The other references are of the same kind. Thus it goes on for two pages, from which it is clear, to any one who has read even a short Seminary history of the church, that no one at any time, during the first centuries of Christianity, ascribed any especial rights or power to himself. Elders (presbyters, bishops, overseers) were appointed, and all those appellations meant one and the same thing, and were a human institution, which was diversified according to men and places. All that is evident from the texts which are quoted by the Theology itself.
After that follows the third part of the proofs, in which it says directly in the name of the holy fathers that this power was given to the hierarchy by Christ himself. But here we get the proofs only of the fact that those men who ascribed the power to themselves asserted quite arbitrarily that the power had passed to them from God, that is, what now our, and any other, hierarchy asserts at the present time. Here it says:
“(b) The pastors, who formed that special class, always deduced their power from Jesus Christ himself and called themselves the successors of the apostles and the representatives in the church of the Saviour himself. Here, for example, are the words of Clement of Rome: ‘Having received a full foreknowledge, the apostles appointed the above-mentioned men (that is, bishops and deacons) and at the same time handed down the rule that when they deceased other experienced men should take up their ministry.’ St. Ignatius Theophorus: ‘Bishops are appointed in all the corners of the world, by the will of Jesus Christ.’ St. Irenaus: ‘We can name those whom the apostles have placed as bishops and their successors over the churches down to our time, but they taught nothing of the kind and knew nothing of what the heretics have invented. For, if the apostles knew the secrets, which they revealed only to the perfect, and to no other, they
