Protestantism’s rejection of the monarchical episcopate — which is nothing other than the hierarchical constitution of the Church in bishops, presbyters, and deacons — is historic. This organization has its origin in the Apostles, who received from Jesus Christ the mandate to build and govern the Church. This threefold hierarchy is therefore of Divine Institution.

Reasons Why Protestantism Rejects the Monarchical Episcopate

Protestantism has not found it comfortable to face the fact that it lacks a legitimate succession of bishops deriving from the Apostles, nor the very existence of the papacy as a divine institution to which it should submit. This is why many think that by attacking the monarchical episcopate they find a justification for these problems.

According to the Protestant position, in the beginning the churches were governed by an independent and democratic council of presbyters (or elders), all with equal governing authority. It was only in the mid-second century (around A.D. 150) that the hierarchy was “organized” in the form we know today, under the authority of a single bishop to whom the college of presbyters became subordinate. In this way, they maintain, the ancient episcopal lists (including those of the Popes) are not reliable, but were “fabricated”, “forged”, or “invented” by each church and by the Fathers (Hegesippus, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, etc.) to justify their apostolic origin against the Gnostic heretics of the time. Under this hypothesis we would have Popes who were not really Popes, and therefore others who were successors of Popes who never existed.

An example of this can be found in a conversation I had with a group of Protestants in a Catholic forum:

“Many Catholic scholars have acknowledged that the monoepiscopate did not exist in Rome before A.D. 140–150. And without a monarchical episcopate in Rome, and with lists of bishops invented in the second century, Catholics have a clear problem on their hands with respect to the papacy — or, if you prefer, to Petrine primacy with successors in the Roman church.”[1]

Another participant offered the following comment:

“To want to see a primacy at so early a date as the First Epistle of Clement is something that has already been superseded by contemporary Catholic scholarship. In other words, only those Catholics who have remained with the pre-scientific view (that is, of a century or more ago) of early Christian history would insist on seeing in Clement of Rome a Pope with the same essential characteristics as the Popes of today or of the medieval era. I intend to bring forward evidence taken from contemporary Catholic scholarship to demonstrate my assertion.”

In this context, our Protestant friends began to cite effusively certain selectively chosen Catholic theologians (Raymond Brown, Eamon Duffy, Klaus Schatz, Paul Johnson, Hans Küng, among others), claiming that these scholars “shared” their position. In their own words, they harbored a noble purpose:

“My purpose is to show as clearly as possible something that tends to be missing in these exchanges of ideas in our Spanish-speaking Catholic context: I mean the discovery of that other great sector of Roman Catholicism which is the academy, and which is so ignored and sometimes even denigrated in our context.”

The Protestant Argument… An Appeal to Authority Fallacy

The appeal to authority fallacy holds that something is true because an authority in the field says so. In our case, Catholics recognize as authority the living Magisterium of the Church above whatever any individual Catholic theologian may opine. Sad to say, today one can find Catholic theologians asserting almost anything: denying the divinity of Christ, the historical reality of his miracles and resurrection, defending abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and much more.[2]

Thus, what any Catholic theologian or historian maintains cannot be considered true per se solely because the opinion comes from someone with academic credentials. If what is maintained is not accompanied by the corresponding demonstrative evidence, it will remain no more than an opinion which can be perfectly questioned, debated, and refuted. This in no way seeks to discredit contemporary Catholic scholarship, but rather to highlight that the resource employed here by the Protestant interlocutor is basically fallacious, and is accompanied by a morally questionable attitude of selectively taking those opinions that he believes favor him and then dismissing the rest.

Of course, our Protestant friends’ sudden interest in the opinions of certain Catholic theologians was not coincidental, for the same thing happens whenever they realize that certain opinions can be used to draw water to their own mill. So, if what these theologians affirm can be used to justify some Protestant postulate, it suddenly becomes the opinion of the academy — the pinnacle of knowledge to be reckoned with, for it represents a “great” and “important” sector of Catholicism “so long neglected and sometimes denigrated” (when I read this, a tear rolled down my cheek). But just wait until their opinions happen to be adverse to Protestantism — then suddenly those same theologians matter little more than nothing, their musings mere human speculation, for in the end the only thing that counts is the Bible alone, but of course interpreted in their own way.

But while it is true that a growing number of theologians have embraced these hypotheses, it is absurd to maintain that the consensus of contemporary Catholic scholarship agrees with Protestantism on this point. The situation is rather that there is a plurality of positions, which can be summarized as follows:

Position 1: The Monarchical Episcopate Was Instituted by the Apostles.

