Wishing to worship the Supreme Being, Emperor Constantine the Great of Rome (272 - 337 AD) converts to Christianity and simultaneously changes world history.

Colossal marble head of Emperor Constantine the Great, Roman, 4th century

Constantine's Testimony

Constantine the Great, mosaic in Hagia Sophia, c. 1000

"To acknowledge ... in solemn terms the beneficence of the Supreme Being is by no means boasting. He searched for and chose my service to carry out his purpose. Starting ... at the faraway Britannic sea and the regions where the sun ... sets, by the help of the Supreme Power, I drove out and scattered all the prevailing evil things, in order that the human race, reared with my assistance, might call upon the service of the holy law ... I am firmly convinced that I owe my life and every breath ... to the Supreme God."

Constantine's Letter to King Sapor of Persia

Colossal head of Constantine, from a seated statue: a youthful, classicising, other-worldly official image (Metropolitan Museum of Art)^[

I profess the most holy religion.  I confess that as a disciple of the Holy God I observe this worship.  With the power of this God on my side to help me, beginning at the boundaries of the Ocean, I had gathered every nation, one after another, throughout the world, to the certain hope of salvation ... This God I worship and my army is dedicated to him and wears his sign on their shoulders, marching directly wherever the cause of justice summons them.  I confess that I honour this God with never-dying remembrance, this God in the height of his glory I delight to contemplate with a pure and simple heart.

The Conversion of Constantine

Constantius appoints Constantine as his successor by Peter Paul Rubens, 1622

Throughout the fourth century, relations between the church, the emperor, and pagan religion were changing continually.  Constantine's defeat of Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in the autumn of 312, and his interpretation of that victory as the response of the Christian God to his prayer for help, propelled church and state into a new age for which neither was prepared.  Out of this new relationship between Christian church and Christian emperor stemmed the turbulent history of church/state relations in the later Roman Empire and throughout the Middle Ages.

Constantine prays to God.  The response from God is a cross in the noonday sky

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge by Giulio Romano

Constantine's account of his conversion, told by the emperor himself to the Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea towards the end of his life, is well known.  Constantine, alarmed by reports of Mazentius' mastery of magical arts, prayed to the "Supreme God" for help.  The response was a sign, a cross in the noonday sky 'above the sun', and with it the words, 'Conquer by this.'  That night Christ appeared to Constantine in a dream and commanded him to use the sign -- apparently Chi-Rho, the initial letters of the name of Christ -- 'as a safeguard in all engagements with his enemies'.  According to the historian Lactantius, Constantine put this sign on the shields of his soldiers, and then marched on Rome, confronted Maxentius -- who was miraculously induced to fight outside the city fortifications -- and conquered.

Though converting to Christianity, Constantine maintains pagan customs

The Baptism of Constantine, as imagined by students of Raphael

This story has been doubted.  But Constantine's attitude towards the Christian church after he became emperor, and his new laws, demonstrate that his allegiance to Christianity was genuine, though his understanding of the Christian faith was at first no doubt imperfect.  Indeed, Constantine did retain the pagan high priest's title of Pontifex Maximus; for a decade his coins continued to feature some of the pagan gods, notably his own favourite deity, the Unconquered Sun; and he delayed Christian baptism until the end of his life.  However, delayed baptism was the custom of the age, a device for avoiding mortal sin; and retaining the pagan symbols was a necessary compromise with his pagan subjects, still very much in the majority.

A gold multiple of "Unconquered Constantine" with Sol Invictus, struck in 313 AD. The use of Sol's image appealed to both the educated citizens of Gaul, who would recognize in it Apollo's patronage of Augustus and the arts; and to Christians, who found solar monotheism less objectionable than the traditional pagan pantheon.

Constantine treated Christianity as the favoured, though not yet the official, religion of the Empire.  He granted immunities to the clergy and lavished gifts on the church; in his letters and edicts he spoke as if the Christian God were his own.

Constantine's previous religion was the worship of the Unconquered Sun

A representation of Jesus as the sun-god Helios/Sol Invictus riding in his chariot. Mosaic of the 3rd century on the Vatican grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica.

