so, for example, First Peter, um, and Second Peter, I do not take those to be actually written by Peter. Um, you know, First and Second Timothy, Titus, etcetera, those are for me second-century documents that were written around the time, uh, where these ideas are being debated by Christians. Um, so they reflect, um, the debates that were taking place about Apostolic succession and about the importance of it for Christian theology and for the Christian church, um, in the early middle 2nd century, especially in Rome. So that's why, um, you know, I wouldn't point to those as proof because I don't, I don't accept that those are first-century documents.

Okay. All right. And, um, I mean, do, do you think that the texts are actually trying to describe them as as bishops or even the pope for Peter?

Well, I, I certainly don't think that Bishop, that Peter is presented in the New Testament as like somehow the first bishop of Rome or anything like that. Um, you can see my book, Theological Authority in the Church, where I argue that the, you know, "Thou art Peter" passage in Matthew 16 does not, I, I argue against the traditional Roman Catholic interpretation of that passage and in favor of an alternative passage, an alternative reading. So you can check out that book. Uh, I won't say too much about it here. Um, but I would just say that I, I don't think that Peter is presented as like the first bishop of Rome or anything like that. Certainly in the Acts of the Apostles, he is presented as having a very prominent place. Some people think historically James was likelier the the more the likelier candidate to be prominent among the apostles at the very beginning, not Peter. That's not the way that Acts presents it, but these are complicated issues. I, I wouldn't be able to answer very briefly. I would just say that it's complicated.

But, but you, you don't see any strong reason to think that that's like gonna change this conversation?

No, no, I don't think so because again, I think these are second-century documents. I don't think that they all agree with each other. I think the first-century evidence presents a different picture. It seems to me, if you read, for example, Paul's letter to the Galatians, that between James and Peter, James is the boss. Um, and Peter is more eager to please James than he is to please Paul, even when he maybe agrees with Paul. Um, so I think the, the situation is more complicated when we go to like actual first-century evidence in comparison to later documents.

Very interesting. Awesome. All right. Well, um, that, that's all I got for you. Any other thoughts? Anything else you want to add?

Well, I, I will say this much. I am aware that probably this discussion was a mixed bag for, for you and for many people who are listening because some of the things they, I say, they might like, and some of the things I say, they might not like so much because I'm not an Evangelical talking about these things, right? I'm, I'm a liberal Protestant who has an interest in these things, but I'm coming at them from a different point of view than maybe Evangelicals or more conservative Protestants are. Um, so I realize that maybe this is a mixed bag, but the best thing that I can do is to ask people to be open to the arguments and to consider the same evidence from different points of view. It only helps, it doesn't hurt, right? So even if you don't agree with me at the end of the day, at the very least, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to share my perspective. This is an issue that I've thought about a lot, and I think that this question of Apostolic succession is very important, um, ecclesiologically and theologically for Christians. So I'm glad that I had an opportunity to share my opinion. You know, the arguments are what they are, they're independent of each other. Maybe things get a little more complicated if you're an Evangelical who doesn't believe that the New Testament was mostly written in the second century. Um, maybe some arguments go out of the, you know, go out for you, and some others, some arguments you would have to give up on. But at the very least, I think what we can all agree on is that the actual second-century documents that are undisputed among all of us, like, for example, uh, First Clement, the Didache, Irenaeus, Tertullian in the early 3rd century, I think it's indisputable that those documents do not teach the, what today is taken for granted is Apostolic succession, and they actually provide evidence contrary to those modern theories. So whatever else we might say about the New Testament, I think at the very least, we can agree that these second-century and third-century documents don't teach what the Roman Catholic and modern Eastern Orthodox and high Anglican churches say about how their bishops stand in relation to the apostles.

And if I could quickly summarize, so we have no early source that says that a bishop can only be made by an apostle or bishop, uh, prior to the third or maybe even fourth century, including Ignatius. Clement, Didache, Irenaeus, Tertullian, all people that we'd almost even expect for them to mention it. Um, early sources imply some bishops were not made bishops by other bishops, includes Clement. The primary sense of Apostolic succession when it is mentioned is is in regards to doctrinal, doctrinal succession. So not even like specifically the the bishops passing, bishop to bishop, more specifically just like doctrine in general. So you could, I don't know if you talked about it, you could theoretically be apostolic but not actually have the the the bishop tradition. Who, where was that?

Bran? So, for example, in Tertullian's Prescription Against the Heretics 32, he says that there are churches that are being founded in his day, uh, that were not founded by an apostle, and the bishops of those churches cannot, uh, you know, trace their ordinations back to an apostle by means of other bishops, but they're still apostolic because they have the apostolic doctrine. So for Tertullian, the really important thing is that you have the apostolic doctrine, and that's also true for Irenaeus, by the way. For Irenaeus, the really important thing is that the bishops and the presbyters are the ones who pass on the doctrine of the apostles, and the doctrine of the apostles is the true treasure. It's the true, you know, goal of it all. You know, Irenaeus doesn't have anything about, at least not off the top of the head that I can remember, he doesn't have anything about how you don't have a Eucharist and there's a bishop there unless there's a bishop there and so on. He doesn't say any of that. What he does say is that the bishops and the presbyters are the way that the truth has been passed down to us through the apostles, and what really matters is the truth from the apostles, not so much the bishops and the presbyters themselves. Irenaeus even says that bishops and presbyters can go wrong, right? So for him, in, uh, uh, Book 4, Chapter 26, he mentions that we should not follow after presbyters who do not follow the rule of the apostles and who, you know, live in sin and so on and so forth. But he says, we should follow the presbyters who have the succession from the apostles and who pass on the apostolic teaching. So even for Irenaeus, the real important part is not the fact that we have bishops, but the fact we have the apostles' doctrine. That's what Irenaeus says. That's what Tertullian says. So it seems to me that if you go to these, the really important point for them is the apostles' doctrine, not necessarily bishops. You can have the apostles' doctrine without a bishop in principle, and that's fine. At that point, you're apostolic.

Much appreciated. All right. And, um, additionally, uh, bishops and priests in in the Bible and early documents, uh, seem to be synonymous. So we don't see any threefold structure except for maybe Ignatius, but even that's extremely highly contested. And then, it also makes little sense to say that the apostles would appoint successors if they thought the end of the world was coming or that they would be dying really randomly.

Yeah. Uh, thank you so much for coming on. Everybody check out your number of different books, your YouTube channel, links in the description. Um, you've also written on this, um, in peer-reviewed scholarship. So thank you so much for coming on here. It's been an absolute pleasure and, uh, we'll have to do do this again on a different topic.

Thank you very much for having me on your show.

Awesome.