St. Ambrose on Baptism of Desire

On May 15, 392, the young Western Roman Emperor Valentinian II was found dead in the imperial residence at Vienne in southern Gaul. It is said he was hanged using his own handkerchief.

Though emperor in name, Valentinian found himself at the mercy of his general, Arbogast, who held the prominent position of magister militum in the west. The hostility between Arbogast and Valentinian was well known. The 6th century historian Zosimus wrote of a famous public incident between the two when Valentinian attempted to remove Arbogast from command:

At length Valentinian, no longer able to submit to his correction, when Arbogastes was approaching him as he sat on the imperial throne, looked sternly upon him, and presented him with a writing, by which he dismissed him from his command. Arbogastes, having read it, replied, "You neither gave me the command, nor can deprive me of it;" and having said this, tore the writing to pieces, threw it down, and retired. From that period their hatred was no longer kept to themselves, but appeared in public. [Zosimus, New History, Book IV]

When Valentinian was found hanged in his bedchamber shortly thereafter, it was rumored that foul play was involved carried out by imperial eunuchs sympathetic to Arbogast. At any rate, few believed it was an actual suicide. St. Ambrose of Milan, who knew the young Valentinian, bitterly lamented his passing. In a letter to Valentinian's father, Emperor Theodosius, he wrote:

I am filled, I confess, with bitter grief, not only because the death of Valentinian has been premature, but also because, having been trained in the faith and moulded by your teaching, he had conceived such devotion towards our God, and was so tenderly attached to myself, as to love one whom he had before persecuted, and to esteem as his father the man whom he had before repulsed as his enemy. [Ambrose of Milan, Letter 51]

St. Ambrose also delivered the funeral oration for the slain prince. The issue was tricky because Valentinian had died without baptism. He had intended to receive baptism from the hand of St. Ambrose in person but circumstance for some time delayed these plans from coming to fruition. Were the Catholic faithful to despair of his salvation, since he died without the sacrament of regeneration? In his funeral oration St. Ambrose says no, for the desire for the sacrament has granted Valentinian the grace he required:

But I hear that you grieve because he did not receive the sacrament of baptism. Tell me: What else is in your power other than the desire, the request? But he even had this desire for a long time, that, when he should come into Italy, he would be initiated, and recently he signified a desire to be baptized by me, and for this reason above all others he thought that I ought to be summoned. Has he not, then, the grace which he desired; has he not the grace which he requested? And because he asked, he received, and therefore is it said: 'By whatsover death the just man shall be overtaken, his soul shall be at rest.’ (Wisdom 4:7) [Taken from Deferrari: "On Emperor Valentinian" in Funeral Orations by Saint Gregory Nazianzen and Saint Ambrose of Milan]

St. Ambrose's teaching here would become a fundamental text in the Church's teaching of baptism of desire; St. Thomas Aquinas quotes St. Ambrose's oration in his own affirmation of baptism of desire: "A man can obtain salvation without being actually baptized, on account of his desire for Baptism, which desire is the outcome of "faith that worketh by charity," whereby God, Whose power is not tied to visible sacraments, sanctifies man inwardly. Hence Ambrose says of Valentinian, who died while yet a catechumen: "I lost him whom I was to regenerate: but he did not lose the grace he prayed for" (STh III. Q. 68. Art. 2)

Just a reminder that the idea of baptism of desire is not a modern one but has it roots in the earliest days of Christendom, having been affirmed in by not only St. Ambrose but St. Augustine and many others--and notice that Ambrose does not merely discuss it as a hypothetical possibility, but states it as a fact that it has happened in this case.

Kudos to the excellent blog Gloria Romanorum for bringing the story to my attention; they have a much more in depth article about it here.

Related: Baptism of Blood in St. Bede

St. Patrick was not named "Maewyn Succat"

Today is the Feast of St. Patrick, the day set aside for commemoration of the life and deeds of the grat Apostle to the Irish. Unfortunately, its also the day a lot of rubbish about Patrick get spreadall over the interwebs. For example, have you ever heard people asserting that St. Patrick's real name was not Patrick, but Maewyn Succat?

The theory is that St. Patrick was born Maewyn Succat and only took the name Patrick upon his ordination to the priesthood. I first came across this bizarre assertion a few years ago when I overheard it on the Veggie Tales St. Patrick video. Since then, I have heard it with increasing frequency, especially from writers who have this smarmy "I know better than you" attitude about St. Patrick's Day; you know, the kind of articles that are like "Ten Things YOU Didn't Know About St. Patrick!" Number ONE...he was not Irish! (mind blown!), Number TWOOOO, his name was not actually Patrick. Number THREEEE...there were never any snakes in Ireland!!!! Whoaaaaa!

Reasons for Skepticism

The general tenor and scholarship of such articles obviously gives me pause, as well as some other facts. For one thing, I am very familiar with the writings of St. Patrick. He left only two authentic documents behind, the Confessio and the Letter to Coroticus. In neither of these does Patrick give any indication that his name is other than Patrick. He begins his Confessio with the beautiful and humble phrase, "Ego Patricius, peccator rusticissimus et minimus omnium fidelium", "I am Patrick, a sinner and a simple rustic, the least of all believers." Nowhere in the Confessio or his other letter does he give his name as anything else. So at least from primary sources, there is no justification for thinking Patrick's name was anything other than Patrick.

I also knew that it would not make sense for Patrick to have some sort of Gaelic name when he was clearly Romano-British. Patrick tells us as much in the opening of the Confessio. He gives his father's name as Calpurnius and his grandfather as Potitus, both ordained men and Latin speakers. The family came from the town of Bannavem Tiburniae - a Roman settlement. Remember, Patrick was born around 387 AD, about 23 years before the Roman legions left Britain. It was still a Roman province. He was educated in Latin and came from a Romano-British family. He was thoroughly Romanized. Some even say they came from Gaul originally, which would have made a Gaelic name even less plausible.

Given this, it is extremely unlikely that his birth name would have been the Gaelic Maewyn Succat while his father was Calpurnius and his grandfather Potitus. It would be like suggesting that  a German family where the grandfather is Hans and the father is Gunter would name the next in line Gomez. Is it possible? Certainly. Is it likely? Probably not. If I had to look at that genealogy and someone told me, 'The son is known as Heinrich, but some say his name was Gomez,' I'd bet my money on Heinrich. Similarly, it does make perfect sense that a father named Calpurnius would name his son Patricius since they were Romano-British, but it makes much less sense to think they would name him Maewyn.

Shoddy Research

The Maewyn Succat theory is characterized by shoddy research and the repetition of unfounded assertions. As I searched, I found that every article or essay which held to the Maewyn Succat theory did not cite any source for their assertion; or, if they did, they cited a source which itself was a secondary source and offered no primary reference or did not assert what the authors assumed. For example, the Wikipedia page or St. Patrick says Patrick was originally named Maewyn Succat and offers a citation. The citation leads to the website Sacred Space, run by the Irish Jesuits. The Sacred Space page cited on Wikipedia gives several details about St. Patrick's life, but does not include any claim that his name was Maewyn Succat. And even if it did, the Sacred Space article is not a primary source; it's simply a contemporary article written by some Irish Jesuit. So the Wikipedia claim that Patrick was named Maewyn Succat is a dead end. Most of my other attempts to track this down were as well. People are just repeating things without knowing where they came from.

But it did come from somewhere. People did not just start repeating the Maewyn Succat theory in a vacuum. Where was this coming from?

The Hymn of Fiacc

St. Fiacc, Bishop of Leinster (d. 520) was born from a Christian family who had been converted by St. Patrick. He had met the saint personally and is known for composing a metrical hymn in honor of St. Patrick. The hymn begins with the lines:

Patrick was born at Emptur:
This it is that history relates to us.
A child of sixteen years (was he)
When he was taken into bondage.

Succat was his name, it is said;
Who was his father is thus told:
He was son of Calpurn, son of Otidus,
Grandson of Deochain Odissus.

The relation between "Emptur" and Bannavem Tiburniae is uncertain; notice also that grandfather Potitus has become Otidus, and an additional relative Odissus is added. This is an example of what I would call the extreme elasticity surrounding Patrick's genealogy that anyone who has seriously studied the saint will acknowledge.

If there is an argument that Patrick's birth name was other than Patrick, I think Fiacc's poem would provide the strongest evidence. Yet even so, I do not think this is conclusive.

The interesting thing is that even though Fiacc had known Patrick, his knowledge seems to be from hearsay. Patrick was born at Emptur which is what "history relates to us"; Succat was his name, "it is said." By the time of Fiacc's old age, Patrick had been dead for almost sixty years and a substantial body of oral tradition had sprung up around him. One would think if Fiacc had first-hand knowledge of Patrick, Patrick's birth name would have been known to him from sources other than hearsay.

Fiacc's tentative naming of Patrick as Succat based on hearsay I think reflects not so much what Patrick was actually named by his Romano-British parents as much as what he was called by the Irish or by others. This is not an uncommon occurrence when a missionary or visitor comes to anew culture; for example, St. Isaac Jogues was called Ondessonk by the Hurons. Cortez, despite all his fame, was not called Cortez by the Aztecs; they called him Malinzin.

