Monday, June 15, 2020

Fr. Elwood Sylvester Berry on Formal Apostolic Succession


Fr. Elwood Sylvester Berry, STD, 


Finally, the Church is Apostolic in ministry (or succession), because the authority which Christ conferred upon the Apostles has come down through an unbroken line of legitimate successors in the ministry of the Church.

Apostolicity of origin and of doctrine are easily understood without further explanation, but some knowledge of succession is necessary for a proper conception of apostolicity of ministry. Succession, as used in this connection, is the following of one person after another in an official position, and may be either legitimate or illegitimate. Theologians call the one formal succession; the other, material. A material successor is one who assumes the official position of another contrary to the laws or constitution of the society in question. He may be called a successor in as much as he actually holds the position, but he has no authority, and his acts have no official value, even though he be ignorant of the illegal tenure of his office. A formal, or legitimate, successor not only succeeds to the place of his predecessor, but also receives due authority to exercise the functions of his office with binding force in the society. It is evident that authority can be transmitted only by legitimate succession; therefore the Church must have a legitimate, or formal, succession of pastors to transmit apostolic authority from age to age. One who intrudes himself into the ministry against the laws of the Church receives no authority, and consequently can transmit none to his successors.

Succession in the Church differs from that in other societies from the fact that there is a twofold power to transmit, -- the power of Orders and the power of jurisdiction or government. The power of Orders is purely spiritual and concerned directly with the conferring of grace; it is obtained through the Sacrament of Orders validly received and cannot be revoked by any power of the Church. For this reason, the power of Orders may be obtained by fraud or conferred agianst the will of the Church by anyone having valid Orders himself, and therefore does not depend upon legitimate succession.

Jurisdiction is authority to govern and must be transmitted in the Church as in any other society; it can be conferred only by a lawful superior, according to the constitution and laws of the society and may be revoked at any time. Consequently jurisdiction in the Church can neither be obtained nor held against the will of her supreme authority; sufficient therefore, that a church have valid Orders; it must also have legitimate succession of ministers, reaching back in an unbroken line to the Apostles, upon whom our Lord conferred all authority to rule His Church.[1]


Thesis. The Church of Christ is Necessarily Apostolic in Origin, Doctrine, and Ministry.[2]


c) Ministry. It is evident that there can be no authority in the Church save that which comes directly or indirectly from her Divine Founder, Jesus Christ. But there is not the slightest intimation in Scripture or tradition that Christ ever promised to confer authority upon the ministers of the Church; consequently it can only be obtained by lawful succession from those upon whom Christ personally and directly conferred it, i.e., from the Apostles. In other words, the Church must be Apostolic in her ministry by means of a legititmate succession reaching back in an unbroken line to the Apostles.[3]

                       
Most of the Orthodox churches of the East have valid Orders, and to that extent may be called Apostolic; they have Apostolic succession of the power of Orders. In some cases they may also have a material succession of bishops from Apostolic times, but this avails them nothing, since they lack both unity and Catholicity, -- two essential marks of the true Church. In no case do they have legitimate succession; there is no transmission of jurisdiction because they have withdrawn from communion with Rome, the center and source of all jurisdiction.[4]
           