It is important to understand Constantine's previous religion, the worship of the Unconquered Sun.  If the story of the cross in the sky is true, he may have interpreted the sign as his own special deity commending the worship of the Christian God.  Perhaps Constantine continued to identify the sun with the Christian God in some way -- a belief made easier by the tendence of Christian writers and artists to use sun imagery in portraying Christ.  For them, Christ is the source of light and salvation; a mosaic from a third-century tomb found under St. Peter's, Rome, even shows him as the sun god in his chariot.  When in 321 Constantine made the first day of the week a holiday, he called it 'the venerable day of the Sun' (Sunday).

Constantine and his mother build churches

Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

Another result of Constantine's conversion was renewed interest in the Holy Land by people in the West.  Since the failure of the Second Jewish Revolt of Bar Kokhba (132-135), Jerusalem had been a pagan city; Constantine and his mother Helena now made it Hadrian's Temple of Venus, and Helena discovered what was believed to be the 'True Cross' on which Jesus had been crucified.  Here -- with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre -- and elsewhere, Constantine and Helena built churches, and pilgrims came in increasing numbers to the holy places.

Christianity and Pagan Customs

Ave, Caesar! Io, Saturnalia! (1880) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

The Christian church began to take over pagan ideas and images.  From sun-worship, for example, came the celebration of Christ's birth on December 25, the birthday of the sun.  Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival of December 17-21, provided the merriment, gift-giving, and candles typical of later Christmas holidays.  Sun-worship hung on in Roman Christianity, and Pope Leo I, in the mid-fifth century, rebuked worshippers who turned round to bow to the sun before entering St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  Some pagan customs which were later Christianized, for example the use of candles, incense, and garlands, were initially avoided by the church because they symbolized paganism.

Sources:

Dowley, Tim, ed. Introduction to the History of Christianity, Second Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013, pages 104-106.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 2.28-29 and 4.9, trans. Paul Keresztes, in "Constantine: Called by Divine Providence" in Elizabeth A. Livingstone, ed. Tudia Patristica (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1985).

Perpetua (d. 203 AD) would have died as an irrelevant person in a history of billions of irrelevant persons -- except she was willing to die for Jesus Christ

Stained-glass window of St Perpetua of Carthage (church of Notre-Dame of Vierzon, France, 19th century): martyrdom of St Perpetua and her fellows in the stadium of Carthage; Saint Felicity on her left

We have little idea what brought Perpetua to faith in Christ, or how long she had been a Christian, or how she lived her Christian life. Thanks to her diary, and that of another prisoner, we have some idea of her last days—an ordeal that so impressed the famous Augustine that he preached four sermons about her death.

Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (145 AD - 211 AD) decides to cripple Christianity

Septimius Severus at Glyptothek, Munich.

Perpetua was a Christian noblewoman who, at the turn of the third century, lived with her husband, her son, and her slave, Felicitas, in Carthage (in modern Tunis). At this time, North Africa was the center of a vibrant Christian community. It is no surprise, then, that when Emperor Septimius Severus determined to cripple Christianity (he believed it undermined Roman patriotism), he focused his attention on North Africa. Among the first to be arrested were five new Christians taking classes to prepare for baptism, one of whom was Perpetua.

Perpetua's pagan father tries to convince her to deny Jesus Christ

Mosaic of Saint Perpetua, Croatia.

Her father immediately came to her in prison. He was a pagan, and he saw an easy way for Perpetua to save herself. He entreated her simply to deny she was a Christian.

"Father do you see this vase here?" she replied. "Could it be called by any other name than what it is?"

"No," he replied.

"Well, neither can I be called anything other than what I am, a Christian."

In the next days, Perpetua was moved to a better part of the prison and allowed to breast-feed her child. With her hearing approaching, her father visited again, this time, pleading more passionately: "Have pity on my gray head. Have pity on me, your father, if I deserve to be called your father, if I have favored you above all your brothers, if I have raised you to reach this prime of your life."

He threw himself down before her and kissed her hands. "Do not abandon me to be the reproach of men. Think of your brothers; think of your mother and your aunt; think of your child, who will not be able to live once you are gone. Give up your pride!"

Perpetua was touched but remained unshaken. She tried to comfort her father—"It will all happen in the prisoner's dock as God wills, for you may be sure that we are not left to ourselves but are all in his power"—but he walked out of the prison dejected.

Perpetua is put on trial before governor Hilarianus and her father tries to dissuade her again

An acrylic painting depicting Christian martyrs Perpetua and Felicity by Mojaveprincess

The day of the hearing arrived, Perpetua and her friends were marched before the governor, Hilarianus. Perpetua's friends were questioned first, and each in turn admitted to being a Christian, and each in turn refused to make a sacrifice (an act of emperor worship). Then the governor turned to question Perpetua.