I believe this is what we have in the case of Patrick as well, at least in the first generation. The reasons for this will be explained below, but  think Fiacc is giving an authentically contemporary account of how Patrick was referred to by Irish converts in the early 6th century, not the name Patrick was baptized with.

Notice also that even if we grant the birth name Succat, we do not see any use of the name Maewyn in Fiacc's meter. Where did we get Maewyn Succat?

Tírechán Collectanea

Through a twisting academic goose chase the details of which I will not bore you with, I eventually found myself with the Latinized version of Maewyen Succat, Magonus Sucatus. This in turn led me to the writings of Tírechán (c. 684), Bishop of Connacht in County Mayo. Tírechán produced a work known as the Collectanea, which was a loose collection of stories about St. Patrick based on oral traditions. These oral traditions were gathered from the work of Tírechán's mentor, Ultan of Ardbraccan (d. 656) who had himself written a book on St. Patrick.

The Collectanea is interesting because it is written in first person, as if Patrick himself were speaking.

In the introduction to the Collectanea, we find the following passage:

"I have found four names for Patrick in a book written by Ultan, bishop of maccu Conchubair: the saint was called Magonus, that is, famous; Succetus [Succat], that is, the god of war; Patricius, that is, father of the citizens; Cothirthiacus, because he served four houses of druids" (Tírechán, Collectanea, 1).

Thus, we have four names given for St. Patrick. Notice right away that Maewyn Succat ("Magonus Succetus") is not one of them. Magonus and Succetus are two different names, as well as Cothirthiacus, which, presumably it is so cumbersome, is usually omitted by those who want to insist Patrick's name was not Patrick. Maewyn Succat is just an arbitrary mishmash of two separate names. We might as well call him Magonus Patricius, or Patricius Cothirthiacus, or Succeus Corthirthiacus or any other combination. Ludwig Bieler, the German Hiberno-Latin scholar who first translated Tírechán in 1951, noted that there was a "dubious selectiveness too often practiced in Patrician studies" when it came to Patrick's nomenclature (source).

So the name Maewyn Succat is just an arbitrary combination of two different names. But are Magonus or Succetus even proper names at all? This is hard to discern; clearly they are given in the same list as Patrick's given name, Patricius, which seems to imply they are. If Patrick is a proper name, then the others in this list may be as well. Then again, perhaps not. These other names may be titles or nicknames. For example, Succetus, god of war, according to Tírechán. Why would Patrick's Christian family - several of whom were members of the clergy - name him after a druidic war god? More likely than not, this was a title the Druids themselves may have given to Patrick. Similarly, Magonus, a corruption of Magnus (great), means famous and could have distinguished St. Patrick ("the famous Patrick") from others of similar name.

Thus, Tírechán's list is most likely not referring to Patrick's actual proper name (as if he were really named Magonus Succetus Patricius Corthirthiacus); rather, it is a amalgamated list of all names Patrick went by, both his proper name, as well as nicknames or titles given to him by others. Not to mention these might not have been nicknames used for Patrick while he was alive; Tírechán wrote in the late 7th century and these could have easily been titles that Patrick accrued posthumously.

Muirchú's Vita sancti Patricii

A generation after Tírechán wrote, a monk of Leinster named Muirchú wrote his own Life of St. Patrick. Muirchú's Vita sancti Patricii is based on Patrick's own Confessio as well as several oral traditions. Muirchú's work exists only in fragments and his not given too much historical credence as an actual biography of Patrick.

In the introduction to Muirchú's Vita, we see the following:

"Patrick, also named Sochet, a Briton by race, was born in Britain. His father was Cualfarnius, a deacon, the son (as Patrick himself says) of a priest, Potitus, who hailed from Bannauem Thaburniae" (Muirchú, Vita sancti Patricii, I.1).

We note right away that "Calpurnius" has been butchered to become "Cualfarnius." "Sochet", however, is spelled the same in Muirchú's Latin text; presumably this is the same title as Succat-Succetus in Tírechán's work. Muirchú is repeating an oral tradition here, as he says elsewhere he is unaware of any other biography of St. Patrick, other than that of Cogitosus (which does not mention the name Sochet or Succat). So clearly Muirchú is not simply copying Tírechán.

At any rate, this obscure passage "also named Sochet" from a hagiography c. 700, almost two and a half centuries after St. Patrick died, is of very little value in determining what Patrick was actually named by his family. He may have been drawing on the meter of Fiacc; but if so, are we to believe that Patrick's Christian parents - one of them ordained - baptized him in the name of a druidic deity?

Conclusion

Why do I seriously doubt Patrick was named Maewyn Succat? Just to be clear, I have no stake in Patrick not having a Gaelic name or something. It's really neither here nor there; I don't care if Patrick's real name was Maewyn any more than I care that St. Peter's real name was Simon. The reason I oppose this theory is because it is based on shoddy research and arbitrary nomenclature promoted by ignorant people looking for click bait. Just to review my reasons for opposing this theory:

(1) There is no primary source evidence that Patrick was named anything other than Patrick. Zero.
(2) Fiacc's meter, written 50-60 years after Patrick's death, mentions the name Succat but tentatively, suggesting "it is said" but gives no first hand knowledge of the fact. And he omits any mention of Maewyn.
(3) It makes no sense culturally or linguistically that Patrick's Roman family would give him a Gaelic name. But it makes perfect sense that he'd be named Patricius.
(4) It makes no sense that his Christian family would name him after a druidic war god.
(5) There's no documentary reference to Patrick's ordination, let alone that he changed his name on the occasion. Stories of Patrick's ordination (sometimes said to be by St. Germanus, sometimes by Pope St. Celestine) come from later hagiographies.
(6) The only other names given for Patrick do not appear in history until over two centuries after Patrick's death.
(7) These names may not be proper names at all but titles or nicknames given by the Irish or the Druids.
(8) These names may have been given posthumously.
(9) "Maewyn Succat" is not one of the names mentioned in either source; it is an amalgamation of two other separate names (Magonus and Succetus).
(10) This amalgamation is totally arbitrary because it omits the third name, Corthirthiacus.
(11) Bieler, the translator of Tírechán, also thinks insisting on this nomenclature is selective and arbitrary.
(12) Even if Tírechán and Muirchú were actually insisting that Patrick's given name was Maewyn Succat, this comes from two 7th century hagiographies which are generally not regarded as historically reliable sources of information about the historical St. Patrick.
(13) Nobody - or at least very few people - who assert the Maewyn Succat theory bother to track down its source. They just copy and paste and move on.

No, St. Patrick was not named Maewyn Succat, and I am fairly certain it s safe to insist on this.

+AMDG+

Book Review: "The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy"

For the past three months I have been immersed in The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy by the scholarly Jesuit Fr. Christian Cochini (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1981). The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy is the definitive work on the question of priestly celibacy in the Early Church, summarizing all the research done on this question since the Renaissance and adding truly monumental original contributions to this field by his own commentaries on Greek and Latin texts and voluminous compilation of primary sources. Fr. Cochini's magnum opus represents the last word on the question of clerical continence - and the historical sources absolutely vindicate the Tradition of the Church.

The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy aims to settle four points: (1) That there is a difference historically between the discipline of clerical celibacy and the discipline of clerical continence. (2) That the universal expectation in the Early Church was that clerics, married or unmarried, would observe perfect and perpetual continence. (3) That this was not just a pious custom but an actual law or precept, and (4) That the origins of this law go back to precedents set by the Apostles themselves. Every available text by a father, saint, pope, council, and even imperial legislation is brought to bear to prove these four points. And Fr. Cochini proves them beyond any modicum of doubt.

Honestly, until I read this book, I had not given much thought to the distinction between clerical celibacy and clerical continence. The former means the prohibition of clerics entering into marriage or of married men receiving Holy orders; the latter means abstention from sexual relations by all clerics, married or single. It is undeniable that the Early Church had married priests; some Traditionalists want to deny this plain fact of history. Don't bother. We had married priests. Get over it. In fact, Cochini devotes an entire chapter to documenting every single mention of a married bishop, priest or deacon in the Church of the first seven centuries. That we had married clerics is an undeniable fact of history and anyone who says otherwise has simply not read the sources.

However, the argument does not end there, because - and this is where the modern proponents of a married priesthood totally miss the point - while the Early Church admitted clerics to be married, it never, ever condoned clerics engaging in sexual activity. We are introduced to a plethora of texts - most of them previously unknown to me - in support of this position. For example, the Cum in Utum decretal of Pope Siricius, dating from 386:

"Moreover, as it is worthy, chaste, and honest to do so, this is what we advise: let the priests and Levites have no intercourse with their wives, inasmuch as they are absorbed in the daily duties of their ministries. Paul, when writing to the Corinthians, said, "Leave yourselves free for prayer" (1 Cor. 7:5). If lay people are asked to be continent so that their prayers are granted, all the more so a priest who should be ready at any moment, thanks to an immaculate purity, and not fearing the obligation of offering the sacrifice or baptizing. Were he soiled by carnal concupiscence, what could he do? Would he excuse himself? With what shame, in what state of mind would he carry out his functions?"

