Bishop Lists: Formation of Apostolic Succession of Bishops in Ecclesiastical Crises 9781463202668, 1463202660

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Bishop Lists

Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 16

In this series Gorgias publishes monographs on Christianity and the Church Fathers in the early centuries of the Christian era. Gorgias particularly welcomes proposals from younger scholars whose dissertations have made an important contribution to the field of patristics.

Bishop Lists

Formation of Apostolic Succession of Bishops in Ecclesiastical Crises

Robert Lee Williams

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34 2014

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2014 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2014

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ISBN 978-1-4632-0266-8

ISSN 1935-6870

Reprinted from the 2005 edition by Gorgias Press.

Printed in the United States of America

To my dear wife Pat

PREFACE This study began as an updating for publication of my dissertation, “Bishop Lists: Episcopal Authority in Ecclesiastical Polemics,” completed under Robert M. Grant for the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago in 1982. A year and half after beginning revisions, it now concludes as a work largely rewritten. In the two intervening decades research has burgeoned on issues in many of the chapters, and some of the scholars are particularly worthy of mention. Alastair Campbell has clarified the meaning of BDgF$bJgD@H and ¦B\F6@B@l in the New Testament. Christine Trevett has illuminated Ignatius of Antioch. Peter Lampe has been valuable on Hegesippus and Irenaeus. Martin Walraff has given me perspective on Julius Africanus. Allen Brent, John Cerrato, and Alistair Stewart-Sykes have been invaluable on Hippolytus. Richard Burgess has been persuasive on Eusebius’s historiography as subsequent to persecution, not prior. Doron Mendels has shed new light on the historian’s intended audience.1 Because of these significant changes, I now offer this study under its new title, “Bishop Lists: Formation of Apostolic Succession of Bishops in Ecclesiastical Crises.” It is a pleasure to acknowledge the aid of colleagues, students, friends, and family in this project. First I am grateful to my supervisor, Robert M. Grant, now Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, for introducing me to Eusebius and offering me the topic of early Christian bishop lists. To participants in the SBL “Social World of Early Christianity” and my professor Jonathan Z. Smith of the University of Chicago I am indebted for stimulating interaction enabling me to formulate the social history 1 Abbreviations in this work follow Patrick H. Alexander et al., eds., The SBL Handbook of Style: For Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999).

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methodology employed in this study. Asbury College and my department chairman and friend Professor Gerald I. Miller I thank for financial and moral support in completing the dissertation. Encouragement and assistance for the current state of the work has come from a large number of people here at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Our Provost, Craig Blaising, himself a patristics specialist, has encouraged the project from the start and has graciously facilitated generous financing of my travel for research and presentation to Chicago for the North American Patristics Society meetings and Oxford for the International Conference on Patristic Studies. Similarly our Dean of the School of Theology, David Allen, and my Assistant Dean, Paul Wolfe, have lent their support to this project. Michael Spiegel lent timely and generous help on the Indices. Mrs. Christi Brumley, now Editorial Assistant for the Southwestern Journal of Theology, was crucial in initially scanning my dissertation into electronic form. Everett Ferguson, Professor Emeritus of Abilene Christian University, and Professor D. Jeffrey Bingham of Dallas Theological Seminary, who need little introduction to readers of patristics, have provided characteristically astute suggestions on preparing the work for publication. My patristics colleague and friend, Professor Robert W. Bernard, has helped in countless ways in the process. Our students in Ph.D. seminars have offered keen criticism on various issues in the study. Professor William David Kirkpatrick, invaluable colleague and friend, has encouraged and facilitated the work in numerous ways. Dr. Robert Phillips, Associate Dean of Libraries, and Helen M. Bernard, Assistant Reference Librarian, have assisted me in finding and securing research materials as though it were their own project. Library staff at Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University, and Dallas Theological Seminary have also gone beyond the call of duty numerous times on my behalf. My thanks certainly extend also to Dr. George A. Kiraz, President of Gorgias Press, for assistance in and sponsorship of this publication. Dr. Thomas Buchan has brought a keen eye to the editing. Finally, my family has played a noteworthy role in this project. Our three grown children, Blake, Lindsay, and Lori, have offered their encouragement and computer assistance on this work, “second time around” for them. I am most appreciative. The fourth, Anthony, our teenager, has been patient and tolerant, glad

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that it is not his job to do, a perspective I also had at his age. Most of all, I express my heartfelt gratitude to my wife Pat for her sacrificial supportiveness in this effort. To her I dedicate this work. Robert Lee Williams Epiphany 6 January 2005

CONTENTS Preface ....................................................................................................... v Contents ................................................................................................... ix Introduction.............................................................................................. 1 Part 1. Literary Background: Apologetic in the Hellenistic World...................................................... 9 Chapter 1. Greek and Roman Successions ........................................ 11 Greek Philosophy ............................................................................... 11 Roman Government........................................................................... 24 Chapter 2. Jewish Successions ............................................................. 29 High Priesthood .................................................................................. 29 Old Testament Kingship ................................................................... 35 Prophets ............................................................................................... 37 Rabbis ................................................................................................... 38 Part 2. Formative Crises: Bishop and Succession in Earliest Christianity ................................. 43 Chapter 3. New Testament .................................................................. 45 Bishop or Overseer............................................................................. 45 Succession ............................................................................................ 57 Chapter 4. Ignatius and 1 Clement ........................................................ 65 Ignatius: Emergence of the Monepiscopacy................................... 65 1 Clement: Emergence of Episcopal Succession ............................. 83 Part 3. Stage 1: Anti-Heretical Uses................................................................................ 91 Chapter 5. Hegesippus .......................................................................... 93 Reconstruction of the Bishop Lists in Context.............................. 93 Sources of the “Successions”............................................................ 97 Purposes Behind the Memoirs and its Bishop Lists ......................108 Concept of Succession .....................................................................114 Chapter 6. Irenaeus..............................................................................121 Description of the Roman Bishop List in its Context ................121 Sources of the Concept and the List..............................................126 ix