At that moment, her father, carrying Perpetua's son in his arms, burst into the room. He grabbed Perpetua and pleaded, "Perform the sacrifice. Have pity on your baby!"

Hilarianus, probably wishing to avoid the unpleasantness of executing a mother who still suckled a child, added, "Have pity on your father's gray head; have pity on your infant son. Offer the sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor."

Perpetua replied simply: "I will not."

"Are you a Christian then?" asked the governor.

"Yes I am," Perpetua replied.

Perpetua's father continues to try to convince her to deny Jesus Christ

Mary and Child with Saints Felicity and Perpetua (Sacra Conversazione), 1520, Anonymous (Polish)

Her father interrupted again, begging her to sacrifice, but Hilarianus had heard enough: he ordered soldiers to beat him into silence. He then condemned Perpetua and her friends to die in the arena.

Perpetua and the other convicts are sent to the gladiators to die

Painting showing the martyrdom of Perpetua, Felicitas, Revocatus, Saturninus and Secundulus, from the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000 AD)

Perpetua, her friends, and her slave, Felicitas (who had subsequently been arrested), were dressed in belted tunics. When they entered the stadium, wild beasts and gladiators roamed the arena floor, and in the stands, crowds roared to see blood. They didn't have to wait long.

Immediately a wild heifer charged the group. Perpetua was tossed into the air and onto her back. She sat up, adjusted her ripped tunic, and walked over to help Felicitas. Then a leopard was let loose, and it wasn't long before the tunics of the Christians were stained with blood.

This was too deliberate for the impatient crowd, which began calling for death for the Christians. So Perpetua, Felicitas, and friends were lined up, and one by one, were slain by the sword.

As a result of the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas at Carthage (North Africa) in 203, it was reported that the local prison governor was converted.

From Perpetua's Diary of Her Imprisonment

"Perpetua’s Ladder," Speculum Virginum, ca. 1140. London, British Library, MS Arundel 44, fol. 93v.

Perpetua confronts her father

La Grazia Perpetua

While we were under arrest, my father, out of his love for me, tried to persuade me to shake my resolve.

"Father," I said.  "Do you see this vase here, for example, or this water pot or whatever?"

"Yes," he said.

"Could it be called anything other than what it is?" I asked.

"No."

"Well, in the same way, I can't be called anything except what I am -- A Christian."

My father was so angry at the word "Christian" that he made as if he would tear my eyes out.  But he left it at that and departed, defeated along with his devilish arguments.

During those few days I was baptized, and I was inspired by the Spirit not to ask for any other favour after the water, except physical perseverance.

Perpetua had a baby before being imprisoned

Galleria di Francesco I, perdita della gioventù perpetua (1530)

A few days later we were lodged in the prison.  I was terrified, as I had never been in such a dark hole.  What a terrible time it was!  With the overcrowding, the heat was stifling.  There was also the extortion of the soldiers -- and on top of everything else, I was tormented with worry about my baby.

I had to endure these trials for days.  Then I obtained permission for my baby to be with me in prison.  Immediately I regained my health, relieved of worry and anxiety about the child.  Prison suddenly became a palace; I wanted to be there more than anywhere else.

Pepetua is put on trial for refusing to sacrifice to the emperors and her father pleads with her

Église Sainte-Perpétue et Sainte-Félicité de Nîmes

Then one day, while we were having breakfast, we were suddenly rushed off to court.  We arrived at the forum, and immediately the news flew around the neighbourhood and a huge crowd gatehred.  We entered the prisoners' dock.  When they were questioned, the others all admitted their guilt.  When my turn came, my father appeared with my son, dragged me from the bench, saying, "Make the sacrifice -- have pity on your baby!"

Hilarianus, the governor who succeeded the late proconsul Minicius Timianus as judge, said, "Have pity on your father's grey head; have pity on your infant son!  Offer the sacrifice for the well-being of the emperors!"

"I will not," I replied.

"Are you a Chrsitian?" said Hilarianus.

"I am!" I confessed.

Then Hilarianus passed sentence on all of us: we were condemned to the beasts.

We returned to prison in high spirits.