There is much more. Hundreds of citations over hundreds of pages drive the main point home: It has never been the tradition of the Church to condone a sexually active priesthood.

There are many things cleared up by understanding this discipline. For one thing, it handily explains the how the Church once allowed then prohibited married clerics while simultaneously claiming her teaching on this matter has never changed; this is because the teaching was never about whether a cleric could be married, but whether it was fitting for clerics to have sexual intercourse. Understood this way, the teaching (until modern times) has been unanimous.

It also puts the question of marriage in the Eastern Rites into a glaringly new perspective. When we understand the ancient discipline, we see that it is not, as so often asserted, that the Western Church imposed a new discipline onto its clerics while the East, which allows married priests, is preserving a more ancient practice. On the contrary, East and West both insisted on continence from their clerics. In the West, this insistence remained so strong that eventually it became clear that the only way to ensure it was to prohibit the ordination of married men (the discipline of celibacy); in the East, the observance of the ancient canons began to grow lax until after the Quinisext Council of 692, married clerics were finally allowed to use the marital rights. Thus it was the East that changed the discipline, not the West.

I highly recommend Fr. Cochini's book for anyone who wants a solid patristic understanding of this question. You can purchase it here on Amazon.

If you want an in depth but more concise synopsis of the historical arguments presented in Cochini's book, please see my article "The Truth About Priestly Celibacy and Continence in the Early Church" on the USC website, which synthesizes the most important primary sources cited by Cochini and explains their theological and historical significance.

St. Cyprian on the Eucharist

For the past year, I have been working through all the writings of St. Cyprian of Carthage in the process of putting together a book on the great Father. [Now completed; click here to purchase] In honor of the Feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated earlier this week, I present to you some of greatest quotes from St. Cyprian on the Eucharist.

These two stories from On the Lapsed relate accounts of those who had lapsed during the Decian persecution attempting to receive Holy Communion before being properly reconciled to the Church:

"[A] woman who in advanced life and of more mature age secretly crept in among us when we were sacrificing, received not food, but a sword for herself; and as if taking some deadly poison into her jaws and body, began presently to be tortured, and to become stiffened with frenzy; and suffering the misery no longer of persecution, but of her crime, shivering and trembling, she fell down. The crime of her dissimulated conscience was not long unpunished or concealed. She who had deceived man felt that God was taking vengeance" (On the Lapsed, 26).

"[W]hen one, who himself was defiled, dared with the rest to receive secretly a part of the sacrifice celebrated by the priest; he could not eat nor handle the holy of the Lord, but found in his hands when opened that he had a cinder" (ibid.)

Here Cyprian reflects on the connection between being in union with Christ through the sacrament of His Body and being in union with the Church, which is His mystical body:

"Christ is the bread of those who are in union with His body. And we ask that this bread should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not, by the interposition of some heinous sin, by being prevented, as withheld and not communicating, from partaking of the heavenly bread, be separated from Christ's body, as He Himself predicts, and warns, "I am the bread of life which came down from heaven. If any man eat of my bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world." When, therefore, He says, that whoever shall eat of His bread shall live for ever; as it is manifest that those who partake of His body and receive the Eucharist by the right of communion are living, so, on the other hand, we must fear and pray lest any one who, being withheld from communion, is separate from Christ's body should remain at a distance from salvation; as He Himself threatens, and says, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall have no life in you." And therefore we ask that our bread— that is, Christ— may be given to us daily, that we who abide and live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and body" (On the Lord's Prayer, 18).

Here are some more quotes by the good Bishop of Carthage on the Eucharist; note the connection between the the blood of Christ being consumed as preparation for the martyr shedding his own blood for Christ:

"But now indeed peace is necessary, not for the sick, but for the strong; nor is communion to he granted by us to the dying, but to the living, that we may not leave those whom we stir up and exhort to the battle unarmed and naked, but may fortify them with the protection of Christ's body and blood. And, as the Eucharist is appointed for this very purpose that it may be a safeguard to the receivers, it is needful that we may arm those whom we wish to be safe against the adversary with the protection of the Lord's abundance. For how do we teach or provoke them to shed their blood in confession of His name if we deny to those who are about to enter on the warfare the blood of Christ? Or how do we make them fit for the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first admit them to drink, in the Church, the cup of the Lord by the right of communion?" (Letter 53:2)

"[T]he soldiers of Christ ought to prepare themselves with uncorrupted faith and robust courage, considering that they drink the cup of Christ's blood daily, for the reason that they themselves also may be able to shed their blood for Christ" (Letter 55:1).

"Let us also arm the right hand with the sword of the Spirit, that it may bravely reject the deadly sacrifices; that, mindful of the Eucharist, the hand which has received the Lord's body may embrace the Lord Himself, hereafter to receive from the Lord the reward of heavenly crowns" (Letter 55:9).

Though a more precise sacramental theology would not arise until the later Middle Ages, Cyprian makes some early contributions to the ideas of matter and form when he addresses the problem of certain Churches attempting to consecrate the Eucharist with water instead of wine. Note his statement that the blood cannot "appear" to be in the cup unless the proper form (wine) is present: 

"For when Christ says, "I am the true vine", the blood of Christ is assuredly not water, but wine; neither can His blood by which we are redeemed and quickened appear to be in the cup, when in the cup there is no wine whereby the blood of Christ is shown forth, which is declared by the sacrament and testimony of all the Scriptures" (Letter 62:2).

St. Cyprian frequently refers to the offering of the Eucharist as a sacrifice and calls the Mass "the sacrifices of God." For example:

"Yea, it is the great honor and glory of our episcopate to have granted peace to martyrs, so that we, as priests, who daily celebrate the sacrifices of God, may prepare offerings and victims for God" (Letter 52:3).

"[W]e ought in the ordinations of priests to choose none but unstained and upright ministers, who, holily and worthily offering sacrifices to God, may be heard in the prayers which they make for the safety of the Lord's people" (Letter 67:2).

Finally, on the wonderful effects of receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood:

"When the blood of the Lord and the cup of salvation have been drunk, the memory of the old man is laid aside, and there arises an oblivion of the former worldly conversation, and the sorrowful and sad breast which before was oppressed by tormenting sins is eased by the joy of the divine mercy; because that only is able to rejoice him who drinks in the Church which, when it is drunk, retains the Lord's truth" (Letter 62:11).

St. Cyprian, ora pro nobis!

Reliability of the Fathers (4 of 7)

In my previous posts on the Church Fathers and their general reliability as authentic interpreters of the truths of the Gospel, we have looked at the objection that the legalization of Christianity fundamentally altered the Church's understanding of itself and its beliefs, that the difference in "cultural horizons" between the Greek and Latin fathers and the Jewish apostles made a faithful transmission of apostolic truth to later generations impossible, and that the transformation of the Church from a Jewish to a Gentile reality made the teachings of the Gentile Fathers unreliable.

Today, we look at the fourth objection of my Protestant interlocutor (the original objections of this interlocutor can be found in post one of this series). In objection four, our interlocutor states that the teaching of the Fathers is unreliable due to:

The rise and dominance of the legalistic and ascetic strains within Christianity.

This is actually two objections: by "legalistic" I assume he is referring to the gradual development of the Church's hierarchical and canonical structure of governance, especially with relation to the "charistmatic" tendencies in the early Church, which though never entirely died out, were less and less prevalent from the 4th century on. By "ascetic", I can only assume he is referring to the rise of monasticism from the late 3rd century onward.

Let's start with the first objection: Do the evolution of a hierarchy governed by canonical norms and the simultaneous rise of monasticism mean that the Church Father's understanding of the Scriptures is flawed or untrustworthy?

First, note that the interlocutor is coming at the early Church with what we could call a hermeneutic of historical rupture. He is operating on the assumption that Early Apostolic Church = No Legalism, but Patristic Church = Legalism.  The interlocutor shares the common Protestant idea that the primitive Church was governed in a decentralized manner with charismatic impulses fulfilling the role that the hierarchy would fulfill later. This is too big an argument to take up here, as it would involve a massive survey of the role of hierarchy in the early Church and the development of what we would call "canon law." I think it suffices to say that asserting that apostolic Christianity was not "legalistic" is based on a false understanding of apostolic church, and that opposing a primitive "charismatic" Church to a latter "hierarchical" or "legalistic" Church is a false dichotomy. I have written about the charismatic vs. institutional concept elsewhere. Regarding whether or not the Church of the apostolic era (late 1st t- mid 2nd century) was "legalistic", we should keep a few things in mind:

The Didache, the earliest Christian document we have outside of the New Testament, is full of what many Protestants would consider "legalisms", for example:

"But concerning baptism, thus shall ye baptize. Having first recited all these things, baptize {in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit} in living (running) water. But if thou hast not living water, then baptize in other water and if thou art not able in cold, then in warm. But if thou hast neither, then pour water on the head thrice in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let him that baptizeth and him that is baptized fast, and any others also who are able; and thou shalt order him that is baptized to fast a day or two before" (7:1-7).

