An additional issue related to the “succession of Bishops” is the strongly held belief that there is a unique spiritual continuity that is ceremonially carried forward by the act of consecrating bishops and presbyters. Both Catholics and Orthodox refer often to the “unbroken succession” of bishops from the apostles to the present, sometimes displaying the particular lists which connect a particular bishop to the past. Apostolic authority is, it is believed, granted through the ceremonial “laying on of hands” of one or more bishops consecrating a successor.
The practice of laying on hands is found in numerous places in scripture. In some cases it is not related to a transfer of authority, but rather a transfer of sin. Leviticus 16:21 says of the Hebrew priest Aaron, that on the day of atonement, “He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task.”
In Leviticus 4:15 a particular error of the whole congregation is involved, so “The elders of the community are to lay their hands on the bull's head before the LORD, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the LORD.” In this case, the Elders serve as representatives of the whole congregation and transfer the guilt of the congregation to the bull that is to be sacrificed.
But there are other uses of the “laying on of hands". Jesus and the apostles used the touch of the hands as part of supernatural healing. The apostles also are spoken of as passing along the gift of the Holy Spirit with the laying on of hands, something Simon the sorcerer coveted and was rebuked for by Peter.
As regards authority, Moses transferred his authority to Aaron by the laying on of hands. In Numbers 27:18-20, we read, “So the LORD said to Moses, "Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay your hand on him. Have him stand before Eleazar the priest and the entire assembly and commission him in their presence. Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community will obey him.”
In the New Testament, leadership appears to be commissioned with the same sort of practice. In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul says to Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” This passage is often spoken of in the context of apostolic succession, the “gift” being a special “charism” of the “spirit of truth”. Timothy is then warned in 1 Timothy 5:22, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands…” suggesting a further transfer of authority to other leaders. The writer of Hebrews speaks in Hebrews 6:2 of “…instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”
Here is the point advocates of linear succession reasonably make. If the laying on of hands involves a transfer of something from one to another, then it presupposes that one has something to be transferred. One cannot give to another what one does not have. Therefore, in the minds of successionist or connectional church advocates, apostolic authority must be a linear progression. Apostolic authority must have a source - the apostles - and must be passed along from one to another in a continuous succession. If one does not have apostolic authority, one cannot transfer it to someone else, not can one get apostolic authority except if he receives it from someone else.
But as we have seen, things cannot be quite so cut and dried two thousand years and many personal and corporate sins later. Apostolic succession is not explicitly taught in scripture, but the qualifications for leadership are. “Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap.” I Timothy 3:2-7.
There can be no doubt that these explicit instructions have not been adhered to universally or even necessarily well in any successionist tradition. Murder and intrigue have surrounded the Papal office. Muslim political interference manipulated the episcopate of the Eastern church. Heresy and immorality currently plague some Anglican communions. As we saw in earlier posts, true succession for the early fathers involved adherence to apostolic character and apostolic teaching, as well as linear continuity, and the fathers did not rule out the possibility of standing against heretical bishops. In light of the missteps of two-thousand years of church history, it is difficult to say that any line of succession is truly “unbroken”.
There are other problems. It cannot be reasonably argued that the Aaron, by laying his hands on a scapegoat, transferred the sins of the whole nation to the goat because the Aaron carried all the sins in himself. In this case, Aaron transferred something he did not personally possess. Clearly he acted as a representative of the whole assembly. He was a duly appointed and commissioned representative, to be sure, but a representative nonetheless. So, I must ask, can it be said that the Elder, Bishop, presbyter or episcopos in the New Testament and early church acts as a representative of the whole church rather than as a rigidly literal successor to the apostles by means of an impossible to verify “unbroken” succession?
We should not forget the example of John the Baptist, who came from nowhere, with no credentials, no priestly lineage, but had authority to baptize, a point Jesus confronted the “priestly” class of his day with at point blank range.
Having raised those objections, we must acknowledge that the early church saw value in the practice of having existing leadership, representing the universal church, consecrating successors by the laying on of hands, a practice that was intended to transfer authority, convey power and grant gift (charism) of truth. They believed this was obedience to the Apostles themselves. At question is simply whether such a succession was intended to be a watertight and unbroken mechanical lineage.
It seems to me, and to most who recognize the issues the Reformers faced with the Medieval church, that the source of authority, cannot be simply a linear, mechanical succession, but must involve adherence to apostolic character and teaching as well. As a moderating view, between the strict connectionalism of Rome and Constantinople on the one hand and the autonomous local church of American evangelicalism, one might consider a simple view that the one in leadership is a legitimate and recognized representative of the universal church – whose authority comes by virtue of his recognition and consecration by other recognized leaders and also by the consent of the people.
Once again, the concept of consensus, the broad view of the whole church, is preferable to authoritarian rule, which runs the risk of forcing believers to be, simply on the basis of a formal ceremonial action which alleges to be apostolic, submissive to those who may in fact teach the complete opposite of what the apostles taught and whose lives are a blight on the church they supposedly represent. Yet some form of connection to the whole church - an authority recognized as “apostolic” by a broad cross-section of believers on the basis of character, conformity to apostolic teaching and fidelity to the scriptures – this is certainly preferable to loose, unsubstantiated leadership connected to nothing more than an autonomous local church.
Authority must come from somewhere. It cannot simply be assumed and is not merely a matter of democratic vote. There must be a connection to apostolic truth and to the mind of the whole church in history.
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