James Vernon Bartlet

“ Such were perhaps the “apostles” of the Didachē. Of the notion of apostolic succession in ministerial grace conferred by ordination, there is little or no trace before Irenaeus. The famous passage in Clement of Rome (xliv. 2) refers simply to the succession of one set of men to another in an office of apostolic institution. The grace that makes Polycarp “an apostolic and prophetic teacher” (Mart. Polyc. 16) is peculiar to him personally. ”

“ Such was the kind of authority attaching to apostles, whether collectively or individually. It was not a fixed notion, but varied in quantity and quality with the growing maturity of converts. This is how Paul, from whom we gather most on the point, conceives the matter. The exercise of his spiritual authority is not absolute, lest he “lord it over their faith” ”

“ But the personal relation of the original Palestinian apostles to Jesus himself as Master gave them a unique fitness as authorized witnesses, from which flowed naturally, by sheer spiritual influence, such special forms of authority as they came gradually to exercise in the early Church. ”

“ In its first and simplest Christian form, the idea is present already in Mark iii. 14 f., where from the general circle of his disciples Jesus “made twelve (‘whom he also named apostles,’ Luke vi. 13, but doubtful in Mark) , that they should be with him, and that he might from time to time send them forth (ἵνα ἀποστέλλῃ) to preach and to have authority to cast out demons.” Later on (vi. 6 ff.) , in connexion with systematic preaching among the villages of Galilee, Jesus begins actually to “send forth” the twelve, two by two ”

“ To most he seemed but a fruitful worker within lines determined by “the twelve apostles of the Lamb” as a body (Rev. xxi. 14) . So we read of “the plant (Church) which the twelve apostles of the Beloved shall plant” (Ascension of Isaiah, iv. 3) ; “those who preached the Gospel to us (especially Gentiles) . . . unto whom He gave authority over the Gospel, being twelve for a witness to the tribes” (Barn. viii. 3, cf. v. 9) ”

“ There is no sign in 2 Cor. that they laid claim to (a) . If this be so, they were “Christ’s apostles” only indirectly, “through men” (as some had alleged touching Paul, cf. Gal. i. 1) , i.e. as sent forth on mission work by certain Jerusalem leaders with letters of introduction (2 Cor. iii. 1; E. von Dobschütz, Probleme der apost. Zeitalters, p. 106) .
2. The Twelve.—When Jesus selected an inner circle of disciples for continuous training by personal intercourse, his choice of “twelve” had direct reference to the tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30) . ”

“ Literature.—In England the modern treatment of the subject dates from J. B. Lightfoot’s dissertation in his Commentary on Galatians, to which Dr F. J. A. Hort’s The Christian Ecclesia added elements of value ”