These are distinctions that modern Protestants would presume to be legalistic - why the preference for running water over still? And why cold rather than hot? And commanding fasting for two days prior? Most Protestants would consider these commands to be legalistic, if for no other reason than that they are not commanded by the New Testament, but in a larger sense, because the convey the message that not only Faith matters, but exactly how the commandments of our Lord are carried out liturgically.

Or consider this passage, also from the Didache:

"And let not your fastings be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and the fifth day of the week; but do ye keep your fast on the fourth and on the preparation (the sixth day) day" (8:1-2).

If I were a Protestant and insisted that fasting should only be done on certain days of the week, my teaching would be called "legalist" for the reason that one day would be valued above another. Yet here we have this alleged "legalism" right in the midst of the apostolic era, in fact, in the earliest document outside of the New Testament. The Didache is full of this sort of stuff - the exact words to use in the Eucharist, how many days a prophet is allowed to stay in a home, and, interestingly enough, commands to appoint bishops and deacons (15:1). Yet all of this occurs in the midst of commandments about how to handle visionaries and prophets, and in one verse, it says that bishops and deacons also "perform the service of prophets" (15:2). 

What we gather from this is that those who say that the first generations of Christians were only concerned with living the Sermon on the Mount and living by charismatic impulses are mistaken. The charismatic certainly existed, but it existed side by side with a developing canonical ("legalistic") framework. Furthermore, these two aspects of the Church were not opposed to one another; in fact,  the ideal seems to be that the charismatic is exercised through the hierarchical, as we see in the comment about bishops being prophets.

Not to deny any change between the apostolic era and later generations. The institutional aspect of the Church did become more solidified over time, but that is natural and to be expected with any concept, as Newman said. And it is true that as Christianity became more mainstream, and the average lay Christian became less of an ascetic, that charismatic gifts decreased among the laity. But the point we need to stress here is that there was never a time when a hierarchical, legalistic Christianity "rose" and then "dominated" because Christianity never was an amorphous, non-legalistic movement. The charismatic and hierarchical, the Spirit-filled and "legalist" were all the same movement, and there was no "dominating" of an earlier form of Christianity by a latter. Thus, though the Church developed naturally as it grew, we can discern no radical rupture between an apostolic and a patristic Church, and since there is no rupture in the form of the Church, we should assume no rupture in its teaching or interpretation of the content of Revelation, either.

Not that there was no resistance to hierarchical developments, but interestingly enough, those who most resisted the hierarchical developments and insisted on granting primacy to the charismatic were the heretical groups such as the Marcionites, Montanists and the various Gnostic sects.

Let us move on to the second objection: that the "rise and dominance" of the ascetic strain of Christianity means a disruption in the Church's understanding of Sacred Scripture.  

As with the first objection, this one puts up a false dichotomy between a non-ascetical primitive Christianity and a later Christianity dominated by asceticism. The fundamental error in this thinking is the confusion of ascetical with monastic. The interlocutor is correct if he means that Christianity was not always monastic, but he is sadly mistaken if he thinks it was not always ascetical. Asceticism means the disciplining of the body to bring it into subjection to the higher faculties, especially through fasting and abstinence from external things that, while good, are given up in order that the soul might attain to higher things. This practice of ascecis was always present in the Church, from the virgin martyrs of the first centuries who voluntarily abstained from marriage for the sake of the kingdom, going right back to St. Paul who said:

"Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize. So run that you may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things. And they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air. But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway" (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Monasticism did not spring up until the mid-third century, but asceticism was always with us. Indeed, monasticism was simply a new expression of asceticism, which was necessary as Christianity became an increasingly mainstream movement and ascetics sought new ways to live out their ascecis within the developing Church. But, as with the arguments about the hierarchy, the problem here is in viewing the monastic movement as a radical departure from what had come before. But, once we recognize the presence of the ascetical spirit even in the early, urbanized Christianity of the apostolic era, we see the emergence of monasticism as something that organically flowed from what had come before it and in no way constituted a real rupture, either in practice or belief.

Furthermore, as we established in our first post on this subject, with regards to accuracy of biblical interpretation, the gradual intensification of the ascetical spirit in the monastic movement does not make the Church's interpretive tradition less sure, but rather more certain, as the teachings of the Fathers carry weight "because they are men of eminent sanctity and of ardent zeal for the truth, on whom God has bestowed a more ample measure of His light" (Providentissimus Deus, 14), according to Pope Leo XIII. In other words, the fact that in the third century we start to see incredibly holy men like St. Anthony and St. Paul the Hermit pop up means that, by their ascecis and rigorous life of prayer and penance, they have a greater focus on the truth and a clearer insight into the meaning of the Scriptures.

Based on this, exegesis that comes out of this period is not only consonant with what came before (inasmuch as the monastic movement was an organic development of the earlier ascetical tradition, rather than a new idea that "rose" to "dominance"), but we can expect a more precise development and a greater insight into the spiritual life inasmuch as the desert fathers were eminently holy.

This is a very long post and I do not pretend that it has answered the objections as fully as they could be. But, I do believe that we are mistaken to think the Fathers in general are unreliable just because the hierarchy and the Church's expression of ascecis naturally developed over the centuries. Development does not mean change. Development means development, and as development is natural and organic, and in the case of the Church, Spirit led, what comes prior must be interpreted in light of what comes later. The first century is interpreted in light of the second, the second in light of the third, and so on. There is no real rupture, no real sense in which we can assert that what a Christian of the fourth century understood when he read the Scriptures was radically different than what a Christian of the first century saw.

Next time, we will look at a similar objection based on the development of using the process of "deselection" to establish orthodoxy.

St. Augustine did not "invent" Original Sin

I am amazed how historians who seem to have an otherwise good grip on history will, when it comes to the Church or sacred history, make grossly erroneous statements that reveal how ignorant they are on the subject matter. I was recently reading a best-selling economic history book by a Harvard professor that had some statement in there about Solomon asking the Lord to stop the sun; this episode happened not to Solomon, but to Joshua, of course, who lived several centuries before Solomon. Almost everybody, even people not knowledgeable in the Old Testament, have at least heard of how Joshua commanded the sun to stop at the Valley of Aijalon. For a Harvard historian to get the wrong person by two centuries is pretty bad, especially when the data is right in front of your eyes and you just have to do the research. But who cares; it's only the Bible, right?

I have encountered a similar but more widespread problem when it comes to the doctrine of original sin and its alleged "invention" by St. Augustine of Hippo. I have seen this in textbooks, history books, historical programming, even materials put together by Catholic organizations - all asserting, almost as if it is without contest, the "fact" that the Church's teaching on original sin was an invention of St. Augustine of Hippo and is not found in either the Scriptures or the Fathers.

This baffles me, as it seems that just a cursory reading of Scripture and the Fathers, with a bit of understanding of the historical context of Augustine's teaching on original sin, is enough to disprove this oft repeated error of fact. St. Augustine was certainly integral to the development of the doctrine of original sin, even as St. Thomas was integral to the development of the doctrine of the Real Presence or St.Cyprian was integral in the development of ecclesiology. Nevertheless, just as it is wrong to say St. Thomas invented the Real Presence or St. Cyprian invented the concept of episcopal unity, so it is equally wrong to state that St. Augustine invented the doctrine of original sin. This error becomes culpable when done in textbooks and other contexts that are supposed to be shedding light on history but actually just obscure the facts.

First, let us define Original Sin. Original sin, in the context I am using it, refers to the teaching that death comes to man through the sin of our first parents, and that the grace of God is necessary to overcome this sin and perform any salutary works. The traditional teaching on original sin is summarized in the canons of the Council of Carthage against Pelagianism (418):

1. Death did not come to Adam from a physical necessity, but through sin.
2. New-born children must be baptized on account of original sin.
3. Justifying grace not only avails for the forgiveness of past sins, but also gives assistance for the avoidance of future sins.
4. The grace of Christ not only discloses the knowledge of God's commandments, but also imparts strength to will and execute them.
5. Without God's grace it is not merely more difficult, but absolutely impossible to perform good works.

For many, this Council represents the "invention" of a novel doctrine. But this assertion reveals, I think, an ignorance of the words of Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers.

Let us first turn to what I believe in the classic proof-text for original sin in the Scriptures, the words of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, chapter 5:

"Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death [contra the Pelagians who taught that death was natural and not the result of sin]: and so death passed upon all men [death is what was passed, not simply a bad example], in whom all have sinned. For until the law sin was in the world: but sin was not imputed, when the law was not. But death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them also who have not sinned, after the similitude of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come. But not as the offense, so also the gift. For if by the offense of one, many died: much more the grace of God and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many. And not as it was by one sin, so also is the gift. For judgment indeed was by one unto condemnation: but grace is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned through one; much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift and of justice shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one, unto all men to condemnation: so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life. For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners: so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just" (Rom. 5:12-19).

