The Case for Presbyterial Succession

Why Presbyterian and Lutheran orders are valid

It’s no secret that I hold to apostolic succession and the threefold ministry. I think that the well-being (bene-esse) of the church depends on having the order of bishops, priests, and deacons, such that churches without these offices are blemished and hindered. However, with Richard Hooker, I want to argue that Lutheran and Presbyterian orders are valid by virtue of presbyterial succession, even if defective in significant respect. My case will rest on two propositions:

1.) The bishop is the perfection of the priesthood, and not a distinct order. Hence consecration functions as a formal designation of a presbyter to a particular role within the presbytery, and not as a distinct office in itself. (Yet the bishop is the ruling presbyter, and not merely a first among equals.)

2.) Presbyterial succession, while the minority, was practiced in the early church.

The Bishop is the Ruling Priest

It is no secret that in the New Testament, the words επισκοποι and πρεσβυτεροι were used interchangeably (Phil 1:2, Acts 20:17-28, Titus 1:5-7). This seeming synonymity carried over into the earliest fathers. Clement mentions in 1 Clement 43 that the apostles appointed the order of “bishops and priests”, and in chapter 43 speaks of dissension rising over the priesthood. In Chapter 44, the interchange is quite apparent:

“Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect fore-knowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those presbyters who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure [from this world]; for they have no fear lest any one deprive them of the place now appointed them. But we see that you have removed some men of excellent behaviour from the ministry, which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honour.”

In the Didache, the community is told to appoint for themselves “bishops and deacons.” Now this certainly does not mean that the congregation appointed bishops, since telling a community that they should appoint bishops does not tell us how those bishops should be appointed (that is supplied elsewhere via apostolic succession). But it does mean that the author of the Didache saw the leaders of the churches as bishops.

On the other side of that coin, Polycarp in his Letter to the Philippians and Letter to the Smyrnians addresses “presbyters and deacons” in his introductions. They are the ruling officers in 2 Clement 17:3, as well. John Chrysostom, in the fifth century, writes in his first homily on Philippians:

“So then, as I said, both the Presbyters were of old called Bishops and Deacons of Christ, and the Bishops Presbyters; and hence even now many Bishops write, To my fellow-Presbyter, and, To my fellow-Deacon. But otherwise the specific name is distinctly appropriated to each, the Bishop and the Presbyter. To the fellow-Bishops, he says, and Deacons,”

The names, in other words, were interchangeable.¹ Jerome, somewhat famously in Letter 146 (to Evagrius), writes,

“We read in Isaiah the words, the fool will speak folly, and I am told that some one has been mad enough to put deacons before presbyters, that is, before bishops. For when the apostle clearly teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops, must not a mere server of tables and of widows Acts 6:1-2 be insane to set himself up arrogantly over men through whose prayers the body and blood of Christ are produced? Do you ask for proof of what I say? Listen to this passage: Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons. Do you wish for another instance? In the Acts of the Apostles Paul thus speaks to the priests of a single church: Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost has made you bishops, to feed the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. And lest any should in a spirit of contention argue that there must then have been more bishops than one in a single church, there is the following passage which clearly proves a bishop and a presbyter to be the same. Writing to Titus the apostle says: For this cause left I you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain presbyters in every city, as I had appointed you: if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God. Titus 1:5-7 And to Timothy he says: Neglect not the gift that is in you, which was given you by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. 1 Timothy 4:14 Peter also says in his first epistle: The presbyters which are among you I exhort, who am your fellow presbyter and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: feed the flock of Christ. ..taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly, according unto God. In the Greek the meaning is still plainer, for the word used is επισκοποῦντες, that is to say, overseeing, and this is the origin of the name overseer or bishop. But perhaps the testimony of these great men seems to you insufficient. If so, then listen to the blast of the gospel trumpet, that son of thunder, Mark 3:17 the disciple whom Jesus loved John 13:23 and who reclining on the Saviour's breast drank in the waters of sound doctrine. One of his letters begins thus: The presbyter unto the elect lady and her children whom I love in the truth; and another thus: The presbyter unto the well-beloved Gaius whom I love in the truth When subsequently one presbyter was chosen to preside over the rest, this was done to remedy schism and to prevent each individual from rending the church of Christ by drawing it to himself. For even at Alexandria from the time of Mark the Evangelist until the episcopates of Heraclas and Dionysius the presbyters always named as bishop one of their own number chosen by themselves and set in a more exalted position, just as an army elects a general, or as deacons appoint one of themselves whom they know to be diligent and call him archdeacon. For what function, excepting ordination, belongs to a bishop that does not also belong to a presbyter? It is not the case that there is one church at Rome and another in all the world beside. Gaul and Britain, Africa and Persia, India and the East worship one Christ and observe one rule of truth. If you ask for authority, the world outweighs its capital. Wherever there is a bishop, whether it be at Rome or at Engubium, whether it be at Constantinople or at Rhegium, whether it be at Alexandria or at Zoan, his dignity is one and his priesthood is one. Neither the command of wealth nor the lowliness of poverty makes him more a bishop or less a bishop. All alike are successors of the apostles.”