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Purposes Behind Against Heresies and its Bishop List..................129 Concept of Succession .....................................................................133 Part 4. Stage 2: Anti-Schismatic Uses...........................................................................139 Chapter 7. Julius Africanus.................................................................141 Reconstruction of the Lists .............................................................142 Origin of the Lists.............................................................................147 Purposes Behind the Chronographies and its Episcopal Successions......................................................................................149 Concept of Episcopal Succession ..................................................154 Chapter 8. Hippolytus .........................................................................159 Existence and Authorship of the Bishop List ..............................159 Origin of the List ..............................................................................164 Purposes Behind the Chronicle and its Bishop List.......................166 Significance of the Episcopal Succession in Rome .....................172 Part 5. Stage 3: Apologetic and Encouragement ........................................................177 Chapter 9. Eusebius, 1. The Chronicle................................................179 Description of the Chronicle and its Bishop Lists .........................179 Origins of the Chronicle and its Bishop Lists .................................182 Purposes Behind the Chronicle, its Episcopal Successions, and Christian Philosophical Entries ...................................................193 Episcopal Successions in the Chronicle ...........................................201 Chapter 10. Eusebius, 2. The Ecclesiastical History ...........................203 Reconstruction of the Successions in their Original Context....204 Origin of the Successions in Light of the Historical Format.....211 Purposes Behind Apostolic Successions in the Ecclesiastical History...............................................................................................213 Nature of Apostolic Succession in the Ecclesiastical History ........220 Conclusion ............................................................................................225 Bibliography..........................................................................................227 Primary Sources.................................................................................227 Secondary Sources ............................................................................229 Indices....................................................................................................243

INTRODUCTION The thesis of this study is that the five appearances of bishop lists in the early church mark principal points at which the concept of apostolic succession of bishops emerged and developed into a crucial and well-defined doctrine. Walter Bauer long ago characterized much of early Christian literature, legitimately if not charitably, as “polemical,” in effect as literary propaganda.1 This study delves into the political struggles in which literature with bishop lists was used and the doctrine of apostolic succession was developed. The study is concerned with the authority of Christian ministers. The authority of bishops, in particular, has been derived from their connection with three central phenomena in Christianity, apostolic tradition, apostolic succession, and holy scripture. A bishop’s claim to succession from an apostle is the fundamental historical claim on which has been based his ministerial authority, from the early church forward. The historicity of such claims is uncertain before the Council of Nicaea and is shrouded in obscurity prior to the middle of the second century. When modern investigation turned to the issue in the nineteenth century,2 the earliest extant records with names and dates were found in two works by Eusebius from the early fourth century, the Chronicle and the Ecclesiastical History. Thus on Eusebius has centered study of the historical validity of episcopal authority. There is irony in this. When we examine Eusebius’s motives for including bishop lists, the major interest in episcopal authority is found not in Eusebius but in the earlier Christian writers whose bishop lists he used. In the ancient Mediterranean world a common feature in establishing the legitimacy of a social institution was to cite its Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (2nd ed.; tr. and ed. Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 169. He cites a variety of literature used (172-176). The entire chapter, “The Use of Literature in the Conflict,” merits reading (147-194). 2 Joseph B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part 1: S. Clement of Rome (repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 1:201-2. 1

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unbroken succession of leaders from its founder. Successions were common coinage in addressing issues of authority, whether in Greek philosophy, Roman government, or Jewish high priesthood, or subsequently in Christian prophecy and apostleship. Therefore, when early catholic churches defended themselves by citing the three “pillars” of apostolic tradition, apostolic succession, and canon of scripture, the middle item of apostolic succession was the linchpin for the first and the third. It guaranteed the first and assured correct interpretation of the third. While Eusebius and his Christian predecessors employed succession lists to legitimate their own ecclesiastical institutions, they did so in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes, reflecting the nuances of meaning in succession lists of the Hellenistic culture. Eusebius’s predecessors were involved in internal polemic, first “heresy” and then “schism.” Eusebius was concerned with external polemic, “apologetic.” The earlier ecclesiastical writers used the bishop lists as the foundational evidence for proving, in internal Christian controversy, the bishop’s claim over competing claims to authority from God. Eusebius, reverting to established Hellenistic historiographic tradition, used the bishop lists to demonstrate, in controversy with the external Greek culture and Roman government, that the Church was a great institution of society. One discovers these two kinds of purposes from examining how Eusebius and the earlier writers perceived the authority held by members of the successions. In every case the concept of succession had distinct connotations of institutional authority. This authority in the case of the earlier Christian writers implied the bishop’s right to expect certain allegiance from members in light of his representing the Church. In the case of Eusebius the authority implied the bishop’s role as personal representative of the institution but without any consideration of the bishop’s right to allegiance from the members. The distinction between the earlier writers’ use on behalf of particular bishops’ authority and Eusebius’s historiographical use in support of the Church’s glory as an institution has not been made clear in previous study. C. H. Turner observed in 1918 that Eusebius’s concept of apostolic succession was “primarily