All power in the Church was originally conferred upon the Apostles, to the exclusion of all others, and there is not the slightest intimation in Scripture or tradition that Christ promised to confer a similar power upon others at any time in the future. It follows, then, that all power, whether of Orders or jurisdiction, must be perpetuated by an unbroken line of succession, reaching back to the Apostles, who received it directly from Christ Himself. This is clearly intimated in the words of Christ to the Apostles: “Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world” (Matt 28:20). Christ was with His Apostles during their life on earth; He remains with time in their successors through all the centuries. Therefore, succession is a matter of divine institution, and those who occupy the place of the Apostles in the Church, obtain also their power and authority; they obtain it independently of any action on the part of the faithful, and exercise it by divine right.[5]
In the strict sense of the term, the successors of the Apostles are those in the Church who obtain by right of succession the full powers of Orders and jurisdiction enjoyed by the Apostles. Other ministers of the Church, who participate more or less in the power of Orders and exercise a delegated jurisdiction., may also be called successors in a less proper sense of the term.[6]
                        ….
It is a doctrine of faith, defined by the Council of Trent, that the bishops of the Church are the true and legitimate successors of the Apostles: “Wherefore the holy Synod declares that besides the other ecclesiastical grades, bishops in particular belong to the hierarchical order, since they succeed to the place of the Apostles and were placed as the Apostle says, by the Holy Spirit to rule the Church of God.” (Denz. 960).
Proofs. It has just been proved that the Apostles must have successors to perpetuate their powers of teaching, governing, and sanctifying until the end of time; but it is a well-known fact that the bishops, and the bishops alone, have ever claimed and exercised these powers in their fullness, and they alone have ever been recognized as the legitimate successors to these powers. Before the so-called Reformation of the sixteenth century, the right of the bishops to rule as successors of the Apostles was never questioned, except by a few individuals swayed by political or private interests. Even today, all parties admit that the bishops were the recognized successors of the Apostles, at least from the second century until the time of the pseudo-Reformation. Testimony from the Apostles and early Fathers prove that they were recognized as such from the earliest years of the Church. Now it is manifestly impossible for any body of men to obtain recognition as successors of the Apostles from the very beginning of the Church, and maintain that position undisputed for sixteen centuries, unless they were in fact what they claimed to be, -- true successors. Any other hypothesis would mean that the Church, as Christ founded it, ceased to exist with the death of the Apostles, and that the world has since been without the means of salvation; it would mean that Christ failed in His promise to be with the Church all days, even to the consummation of the world. If the bishops of the Church are not the successors of the Apostles, then there are no successors, for no one else has even claimed this distinction; in that case the power and authority committed to the Apostles have lapsed, and cannot be renewed, except by a direct intervention of Christ in conferring them anew and re-establishing His Church. Such an act on the part of Christ would have to be confirmed by the performance of miracles as the only means by which we could be assured of its reality.[7]
                        ….
The Apostles personally received form Christ a real power of jurisdiction to be exercised in subjection to St. Peter, their divinely constituted head. Christ also ordained that the Apostles should have successors in the Church for all time. He said to them: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nation, . . . and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” Consequently the bishops of the Church, as successors of the Apostles, constitute an order of divine institution. It is the will of Christ that there should always be bishops to teach and govern the particular portions of the Church committed to their care. The pope, then, is not free to govern the Church alone without the assistance of bishops, for, as Leo XIII says, “although the power of Peter and his successors is complete and supreme, it is not an only power. He who made Peter the foundation of the Church, also selected the twelve, whom He called Apostles. Just as the authority of Peter must be perpetuated in the Roman Pontiff, so also the ordinary power of the Apostles must be inherited by their successors, the bishops. Hence the order of bishops pertains of necessity to the very constitution of the Church.” (De Initate Ecclesiae, 29 June 1896).
Every lawfully constituted bishops is a true successor of the Apostles, taken collectively. The Apostles, with St. Peter at their head, formed a ruling body that must be perpetuated for all time, and enlarged, as the Church increase in numbers and extent. In this respect the Apostolic body is like a legal corporation, it must be perpetuated and enlarged by the admission, from time to time, of new members, who participate in the powers originally conferred upon its first members, the Apostles. A bishop, then is a new member incorporated in the Apostolic body perpetuated in the Church; he succeeds the Apostles in the same sense that a new member of a corporation succeeds its charter members. The presidency, or supreme power, over the Apostolic body is held ex officio by the Roman Pontiff, in virtue of the fact that he is the direct and only successor of St. Peter, whom Christ personally constituted its first head, ordaining that his successors should hold the same position.[8]
                        ….
The Apostles were not only commissioned to teach, but were also endowed with authority, such that all who heard their teaching were obliged, under pain of eternal damnation to accept it: “He who does not believe shall be condemned,” (Mark 16:16) and “he who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me” (Luke 10:16; Matt 10:14). St Paul says that he received the grace of the Apostolate “to bring about obedience to faith among all the nations, . . . bringing every mind into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being prepared to take vengeance on all disobedience” (Rom 1:5; 2 Cor 10:4). He admonished Titus: “Thus speak, and exhort, and rebuke, with all authority. Let no one despise thee” (Titus 2:15).
These few references prove that the teaching office, or magisterium, of the Church belongs to her power of jurisdiction, which, therefore, includes authority both to rule and to teach and likewise demands submission of intellect and will.
The very purpose of teaching office in the Church demands that it be perpetual, for, as St. Paul says, “God wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). And Christ not only promised that He Himself would be with the Apostles for all time in the discharge of their duty as teacher; He also promised them the Holy Spirit to assist them  in this same work also promised them the Holy Spirit to assist them in this same work forever: “O will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to dwell with you forever, … he will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you” (John 14:16, 26.
Since the teaching authority conferred upon the Apostles is a permanent institution in the Church, it must descend to their lawful successors, the bishops, who thereby become the divinely appointed teaches to preserve the doctrines of Christ and bring them to the knowledge of men in all ages until the consummation of the world. For this reason St. Paul was careful to mention ability to teach as a necessary qualification in bishops…
The bishops of the Church are the only divinely authorized teachers, since teaching with authority is an act of jurisdiction which they alone possess by divine right. From this it follows that the Roman Pontiff, holding the supreme power of jurisdiction, also holds the supreme teaching authority in the Church. In each diocese the bishops is the divinely constituted teacher and judge in matters of faith, but he exercises this office in subjection to the supreme teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff.[9]



[1] E. Sylvester Berry, “The Church of Christ An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treaties,” (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1927), 77-78
[2] Ibid., 79.
[3] Ibid., 80.
[4] Ibid., 103-104.
[5] Ibid., 155-156.
[6] Ibid., 157.
[7] Ibid., 157-158.
[8] Ibid., 231-232.
[9] Ibid., 243-244.

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