St. Paul here clearly states that death came into the world through the offense of one man, and that through this offense, "many were made sinners" and "many died." This is precisely what is taught by the Council of Carthage, and it is here found in the Scriptures. Also relevant are Wisdom 2:24 (""But by the envy of the devil death came into the world") and 1 Cor. 15:21: "For by a man came death and by a man the resurrection of the dead." The Catholic Encyclopedia points out that this can only refer to physical death, since it is using the physical Resurrection from the dead as a contrast.

If the Scriptures clearly testify that the concept of original sin is biblical, evidence from the pre-Nicene Fathers confirms it. Though we could find several examples, those offered by St. Cyprian is especially notable because he illustrates the Catholic understanding of original sin explicitly in his Letter 58, which deals with infant baptism (a teaching repudiated by the Pelagians). In these readings, notice the assumptions Cyprian makes about infant baptism: that is communicates grace and saves souls; i.e., that it remits sin. Cyprian says:

"But in respect of the case of the infants, which you say ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that the law of ancient circumcision should be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day, we all thought very differently in our council. For in this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man. For as the Lord says in His Gospel, "The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." As far as we can we must strive that, if possible, no soul be lost. For what is wanting to him who has once been formed in the womb by the hand of God? To us, indeed, and to our eyes, according to the worldly course of days, they who are born appear to receive an increase. But whatever things are made by God, are completed by the majesty and work of God their Maker. Moreover, belief in divine Scripture declares to us, that among all, whether infants or those who are older, there is the same equality of the divine gift" (Letter 58:2-3).

But if that doesn't convince you, here is a more explicit example in which original sin is very plainly taught:

"If anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted— and nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace— how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins— that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another?" (Letter 58:5)

This letter was written around 253, so clearly this is way before Augustine and Pelagius. Yet here we have all the tenets of the doctrine of original sin - catching the "contagion" of Adam just by virtue of birth, the effect of this contagion being death, and this understood as a "sin" that comes to all who are "born of the flesh." St. Augustine himself, in refuting the Pelagians, mentions thirteen other Fathers, both Greek and Latin, who before his own time had clearly taught the doctrine of original sin, in his Contra Julianum, Book II.

Looking at the manner in which the Pelagian controversy itself played out gives further evidence that original sin was indeed taught prior to Augustine. In 411, before Augustine had even gotten involved in the Pelagian controversy (for he was still putting down the Donatist heresy), the Bishop Aurelius of Milan condemned the six main tenets of Pelagianism as heretical. The condemned propositions were:

1. Even if Adam had not sinned, he would have died.
2. Adam's sin harmed only himself, not the human race.
3. Children just born are in the same state as Adam before his fall.
4. The whole human race neither dies through Adam's sin or death, nor rises again through the resurrection of  Christ.
5. The (Mosaic Law) is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel.
6. Even before the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin.

This condemnation was made not by one of the Church's great theological luminaries, but by a regular ordinary, who had the common sense to see immediately the heretical import of these statements. Clearly, the Catholic concept of original sin was plainly understood at this point prior to Augustine's writings on the subject.

It is interesting to see how the Church proceeded from this point on. After the condemnation of Aurelius, Caelestius, a lay-monk seeking ordination and principle teacher of the Pelagians, was summoned to appear at a synod at Carthage to retract his statements. Had original sin been not clearly taught, would he have been summoned to defend his positions? It is note worthy that Caelestius replied that Adam's sin and its consequences were still open to debate, and refused to recant. He was immediatelt excluded from ordination and his six theses condemned. So, we have the summoning of a synod to compel Caelestius to recant, the refusal of ordination and the formal condemnation of the Pelagian premises before Augustine even wrote one word on the subject. Clearly, as Church praxis here shows us, the matter was not considered "open to debate." If it was open to debate, it must have been in the same sense that modern dissenters claim that contraception and homosexuality are still "open to debate."

St. Augustine tells us that, from 411 to 412, Pelagianism began to spread rampantly around Carthage, prompting many sermons and condemnations of it by local bishops. It was not until late in 412 when Augustine finally got involved, by which time Pelagianism was already recognized as a heresy and deviation of the Catholic teaching on original sin. It was then, around 412, that St. Augustine composed On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants, where he laid out the Catholic teaching on original sin and backed it up with an appeal to the Church's practice of infant baptism. Far from inventing or bringing out original sin for the first time, Augustine was simply putting into writing what the Church already believed, as is evidenced by the manner in which the controversy was handled prior to Augustine putting pen to parchment.

Jerome condemned Pelagianism as soon as he heard of it, in 415. It is true that Pelagius was exonerated at two regional synods, but this has nothing to do with the issue being open to debate; rather it had to do, in the first case, with the Catholic defendant (Orosius) being unable to argue in Greek against Pelagius, and in the latter case of Pelagius accuser's simply not showing up to the synod.

Nevertheless, two synods, one in Carthage and one in Numidia, condemned Pelagianism, comprising over one hundred twenty six bishops. Clearly, original sin was no novelty is 126 bishops were willing to come together and issue joint condemnations. Finally, in January of 417, Pope Innocent I entered the controversy and formally condemned Pelagianism and excommunicated Pelagius and Caelestius. Another condemnation by Pope Zosimus followed in 418. Would the Bishop of Rome issue these condemnations based on a novelty of St. Augustine? In Innocent's condemnation of Pelagius, the writings of St. Augustine are not appealed to; rather, the Church's practice of infant baptism and St. Paul's letter to the Romans are. The popes condemned Pelagianism because they held the teaching of original sin to be apostolic, as judged both by Scriptural standards and the constant practice of the Church in baptizing infants.

If we look at the manner in which the Church proceeded here, with its regional synods, episcopal preaching against Pelagius, condemnation of the teachings of Caelestius, the letters of Jerome and Augustine, it is clear that the Catholic dogma of original sin was not something invented by Augustine. Was St. Augustine the most thorough expositor of the dogma up to that time? Yes. Was he called upon because of his reputation for erudition and eloquence to use his pen to explain the Catholic position? Yes. Was he fundamental in the development of the doctrine. Absolutely. Was original sin "invented" by St. Augustine, in such a way that it can be asserted that this doctrine did not exist before he defended it in writing? By no means. To assert otherwise is to misunderstand history and ignore Scripture and the Fathers.

St. Cyprian on Disciplined Prayer

In honor of the Feast of Sts. Cornelius and Cyprian, which we celebrated yesterday (September 16th), let us look at Cyprian's excellent Treatise on the Lord's Prayer, where he speaks of a topic that is very relevant today vis-a-vis the discussions between traditionalist and charismatic Catholics on the proper posture for prayer. Rather than preface the saint, I will just let him speak for himself:

"Let our speech and petition when we pray be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty. Let us consider that we are standing in God's sight. We must please the divine eyes both with the habit of body and with the measure of voice. For as it is characteristic of a shameless man to be noisy with his cries, so, on the other hand, it is fitting to the modest man to pray with moderated petitions. Moreover, in His teaching the Lord has bidden us to pray in secret— in hidden and remote places, in our very bed-chambers— which is best suited to faith, that we may know that God is everywhere present, and hears and sees all, and in the plenitude of His majesty penetrates even into hidden and secret places, as it is written, "I am a God at hand, and not a God afar off. If a man shall hide himself in secret places, shall I not then see him? Do not I fill heaven and earth?" (Jer. 23:23-24) And again: "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." (Prov. 15:3)

And when we meet together with the brethren in one place, and celebrate divine sacrifices with God's priest, we ought to be mindful of modesty and discipline— not to throw abroad our prayers indiscriminately, with unsubdued voices, nor to cast to God with tumultuous wordiness a petition that ought to be commended to God by modesty; for God is the hearer, not of the voice, but of the heart. Nor need He be clamorously reminded, since He sees men's thoughts, as the Lord proves to us when He says, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" (Matt. 9:4) And in another place: "And all the churches shall know that I am He that searches the hearts and reins" (Rev. 2:23) [Treatise on the Lord's Prayer, 4]

What can we say? Although Cyprian obviously reminds us that God searches the hearts and is not impressed by bodily movements, he also states that when we "celebrate divine sacrifices with God's priest", there are nevertheless certain  postures and gestures which are more fitting for divine worship; namely, those that are done under discipline. In case we misunderstand what he means by discipline, he goes on to contrast the moderate, disciplined prayer of the godly man with the prayer of the "shameless" man, who prays with "noisy cries" and "throws abroad" his prayers indiscriminately with "wordy" petitions. We see then that, at least as far as Cyprian is concerned, the sort of prayer services or liturgies that commonly go under the phrase "charismatic" these days would not have met with the approval of the famous bishop-martyr of Carthage.

