APOSTOLICITY of the CHURCHES. – A tendency that manifests itself from the end of Christian antiquity and then spreads ever more widely among illustrious Churches of the East and, in particular, of the West, is to derive their origin directly from the Apostles or from their immediate disciples.
That in the apostolic age Churches were not founded by the direct intervention of the Apostles or by the initiative of disciples commissioned by them and under their supervision, there can be no doubt; yet it is equally evident that Christian propagation (and the ancient writers themselves were aware of this) did not cease in the apostolic age but was supplemented both in breadth and depth by the work of subsequent Christian generations continued through the centuries and not yet exhausted.
It is almost always easy, from the Carolingian age onward, to trace in the West the fortunes of this propagation; it is not, however, equally easy for the earlier period, owing to the lack of reliable monumental or historical sources. Yet an attempt was made to specify this, and for the East, partly supplanted by the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and by those curious catalogues which circulated under the false names of Epiphanius, Hippolytus, Dorotheus, and claimed to compile the list of all seventy or seventy-two disciples of the Saviour (Lk 11:1), collecting their names haphazardly and distributing them among the cities of the East, and especially of the West, and for the most part creating them as bishops of those same cities. Other hagiographers in the West, each on their own account, inserted into those catalogues those figures who, more or less appropriately, suited their purposes, transporting them as bishops into the apostolic age and thus, in some way, attempting to provide them with successors. Then the compilers of the various Acts, Gesta, or Passiones deemed it permissible to supply by narrative what was lacking in good historical tradition, either to enhance the fame of their heroes or, as often happened, to give particular prominence to the glory of their own Church and even to create solid support for local rights and privileges in comparison with other Churches. And since each of these authors wrote independently of others, unless they were in polemic with opposing Churches, it is no wonder that there are open contradictions among them; if we further consider that they lived centuries after the events they narrated and that their culture was always very limited, their anachronisms, naiveties, and even their proceeding according to uniform schemes, barely modified with some local colouring, and their reliance on apocryphal documents deemed genuine, do not surprise us. Sometimes there may even have been the deliberate intention to deceive, in whole or in part, the readers for some interest. On this point V. ACTS OF THE MARTYRS.
In the famous letter that he wrote in 416 to Decentius, bishop of Gubbio, Pope Innocent I (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 311) could affirm that “no apostle spread Christianity in the West outside of Peter (and of Paul, if one wishes, his indivisible companion and co-founder of the Roman Church)”. But Innocent does not affirm as a fact known to him or in any way ascertained by the Roman Chancery that Peter had personally founded this or that particular Church in Italy or elsewhere; he asserts only, as a general fact, deduced from certain facts, that all the Churches of the West derived from that of Rome and therefore had been instituted either by Peter or by another pope... He therefore wished to make only a general affirmation that could not be contested, without concerning himself with, or passing judgment on, particular cases” (Lanzoni, pp. 82–83). Not all propagators of legends took account of Innocent’s words, perhaps because in their ignorance they did not know them, although they were very widely circulated; others, however, claimed to specify precisely what he had left in general terms and to establish at least some of those Churches that St Peter had founded directly or through his immediate disciples.
In Italy the earliest example in this field is presented by the Passio of St Apollinaris of the 7th century, by which Apollinaris, the first bishop of Ravenna, is presented as a disciple of St Peter; it was the moment when the city aspired to autocephaly in comparison with Rome; the reasoning was this: St Apollinaris was the successor of St Peter in the same way as the Roman bishop was his successor; therefore the see of Ravenna could stand on an equal footing with that of Rome. Without going so far in the conclusion, but perhaps adding Ravenna, the Church of Aquileia at the end of the 8th century claimed to have been founded by St Mark, a companion of Peter in Rome; disciples of St Mark were said to have founded the Churches of Verona, Padua, and Pavia. Brindisi was said to have been founded directly by St Peter, because he is supposed to have passed through there on his way to Rome; Reggio Calabria was said to have been founded by St Paul because in Acts 28:13 it is clearly stated that he stayed there. Other ancient Italian Churches repeated the evangelization by St Peter to provide an honourable explanation for their venerable antiquity. Milan, on the other hand, around the 11th century, resorted to St Barnabas at a moment of rebellion against the Holy See (Lanzoni, p. 1009 sq.).
In France, the apostolic origin of the Churches rests almost entirely on numerous legends inspired by claims to be vindicated or local interests to be defended. The first attempt appears in the 5th century, when some bishops asked St Leo the Great for metropolitan rights for the see of Arles, adducing the reason that Trophimus, a disciple of St Peter, had been its founder; the request went unanswered even though other privileges were obtained. The other French legends known to us are no older than the 8th century: thus that of St Denis, first bishop of Paris, who is said to have been the Areopagite converted by St Paul, and which enjoyed such great credence in the Middle Ages, especially through the diffusion of various writings attributed to him; that of St Martial of Limoges, who is one of the seven bishops of the Passio of St Saturninus, preserved in a manuscript from the first half of the 9th century, in which Martial appears, for the first time, sent by St Peter together with two other priests. The same can be said of all the other legends: documents devoid of historical value, very distant from the events they claim to relate. The most famous of all French traditions, that of SS Lazarus and his companions, does not go back beyond the 11th century.
In Spain, apostolic claims are linked to St Paul and St James. For the former there seem to be serious probabilities supported by documents of high and venerable antiquity, such as a letter of the apostle himself (Rom 15:24–28), that of St Clement to the Corinthians (ch. 5), and the Muratorian Fragment; yet there is no document whatsoever of the foundation of Churches, while the first notice of the famous seven bishops sent by St Peter, unknown to all antiquity, appears only in the 9th century. The preaching of St James in Spain must be considered even more inconsistent and legendary, since in addition to contradicting historically established facts, it is condemned by the silence of all local ecclesiastical historians from the 5th to the 8th century. The tradition must have arisen when the collection of the Pseudo-Abdias (v.) and the Byzantine apostolic catalogues became known in the West, since these apocryphal writings are the earliest written source of such a tradition. Then, toward the end of the 9th century, an attempt was made to identify the tomb of the apostle, and the conviction spread, until from 1130 onward it was universally believed; subsequently acts, letters, and interested legends multiplied to support the tradition.
In the ILLYRICUM, a passage from St Paul (Rom 15:19), of debatable interpretation, seems to suggest that the Gospel was preached there by the Apostle himself; the references to apostolic preaching in St Justin (Dialogue with Trypho, 117), Origen (in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III, 1) and Tertullian (Against the Jews, 7) are not sufficiently clear or convincing and leave one perplexed, since for the entire 2nd century and the first half of the 3rd there is no record of any organised churches.
Perhaps the Christianity preached in the apostolic age in southern Illyricum did not then take firm root.
In ancient PANNONIA, Sirmium claims apostolic origin, but the source is a false transcription of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum which copies the list of the 72 disciples of the Lord. Similarly, the claims for Noricum depend on the Passion of Hermagoras of Aquileia from the 8th century, or on forged documents elaborated around the 9th century with which Lorch (Lauriacum) sought to impose its supremacy over Passau (Passavia).
In DALMATIA, Spalato (Salona) boasts of having had as its first bishop St Doimus or Domnius, said to be a disciple of St Peter and a martyr under Trajan; in reality, however, he lived and died under Diocletian, as the most ancient documents affirm, such as the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, the Liber Pontificalis, and the Paschal Chronicle of 395. The apostolic legend derives from a group of writings from the 8th century.