Did the Early Church Believe in Apostolic Succession?
Apostolic Succession in the Pre-Nicene Church Introduction One of the recurring claims in modern discussions of church history is that apostolic succession developed gradually after the age of the apostles and was not part of the original structure of Christianity. According to this view, the early Church eventually created a system of episcopal succession in order to preserve order and combat heresy. The surviving evidence from the pre-Nicene Church tells a different story. When the earliest Christian sources outside the New Testament are examined, apostolic succession is not presented as a new development or later institutional solution. Rather, it is consistently described as something received from the apostles themselves and embedded in the life of the churches they founded. From Rome to Antioch, from Asia Minor to Gaul and North Africa, the same basic assumption appears: the Church possessed a visible continuity with the apostles through ordained leaders who succeeded those...