This is also an important citation because, according to some, the pre-Nicene Church was more fluid and charismatic in their liturgies. The liturgy did not become "crystallized" in any sort of rigid form until after Nicaea. While it is true that the liturgical rubrics were more fluid in the patristic age than in later ages, it certainly does not follow that therefore the worship of the Church was entirely devoid of order. As St. Cyprian states here, the liturgies he celebrated and extolled as the norm for the Church were somber, disciplined, affairs, imbued with a spirit of order and reverent silence.

"Let all things be done decently and according to order" (1 Cor. 14:40).

Authority Over Demons in the Early Church

Some time ago, I did a post addressing whether or not saints could be possessed by the devil. The topic was brought to my attention by some statements in Fr. Gabriel Amorth's book on exorcism in which he related several stories of canonized saints who had apparently been possessed by the devil, though by no fault of their own.

I took issue with Fr. Amorth, suggesting that it seemed very improbably that a soul that was truly sanctified could be open to demonic possession, as well as doubting whether imposing satanic possession upon a believer would ever be God's will. Many of my readers disagreed with me, which is totally fine; this is highly speculative, and there are purported cases of it in Church history. I also made sure to keep my comments very speculative due to my ignorance on matters relating to exorcism.

That being said, I still take great issue with the concept that  a person with a eminent degree of sanctity can be possessed by the devil. I have spent a lot of time since the last post researching this, and knowing that the Fathers of the Church had a very keen understanding of exorcism and a firm belief in the reality of demons (unlike many modern theologians), I decided to see if the Fathers had any comment on this issue of believers being subject to demonic possession.

What I have found is that, with no exceptions that I know of, the Church Fathers do not believe that believers  (true believers) can be possessed by the devil, and that freedom from and authority over the devil are one of the marks of a true Christian. They also assert that possession always results from some fault on the part of the possessed; either they are mired in sin, apostates, worshiping pagan gods, or else frequenting places where demons are especially active.

In the first place, if we look at the works of Justin Martyr and Tertullian, we can find many statements testifying to the patristic belief in the authority of the common Christian over the demons and the freedom of the Christian from their power. Though these quotes do not mention exorcism or possession directly, they reflect the common view in the early Church that Christians, walking in the power of the Spirit, always had authority over the evil one:

St. Justin Martyr: "For we do continually beseech God by Jesus Christ to preserve us from the demons which are hostile to the worship of God, and whom we of old time served, in order that, after our conversion by Him to God, we may be blameless. For we call Him Helper and Redeemer, the power of whose name even the demons do fear; and at this day, when they are exorcised in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, governor of Judæa, they are overcome. And thus it is manifest to all, that His Father has given Him so great power, by virtue of which demons are subdued to His name, and to the dispensation of His suffering" (Dialogue With Trypho, 30).

Servitude to the demons is a sign of bondage to sin. A hallmark of Christian freedom, of Christ's atoning death, is that the believer is not only freed from demonic possession but has authority over them. This would not make any sense if we could postulate that sometimes holy saints can be in bondage to demons.

Tertullian: "For, though the whole power of demons and kindred spirits is subject to us, yet still, as ill-disposed slaves sometimes conjoin contumacy with fear, and delight to injure those of whom they at the same time stand in awe, so is it here" (Apology, 27).

"Now if Socrates was pronounced the wisest of men by the oracle of the Pythian demon, which, you may be sure, neatly managed the business for his friend, of how much greater dignity and constancy is the assertion of the Christian wisdom, before the very breath of which the whole host of demons is scattered!" (Treatise on the Soul, 1).

"For God, Creator of the universe, has no need of odors or of blood. These things are the food of devils. But we not only reject those wicked spirits: we overcome them; we daily hold them up to contempt; we exorcise them from their victims, as multitudes can testify" (Ad Scapula, 2).

The demons, for Justin and Tertullian, are to be held up to scorn and contempt through their public exorcism. The power of the name of Christ over the demons seems to be a sign of Christ's general triumph; the Christian victory over demonic possession is an attribute of Christ's victory over Satan. Once we see this connection, it seems very unlikely that the Fathers would support the concept of a Christian being possessed by a devil as part of God's will, much less a Christian of eminent sanctity. The personal triumph over demons and a Christian's protection from them are intimately bound up with Christ's victory at the cross. To suggest that holy Christians can be possessed would seem to undermine this, or that's the way the Fathers would see things.

If we go on to some of the later writings, of Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, the Apostolic Constitutions, we see that this concept of the Christian's power over the demons if developed into a theology of the general freedom of a Christian (a "true Christian", as Origen says) from demonic possession. But first, let's continue with Tertullian, who has two more interesting quotes:

"Do you fear man, O Christian?— you who ought to be feared by the angels, since you are to judge angels; who ought to be feared by evil spirits, since you have received power also over evil spirits" (De Fuga in Persecutione, 9). 

The evil spirits are in the power of the Christian; therefore, Christians have nothing to fear from them. This seems to preclude any notion that the Christian can fall under demonic possession.

"We have the case of the woman— the Lord Himself is witness— who went to the theatre, and came back possessed. In the outcasting, accordingly, when the unclean creature was upbraided with having dared to attack a believer, he firmly replied, And in truth I did it most righteously, for I found her in my domain (De Spectaculis, 26).

This is an interesting example, because the case is related of a Christian woman who was frequenting the pagan games and was possessed by a demon while at the amphitheater, which the demon refers to as "my domain." The demon's words seem to suggest that, while lawful possession can occur if a person is in a demon's "domain", demonic possession of believers who are not in that demon's domain would be "unlawful." It is hard to make a clear, dogmatic point based on something a demon said (although traditionally demons during exorcism are compelled to tell the truth), but it is interesting to think about.

Origen dealt with the issue of demonic possession extensively in his apology to the pagan Celsus. His quotes are long, but worth looking into at length:

Origen: "And Christians have nothing to fear, even if demons should not be well-disposed to them; for they are protected by the Supreme God, who is well pleased with their piety, and who sets His divine angels to watch over those who are worthy of such guardianship, so that they can suffer nothing from demons. He who by his piety possesses the favor of the Most High, who has accepted the guidance of Jesus, the Angel of the great counsel, being well contented with the favor of God through Christ Jesus, may say with confidence that he has nothing to suffer from the whole host of demons" (Contra Celsus, Book VIII:27).

The believer has "nothing to suffer" from the demons, and this may be said "with confidence." A sign of one's belonging to Christ is angelic protection from demonic possession, and this is established through the mandate of God. This does not mean that devils may not attack believers (as we see in the case of St. John Vianney, for example), but it does seem to preclude any concept of a demon gaining entrance into a Christian and possessing them, since this protection seems to be extended more to those who "are worthy of such guardianship." He goes on:

"We do not, then, deny that there are many demons upon earth, but we maintain that they exist and exercise power among the wicked, as a punishment of their wickedness. But they have no power over those who have put on the whole armor of God, who have received strength to withstand the wiles of the devil, and who are ever engaged in contests with them, knowing that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places  (ibid., 34).

Here is where Origen would take issue with Fr. Amorth. Fr. Amorth suggests that demons can exercise power over Christians if this is the will of God; Origen, like the other Fathers, states that true Christians are immune from this sort of thing and that those who are in the power of the demons are those who are "among the wicked" and receive demonic possession "as a punishment of their wickedness." The demons have "no power" among those who have put on God's armor. Continuing on, Origen says:

"But the angels, who are the true rulers and generals and ministers of God, do not, as Celsus supposes, injure those who offend them; and if certain demons, whom Celsus had in mind, do inflict evils, they show that they are wicked, and that they have received no office of the kind from God. And they even do injury to those who are under them, and who have acknowledged them as their masters; and accordingly, as it would seem that those who break through the regulations which prevail in any country in regard to matters of food, suffer for it if they are under the demons of that place, while those who are not under them, and have not submitted to their power, are free from all harm, and bid defiance to such spirits; although if, in ignorance of certain things, they have come under the power of other demons, they may suffer punishment from them. But the Christian— the true Christian, I mean— who has submitted to God alone and His Word, will suffer nothing from demons, for He is mightier than demons. And the Christian will suffer nothing, for the angel of the Lord will encamp about them that fear Him, and will deliver them, and his angel, who always beholds the face of his Father in heaven, offers up his prayers through the one High Priest to the God of all, and also joins his own prayers with those of the man who is committed to his keeping. Let not, then, Celsus try to scare us with threats of mischief from demons, for we despise them. And the demons, when despised, can do no harm to those who are under the protection of Him who can alone help all who deserve His aid; and He does no less than set His own angels over His devout servants, so that none of the hostile angels, nor even he who is called the prince of this world, can effect anything against those who have given themselves to God" (ibid., 36).

Very clearly, Origen sets forth the principle that the protection of the Christian from the demons is bound up with Christ's own lordship over the elect, and that consequently, not even Satan himself "can effect anything against those who have given themselves to God."