This position holds that the monarchical episcopate was instituted by the Apostles from the beginning, and that in each church there existed a bishop to whom a council of presbyters was subordinate. Throughout the first century and for some time afterward, the terminology was ambiguous and the words bishop and presbyter were used synonymously. This means that in some early patristic texts the distinction between the two offices is not made explicit, even though each community had a chief presbyter-bishop at its head, such as James in Jerusalem, Titus in Crete, or Timothy in Ephesus.

In this regard, Daniel Ruiz Bueno comments:

“The early and undeniable confusion of the interchangeable terms presbyter and episkopos, which extends to so important a document in this regard as 1 Clement and will persist for a long time afterward, disappears absolutely in Saint Ignatius. But the confusion of terms does not imply a confusion of functions, and the entire tradition interprets the facts unanimously in the sense revealed by the Ignatian letters. The Church of Jerusalem, that of Antioch, that of Rome appear, from the moment there exists a historical tradition concerning them, governed by a single bishop assisted by his presbyterium and diaconate. The case of Rome is exemplary.”[3]

A variation of this position is that which admits that there were local communities that did not have a bishop — either because they were very small, because they were under the direct supervision of the Apostles while the latter were still living, or for some other reason. When the Apostles disappeared, all Christian communities began to adopt the tripartite hierarchy, and by the mid-second century it was absolutely universal. On this point, José Orlandis comments:

“Many churches of the first century were founded by the Apostles and, while the latter were still alive, remained under their supreme authority, governed by a council of presbyters who ordered their liturgical and disciplinary life. This arrangement is especially attested in the Pauline churches, founded by the Apostle of the Gentiles. But as the Apostles disappeared, the monarchical episcopate, which had already been introduced from the beginning in other particular churches, became universal everywhere. The bishop was the head of the Church, pastor of the faithful, and as successor of the Apostles, possessed the fullness of the priesthood and the authority necessary for the governance of the community.”[4]

Position 2: The Monarchical Episcopate Is the Product of an Evolution That Occurred in the Mid-Second Century and Was Not the Initiative of the Apostles.

This position holds that before that date, the churches did not have monarchical bishops but only a council of elders or presbyters that subsequently evolved into a monarchical episcopate.

Many Catholic theologians who hold this hypothesis differ from Protestants in that they see it as a completely normal development of Christian doctrine that does not call into question either the episcopate or the papacy as a divine institution.[5] Others go a little — or sometimes a great deal — further and debate on the thin line that separates orthodoxy from heterodoxy.

Of these two theories, the first (with its variations included) is perfectly viable and summarizes the position that orthodox Christianity has always held. The second has serious problems when analyzed in the light of the historical evidence, as will be seen presently.

Primary Sources

The Testimony of Ignatius of Antioch (c. ?–107 A.D.)

The testimony of Saint Ignatius[6] is extremely important because he is a privileged witness to how the Church was organized in the time of the Apostles. Seven letters of his survive, written approximately in the year 107 after he was arrested and conducted by a detachment of Roman soldiers to Rome to be martyred.

A study of these epistles reveals that already by this date (the early second century) all the recipient churches had a bishop governing them, a council of presbyters subordinate to him, and deacons. Recognized Protestant apologists such as James White[7] have maintained that when Saint Ignatius uses the word “bishop” he refers only to ordinary presbyters[8], but all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

Letter to the Ephesians

“I have received your whole multitude in the name of God, through Onesimus, a man of inexpressible love, and your bishop in the flesh, whom I pray you by Jesus Christ to love, and that you would all seek to be like him. And blessed be He who has granted unto you, being worthy, to obtain such an excellent bishop.”[9]

“But since love does not permit me to be silent in regard to you, I have accordingly taken upon me first to exhort you that ye would all run together in accordance with the will of God. For Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the manifested will of the Father; as also bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds of the earth, are so by the will of Jesus Christ.”[10]

“Wherefore it is fitting that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also ye do. For your justly-renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp.”[11]

Letter to the Magnesians

“Since, then, I have had the privilege of seeing you, through Damas your most worthy bishop, and through your worthy presbyters Bassus and Apollonius, and through my fellow-servant the deacon Sotion, whose friendship may I ever enjoy, inasmuch as he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ,

now it becomes you also not to treat your bishop too familiarly on account of his youth, but to yield him all reverence, having respect to the power of God the Father, as I have known even holy presbyters do, not considering his manifest youth, but as being prudent in God, submitting to him.”[12]