Perpétue et Félicité, Église de Tébourba, Public Library of Tebourba

Sources:

Perpetua's Diary of Her Imprisonment

Dowley, Tim, ed. Introduction to the History of Christianity, Second Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013, page 60.

Galli, Mark and Ted Olson, eds. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2000, pages 362-363.

Before becoming a "saint" and a doctor of the church, Augustine (354-430) amused himself by stealing pears with his friends in North Africa.



Giovanni Bellini, The Carrara Madonna, 1487, including a pear in the bottom right hand corner.

Augustine admits to stealing (and loving it!)

Portrait of a boy, three-quarter-length, in a black costume and a white ruff, holding a pear;  Lorenz Strauch (1554-1630)

 If the crime of theft which I committed that night as a boy of sixteen were a living thing, I could speak to it and ask what it was that, to my shame, I loved in it. I had no beauty because it was a robbery. It is true that the pears which we stole had beauty, because they were created by you, the good God, who are the most beautiful of all beings and the Creator of all things, the supreme Good and my own true Good. But it was not the pears that my unhappy soul desired. I had plenty of my own, better than those, and I only picked them so that I might steal. For no sooner had I picked them than I threw them away, and tasted nothing in them but my own sin, which I relished and enjoyed. If any part of one of those pears passed my lips, it was the sin that gave it flavour.

Augustine considers why he enjoyed, and was attracted to, stealing, and how this relates to his relationship with God

The Fortunes of a Street Waif, an illustration from the book Needham, George Carter (1884) Street Arabs and Gutter Snipes

And now, O Lord my God, now that I ask what pleasure I had in that theft, I find that it had no beauty to attract me. I do not mean beauty of the sort that justice and prudence possess, nor the beauty that is in man's mind and in his memory and in the life that animates him, nor the beauty of the stars in their allotted places or of the earth and sea, teeming with new life born to replace the old as it passes away. It did not even have the shadowy, deceptive beauty which makes vice attractive - pride, for instance, which is a pretence of superiority, imitating yours, for you alone are God, supreme over all; or ambition, which is only a craving for honour and glory, when you alone are to be honoured before all and you alone are glorious for ever. Cruelty is the weapon of the powerful, used to make others fear them: yet no one is to be feared but God alone, from whose power nothing can be snatched away or stolen by any man at any time or place or by any means. The lustful use caresses to win the love they crave for, yet no caress is sweeter than your charity and no love is more rewarding than the love of your truth, which shines in beauty above all else. Inquisitiveness has all the appearance of a thirst for knowledge, yet you have supreme knowledge of all things. Ignorance, too, and stupidity choose to go under the mask of simplicity and innocence, because you are simplicity itself and no innocence is greater than yours. You are innocent even of the harm which overtakes the wicked, for it is the result of their own actions. Sloth poses as the love of peace: yet what certain peace is there besides the Lord? Extravagance masquerades as fullness and abundance: but you are the full, unfailing store of never-dying sweetness. The spendthrift makes a pretence of liberality: but you are the most generous dispenser of all good. The covetous want many possessions for themselves: you possess all. The envious struggle for preferment: but what is to be preferred before you? Anger demands revenge: but what vengeance is as just as yours? Fear shrinks from any sudden, unwonted danger which threatens the things that it loves, for its only care is safety: but to you nothing is strange, nothing unforeseen. No one can part you from the things that you love, and safety is assured nowhere but in you. Grief eats away its heart for the loss of things which it took pleasure in desiring, because it wants to be like you, from whom nothing can be taken away.

Augustine realizes that in stealing, he was ursurping God

Detail of Sistine Chapel fresco Creation of the Sun and Moon by Michelangelo (c. 1512)

So the soul defiles itself with unchaste love when it turns away from you and looks elsewhere for things which it cannot find pure and unsullied except by returning to you. All who desert you and set themselves up against you merely copy you in a perverse way; but by this very act of imitation they only show that you are the Creator of all nature and, consequently, that there is no place whatever where man may hide away from you.

Augustine is the slave who ran away from his master (God) and chased a shadow instead by enjoying doing wrong

Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market

What was it, then, that pleased me in that act of theft? Which of my Lord's powers did I imitate in a perverse and wicked way? Since I had no real power to break his law, was it that I enjoyed at least the pretence of doing so, like a prisoner who creates for himself the illusion of liberty by doing something wrong, when he has no fear of punishment, under a feeble hallucination of power? Here was the slave who ran away from his master and chased a shadow instead! What an abomination! What a parody of life! What abysmal death! Could I enjoy doing wrong for no other reason than that it was wrong?

