Originally Posted by
valiant
LOL now I've hear it all. Forgeries my dear boy. Forgeries. The only genuine letter we have before 100 AD, apart from Scripture, is Clement's letter in c 95 AD. There is no proof for oral tradition. No one ever wrote down, 'this is oral tradition received from the Apostles' within a period in which it could be acceptable. Indeed the early church made clear that so called oral traditions incorporated in writings were unacceptable and heretical. That is why they limited authoritative books to be read in churches to the Apostolic writings.
Apostolic succession was a device by which certain teachers tried to combat heresy by pointing to those teachers who were in churches which had been founded by the Apostles. (there is absolutely no hint of preference for Rome). But it was not a doctrine, it was practical evidence. It had no divine backing. It was a theory of men useful in the first hundred years after the Apostles when men lived who had known the Apostles. Some came from those very churches who were heretics. Take Alexandria for instance. Both Clement and Origen were heretics as both espoused Gnostic views. Were they in the Apostolic succession? LOL
I'm not the only one who disapproved of him for interfering with church affairs. Both the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch rejected his request at Nicea to give Rome precedence. He may have distributed Scripture (possibly he believed in sola scriptura?) but he also introduced paganism into the Roman church from which it never recovered. And he also introduced the idea of using violence to force people to conform, a lesson the Roman church learned exceedingly well.