“Since, then, in the persons aforementioned I have by faith seen and loved the whole multitude, I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed.”[13]

“…united to your most worthy bishop, and to the spiritual crown of your worthy college of elders, and to your deacons who walk according to God.”[14]

“As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and presbyters. Neither endeavour that anything appear reasonable and proper to yourselves apart; but being come together into the same place, let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy undefiled. There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is more excellent.”[15]

“The Ephesians from Smyrna (whence I also write to you), who are here for the glory of God, salute you, as does also Polycarp, the bishop of the Smyrnaeans.”[16]

Letter to the Trallians

“I know that ye possess an unblameable and sincere mind in patience, and that not only in present practice, but according to inherent nature, as Polybius your bishop has shown me.”[17]

“In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrin of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church.”[18]

“My bonds, which I carry about for the sake of Jesus Christ, praying that I may attain to God, exhort you: continue in harmony among yourselves, and in prayer with one another; for it becomes each one of you, and especially the presbyters, to refresh the bishop, to the honour of the Father, of Jesus Christ, and of the apostles.”[19]

Letter to the Philadelphians

“…which I salute in the blood of Jesus Christ, who is our eternal and enduring joy, especially if men are in unity with the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons, who have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus Christ, whom He has established in security, after His own will, and by His Holy Spirit.

Which bishop, I am aware, obtained the ministry which pertains to the common weal, not of himself or by men, nor through vainglory, but by the love of God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”[20]

“And as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of repentance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren. If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If any one walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion of the Lord.”[21]

Letter to Polycarp

“Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyrnaeans, or rather, who has, as his own bishop, God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: [wishes] abundance of happiness.”[22]

“Give heed to the bishop, that God also may give heed to you. My soul be for theirs that are submissive to the bishop, to the presbyters, and to the deacons, and may my portion be along with them in God!”[23]

Letter to the Smyrnaeans

“See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God.

Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”[24]

“I salute your most worthy bishop, and your venerable presbytery, and your deacons, my fellow-servants, and all of you individually, as well as in common, in the name of Jesus Christ…”[25]

The reason James White does not acknowledge that St. Ignatius was referring to bishops exercising a monarchical episcopate is that he would thereby be forced to acknowledge that a perfectly defined tripartite hierarchy already existed in the first century. His attempts to separate the monarchical episcopate from the apostolic era and to attribute it to a later external evolution would be even less convincing. In this regard, Daniel Ruiz Bueno comments:

“This has long been another stumbling block for critics in admitting the authenticity of St. Ignatius’s letters, for with them they would have to swallow a monarchical episcopate and a perfectly defined hierarchy at the end of the first century, which would demolish many cherished theories. But theories are theories and texts are texts. Now, the texts of the Ignatian letters attest with absolute clarity and with insistent repetition that each Church — Antioch, Smyrna, Ephesus, Tralles, Philadelphia — has at its head an ἐπίσκοπος, “overseer, inspector,” the supreme authority in the community, to which there is attached, as its dependent and subordinate, a πρεσβυτέριον, a college of “elders” that assists him like a kind of “senate,” and a third body of deacons or ministers.”[26]

It is also noteworthy that in the texts of the letters there is no trace whatsoever of any attempt to impose the monarchical episcopate upon any Church. His exhortation does not aim to motivate them to organize themselves in that way; rather — recognizing the already existing constitution of their churches — he exhorts them to strengthen their bonds with the bishop in order to turn away from the gnostic heresies that represented a danger to the Christian faith. In this regard, Daniel Ruiz Bueno once again comments[27]:

“there is in his letters no trace of the regime of monarchical episcopate having been imposed through a kind of revolution that must be accepted even for the good of the Church. Neither is there any perceived apologetic intent for a disputed institution, whose divine origins, as the Bishop of Rome recalled for the seditious Corinthians, must be recalled for those who are ignorant of them or who forget them. It is a fact that justifies itself, by forming part of the Christian consciousness; but a fact is the bishop, just as a fact is the college of ‘elders’ or presbyters, a fact the deacons, and a fact the subordination — so beautifully expressed through the clearest images — of these three orders of the hierarchy of the Church. No one disputes this fact and there is no attempt to establish a new order and buttress it apologetically.”[28]

The fact that St. Ignatius already acknowledges, at the beginning of the second century, a monarchical episcopate in all the churches to which he writes makes it very implausible to suppose that this is something only recently imposed. In this regard, Jesús Álvarez Gómez comments[29]:

“Since St. Ignatius of Antioch intends to introduce no innovation whatsoever, it must be concluded that this triple hierarchy had been accepted some decades earlier, at least in the communities of Syria.”[30]

But if this is the case, one may well ask: Who placed all those bishops in their offices? We know that many of those churches — such as Philadelphia, Ephesus, and even Smyrna — were under the supervision of the Apostle St. John, who personally appointed St. Polycarp, one of the recipient bishops. St. Ignatius himself was also appointed by Apostles (St. Peter and St. Paul). It does not seem very plausible that so sudden an “evolution” could have occurred right before the eyes of the Apostles themselves without their having had any part in it.

Neither does it seem very plausible that the monarchical episcopate is something adopted exclusively in the recipient churches. On the contrary, St. Ignatius expresses a conviction that this is the situation of all the churches of the world when he refers to “the bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds of the earth”[31]. And we have seen how for him the word bishop carries an indisputable monarchical meaning.

In addition to this, it is impossible to find any trace that this institution was in any way disputed. In this regard, the historian Alphonse Van Hove explains:

“The best evidence for the existence of the monarchical episcopate at this early date is the fact that toward the end of the second century no trace of any change of organization is to be found. Such a change would have deprived the college of presbyter-bishops of its sovereign authority, and it is almost impossible to understand how this body would have allowed itself to be deprived of its authority everywhere without leaving in contemporary documents the least evidence of a protest against so important a change. If the monarchical episcopate began only in the middle of the second century, it is impossible to understand how, by the end of the second century, the episcopal lists of many important dioceses going back to the first century were generally known and accepted. Such, for instance, was the case of Rome.”[32]

St. Ignatius and the Church of Rome

In all his epistles, St. Ignatius names nearly all the bishops by name (Onesimus in Ephesus, Polycarp in Smyrna, Damas in Magnesia, Polybius in Tralles); yet in his letter to the Roman Church he names no bishop. Protestants tend to see this omission as evidence that in Rome there was no monarchical episcopate. The truth is, however, that he names no college of presbyters either, nor does he even address his letter to anyone holding any position of authority in the Church of Rome. To find the reason, one must study the context of the situation: the Roman Empire has arrested one of the heads of Christendom, the celebrated Ignatius, the bishop of the first See of St. Peter, in comparison with whom all the other recipient bishops — unlike the Bishop of Rome — would be considered small fish. It would not have been prudent to identify by name, in a letter, the very Bishop of Rome, the chief church of Christendom, located in the city to which he was being led for martyrdom.

One cannot overlook either that the tone St. Ignatius uses in addressing the Roman Church is substantially different from that of the others. For him, Rome is “the Church which has obtained mercy in the greatness of the Most High Father and of Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church beloved and enlightened by the will of Him who has willed all things that exist, according to the faith and love of Jesus Christ our God; which also presides in the capital of the territory of the Romans; worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of congratulation, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and presiding in love.”[33]

Thus, while he asks all the churches to which he writes to pray for his church of Antioch, he never entrusts it to the care of any other church — only to Rome, which in his own words “presides in love.”

The Testimony of Irenaeus of Lyon (130–202 A.D.)

The testimony of the most important theologian of his century[34] is far from insignificant, especially since his contact with the apostolic era came through having been a disciple of St. Polycarp, who was himself a direct disciple of St. John. He affirms that all the apostolic Churches can enumerate their successions of bishops, but in order not to be lengthy he limits himself to recording the succession of the Church of Rome:

“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, those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these men rave about.”[35]

“But since it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; we do this, I say, by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops.

“For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority — that is, the faithful everywhere — inasmuch as the Apostolic Tradition has been preserved continuously by those who are everywhere.”[36]

Tertullian (160–220 A.D.)

In the same way as the Fathers, Tertullian[37] finds in the succession of bishops the sure guarantee for locating orthodox doctrine, since they transmit in its entirety the teaching they received from the Apostles.

“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 in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that that first bishop of theirs shall 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 the same way the other churches, too, exhibit their several worthies, whom, 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 unlawful for them?”[38]

Eusebius of Caesarea and the Testimony of Hegesippus

Considered the father of Church history, in his work Ecclesiastical History Eusebius records the successions of bishops of the four great centers of the primitive Church: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. We are also indebted to him for preserving excerpts of primitive writings that have since been lost and would otherwise have disappeared entirely. Among the sources compiled by Eusebius are excerpts from the writings of Hegesippus, who not only bears witness to monarchical episcopates from apostolic times — mentioning James (Jacob) as the leader of the Church of Jerusalem — but also compiles the succession of the bishops of Rome.