Augustine's theft did not make him happy

Rōnin (a samurai with no lord or master during the feudal period (1185–1868) of Japan) robbing a merchant's house in Japan around 1860.  Photo from "Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs", by J. M. W. Silver, Illustrated by Native Drawings, published in London in 1867

It brought me no happiness, for what harvest did I reap from acts which now make me blush particularly from that act of theft? I loved nothing in it except the thieving, though I cannot truly speak of that as a 'thing' that I could love, and I was only the more miserable because of it. And yet, as I recall my feelings at the time, I am quite sure that I would not have done it on my own. Was it then that I also enjoyed the company of those with whom I committed the crime? If this is so, there was something else I loved besides the act of theft; but I cannot call it 'something else', because companionship, like theft, is not a thing at all.

Augustine experienced pleasure from the crime rather than from the pears

Still Life With Quince, Apples, and Pears by Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)

No one can tell me the truth of it except my God, who enlightens my mind and dispels its shadows. What conclusion am I trying to reach from these questions and this discussion? It is true that if the pears which I stole had been to my taste, and if I had wanted to get them for myself, I might have committed the crime on my own if I had needed to do no more than that to win myself the pleasure. I should have had no need to kindle my glowing desire by rubbing shoulders with a gang of accomplices. But as it was not the fruit that gave me pleasure, I must have got it from the crime itself, from the thrill of having partners in sin.

How can I explain my mood? It was certainly a very vile frame of mind and one for which I suffered; but how can I account for it? Who knows his own frailties?

The prank tickles Augustine and his gang with laughter

Lachende Weiber (Smiling women) by Károly Kotász (1872–1941)

We were tickled to laughter by the prank we had played, because no one suspected us of it although the owners were furious. Why was it, then, that I thought it fun not to have been the only culprit? Perhaps it was because we do not easily laugh when we are alone. True enough: but even when a man is all by himself and quite alone, sometimes he cannot help laughing if he thinks or hears or sees something especially funny. All the same, I am quite sure that I would never have done this thing on my own.

Augustine did not steal the pears for gain but to experience enjoyment with his friends



Poire verte et couteau (green pear and knife). Signed Marcoussis. 1941.

My God, I lay all this before you, for it is still alive in my memory. By myself I would not have committed that robbery. It was not the takings that attracted me but the raid itself, and yet to do it by myself would have been no fun and I should not have done it. This was friendship of a most unfriendly sort, bewitching my mind in an inexplicable way. For the sake of a laugh, a little sport, I was glad to do harm and anxious to damage another; and that without thought of profit for myself or retaliation for injuries received! And all because we are ashamed to hold back when others say 'Come on! Let's do it!'

Saint Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Group, 1961, Books II.6, II.8, II.9, pages 49-52.

In Canada, unbelievers are increasing while Christians are decreasing and people no longer go to church every week: Mark A. Noll

The Greek word αθεοι (atheoi), as it appears in the Epistle to the Ephesians (2:12) on the early 3rd-century Papyrus 46. It is usually translated into English as "[those who are] without God".

Unbelievers are increasing while Christians are decreasing



"Then Atheist fell into a very great laughter."

Atheist, a mocker of CHRISTIAN and HOPEFUL, who goes the opposite way on the "King's Highway" because he boasts that he knows that God and the Celestial City do not exist.

Illustrations by Frederick Barnard, J.D. Linton, W. Small, etc. Engraved by Dalziel Brothers from the Henry Altemus edition of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress

Broad measures of church adherence underscore the magnitude of Canadian religious change over recent decades. As late as 1961, only one-half of one percent of Canadian citizens told census takers that they were not attached to any religious body. That proportion rose to 4.3 percent in 1971 and in the latest census from 2001 now stands at 16.2 percent. Over the same four decades, the proportion of Canadians telling census personnel that they were part of the Catholic Church declined slightly from 46 percent to 43 percent, while the proportion claiming a connection to the Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, and United churches--the four largest Protestant denominations that had long dominated religious life in English-speaking Canada--fell precipitously from 41 percent to 20 percent.

