The Apostles’ First Successors

That Paul, preaching to the Gentiles, laid the foundations of the churches from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum is plain from his own words and from what Luke has recorded in the Acts. [a] It would also be clear from Peter’s words in how many provinces he too preached Christ to those of the circumcision and handed on the word of the new covenant: it is clear from the acknowledged letter of his that we have mentioned, in which he writes to the Hebrews living in the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. [b] But how many of them, and which, became genuine and zealous followers and were proved fit to shepherd the churches the apostles founded, is not easy to say, beyond those one can gather from Paul’s own words. For he had countless fellow workers and, as he himself called them, fellow soldiers, and most of them he honored with an unforgettable memory, for he set down a lasting testimony about them in his own letters. [c] Luke too, in the Acts, lists his acquaintances and mentions them by name.

Timothy, it is recorded, was the first to receive the office of bishop in the community at Ephesus, as Titus was of the churches in Crete. [d] Luke, who was by birth from Antioch and by profession a physician, was with Paul most of the time and kept close company with the rest of the apostles. From them he acquired the art of healing souls, and he has left us examples of it in two divinely inspired books. One is the Gospel, which he testifies that he wrote just as it was handed down to him by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, all of whom, he says, he had followed from the first. The other is the Acts of the Apostles, which he composed no longer from hearsay but from what he had seen with his own eyes. [e] And they say that Paul used to refer to Luke’s Gospel whenever, as if writing about some gospel of his own, he said, “according to my gospel.” [f]

Of Paul’s other followers, Crescens is attested by him to have gone to Gaul; and Linus, whom he mentions in the Second Letter to Timothy as being with him in Rome, has already been shown to have been the first after Peter to receive the office of bishop of the church of Rome. [g] Clement too, who was appointed the third bishop of the church of Rome, is attested by Paul to have been his fellow worker and fellow contender. [h] Besides these, that Areopagite named Dionysius, whom Luke records in the Acts as the first to believe after Paul’s address to the Athenians on the Areopagus, is recorded by another of the ancients, Dionysius, shepherd of the community at Corinth, to have been the first bishop of the church at Athens. [i] But as we go along, the succession of the apostles in each period will be told at its proper time. For now, let us go on to what comes next in the history.