Next, Origen compares the oracles of the Pythian priestess at Delphi with the ministry of exorcism performed by the Christians:

"If, then, the Pythian priestess is beside herself when she prophesies, what spirit must that be which fills her mind and clouds her judgment with darkness, unless it be of the same order with those demons which many Christians cast out of persons possessed with them? And this, we may observe, they do without the use of any curious arts of magic, or incantations, but merely by prayer and simple adjurations which the plainest person can use. Because for the most part it is unlettered persons who perform this work; thus making manifest the grace which is in the word of Christ, and the despicable weakness of demons, which, in order to be overcome and driven out of the bodies and souls of men, do not require the power and wisdom of those who are mighty in argument, and most learned in matters of faith" (Contra Celsus, Book VII:4).

I thought this quotation was interesting because it attested to the reality of lay-exorcisms in the patristic era (which I don't think would be a wise thing to return to now), but more so, because it demonstrates that power over and freedom from the demons was not seen as restricted to the clergy or the eminently saintly, but to even the rank and file of the Church.

St. Cyprian of Carthage goes on step further and explicitly denies the possibility of the demons inhabiting the body of one who has been baptized:

Cyprian: "The obstinate wickedness of the devil prevails even up to the saving water, but that in baptism it loses all the poison of his wickedness...when, however, they come to the water of salvation and to the sanctification of baptism, we ought to know and to trust that there the devil is beaten down, and the man, dedicated to God, is set free by the divine mercy. For as scorpions and serpents, which prevail on the dry ground, when cast into water, cannot prevail nor retain their venom; so also the wicked spirits, which are called scorpions and serpents, and yet are trodden under foot by us, by the power given by the Lord, cannot remain any longer in the body of a man in whom, baptized and sanctified, the Holy Spirit is beginning to dwell" (Epistle 75:15).

The demons "cannot remain any longer in the body of a man in whom...the Holy Spirit is beginning to dwell." This summarizes my thought on this aptly. Like the other Fathers, Cyprian sees freedom from sin as expressed by freedom from the devil; he knows nothing of any concept of people being sanctified in their soul but possessed in their bodies. The Spirit and the demons cannot share the same frame, and this applies to every Christian who lives in a state of grace ("true Christians", as Origen says).

Let us move on to Lactantius, who wrote around the period of Diocletian's persecution:

Lactantius: "For they think that those demons profit them when they cease to injure, whereas they have no power except to injure. Some one may perchance say that they are therefore to be worshiped, that they may not injure, since they have the power to injure. They do indeed injure, but those only by whom they are feared, whom the powerful and lofty hand of God does not protect, who are uninitiated in the mystery of truth. But they fear the righteous, that is, the worshipers of God, adjured by whose name they depart from the bodies of the possessed: for, being lashed by their words as though by scourges, they not only confess themselves to be demons, but even utter their own names— those which are adored in the temples— which they generally do in the presence of their own worshipers; not, it is plain, to the disgrace of religion, but to the disgrace of their own honor, because they cannot speak falsely to God, by whom they are adjured, nor to the righteous, by whose voice they are tortured. Therefore ofttimes having uttered the greatest howlings, they cry out that they are beaten, and are on fire, and that they are just on the point of coming forth: so much power has the knowledge of God, and righteousness! Whom, therefore, can they injure, except those whom they have in their own power? In short, Hermes [pagan pseudonymic author Hermes Tresmegistus] affirms that those who have known God are not only safe from the attacks of demons, but that they are not even bound by fate" (Divine Institutes, Book II:16).

Lactantius repeats the teaching of Cyprian that Christians are "safe from the attacks of demons" and that those who suffer from the demons are those "who by whom they are feared"; i.e., those who, either through their disbelief or sinful lifestyles, are in the power of the devil, who are "in his dominion."

Finally, we have the Apostolic Constitutions, which, while not mentioning the issue of whether believers can be possessed or not, states that the power of exorcism was exercised (pun intended) by the common rank and file:

Apostolic Constitutions: "An exorcist is not ordained. For it is a trial of voluntary goodness, and of the grace of God through Christ by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For he who has received the gift of healing is declared by revelation from God, the grace which is in him being manifest to all. But if there be occasion for him, he must be ordained a bishop, or a presbyter, or a deacon" (Apostolic Constitutions, 26).

The purpose of stating that an exorcist is not ordained in the early Church is in that is signifies that "the plainest person" has power over the devils, which is a form of "making manifest the grace which is in the word of Christ." Freedom from devils, including freedom from demonic possession, was seen as the common inheritance of all Christians.

In the end, it seems to me that the Church Fathers are completely against the idea that any true Christian can be possessed, let alone a saint. That this is their consensus, I think, is undeniable.

Here is the problem. The Fathers all agree that Christians are "free" from the "power" of the devil, but they do not really define what it means to be "free" from the devil's power. Clearly, the devil has a limited amount of accessibility to us that is granted by God, as evidenced not only by the Book of Job, but by Church History (the devil's attacks on St. John Bosco, St. John Vianney, etc). The question is how far this access of the devil to us extends. Fr. Amorth seems to say that it can extend indefinitely, even to the point of exorcism, while I, and it seems the Fathers, contend that this power seems to stop short of full-blown exorcism.

Of course, none of this solves the problem of whether or not God might permit such a thing, which is what some have asserted. The Fathers all agree that Christians have nothing to fear from the evil one, and that Christians have power over devils, but what if God, for some unknown purpose, seeks to temporarily suspend or withhold His protection, as He did in the case of Job? I suppose there is no way to know; I generally do not to take a stand on something like this based on private revelations, even those made by saints. All I can say is that it seems like the Christian freedom from Satan is so closely bound up with Christ's work of redemption, as evidenced by the writings of the Fathers, that possession of a Christian by the devil seems to be outside of the realm of what God would will.

Obviously God is not opposed to Christians being humbled, or undergoing humiliating circumstances on this earth, but bodily subjection seems to be a sort of humiliation or subjection that is of a different order, something abhorrent to God and outside of the will of Him who "appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8).

This is just my opinion and I admit I may be wrong.

"I am of Paul; I am of Apollos"

In the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, we see Paul in two distinct places giving warnings to the Corinthian Church about boasting about their ministers. The Church in Corinth had been built up by St. Paul with the help of Apollos, an Alexandrian Jewish convert who was known for his erudition and powerful preaching. Shortly after the founding of the Church of Corinth, around 55 AD, dissention and schism broke out among the Christians there over sectarian disputes. It is regarding these disputes that Paul addresses the following passage:

"Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no schisms among you: but that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been signified unto me, my brethren, of you, by them that are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith: I indeed am of Paul; and I am of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul then crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?...For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made void" (1 Cor. 1:10-13, 17).

 St. Paul returns to this same theme two chapters later in 1 Corinthians 3:

"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As unto little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not meat: for you were not able as yet. But neither indeed are you now able: for you are yet carnal. For, whereas there is among you envying and contention, are you not carnal and walk you not according to man? For while one saith: I indeed am of Paul: and another: I am of Apollos: are you not men? What then is Apollo and what is Paul? I have planted, Apollos watered: but God gave the increase...For all things are yours, whether it be Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. For all are yours. And you are Christ's. And Christ is God's" (1 Cor. 3:1-7,22-23).

In speaking with a non-Catholic friend recently about these passages, I  was surprised to hear them used by my companion as an argument against the Catholic Church's understanding of Apostolic Succession.  Here we see, says the non-Catholic, that St. Paul specifically condemns the practice of Christians boasting about who might have founded their local church or from whom they derived their baptisms. And yet, in the Catholic Church, the doctrine of Apostolic Succession depends upon this very principle; i.e., noting that our episcopal succession possesses authority and power precisely because we can trace its origin back to the Apostles. Thus, the non-Catholic says, Paul commands us not to say "I am of Paul; I am of Apollos" while the Roman Catholic Church says the opposite, proclaiming her Apostolic Succession by saying, "I am of Peter." Does not this passage of St. Paul clearly condemn the Catholic notion of the importance of a valid apostolic succession?

Before looking at the meaning of these passages, let us look at how the early Fathers valued the concept of Apostolic Succession. From the earliest times, we can see clearly that the Fathers laid great importance on who happened to found a particular local church. The apostolic foundation of a particular church was seen to be a kind of divine guarantor of the doctrine handed down in that church; doctrinal orthodoxy was connected with apostolic foundation - this apostolic foundation and doctrinal unity coalesced in the person of the bishop, the living face of the Succession and the source of each local church's unity.

This vesting of the church's unity in the person of a validly ordained bishop is laid out very clearly in St. Irenaeus' Against Heresies: 

"It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the Apostles; those who have received, with the succession of the episcopate, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion" (Book IV. 26:2).

Notice here the connection between "succession from the Apostles" and the "sure charism of truth"; conversely, those who have "no part in the primitive succession" are "held in suspicion." Orthodoxy is intimately linked with Apostolic Succession. This is why the primitive church placed great importance on from whom their bishops received episcopal ordination.

