THE APOSTLES, AS SUCH, HAD NO SUCCESSORS. 103 Christian doctrine and edification of the church, were requisite to be continued perpetually in ordinary standing offices,these, indeed, were derived from the apostles, but not properly in way of succes- sion, as by univocal propagation, but by ordination, imparting all the power needful for such offices; which, therefore, were exercised by persons during the apostles' lives concurrently, or in subordination to them, even as a dictator at Rome might create inferior magistrates, who derived from him, but not as his successors; for, as Bellarmine himself4ells us, " There can be no proper succession but in respect of one preceding; but apostles and bishops were together in the church."' The fathers, therefore, in a large sense so call all bishops succes- sors of the apostles; not meaning that any one of them succeeded to the whole apostolical office, but that each received his power from some one, immediately or mediately, whom some apostle constituted bishop, vesting him with authority to feed the particular flock com- mitted to him in way of ordinary charge. According to the sayings of that apostolical person, Clemens Romanus, "The apostles, preach- ing in regions and cities, constituted their first converts, having ap- proved them by the Spirit, for bishops and deacons of those who should afterward believe and, " Having constituted the foresaid" bishops and deacons, " theywithal gave them farther charge, that if they should die, other approved men successively should receive their office."' Thus did the bishops supply the room of theapostles, " each in guiding his particular charge,' all of them together, by mutual aid, conspiring to govern the whole body of the church. 8. In which regard it may be said that not one single bishop, but all bishops together through the whole church, succeed St Peter, or any other apostle; for that all of them, in union together, have an universal sovereign authority commensurate to an apostle. 9. This is the notion which St Cyprian so much insists upon, affirming that the bishops succeedSt Peter and the other apostles "by vicarious ordination that "the bishops are apostles ;"5 that there is but " one chair by the Lord's word built upon one Peter ;"e "one undividedbishopric, diffused in the peacefulnumerosity of many ' Non succeditur proprie nisi preecedenti, at simul fuerunt in ecclesia apostoli et episcopi, &c. Bell. de Pont. R., iv. 25. 2 Ke ria xw'pas xai ,róxarç xa2púççovTaç xaAr'oravor T2ç áarapáç abrwv, Soxr/aáçavTeç rw nvaú/cary aiç iorroxóoroue ,sl Sraxóvouç r' ,aexxóvra v .r eT,ó,,v.Clem. ad Corinth., i. p. 54. KaTiçTnoavOroúç apoerpn/aiveauç,. xai /eaTagú iarno/cñv ivrth eexaor, öarwç iáv xor/cs Zol, Sra itedv- var irapor SsSo cipeco/4ÉVOr ävlpie ri,, xarrovpyiavaiTwv.Ibid., p. 57. 3 Singulis pastoribus portio gregis adscripta est, quam regat anusquisque et guber- net, &c.Cypr., Ep lv. 4 Praepositos, qui apostolis vicaria ordinatione succedunt, &c. Ep. lxix., xlii., lxxv. 6 Apostolos, id est, episcopos et preepositos Dominus elegit. Ep. lxv. O Cathedra una super Petrum Domini voce fundata, &c. Ep. xl., et Ep. lxxiii., et De Unit. Eccl.
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