Apostolic Succession Pt. 2 - Hooker and Jerome

As presented in Apostolic Succession Pt. 1 , the physical succession of bishops, as contended by Jewell, does not rise to that of a mark or note of a true church.  In addition, any evidence of physical succession from the first century is not proof of its role as a necessary esse of the church.  As it is said, correlation is not proof of causality.  Jewell was not arguing, nor am I, against proper church ordination of ministers. Rather, that a physical line of apostolic succession going back (supposedly) to the Apostles is not a mark of a true church.  This is evident from many of the writings and letters of the English reformers including Hooker.  Those reformers, in fact, recognized the reformed churches of the Continent with their presbyterian polity as true churches.  Inasmuch as one of the marks of a true church was the right administration of the Sacraments, they were thus by extension validating the Baptism and the Lord's Supper of those Continental churches.  Though they argued for the episcopal form of church government as the more scriptural polity, they did not insist on it as a necessary mark of a true church.  But they did insist on the succession of apostolic teaching as opposed to "mere succession of sees."  I am aware of nothing written by the 16th English reformers that would elevate or recognize physical succession from the time of the Apostles as a necessary mark of a true church nor equating such succession with episcopal polity.  And evidently that is why it is not mentioned even as an aside in the 39 Articles of Religion, Jewell's homily for Whit-Sunday, or even Hooker's defense of the episcopacy in his Laws.  And it seems any discovery of  physical succession in the penumbra of those writings would simply be a concession of the historic record of the above.

C. Sydney Carter writes:
Jewel, in treating of the unity of the Visible Church, had stressed the importance of an orderly episcopal ministry, although he declared that “God's grace is promised to one who feareth God and not to sees or successions.”  Keble in his Preface to Hooker's Works states that the Elizabethan bishops and divines were content “to show that the government by Archbishops and Bishops was ancient and allowable: they never ventured to urge its exclusive claim or to connect it with the validity of the Holy Sacraments."   In confirmation of this statement we find that Hooker's patron, Archbishop Whitgift, clearly asserts that “no certain manner or form of electing ministers is prescribed in Scripture and that every Church may do therein as it shall seem most expedient.”  Hooker fully concurred in this opinion, since he declares that the unity of the Church consists in three essentials, the possession of “the one Lord, the one Faith, and the one Baptism.” Although he insisted that “without the work of the Ministry religion by no means can possibly continue,” he asserts clearly that “the complete form of Church polity . . . is not taught in Scripture,” while “much that it hath taught may become unrequisite, sometime because we need not use it, sometime because we cannot.” And in this latter category he placed the Reformed non-episcopal Churches, including the Scottish and French, who, he declares, “have been driven without any fault of their own by the necessity of the present times” to practise a presbyterian form of government... But in spite of his later “higher” view of episcopacy, which was probably occasioned by the increasing insistence of the extreme Puritans on the exclusive necessity of a Presbyterian polity, Hooker was still prepared to admit, as he did in commenting on the case of Theodore Beza's ordination by Calvin, that “there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination without a bishop.”... Again, in cases where it is not possible to secure a bishop for ordination, Hooker admits that the ordinary institution of God must be waived. And so he adds: “we must not simply without exception urge a lineal descent of power from the Apostles by continued succession of bishops in every effectual ordination.” Professor Sisson is therefore surely correct when he affirms that “there is nothing in Hooker to serve as a foundation for an episcopacy by Apostolic Succession and divine institution...

But some may object and claim that apostolic succession is divinely instituted from the first century. Yet here we have the early church father, Jerome, weighing in:

"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." (Letter 146:1)

"A presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop, and before dissensions were introduced into religion by the instigation of the devil, and it was said among the peoples, ‘I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas,’ Churches were governed by a common council of presbyters; afterwards, when everyone thought that those whom he had baptised were his own, and not Christ’s, it was decreed in the whole world that one chosen out of the presbyters should be placed over the rest, and to whom all care of the Church should belong, that the seeds of schisms might be plucked up. Whosoever thinks that there is no proof from Scripture, but that this is my opinion, that a presbyter and bishop are the same, and that one is a title of age, the other of office, let him read the words of the apostle to the Philippians, saying, ‘Paul and Timotheus, servants of Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons.’" (Commentariorum In Epistolam Ad Titum, PL 26:562-563)

"Therefore, as we have shown, among the ancients presbyters were the same as bishops; but by degrees, that the plants of dissension might be rooted up, all responsibility was transferred to one person. Therefore, as the presbyters know that it is by the custom of the Church that they are to be subject to him who is placed over them so let the bishops know that they are above presbyters rather by custom than by Divine appointment, and ought to rule the Church in common, following the example of Moses, who, when he alone had power to preside over the people Israel, chose seventy, with the assistance of whom he might judge the people. We see therefore what kind of presbyter or bishop should be ordained." (Commentariorum In Epistolam Ad Titum, PL 26:563)

Lastly and by way of observation, it seems that the more a church body adheres to so-called "divinely instituted apostolic succession", the less one finds in that body the preaching of and adherence to the pure gospel of salvation of sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone - which is the crucial core of sound doctrine as found in Holy Scripture. The church is born of a message about something God alone has done, the gospel of Jesus Christ; that gospel's very origins being in the counsel of God before the foundations of the world (Eph. 1:3-6). She is nourished and maintained by that glorious gospel as administered by those called and ordained. And it is that gospel which will be the at the center of sound doctrine, the administration of the Sacraments, and proper ecclesiastical discipline - the marks of a true church.

Update: A related article/worthwhile read by Robin Jordon can be found at: Anglicans Ablaze