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historical,” not doctrinal or sacramental.3 Hans von Campenhausen said that Hegesippus’s list was “a list with a purpose,” a doctrinal “chain of tradition.”4 Such study does not indicate clearly that the five succession writers in the Church were taking the Hellenistic succession concept and putting it to a variety of uses. Methodologically, previous examination of apostolic succession has focused on the continuity of Christian successions with earlier Hellenistic successions in literary form and content. Von Campenhausen hence speaks of a correspondence of Christian successions and Greek philosophical successions5 Arnold Ehrhardt opts for the comparison of Christian successions with Jewish high priestly successions.6 Beyond these approaches, we shall find it necessary to examine also the discontinuity between the Christian successions and the Hellenistic ones. This discontinuity is evident in the sociological settings and the literary purposes for the uses of succession. Specifically, we shall find that the Hellenistic authors were writing to glorify institutions of their past culture. The writers had no interest in promoting the present authority of a leader in a succession. The Christian succession writers of the second and third centuries, by contrast, invoked successions for no reason but to support the authority of a present bishop in a leadership crisis. Then in Eusebius this earlier Christian use of successions has disappeared, and the writer, in Hellenistic historiographic fashion, is again glorifying an institution, now the Church in triumph, its having survived unprecedented persecution and witnessed conversion of the emperor to the faith. As a result of the foregoing statement and explanation of the thesis of this study, the justifications for the study are two, a weakness in past scholarship and a strength in present methodology. Scholars have examined the theological concept of apostolic succession and the historical phenomenon of apostolic successions 3 Cuthbert H. Turner, “Apostolic Succession,” in Essays on the Early History of the Church and the Ministry, ed. H. B. Swete (London: Macmillan & Co., 1918), 132-33. 4 Hans von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries (tr. John A. Baker; 1969; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997), 168. 5 Ibid., 167. 6 Arnold Ehrhardt, The Apostolic Succession (London: Lutterworth, 1953), 48.

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of monarchical bishops separately when the two topics belong together under the rubric of episcopal authority. The theological concept and the historical phenomenon complement each other in explaining how episcopal authority worked. They are parts of the same whole. J. B. Lightfoot, A. Harnack, C. H. Turner, H. J. Lawlor, and E. Caspar have provided detailed information on the literary history and the historical accuracy of the bishop lists.7 Yet, after reading their volumes, one wonders, “Why?” Why did the ancient writers include such information in their works? Was it simply for the historical record? One reading of the context of Irenaeus’s bishop list assures us that, at least for him, it was not simply for institutional history. At the conclusion of his list he writes, “And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth” (Haer. 3.3.3). The list gives proof of the authenticity, the apostolicity, of the faith that is found in the Church. Such theological concerns regarding apostolic succession have been examined by C. H. Turner, K. E. Kirk, G. Dix, H. von Campenhausen, A. Ehrhardt, and W. Telfer.8 These studies, however, have left something to be desired. When one reads, “The part played by the gnosis, however, is that of middleman, linking a sociological pattern in ancient philosophy to the Church, which then transformed it to meet its own special needs,”9 one may nevertheless legitimately hope that there would be a more concrete way of thinking about succession. Just exactly how did the concept function in the society in light of the literary evidence? 7 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1:201-345. Adolf Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius, Part 2: Die Chronologie, 2nd ed. (repr., Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1958), 1:70-230. Cuthbert H. Turner, “The Early Episcopal Lists,” JTS 1 (1899-1900): 181-200; “The Early Episcopal Lists. II.,” JTS 1 (1899-1900): 529-53; “The Papal Chronology of the Third Century,” JTS 17 (1915-16): 338-53; “The Early Episcopal Lists,” JTS 18 (1916-17): 103-34. H. J. Lawlor, Eusebiana (repr., Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1973), pp. 1-107. E. Caspar, Die älteste römische Bischofsliste (Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1926). 8 Turner, “Apostolic Succession,” pp. 93-214. K. E. Kirk, “The Apostolic Ministry,” in The Apostolic Ministry, ed. K. E. Kirk (repr., London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1962), pp. 183-303. Von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority. Ehrhardt, Apostolic Succession. W. Telfer, The Office of a Bishop (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1962). 9 Von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority, 167.

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Such questions as this one have in recent decades been addressed by methodology in what is often termed “social history.” The methodology is to an extent sociological and interdisciplinary and is employed in an attempt to understand the social dynamics underlying, giving rise to, and resulting from written documents. Elaine Pagels reflects this approach in the following observations. When we investigate the writings of the “fathers of the church” and of their gnostic contemporaries to see how the doctrine of God actually functions in each type of literature, we may see that this theological issue indeed involves social and political issues as well. Specifically, we may see that both the orthodox Christians and their gnostic opponents recognize that, in the controversy over “monotheism,” they are debating an issue crucial to those on both sides: namely, the issue of spiritual authority.10

In view of the abovementioned inadequacy in scholarship and the promise of holistic results in an approach like Pagels’s, we shall examine both the historical lists and the theological concept to determine what is meant historically and theologically and how it works socially. The social history approach reveals political intrigue at every point of the development of apostolic succession of bishops. It will yield both the purpose for which the author is employing the succession and the evident significance of it to the author. For each Christian succession writer we shall follow a fourstep procedure. First, we shall establish the existence of his succession lists. Second, we shall examine his sources to determine not only the origin of his succession data but also what his sources suggest that he was thinking when he made the succession lists. Third, in view of this content and way of thinking, we shall establish the purposes behind his work and its succession information. Fourth, we shall discover from the writer’s purposes for the successions also the significance he attached to them. The basic framework of this study arises from Lightfoot’s finding that four writers contributed bishop lists to Eusebius— Hegesippus, Irenaeus, Julius Africanus, and Hippolytus.11 The study 10 Elaine Pagels, “‘The Demiurge and his Archons’—A Gnostic View of the Bishop and Presbyters?” HTR 69 (1976): 303. 11 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1:202-6.

