Apostolic succession
The classic presentation is that “Christ ordained the apostles, who ordained further apostles, who ordained the bishops” but things were in reality more complex and haphazard than that, as we have seen.
As the growing Church was faced with dangers of false teaching – especially a kind of elitist mysticism – so the need arose to stress a historical chain of truth, what we call the “Apostolic succession”. We owe this to St. Irenaeus of Lyons (+202) who drew up the famous list of the bishops of Rome: Peter and Paul handed over to Linus, he to Anacletus, he to Clement, and so on. In all honesty, Irenaeus probably had to guess some of this, but his point was not to draw up a historical table, but to stress that the true teaching followed in a line from Christ himself, unlike that of numerous dangerous heretics like Montanus, Marcion and Mani.
Irenaeus inspired a contemporary, Hegesippus, who we may call the first Church historian, to draw up similar lists for other churches (dioceses).
This was a way of establishing legitimacy, but it did not give one church rights over others – not even Rome Although Irenaeus acknowledged a certain leadership by the bishop of Rome, for example, when one Roman bishop (‘Pope’), Victor, threatened to excommunicate other churches because they did not accept his ruling about the date of Easter, Irenaeus strongly rebuked him.
“Succession” may have been slightly wobbly historically, but it was a firm and reassuring spiritual principle. When the martyr St. Cornelius (+253) was elected Pope in 251 and was promptly faced with a rival, chosen by another group who objected to Cornelius’ lenient line towards those who had lapsed during persecution, that rival was roundly condemned by St. Cyprian bishop of Carthage (+258): the “chair of Peter” could have only one occupant, and each legitimate bishop must support each other one.