“Hegesippus, who belongs to the generation succeeding the Apostles, writes in his fifth book of Memoranda: ‘The Church passed to James the brother of the Lord, together with the Apostles.’”[39]

“On my arrival at Rome, I drew up a list of the succession down to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. To Anicetus succeeded Soter, and after him came Eleutherus.”[40]

That Hegesippus, at so early a period, refers to the succession of bishops in the singular should come as no surprise, for it simply accords with what St. Ignatius, St. Irenaeus, and the whole Tradition affirm. Just as there are no traces of anyone disputing in any way the institution of the monarchical episcopate, neither is there anyone who disputed that the bishops of Rome were not truly bishops, still less successors of Peter.

The Monarchical Episcopate in Scripture

It has already been noted that both in the New Testament and in some early patristic texts the words bishop and presbyter were used as synonyms, and it was from Ignatius of Antioch onward that the word bishop came to be applied to that presbyter who was in charge of the community. Even so, Scripture contains sufficient evidence to discern the institution of the monarchical episcopate at the hands of the Apostles.

A didactic explanation is provided by the historian George Hayward Joyce:

“It remains to consider whether the so-called ‘monarchical’ episcopate was instituted by the Apostles. Apart from establishing a college of presbyter-bishops, did they place a man in a position of supremacy, entrusting to him the government of the Church, and endowing him with apostolic authority over the Christian community? Even if we take into account the evidence of Scripture alone, there is sufficient ground for answering this question in the affirmative. From the time of the dispersion of the Apostles, James appears in an episcopal relation to the Church of Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13; Gal. 2:12). In the other Christian communities the institution of ‘monarchical’ bishops was a somewhat later development. At first the Apostles themselves appear to have exercised all the functions of supreme oversight. They established the office when the growing needs of the Church demanded it. The Pastoral Epistles leave no room for doubt that Timothy and Titus were sent as bishops to Ephesus and to Crete respectively. Timothy was granted full apostolic powers. Despite his youth he has authority over both clergy and laity. To him is entrusted the task of guarding the purity of the Church’s faith, of ordaining priests, of exercising jurisdiction. Moreover, the exhortation made to him by St. Paul that he should ‘keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ’ shows that this is not a transitory mission. So express a charge includes within its scope, not Timothy alone, but his successors in an office that is to endure until the Second Coming. Local tradition undoubtedly acknowledged him among the occupants of the episcopal see. At the Council of Chalcedon, the Church of Ephesus reckoned a succession of twenty-seven bishops beginning with Timothy (Mansi, VII, 293; cf. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., III, iv, v).

These are not the only evidences which the New Testament affords of the monarchical episcopate. In the Apocalypse the ‘angels’ to whom the letters to the seven Churches are addressed are in all probability the bishops of the respective communities. Some commentators, indeed, have maintained that they were personifications of the communities themselves. But this explanation can hardly be sustained. St. John everywhere refers to the angel as responsible for the community, precisely as he would refer to its ruler. Moreover, in the symbolism of chapter 1, the two are represented under different images: the angels are the stars in the right hand of the Son of Man; the seven candlesticks are the image representing the communities. The very term angel, it should be observed, is practically synonymous with Apostle, and is thus aptly chosen to designate the episcopal office. Again, the messages to Archippus (Col. 4:17; Philem. 2) imply that he held a position of special dignity, superior to that of the other presbyters. His mention in a letter entirely concerned with a private matter, as is that to Philemon, is scarcely explicable unless he was the official head of the Colossian Church. We have therefore four significant indications of the existence of an office in the local Churches, held by a single individual, and carrying with it apostolic authority. No difficulty can arise from the fact that hitherto no special title distinguishes these successors of the Apostles from ordinary presbyters. It is in the nature of things that the office should exist before a title is assigned to it. The name of Apostle, as we have seen, was not limited to the Twelve. St. Peter (1 Pet. 5:1) and St. John (2 and 3 John 1:1) both speak of themselves as ‘presbyters.’ St. Paul speaks of the Apostolate as a diakonia. A parallel case in later ecclesiastical history is furnished by the word Pope. This title was not assigned to the exclusive use of the Holy See until the eleventh century, though no one maintains that the supreme pontificate of the bishop of Rome was not recognized until then. It need not surprise us that a precise terminology, distinguishing bishops, in the proper sense, from presbyter-bishops, is not to be found in the New Testament.”[41]

Conclusions

In view of all this, the Protestant argument does not appear very strong, since it rests on the supposition that the first Christians — among whom are illustrious Church Fathers and direct disciples of the Apostles — were liars who had no scruple about falsifying and fabricating lists of bishops. Of course, there will always be those who wish to embellish such hypotheses with the opinions of selectively chosen theologians and historians, but this must not prevent us from going to the primary sources and drawing our own conclusions.