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will center on these four writers and Eusebius. The argument will develop in the following five steps of two chapters each. We shall first find that the succession concept was employed to show the greatness of various institutions in the Hellenistic world (Literary Background), Greek philosophy and Roman government (chapter 1) and Jewish high priesthood (chapter 2). Next we show that the origin and earliest development of episcopacy and monepiscopacy and the ecclesiastical concept of succession were associated with crisis situations in the early church (Formative Crises). The New Testament recorded the existence of bishops and even a certain monepiscopacy and apostolic succession in church leadership (chapter 3). Monepiscopacy and the concept of succession were fully evident in crises at the end of the first century (chapter 4). In Ignatius’s letters monepiscopacy represents God’s presence and prevents “power vacuums” in churches. In Rome the writer of 1 Clement first elucidated the succession concept in reaction to “anti-establishment” leaders who had contested authority in the Corinthian church. Then in further internal crises in the second century we encounter the first of three stages in the use of bishop lists and the development of apostolic succession. The first two writers with bishop lists modeled them on philosophical successions in efforts to discredit Christian teachers operating outside the churches (AntiHeretical Uses). Episcopal successions were then cited in reaction to competing successions and traditions. The claimed successions originated in heretical groups of the second century. Hegesippus and Irenaeus were countering Gnostic claims of succession, especially by Carpocratians and Valentinians, respectively (chapters 5 and 6). Hegesippus understood episcopal successions as being not from the apostles but from the “Lord,” and preeminently from James in Jerusalem. With Irenaeus the succession became “apostolic.” Hegesippus’s view of authentic episcopal succession was “as the law and the prophets and the Lord preach.” Irenaeus’s version was that the genuine successions preserved “that tradition which originates from the apostles.” Both writers were resisting similar Gnostic views of inferiority of the Old Testament. This wrong view of scripture involved equally a wrong view of worship and lifestyle. Crises in the early third century give rise to the second stage in use of bishop lists and development of apostolic succession. In

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these internal crises bishop lists were modeled on high priestly successions in attempts to counteract certain persons within the churches (Stage 2). Episcopal successions emerge in anti-schismatic writings of Julius Africanus in Alexandria and Hippolytus in Rome (Anti-Schismatic Uses). Julius Africanus was lending support to Demetrius in Alexandria over a prophetic tradition of apocalyptic eschatology and the dominance of Origen, representing for Eusebius a Christian philosophical tradition and succession. Apostolic succession hence represented, in dual fashion, a more realized eschatological outlook on life and a superiority of episcopal authority to the church school. Hippolytus was similarly contesting the same prophetic tradition of apocalyptic eschatology and, from a distinctly higher profile with the imperial family, was supporting his bishop, Pontianus, as a conciliatory force in the aftermath of earlier leaders in conflict, Callistus, laxist with Monarchian leanings, and the author of Refutation of All Heresies, rigorist with traditional Logos theology. By their day, 222-235, Hippolytus supported his bishop Pontianus in further controversy with Origen’s school, as the Roman bishop and presbyter had come to enjoy entre to the imperial family, a foretaste of the remarkable latter part of Eusebius’s situation a century later. The third stage of development of bishop lists and apostolic succession comes in the early fourth century. In contrast to the earlier writers, Eusebius, in crises with external Greco-Roman society, patterned bishop lists after high priestly successions to demonstrate the Church’s permanence both as an apologetic to non-Christian society and for edification of his fellow Christians in the aftermath of persecution (Apologetic and Encouragement). He patterned after philosophical successions a list of theologians by which he intended, similarly, to show the cultural quality of the Church. Eusebius was countering claims of Porphyry, leader of a Neoplatonic philosophical tradition offering a religious alternative to Christianity, with a variety of successions he found in the salvation history of Israel and the Church, the most important being the apostolic successions of the bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Alexandria. He employed succession lists for apologetic and edification, similar to the purposes of Diogenes Laertius’s earlier records of Greek philosophers and Josephus’s Jewish high priests. Eusebius’s Chronicle was an external apologetic promoting Christianity to his Greco-Roman society (chapter 9).

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His subsequent Ecclesiastical History (chapter 10) was initially to elaborate on topics broached in the Chronicle: successions of the apostles, canon of scripture, orthodox leaders and writers, heretics, fate of the Jews, and persecution, concluding with the persecution under Diocletian and vindication from Constantine’s conversion. This latter work addressed a broader Christian and pagan audience. Eusebius’s bishop lists head up his advertisement of episcopal, academic, and prophetic successions from the apostles as orthodox leadership of a movement from the true God that brings a glorious contribution to the Roman empire. Eusebius writes in the fashion of a Hellenistic historian, extolling the glories of the Church in the aftermath of the Great Persecution. It is ecclesiastical politics in each case that is a measure of the seriousness of the threat to the bishop’s authority and, at the same time, that brings to light the particular meaning of apostolic succession at that point in the Church’s development. This social history approach, examining the function of the literature within the historical circumstances, uncovers this development of the theology from ecclesiastical politics. The development is as engaging politically as it is illuminating theologically. In what then does apostolic succession consist theologically? In the nature of the case, the concept of apostolic succession develops principally at five points, the five historical situations at which the episcopal succession lists are cited. It is the particular nature of the ecclesiastical struggle in each case that shapes the content of the doctrine of apostolic succession at that point. The content of apostolic succession, linchpin though it is in defense of orthodoxy, changes in content and emphasis from writer to writer, from support of the two-testament canon in the second century, to promotion of internal unity and submission in the third, to sponsorship of God’s goodness for the empire by Eusebius in the fourth century. The bishops in apostolic succession are the legitimate leaders of the churches not in every way, with a carte blanche of authority, but in specific ways that emerge at the particular historical junctures at which bishop lists are cited. Political needs changed theological emphases.