People used to go to church every week, but no longer

God Is an Atheist - She Doesn't Believe in Me by Bill Lewis

Reports of church attendance offer an equally dramatic picture. After World War II, when the Gallup Poll first asked Canadians whether they had been in church or synagogue sometime during the previous seven days, a full 67 percent of Canadians responded positively. Among all Canadian Catholics, the number was a robust 83 percent and in Quebec a stratospheric 90 percent. In the early 1960s, weekly mass attendance in the rapidly growing cities of Montreal and Quebec remained quite high, but some leaders worried openly that in working-class neighbors it was down to "only" 50 percent. By 1990, positive response to the Gallup question had fallen to 23 percent throughout Canada. Although the foremost Canadian religious demographer, Reginald Bibby, has recently noted some increase in attendance, his non-Gallup calculations chart a weekly attendance rate for the year 2000 of less than 20 percent.

A dramatic inversion has taken place: Now more Americans go to church than Canadians



Title: Smelling out a rat; or the atheistical-revolutionist disturbed in his midnight "calculations"Abstract: Print shows Richard Price seated at a desk, he turns to look over his right shoulder at a vision of an enormous Edmund Burke, his spectacles, nose, and hands emerge from the haze, a crown in one hand and a cross in the other, on his head an open copy of his "Reflections on the Revolution in France...." Hanging on the wall is an illustration of the beheading of Charles I titled, "Death of Charles I, or the Glory of Great Britain."
Notes: Forms part of: British Cartoon Prints Collection (Library of Congress).; At end of title: Vide a troubled--conscience.; Attributed to James Gillray.;

Numbers, of course, must be interpreted, but these findings about church identification and church attendance nonetheless indicate a series of shifts in Canadian religion that have not taken place in the United States, or have taken place at a much slower speed. Put generally, in 1950 Canadian church attendance as a proportion of the total population exceeded church attendance in the United States by one-third to one-half, and church attendance in Quebec may have been the highest in the world. Today church attendance in the United States is probably one-half to two-thirds greater than in Canada, and attendance in Quebec is the lowest of any state or province in North America. Over the course of only half a century, these figures represent a dramatic inversion.

1929 cover of the USSR League of Militant Atheists magazine, showing the gods of the Abrahamic religions being crushed by the Communist 5-year plan

This inversion, and the history of the last sixty years that created it, could not have been imagined in the years immediately after the Second World War. At that time, the vigor of Canadian religious practice seemed entirely in keeping with the general trajectory of Canadian history. Not only was Canada more observant in religious practice and more orthodox in religious opinion than the United States, but these comparative results represented only the latest chapter in a remarkable history of christianization stretching back to the eighteenth century. That history began with the creation in Quebec of a full-orbed, organic Catholic society--grounded in the colonial period on the self-sacrificing labors of several religious orders (both male and female), subsequently renewed by devotional and institutional revivals in the mid-nineteenth century, and then sustained deep into the twentieth century by a hegemonic but still remarkably resilient blend of popular piety and clerical supervision.

Source: Noll, Mark A. What Happened To Christian Canada?, Vancouver, Canada: Regent College Publishing, 2007, pages 13-16.

Irenaeus (130-202)'s Against Heresies documents early church tradition of the apostles Paul and Peter and the successive leadership of the church from the apostles to 12 popes ending with Pope Eleutherius (d. 189 AD)

An engraving of Irenaeus (130-202), Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul (now Lyons, France)

The Apostles pass the church onto the next generation before they go the way of all men and die

Adriaen van de Venne's Fishers of Men. Oil on panel, 1614.

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to "the perfect" apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

The Church was founded and organized at Rome by Peter and Paul and has pre-eminent authority

Apostles Peter and Paul by El Greco

Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say, ] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.

Tradition from the apostles to Pope Linus to Pope Anacletus to Pope Clement to Pope Evaristus to Pope Alexander to Pope Sixtus to Pope Telephorus to Pope Hyginus to Pope Pius to Pope Anicetus to Pope Sorer to Pope Eleutherius

This fresco (1481–82) by Pietro Perugino in the Sistine Chapel shows Jesus giving the keys of heaven to Saint Peter.

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spake with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the apostolical tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Sorer having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.

Polycarp (80-167 AD) combated heretics including Valentinus, Marcion, and Cerinthus

S. Polycarpus, engraving by Michael Burghers, ca 1685

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,-a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,-that, namely, which is handed down by the Church. There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, "Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me? ""I do know thee, the first-born of Satan." Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles.

Source: Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 3.