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Rh The argument from antiquity is also employed by Irenaeus on behalf of church tradition. If controversies arise about matters of faith, let recourse be had to the most ancient churches in which the apostles themselves once resided and a decisive answer will then be found. This oral apostolic tradition exists even in the churches among barbarous nations, in whose hearts the Spirit, without ink or parchment, has written the old and saving truth (iii. 4, 1 and 2). But while thus the genuine tradition may, in the apostolic churches, be traced back through the successions of the elders to the apostles themselves, the sects and their doctrines are all of later origin. There were no Valentinians before Valentinus, no Marcionites before Marcion. Valentinus himself and Kerdon (Marcion's teacher) did not appear in Rome till the time of Hyginus the ninth bishop after the apostles, Valentinus flourished under Pius, Marcion under Anicetus (iii. 4, 3). All these founders of sects were much later than the apostles (iii. 21, 3) and the first bishops to whom they committed the care of the churches (v. 20, 1). In contradistinction to their ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις the true gnosis consists in the doctrine of the apostles and the maintenance of the pure and ancient constitution of the church (τὸ ἀρχαῖον τῆς ἐκκλησίας σύστημα) throughout the world (iv. 33, 7). The main point then, on which all turns, is the clear proof of a pure transmission of apostolic teaching through immediate disciples of the apostles themselves and their disciples after them. What is the tradition of the elders (πρεσβῦται, πρεσβύτεροι), i.e. the heads of apostolic churches who stood in direct communication with the apostles themselves or with their disciples?—is the question, therefore, which Irenaeus is everywhere asking. These elders are the guardians and transmitters of the apostles' teaching. As in the preceding generation Papias had collected the traditions of "disciples of the Lord," so now Irenaeus is collecting reminiscences of their disciples, mediate or immediate, a Polycarp, a Papias, etc., and as Hegesippus had been careful to inform himself as to the succession of pastors from apostolic times, so Irenaeus, in opposition to the doctrines of the Gnostics, appeals not only to the ancestral teaching maintained in churches of apostolic foundation, such as Rome, Smyrna, Ephesus, but also to the lists of those men who, since the apostles, had presided over them (iii. 3).

The main representatives therefore of genuine apostolical tradition are for Irenaeus the bishops of the churches as successors of the apostles and guardians of their doctrines. In the episcopate, as a continuation of the apostolic office, he finds the one sure pledge of the church's unity and the maintenance of her doctrine. Although the expression ἐκκλησία καθολική, which came into vogue towards the end of the 2nd cent., does not occur in his writings, the thing itself is constantly before him, i.e. the conception of one true church spread over the earth, and bound together by the one true Faith, in contrast to the manifold and variegated and apostate forms of "heresy." Its external bond of unity is the episcopal office. The development of monarchical episcopacy was a primary consequence of the conflict with Gnosticism, and its origination out of simpler constitutional forms betrays itself in a mode of expression derived indeed from earlier times, but still common to Irenaeus, with Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Hippolytus, and others, the use, namely, of the official titles, πρεσβύτεροι and ἐπίσκοποι, to designate alternately the same persons. Πρεσβύτεροι in this context are, in the first place, "elders," i.e. "ancients" or fathers, who represent the immediate connexion of the early church with the apostolic time. This name or title is then transferred to the heads of churches, inasmuch as they in succession to the apostles have been faithful transmitters of what was handed down to them. The true unbroken apostolical succession and praeconium ecclesiae is therefore attributed to the same persons, now as πρεσβύτεροι now as ἐπίσκοποι (iii. 3, 2, cf. iii. 2, 2; iv. 26, 2, 4, 5; Ep. ad Victorem ap. Eus. H. E. v. 24); nay, in so many words, the "successio episcopalis" was assigned to the πρεσβύτεροι (iv. 26, 2). By these "presbyters," however, we are certainly to understand heads of churches (especially those of apostolic foundation), who alone were capable of acting as the guardians and maintainers of church unity. The episcopate is for Irenaeus no mere congregational office, but one belonging to the whole church; the great importance attached by his contemporaries to the proofs of a genuine apostolical succession rests on the assumption that the episcopate was the guardian of the church's unity of teaching, a continuation, in fact, of the apostolic teaching-office, ordained for that purpose by the apostles themselves. The bishop, in reference to any particular congregation, is a representative of the whole Catholic church, the very idea of catholicity being indebted for its completion to this more sharply defined conception of the episcopal office. In the episcopate thus completely formed the Catholic church first manifested herself in organic unity as "the body of Christ." As formerly the apostles, so now the bishops, their successors, are the "ecclesia repraesentativa." Only through the episcopate as the faithful guardian and transmitter of the apostolical tradition do such congregations retain their hold on visible church unity and their possession of the truth (cf. iv. 33, 7). The significance of the episcopal office rests therefore on the fact of an apostolical succession, and on this historical connexion of the bishops with the apostolic era depends the certainty of their being possessed of the true tradition. That this assurance is not illusory is proved by the actual uniformity of church teaching throughout the world, the agreement of all the apostolic churches in the confession of the same truth (iii. 3, 3). Beyond this historical proof of the church's possession of the true teaching through her episcopate, the argument is not carried further by Irenaeus. The later dogma of a continua successio Spiritus Sancti, i.e. of an abiding special gift of the Holy Spirit attached to the episcopate of apostolical succession, has nevertheless some precursive traces in his writings. Though the Holy