PART 1. LITERARY BACKGROUND: APOLOGETIC IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD Successions in the Hellenistic world were of two general kinds, philosophical successions involving particular teachings and political successions involving national rulerships. Both kinds were based on concepts of inheritance within a family. The kinship could be real or fictive. Succession concepts were employed in connection with Greek philosophers and Roman emperors, as well as with Jewish high priests, kings, prophets, and rabbis. We shall find that successions were compiled for the apologetic purposes of celebrating and defending their respective institutions. The successions represented continuity of authority in the institutions. This authority was never cited as a basis for defending one leader over another in the institution. Members of the succession simply represented an institution in its dignity. The most important successions for the background of apostolic succession are the Greek philosophical successions, best known from Diogenes Laertius, and the Jewish high priest successions in Josephus.

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CHAPTER 1. GREEK AND ROMAN SUCCESSIONS The concept of succession from which has come apostolic succession has origins in ancient Greek civilization. In the Hellenistic period formal and legal meanings of succession arose from matters of inheritance first in Greek philosophy and then in Roman government.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY Jean Daniélou has observed that apostolic succession from its earliest usage has implied that an unbroken sequence of bishops has preserved the doctrine handed down to them by the apostles.13 How did preservation of doctrine become associated with apostolic succession? Von Campenhausen claims that precedent for linking such doctrinal considerations with the concept of succession is found in the concept of succession in Greek philosophical schools. These successions provided “reproduction of traditional teaching from the original master.”14 Ehrhardt takes the opposite point of view from an appraisal of the work on philosophical successions by Sotion of Alexandria. These successions were written for “elucidation of the progress of philosophical research.”15 Anthony Long and David Sedley have noted more carefully that loyalty to the founder’s views was balanced with introduction of new ideas as interpretations or developments of the founder’s views [rather] than as criticisms of him.”16 They are, however, offering an admittedly general view of the schools. Did Greek writers trace philosophical school successions in order to demonstrate “reproduction” of the founder’s teaching or to demonstrate Jean Daniélou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture (tr. and ed. John A. Baker; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), 146-48. 14 Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority, 159. 15 Ehrhardt, Apostolic Succession, 44. 16 Anthony A. Long and David N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 1:5-6. 13

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“progress” beyond his ideas? We shall answer this question by taking a more thoughtful look at how philosophical successions arose and what they represented. Hellenistic Greek writers traced lines of succession for the earlier philosophical schools primarily from interest in the greatness of Greek philosophical institutions but also from controversy over skepticism. The Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon provides us the following information on early usage of the terms for succession— *4"*XP@:"4, *4"*@PZ, *4V*@[email protected] From the late fifth or early fourth century B.C.18 the orator Isocrates speaks of “succession to the inheritance.” At the end of the fourth century the philosopher Epicurus (341-271)19 refers similarly to “succession to the philosophy.” As we shall see below, Epicurus’s philosophy was a central part of the estate he left to heirs. Followers of his philosophical tenets were the beneficiaries of his estate. Thus began the concept of succession in Greek philosophical schools.

USE OF SUCCESSIONS The concept of succession served as the central organizing principle in writing histories of Greek philosophy. The writers compiled successions of philosophers in order to show the institutional greatness of Greek philosophy by its longevity in the society. First we shall observe where and how the term is used. Then we shall examine purposes for its use.

Existence of “Successions” In the early third century A.D. the history of philosophy was organized by “schools,” each of which was led by a “succession of philosophers.” Diogenes Laertius wrote a ten-book history of Greek philosophy entitled in Hicks’s translation Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (LCL 3) ca. 217.20 As its title implies, the work LSJ, s.v. “*4"*XP@:"4,” “*4"*@PZ, *4V*@P@H.” Ibid., xxvii. Dates in this chapter are before Christ unless indicated otherwise. 19 Dates of philosophers are from Long and Sedley’s “Index of Philosophers” in Hellenistic Philosophers, 1:501-508, unless cited otherwise. 20 Allen Brent, “Diogenes Laertius and the Apostolic Succession,” JEH 44 (1993), 372. 17

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is biographical. The contents consist of biographical sketches of a large number of philosophers. The biographies are divided into two groups, the Ionian deriving from Anaximander (6th c.)21 and the Italian from Pythagoras (6th c.) (1.13).22 Each division evolves in a number of "ÊDXFg4H (1.20), “schools of thought” or “philosophical sects.” Diogenes uses the term *4"*@P"\ (1.20), “successions,” for this process, “developments” of philosophy into various “schools.”23 More frequently, however, Diogenes describes as “successions” the sequences of philosophers who lead sects which follow certain philosophical principles and have some organizational continuity beyond the time of the founder. Sects, "ÊDXFg4H, of this particular kind are also termed “schools,” FP@8"\, because of their organization.24 Three philosophers, Plato (ca. 429-347), Aristotle (384-322), and Epicurus (possibly a fourth, Zeno, 334-262) (7.174) founded “sects” which developed as “schools” with successions of leaders. Plato’s “successors” in his school, the Academy, extended from Speusippus (ca. 407-339) to Clitomachus (head of Academy, ca.128-ca.110) (4.1, 67).25 Aristotle’s successors in the Lyceum are 21 C.