One finds similar views in Amalarius of Metz in Chapter 13 of De presbyteris, De ecclesiasticis officis of St. Isidore, and Aquinas himself thought that the bishop was not a distinct holy order but was the ruling priest presiding over the other presbyters (Suppl.q40.a4-5).

Thus, the bishop is the ruling priest. Now, one might say “well, still, only the priest-in-charge has the authority to ordain. Hence, it still follows that mere presbyterial succession is insufficient.” But is that true? I don’t think the evidence uniformly supports this.

Priests ordained Priests in Church History

There were times in church history were priests ordained priests and it was considered valid. John Cassian, in a biography of an Abbot named Daniel, writes the following:

“Among the other heroes of Christian philosophy we also knew Abbot Daniel, who was not only the equal of those who dwelt in the desert of Scete in every sort of virtue, but was specially marked by the grace of humility. This man on account of his purity and gentleness, though in age the junior of most, was preferred to the office of the diaconate by the blessed Paphnutius, presbyter in the same desert: for the blessed Paphnutius was so delighted with his excellent qualities, that, as he knew that he was his equal in virtue and grace of life, he was anxious also to make him his equal in the order of the priesthood. And since he could not bear that he should remain any longer in an inferior office, and was also anxious to provide a worthy successor to himself in his lifetime, he promoted him to the dignity of the priesthood.”²

Paphnutius, who was a presbyter, made Abbot Daniel his equal by bestowing the priesthood. We have an unambiguous case of a priest ordaining a priest, without any question raised on account of presbyterial succession by Cassian. Furthermore, St. Ansgar, in a biography of St. Willehad, shows us that Willehad ordained priests before he was a bishop. He writes,

“In the year of the Lord's incarnation 780, in the reign of the aforementioned prince Charles... the servant of God Willehad began to build churches throughout Wigmodia and to ordain priests over them, so that they might freely impart to the people the teachings of salvation and the grace of baptism.”³

Now one might say, “how do we know he was only a priest?” Because he’s said to be ordained a bishop in 787 by St. Ansgar in Chapter 8. And again, no one saw the fact that he had been ordaining priests as a priest as an impediment. Furthermore, the bulls Sacrae Religionis and Gerentes ad vos by Popes Boniface IX and Martin V (1400 and 1427) specifically authorize abbots to ordain priests. Martin V even writes that the abbot can ordain “all holy orders, without in the least requiring a license to do this from the diocesan of the place, notwithstanding any constitutions to the contrary.” Innocent VIII did the same in Exposcit Tuae Develotionis.⁴

The upshot of this is that we have clear instances in church history of priests ordaining priests, so it cannot be de facto invalid. Now, it is obviously ideal and good and right order to have Bishops carrying out ordination. We ought not dispense with this without good reason, and the failure to seek episcopal ordination is a blemish on those provinces with presbyterial succession alone. However, given that the bishop is the ruling priest, and given that we have instances of priests ordaining priests, it is unclear to my mind that the apostles gave any injunctions which categorically forbid priests from doing so. And clearly, there are significant voices from church history that agree.

Hence, insofar as Lutheran and Presbyterian bodies (and other bodies) have presbyterial succession, I think we Anglicans should ditch 3 branch theory (which is rejected by Rome and the East anyway) and hold to the classic Anglican position: the episcopate is ideal and how things should be, but presbyterial governance is nevertheless valid.

1. Yet, contra some, as Chrysostom also teaches, this does not mean that the form of the episcopate was absent. There was still a ruling presbyter who ruled over the other presbyters as their head and summative authority.

2. Conferences IV.I

3. Chapter 5 of Vita Sancti Willehadi, translated from the Latin: Anno incarnationis Domini 780 regni vero memorati principis Karoli...servus Dei Wellehadus per Wigmodiam Ecclesias Coepit Construere Ac Presbyteros Super Eas Ordinare, qui libere populis monita salutis ac baptismi conferrent gratiam

4. I am indebted to the late Arthur Carl Piepkorn, pulling heavily from his essay found here.