What is Truth? – 5

If its true that the apostles were the ones to interpret Scripture, and the apostolic Church was therefore the one to interpret Scripture, does that same apostolic authority exist today? Does the apostolic Church exist today? If so where can we find it?  We have seen that Paul explicitly handed on his teaching authority to Timothy and commanded him to hand on that authority to others who would in turn hand it on to their successors.

Timothy wasn’t the only one. Paul also sent Titus to Crete to organize the Church there. He calls Titus his son in the faith and says, “The reason I left you behind in Crete was for you to get everything organized there and to appoint elders in every town the way I told you.” And what kind of a man must this elder be? “He must have a firm grasp of the unchanging tradition so that he can be counted on to expound sound doctrine.” So in the New Testament we see Paul clearly setting up the Church with his sons in the faith as his successors in the various locations.

The writings of the early Church testify that the first generation of Christians after the apostles believed their Church leaders had somehow inherited the same teaching authority that the apostles had.

So Clement—the leader of the Roman Church around 95 AD writes: “The Apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ…and they went out full of confidence in the Holy spirit…and appointed their first fruits…to be bishops and deacons. Our apostles knew there would be strife on the question of the bishop’s office, Therefore, they appointed these people already mentioned and later made further provision that if they should fall asleep other tested men should suceed to their ministry.” So Clement of Rome believed the apostles—one of whom may still have been alive—had wished for their teaching office to be continued in the Church.

Ignatius of Antioch was martyred in the year 115. In writing to the Trallian Church he equates the Church elders with apostles: “Submit yourselves also to the priests as to the Apostles of Jesus Christ.”

And Irenaeus who wrote around 180 AD also believed firmly that the Church had inherited the authority of the apostles to teach the truth faithfully. According to him it is because the Church leaders have inherited the apostolic authority that they can interpret Scripture properly. So he writes, “By knowldege of the truth we mean: the teaching of the Apostles; the order of the Church as established from earliest times throughout the world…preserved through the episcopal succession: for to the bishops the apostles committed the care of the church in each place which has come down to our own time safeguarded by …the most complete exposition…the reading of the Scriptures without falsification and careful and consistent exposition of them—avoiding both rashness and blasphemy.”

Remembering that Paul handed on his teaching authority to Timothy and Titus, and seeing how through history that authority has been handed down from generation to generation, Catholics believe that the dynamic and living teaching authority continues to live within the Catholic bishops who have received their ministry in direct line from the apostles, passed down over the last 2,000 years.

Because of this direct link Catholics believe the Church has a living connection with the apostolic authority, and that within the living apostolic tradition of the Catholic Church we can find a rock-solid, sure, historic and unified body of teaching which illuminates and interprets the Bible without fail.