H. Kahn, “Anaximander,” OCD 86. S. Long in LCL, xx. 23 This use of “succession” as “development” seems to support Ehrhardt’s statement that “succession of the heads of the philosophical sects” served to elucidate “the progress of philosophical research” (Apostolic Succession, 44). However, Diogenes is showing the sequential development of various “schools,” not the succession of leaders in a single school. Diogenes writes of successions as “developments” in this one reference when he is describing the sequential rise of various philosophical schools. Customarily, when he lists a succession of leaders in a particular school, Diogenes’ interest, we shall see, is not in development or change but in uniformity. 24 Long and Sedley state that a school was “[n]ot, in general, a formally established institution, but a group of like-minded philosophers with an agreed leader and a regular meeting place, sometimes on private premises but normally in public” (Hellenistic philosophers, 1:5). Discussion which follows will demonstrate which schools did in fact have the formal and legal character of institutions. 25 In the late second century A.D., shortly before Diogenes, Numenius stated that some extend the Academy to Antiochus, three successors beyond Clitomachus (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 14.4.16, 9.3). About the same 22 Herbert

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listed from Theophrastus (head, 322-ca. 287) to Lyco (head, 226-?) (5.36, 68).26 Epicurus was succeeded in his Garden by Hermarchus, Dionysius, and Basilides (10.15, 25) as well as numerous others left unnamed (10.9).

Purposes for Successions Since Diogenes evidently obtained his succession information intact from compilers of philosophical successions as early as Sotion of Alexandria about 200 B.C.,27 we need to determine the purposes behind the various succession writers, from Sotion to Diogenes. Not surprisingly, we find different purposes at different times. Diogenes’ work is modeled on the earliest histories of philosophy. He writes in an ancient “biographical tradition” begun among the Peripatetics by Aristoxenus in the fourth century B.C.28 Diogenes’ Lives is a work combining two types of literature produced in the biographical tradition. This literary tradition provided the first histories of philosophy. The tradition consisted of certain works generally entitled “Lives,”29 which were biographies, and of others entitled “Successions”30 on philosophical successions and schools. The earliest succession writers on philosophical schools were evidently motivated by an interest in history. Sotion initiated succession writings from Peripatetic influences in Alexandria.31 He time Sextus Empiricus recorded the same information without using succession terminology (Pyrrh. 1.220). Regarding Zeno’s possibly founding a school, Diogenes writes that Cleanthes “was able to succeed him (Zeno) in the headship of the school” (7.174 Hicks). However, no further successors are noted in this school. 26 Wilhelm Windelband, History of Ancient Philosophy (2d ed., tr. H. E. Cushman; n.p.: Dover Publications, 1956), 302. 27 Sotion evidently created the genre of biographical history of philosophy which we find in Diogenes Laertius (John Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy [Hypomnemata: UAIN 56; Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1978], 343, 347-48). 28 James A. Philip, Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism (repr., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 12-13. F. Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, Part 1: Die Philosophie des Altertums (rev. K. Praechter; Basel: Benno Schwabe & Co, 1953), 14. 29 Philip, Pythagoras, 13, 21-22 nn. 11, 14. 30 Ibid., 15, 22 n. 13. 31 Ueberweg-Praechter, Grundriss, 1:14.

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was followed in the second century B.C. by Heraclides, Antisthenes, and others.32 The Peripatetic regard for history derived from Aristotle’s interest in the “particulars” of the world, its “historical events and processes,” as well as the “generals,” the “science of concept and law.”33 The “particulars” were not to be overlooked as “means of reaching the truth.”34 Hence the writing of the history of philosophical schools would be perceived as an investigation of important “particulars” of Athenian culture in the quest for truth in Alexandria. Sotion and other succession writers of that time were probably little concerned with whatever they knew of controversies in the Athenian schools. Ueberweg notes that the Peripatetics after Aristotle moved away from philosophical speculation.35 Their systematizing of successions and schools was not closely related to philosophical interests of the day.36 These succession writers were apparently acting on an interest in the past, the philosophical founders and their institutions. By the time Sotion’s Successions of the Philosophers appeared in the early second century B.C.,37 the schools had a great and ancient history. Plato’s Academy dated from 370.38 Aristotle began teaching in the Lyceum in 335-34.39 Epicurus established his Garden in 306.40 Zeno’s

32 Ibid.,

19. Eduard Zeller, Outline of the History of Greek Philosophy (13th ed., rev. W. Nestle and tr. L. R. Palmer; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1931), 198. 34 Ibid. 35 F. Ueberweg, History of Philosophy (4th ed., tr. G. S. Morris; repr., Bristol: Thoemmes, 1999), 1:180. 36 Philip, Pythagoras, 15. 37 L. Koep, “Bischofsliste,” RAC. H. Ritter and L. Preller date Sotion’s Successions to approximately 200 B.C. (Historia Philosophiae graecae [7th ed., rev. F. Schultess and E. Wellmann; Gothae: Sumptibus Fridr. Andr. Perthes, 1888], 570). Ueberweg-Praechter, Grundriss, 1:18-19. 38 G. Ryle, Plato’s Progress (repr., Bristol, UK: Thoemmes, 1994), 225. 39 R. Alan Culpepper, The Johannine School: An Evaluation of the Johannine School Hypothesis Based on an Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975), 89. J. Lynch, Aristotle’s School (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 73. 40 Culpepper, Johannine School, 103. 33