Notes

  1. Here I have paraphrased an excerpt from a comment by the Protestant in question in order to make the wording more readable. ↩
  2. Hans Küng, for example, defends abortion as a woman’s right and the marriage of homosexuals. Raymond Brown maintains that many points in the Gospel of Luke are not historical. ↩
  3. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos (Apostolic Fathers), BAC 65, Fifth Edition, Madrid, 1985, p. 422. ↩
  4. José Orlandis, Breve Historia del Cristianismo (A Brief History of Christianity), Ediciones RIALP, Sixth Edition, Madrid, 1999, pp. 25-26. ↩
  5. It is true that the gradual development of a doctrine is one thing, and its origin is quite another. ↩
  6. Saint Ignatius is one of the Apostolic Fathers because of his direct contact with the apostolic era. He was born approximately between A.D. 30 and 35 and was a direct disciple of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. ↩
  7. James White is a Reformed Baptist pastor and director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, an organization devoted to Protestant apologetics. He is the author of more than twenty books. ↩
  8. James White, “Exegetica: Roman Catholic Apologists Practice Eisegesis in Scripture and Patristics.” ↩
  9. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians I, 3, in ANF, vol. 1. ↩
  10. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians III, 2. Ibid. ↩
  11. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians IV, 1. Ibid. ↩
  12. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians II; III, 1. Ibid. ↩
  13. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians VI, 1. Ibid. ↩
  14. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians XIII, 1. Ibid. ↩
  15. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians VII, 1. Ibid. ↩
  16. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians XV, 1. Ibid. ↩
  17. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians I, 1. Ibid. ↩
  18. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians III, 1. Ibid. ↩
  19. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians XII, 2. Ibid. ↩
  20. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Philadelphians, Greeting and I, 1. Ibid. ↩
  21. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Philadelphians III, 2. Ibid. ↩
  22. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to Polycarp, Greeting. Ibid. ↩
  23. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to Polycarp VI, 1. Ibid. ↩
  24. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans VIII, 1-2. Ibid. ↩
  25. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans XII, 2. Ibid. ↩
  26. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos, BAC 65, Fifth Edition, Madrid, 1985, pp. 421-422. ↩
  27. Priest, theologian, and historian, well known for his patristic and philosophical translations and studies, he was proclaimed by a well-known authority “one of the persons best qualified to render Greek texts into elegant and fluent Spanish” (M. F. Galiano, Emerita XVI [1948], p. 334). ↩
  28. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos, BAC 65, Fifth Edition, Madrid, 1985, pp. 422-423. ↩
  29. Claretian missionary, Doctor in Church History from the Gregorian University (Rome), and professor of Christian Archaeology at the “San Dámaso” Faculty of Theology in Madrid. ↩
  30. Jesús Álvarez Gómez, Historia de la Iglesia (History of the Church), Vol. I: Edad Antigua, BAC, Madrid, 2001, p. 121. ↩
  31. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians III, 2, in ANF, vol. 1. ↩
  32. Van Hove, Alphonse, “Bishop,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. ↩
  33. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, Greeting. ↩
  34. According to Quasten, who adds that he was probably born between the years 140 and 160. ↩
  35. Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses 3, 3, 1, in ANF, vol. 1. Cf. Johannes Quasten, Patrología I, BAC 206, Fifth Edition, Madrid, 1995, pp. 301-302. ↩
  36. Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses 3, 3, 2. Ibid. ↩
  37. In his orthodox period, for he later embraced the heresy of Montanism. ↩
  38. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum (The Prescription against Heretics) XXXII, 1-2, in ANF, vol. 3. ↩
  39. Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiastica II, 23. Paul L. Maier, Eusebius: The Church History, Kregel, Grand Rapids, 1999, p. 81. ↩
  40. Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiastica IV, 22. Ibid., p. 157. ↩
  41. G. H. Joyce, “Church,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. ↩