ures of Christianity, could have failed to develop a priestly class and an administrative episcopate to oversee the whole range of issues entailed by the impulse toward long-term institutional survival. Indeed, the rationalization of one element implicates rationalization of another. Schaefer and Henderson cite the establishment of "new patterns of stable ministry" as early as twenty years after the Crucifixion, a practice that was meant to assure the apostolic continuity, which is a proxy for institutional continuity as well. Ministry institutionalization and sacralization appear to have met the Church's need for ritual and doctrinal legitimation in its earliest developmental stage:
The pattern for the traditional Roman Catholic understanding of the rites of ordination is provided by the references to Timothy's ordination in the Pastoral Letters (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6). Faith and a good conscience are prerequisites; a prior charism disposes a person for office (Schaefer and Henderson 37)
The evidence of the ordination of Timothy is that in the C
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