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teaching in the Stoa Poikile probably began about 301-300.41 Literary and historical, rather than philosophical, interests, in line with the long-standing character of Alexandrian scholarship from the time of Ptolemy I in the early third century, were the motivations behind the earliest succession writings.42 In the first century philosophical school successions were employed for a different purpose. We find that Cicero (106-43)43 refers to certain successors in the Academy (De orat. 3.67; De fin. 5.7). However, he does not use succession terminology. In fact, the successors to whom he refers are represented as “pupils” of the Academy as a “school of thought,” sententia (De orat. 3.67), and not as heads of philosophical institutions. These philosophers were the subjects of a heated discussion in Cicero’s circles. The discussion took the form of a debate over the claim of Philo of Larisa (head of New Academy, ca. 110-ca. 79) that the earlier skepticism of Arcesilaus (head of New Academy, ca. 273-ca. 242) (Diogenes, Lives 6.41) and Carneades (head of New Academy, ca. mid-2nd c.) was harmonious with Plato’s views, the teaching of the original Academy.44 Antiochus (formed reactionary “Old Academy,” 87 B.C.) claimed that it was not. Cicero considered that it was. The following background is pertinent to understanding Cicero’s use of the successions. H. Cherniss has noted that while Plato was concerned with a positive theory of knowledge, “to confute relativism,” he nevertheless resisted establishing an “orthodox metaphysical doctrine” with his theory of ideas.45 However, a system known as Platonic was not long in coming. Xenocrates, the second successor in the Academy (339-314), distinguished between three branches of Plato’s philosophy—physics, ethics, and logic.46 At least he was later remembered in this way (Sextus, Adv. log. 1.16, 2nd c. A.D.). 41 Max Pohlenz and Horst-Theodor Johann, Die Stoa: Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung (7th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 1:24. 42 Ueberweg-Praechter, Grundriss, 1:14. 43 Long and Sedley, Hellenistic philosophers, 493. 44 John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (repr., Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 55. 45 Harold F. Cherniss, The Riddle of the Early Academy (repr., New York: Garland Publications, 1980), 81, 84. Dillon, 23. 46 See Dillon, Middle Platonists, 23. Cherniss, Riddle, 82.

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With Arcesilaus came a move toward skepticism in reaction to Zeno.47 In the third century Arcesilaus adopted a skeptical position in his theory of knowledge against the Stoic Zeno’s dogmatic position regarding certainty from 6"JV8g4R4H, “mental grasp” (Cicero, Acad. 2.17).48 Following Arcesilaus’s death, the less illustrious Lacydes, Telecles, Evander, and Hegesinus led the Academy before Carneades became head about the middle of the second century.49 Carneades gave Arcesilaus’s skepticism a boost with his eloquent support of it (Diogenes, Lives 4.62-63) and his contribution of a concept of “probability” which made it possible to approach life’s decisions with some security.50 Following Carneades’ death in 129 (Lives 4.65), Clitomachus and Philo maintained similar skeptical views in leading the Academy at the end of the second century. In the first century a negative appraisal of Arcesilaus emanated from the Academic Antiochus, a student of Philo. In Cicero’s Academica from approximately the middle of the first century Varro, representing Antiochus, brands Arcesilaus’s skepticism as “innovation” (1.43). Therefore, Arcesilaus is head of a “new” school, a “New” Academy in contrast to Plato’s “Old” Academy (1.46). Later in the work Lucullus, another proponent of Antiochus’s views, makes a more personal attack on Arcesilaus by accusing him of falsely claiming the support of Plato and Socrates (469-399) for his skeptical views (2.15).51 Dillon explains that Academic skepticism unsustained by Carneades “must have become increasingly unsatisfying” and was modified by Philo around 100.52 About 78 Antiochus declared the Academy of Reginald E. Witt, Albinus and the History of Middle Platonism (repr., Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1971), 21. 48 cf. Hans Friedrich August von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (repr., Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1990), 2: 29-30. A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy (repr., Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 90. Dillon, Middle Platonists, 64. 49 Ritter and Preller, Historia, 452. 50 Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, 97-99. 51 Criticisms of Arcesilaus and difficulties of his skeptical position for his successor are found later in Numenius’s On the Divergence of the Academics from Plato (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 14.6.1-7.13; Dillon, Middle Platonists, 365). 52 Dillon, Middle Platonists, 53. cf. Witt, Albinus, 21. 47

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Arcesilaus a “new Academy” (Acad. 1.13-14, 46).53 Antiochus made this pronouncement in his book, the Sosus (Acad. 2.12), written against Philo’s claim of unity in the Academic tradition between Plato and the skeptical positions of Arcesilaus and Carneades (1.13, 46). Arcesilaus introduced the “innovation” “that there is nothing that can be known” in his attack on Zeno’s dogmatic theory of knowledge (1.43-44; cf. 2.17-18). Carneades then “completed” Arcesilaus’s system (2.16). Dillon supposes, and we would agree, that the unity of the Academy “must have been a point on which the New Academy in general had not laid any emphasis” prior to Philo.54 With Philo arose the question of the agreement in viewpoint between a philosophical successor and his school founder. With Antiochus, in turn, began the open and enduring avowal that indeed Academic successors from Arcesilaus forward had been untrue to their founder, an important issue in the evolving significance of the succession concept in Greek philosophy.55 In the second century A.D. Numenius carries analysis of the ancient heads of the Academy farther. In a work On the Divergence of the Academics from Plato (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 14.4.16) Numenius lists and discusses the Platonic successors from Speusippus to Antiochus (14.4.13-9.3). In the work he differentiates between a “second Academy” originated by Carneades and Clitomachus, who “turned away from the first (i.e., Plato’s) opinion” (14.4.15-6).56 Numenius’s interest in citing successors and stages in the Academy is suggested but not made clear in the surviving fragment. The suggestion is that he may have considered himself a true follower of Platonic thought in contrast to the Academic successors from Arcesilaus to Antiochus who, in their various ways, “diverged” from Plato’s system. Since at least Eusebius, and in Dillon’s opinion57 Numenius too, ended with Antiochus, we have no 53 Dillon,