If we look at the fragments of the Roman presbyter Caius (c. 150), he makes the same argument. In debating the Gnostic heretics, he appeals to the apostolic foundation of the See of Rome as a strong point in favor of the doctrinal orthodoxy of the Roman Church. Thus, to the Gnostics, he says:

"And I can show the trophies of the apostles. For if you choose to go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Road, you will find the trophies of those who founded this church" (Fragments of Caius, preserved in  Eusebius' Eccles. Hist., ii. 25).

The implication is clear. "You heretics think you hold the true Faith? Our Church in Rome preserves the true faith, because we were founded by the Apostles. If you don't believe it, go look at their tombs. What Apostles founded your church?" Again, a great importance is placed on the apostolic foundation of this particular church in connection with doctrinal orthodoxy.

Those who maintain that the identities of the founders of various churches were not important to the Fathers have to contend with statements like this one from St. Irenaeus. In arguing with the Gnostic heretics, he again appeals to Apostolic Succession as the sure means of gauging the orthodoxy of a particular church:

"Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority, apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes...To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telesphorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. 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." (Against Heresies, Book III.2-3).

Reread the bolded passages and see the connection between the "preaching of truth" and the "faith" with "this succession"; the truth comes to us "by means of the succession of bishops." That phrase "by means of" is important; it tells us that the Apostolic Succession was not just a matter of historical interest, the way it would be to us, for example, if we were to visit the Episcopal Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia and note with passing interest that Robert E. Lee had once worshiped there. The importance laid on apostolic foundations by the early Christians was not one of passing historical fancy, but a key component in their understanding of how the Church lived and taught in the present. Apostolic Succession is the framework or the box within which the sure charism of truth was deposited in by the Holy Spirit.

Tertullian, writing around 200, makes the same case in his Prescriptions Against the Heretics. Note again the connection between Apostolic Succession and doctrinal orthodoxy:

"But if there be any heresies which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs ] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men,— a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind" (Prescription Against Heretics, 32).

The bishops are the "transmitters of the apostolic seed", and the confidence we have that this seed is uncorrupted is that, unlike the heretics who cannot "unfold the roll of their bishops", we have a clear succession of bishops going back to the apostles.

Clearly the identity of the men who founded the particular churches was of great importance to the early Church, for it was this Succession that ensured doctrinal orthodoxy. But what of the original argument, that laying this stress upon Apostolic Succession violates the teaching Paul, who commands us not to say "I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Cephas"?

I think the problem here is a misappropriation of the passage. Though it does clearly refer to contentions and schisms in the church relating to certain sects identifying themselves too zealously with their ministers, it does not bear on the question of Apostolic Succession. The early Church always considered Succession important, as we have seen, and even in the New Testament we see that preachers of the Gospel had to be specifically commissioned or ordained by the Apostles to do so. If being ordained or authorized by an Apostles was not important, St. James would not have written to the Palestinian Christians after the Council of Jersualem: "We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said" (Acts 15:24).

The 1859 Haydock Bible Commentary points out that these contentions were related to baptism - the Corinthian Christians seemed to be asserting that one baptism was of more value than another based on who had administered it. This is the root of the old Donatist heresy that the efficacy of the sacraments depends on the worthiness of the minister. The Haydock Commentary says:

"That there is no schisms....contentions, &c. To hinder these, was the chief design of this letter; one saying, I am of Paul, &c. each party bragging of their master by whom they had been baptized, and made Christians. I am of Apollo, the eloquent preacher, and I of Cephas, the head of the apostles, and of the whole Church; whilst others, the only party not to be blamed, contented themselves with saying, and I am of Christ. --- Is Christ divided? Is not your salvation, is not your justification in baptism, and all gifts from him? Was Paul crucified for you? Though, says St. Augustine, brothers may die for brothers, yet the blood of no martyr is shed for the remission of a brother's sin." 

The last quote from Augustine is very pertinent. No matter how eminent Paul or Apollos or Cephas may have been, the efficacy of baptism comes from Christ, who alone was put to death for the remission of sins. Hence, Augustine is quoted to the effect that nobody else, not even a martyr, can shed blood to remit the sins of another. This prerogative belongs to Christ alone. Yet the Corinthians seem to have been arguing that, because Paul was a more eminent apostle, or Apollos, or whoever, that baptism administered by them was of greater worth, thus making baptism a function of Paul or Cephas' holiness and not of the redemptive work of Christ.

Though it is lengthy, I think it is also helpful to quote from St. Thomas Aquinas here, who goes into this question in some detail in his Commentary on 1 Corinthians, available online here. St. Thomas notes that the dissension referred to be Paul is not over who founded any given church but rather over schismatic sects developing within one local church; and furthermore, that the source of this contention has to due with the question of baptism and its effects. He first talks about the nature of schism and then goes on to elaborate the essence of this particular contention. Aquinas says:

"Properly speaking, there are schisms, when the members of one group separate into various factions according to their various beliefs or according to their various opinions about conduct...[Paul] urges them to seek perfection, which is the good of the whole. Therefore, he says: "but that you be united in the same mind", which judges about conduct, and "in the same judgment", which judges about belief. As if to say: These things will enable you to be perfect, if you continue in unity: “Over all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection” (Col 3:14); “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).

...[A]nd the contention consists in this, that every one of you gives himself a name derived from the person by whom he was baptized and instructed, and says: "I belong to Paul, because he had been baptized and instructed by Paul"; another says: "I belong to Apollos, who had preached to the Corinthians" (Acts 19); still another says: and I belong to Cephas, i.e., Peter, to whom it had been said: “You shall be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter” (Jn. 1:42). Now they made these statements, because they thought that they received a better baptism from a better baptizer, as though the virtue of the minister had an influence on the one baptized. Finally, others say: "I belong to Christ, Who alone give grace, because the grace of Christ alone works in Christ’s baptism: “He upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, he it is that baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (Jn. 1:33). Accordingly, the baptized are called Christians from Christ alone and not Paulians from Paul: “Only let us be called by your name” (Is 4:1) (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 1-2: 23-24).

Faction happens when there is a division about belief or conduct.  Aquinas, and Paul, condemn these "I am of Apollos" sorts of arguments from those who would use them in defense of their schismatic dissensions. But neither Paul nor Aquinas condemn the Church herself from citing her own apostolic foundations for the purpose of striving to maintain the bond of unity, for it was with an aim towards unity that the episcopal succession was established to begin with.

Besides, as we have said, this particular argument had to do with baptism. That is why Paul asks rhetorically, "Was Paul then crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" Aquinas continues on this question of contention over this issue of baptism and offers three possible interpretations of what Paul is arguing here:

"[Paul]says, therefore: "I have said that everyone of you says, 'I belong to Paul'; from which it follows that Christ is divided. This can be understood in one way, as though he were saying: 'Inasmuch as there is contention among you, Christ is divided from you, because He dwells only in peace: “His place is in peace” (Ps 76:3); “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God” (Is 59:2). 

But it is better understood of him as saying: 'Inasmuch as you believe that a baptism performed by a better minister is better, it follows that Christ, Who principally and interiorly baptizes, is divided, i.e., differs in His power and effect, depending on the differing ministers.' But this is false, because it says in Eph (4:5): “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” An even better interpretation is to understand the Apostles as saying that inasmuch as you attribute to others the things that are exclusively Christ’s, you divide Christ by forming many Christs, which is contrary to what is stated in Matt (23:10): “One is your master, Christ”; “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God and there is no other” (Is 45:22) (Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 27-28).

So we see that the true meaning of 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 and 3:1-7 really does not concern the issue of Apostolic Succession at all, nor did the Fathers think so, since they were very quick to appeal to Apostolic Succession in defense of orthodoxy. St. Paul does warn against belief that baptism is more or less efficacious depending upon the minister; it is this belief which he refers to as "carnal" in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 when he says,

"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as unto carnal. As to little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat: for you were not able as yet: but neither indeed are you now able: for you are yet carnal. For, whereas, there is among you envying and contention; are you not carnal, and walk according to man?"

It is also worth noting that this passage in 1 Corinthians has great relevance with regards to how heretical movements tend to take on the name of the heresiarch who founded their sect. St. Irenaeus says:

"For, prior to Valentinus, those who follow Valentinus had no existence; nor did those from Marcion exist before Marcion; nor, in short, had any of those malignant-minded people, whom I have above enumerated, any being previous to the initiators and inventors of their perversity" (Against Heresies, Book III.4:3).

We could also add the Lutherans from Luther, Calvinists from Calvin, Mennonites from Menno Simmons, Arians from Arius, and on and on. Whenever  a sect breaks away from the Church and takes the name of its founder, "they must be held in suspicion", as Irenaeus says. This is why our Church and our Church alone is called "Catholic." It alone derives its power and origin from Christ and the Apostles, holding firm to the "sure charism of truth" which resides in the succession of bishops, the successors of the Apostles, whom themselves maintain Catholic unity by their individual union with the Bishop of Rome, successor of Peter, Prince of the Apostles.

Thus, the non-Catholic's argument that 1 Corinthians 1 and 3 preclude any concept of Apostolic Succession are unfounded and based on a misapplication of the relevant biblical texts.