Middle Platonists, 60. 55. 55 Glucker has demonstrated that philosophical schools in the organizational sense disappeared about this time (Antiochus and the Late Academy, 225, 346-56). 56 Numenius records that some also differentiate Philo and Antiochus from the third Academy (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 14.4.15-16). cf. Sextus, Pyrrh. 1.220. 57 Dillon, Middle Platonists, 365. 54 Ibid.,

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evidence that Numenius is employing his polemic against a contemporary. What is more certain is that he wrote to entertain. Dillon characterizes the work as “a racy and entertaining polemic” with “gossip-column Hellenistic historiography.”58 The story of Lacydes’ difficulty with Arcesilaus’s notion of “suspension of judgment,” ¦B@PZ (14.7.4; cf. 14.7.1-13), after his slaves’ criminal behavior, is evidence of such an interest by Numenius. In the early third century A.D. we find Diogenes’ Lives recording successions of schools to the third and second centuries B.C.59 Diogenes employed successions for apologetic, ethnocentric reasons beyond their simply providing the standard chronological framework for a biographical survey of philosophers. Granted, he wrote to entertain and edify.60 The leadership successions serve as hardly more than a chronological format. He coordinates with Olympiads the accessions of Speusippus (4.1), Theophrastus (322ca. 287) (5.36), Strato (5.58), and Hermarchus (10.15). In addition he specifies the years of tenure as school head for Speusippus (4.1) and Strato (5.58). Of course, one may reasonably assume that Diogenes noted which philosophers were successors because he generally wished to include these, by virtue of their position, among the more outstanding philosophers (4.67; 5.36, 58; 10.25).61 Long has observed that Diogenes occupies much space with evidence of the greatness of various philosophers.62 In particular, he wrote to demonstrate that Greek philosophy originated solely in Greek culture (1.3). Allen Brent has observed that Diogenes was in fact correcting those following the earlier views of Aristotle and Sotion that philosophers should trace their origins to other peoples, whether Persians or Babylonians or Indians or Celts or

58 Ibid.,

366. Diogenes’ successions extend to Clitomachus, the late second century B.C., in the Academy (4.65, 67), to Lyco, about 230-226, in the Lyceum (5.68), and to Basilides, perhaps the late third century, in Epicurus’s Garden (10.25). 60 H. S. Long, introduction to Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, (tr. Robert Drew Hicks; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 1: xx, xxii. 61 The one exception is specified by Diogenes (4.1). 62 Long, introduction, xxi. cf. the title, “Diogenes Laertius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers in Ten Books” in Hicks (3; cf. xviii). 59

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Egyptians (1.1-2).63 Diogenes employs, as Brent terms it, a “historical myth.” The philosophers, N48@F@N@\, as “friends of wisdom,” arose from the sophoi, F@N@\, “wise men,” of Greece. Furthermore, the wise men Thales and Pherecydes, teachers of the two originators of Greek philosophy, Anaximander and Pythagoras, supposedly enjoyed a unity in relationship, as indicated by their writing of letters to each other (1.43, 122).64

SIGNIFICANCE OF SUCCESSIONS Succession terminology in Diogenes’ sources was applied to school administrators considered loyal to the founding philosopher’s teaching. The successor is typically a philosopher who assumes the administrative leadership of a sect, a "ËDgF4H, with some institutional character that constitutes it as a school, a [email protected] Glucker notes that succession lists are found for leaders of philosophical “schools” but not for leaders of “sects.” Whereas the former term carried a concrete sense of an organized group, the latter term had an abstract meaning of a school of thought or an ideology.66 Diogenes uses the terms for succession—*4"*XP@:"4, *4"*@PZ, *4V*@P@H—and the related concept of “handing over”— B"D"*\*T:4—the school for eight philosophers directing the Academy after Plato (4.1-2, 14, 16, 21, 59-60, 67). Three successors of Aristotle’s school are named (5.36, 58, 65). Cleanthes “succeeded” the Stoic Zeno (7.167, 174). Hermarchus “succeeded” to Epicurus’s school (10.15). The succession concept emerges within familial contexts of kinship and inheritance. Diogenes records that Pythagoras in the sixth century left his memoirs in the custody of his daughter, Damo (8.42). The earliest transfer of school leadership recorded in the Lives is from Plato to his nephew and pupil Speusippus in the 108th Olympiad (348-344) (4.1). Then from Aristotle, a former pupil of Plato, comes the earliest will, transferring assets including school property and evidently executed in the 114th Olympiad (324-

63 “Diogenes,”

373. 375-6. 65 Long and Sedley’s generalization (Hellenistic philosophers, 5) notwithstanding. 66 Antiochus and the Late Academy, 159-66, 174. 64 Ibid.,

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320) (5.11-12, 36).67 Accordingly, Richard E. Wycherley has characterized the Greek philosophical schools as “essentially a specialized extension of the Hellenic household.”68 However, his evidence subsequently suggests a continuum among philosophical schools from the more public to the more private. It is the latter, Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum, and Epicurus’s Garden, that approximate Wycherley’s characterization.69

Administrative Leadership The successor has leadership responsibility, a role never mentioned for those who are simply followers. Followers are termed “pupils” or “disciples.”70 Among these followers are found the “successors,” but the latter group is distinguished in specific ways. Three Platonic successors are described as “leading the school,” •N0(gÃF2"4 J−H FP@8−H; (4.14, 61), or “being head of a school,” FP@8"DPgÃ< (4.1, 61). Similarly, two successors to Aristotle exercised Aristotle’s role of school leadership after him (5.5, 58, 68). As successor to Epicurus’s school, Hermarchus was “leader,” ²(g:f"4