■■ t iN.r7rw] you." On this Dr. Westcott remarks : ^' The contrast between the verbs (aTroCTreXAw, TriixTroj) in the two clauses is obviously significant. Both verbs are used of the mission of the Son and of the mission of believers, but with distinct meanings. The former {inroariWw) corresponds with the idea of our own words ' despatch ' and ' envoy,' and conveys the ac- cessory notions of a special commission, and so far of a delegated authority in the person sent. The simple verb, TrijjiTno " (the word used of the disciples), " marks nothing more than the immediate relation of the sender to the sent." After tracing the varied use of the words. Dr. Westcott says that the general result of the examina- tion " seems to be that in this charge the Lord presents His own mission as the one abiding mission of the Father ; t/iis He fulfils througJi His CluLvch. His dis- ciples receive no new commission, but carry out His." '^ So far, then, as the mere words are concerned, they do not necessarily imply the bestowal of supernatural grace or exclusive authority upon a priestly caste. The con- viction that they do not is strengthened when we pass from the words themselves to the occasion on which, and the people to whom, they were spoken. The facts seem to .show they were not spoken exclusively to the Twelve, but to the general body of the disciples. It ' Gospel of St. John, Additional Note on chap. xx. 21, p. 298. II.] Its Grave Uncertainties 47 will be admitted that the appearance of our Lord to His disciples described by Luke (xxiv. 36 sq?) is the same as that recorded by John in the passage under considera- tion (xx. 19 sq^. They both took place on the evening of the day of our Lord's resurrection ; they were alike in the suddenness of the aj^pearance of Jesus in the midst of the disciples, and in the mode of His salutation. Luke tells us that when Cleopas and his companion returned from Emmaus to Jerusalem they found the Eleven gathered together, and tJiem that zuere with them ; and that while they were relating what had happened at Emmaus Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them. John says the doors were shut where the disciples — not merely the apostles — were gathered for fear of the Jews. It is evident, therefore, that while Thomas was not there, Cleopas, who was not one of the Twelve, was ; as we have seen, Luke tells us that when he arrived he found others besides the apostles in the company within locked doors. Further, it is to be noted that Luke says nothing about any special com- mission of supernatural sort to be sent on by devolu- tion from the apostles to their successors. Surely such omission is strange and inexplicable, if, as is assumed, the whole Church life of the future was to depend upon unbroken succession and absolutely certain devolution of supernatural authority and grace. Luke tells us that our Lord on that memorable occasion opened the mind of the disciples, showed them how His sufferings, death, and resurrection fulfilled the Scriptures, and charged them that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. But beyond saying, " Ye are witnesses of these things," there is not one word about any special 48 Apostolical Succession [LECT. commission such as that which is claimed on the Succes- sion theory. It is true He said He would send forth the promise of the Father upon them, and that they were to tarry in the city until they were clothed with power from on high. But this promise referred to the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, and was certainly not fulfilled in the case of the Eleven alone, but for the hundred and twenty who were all together in one place. If our Lord did say anything about a special commission and devolution of power along a given line, we are inclined to ask, How is it that Luke did not think it important enough to record ? Was it not to the last degree vital to the welfare of the Church ? Then, again, as to the fact which John relates, that Jesus breathed on the company assembled, " and saith unto them. Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them ; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained," Dr. Westcott points out that " the act is described as one {h>ire/.) ; indeed, all the many nameless evangelists of the reign of Trajan who were trans- mitters of the tradition were really in the first rank of the succession of the apostles, inasmuch as being holy disciples of such men they built up the Churches the apostles had founded (//. E., iii. 37). Here, as Harnack says, it is especially clear that the conception of succes- sion is by no means to be understood as hierarchic- III.] Fu7'ther Uncertainties and Objections 95 clerical ; and Heinrici refers to the fact that Eusebius has restored the expression of Josephus — " an exact succession of prophets " (//". E., iii. 10. 4), using it in such a way as to show that he did not connect the succession only with bishops. With Eusebius the first succession of the apostles is not the episcopal succes- sion, but the first generation after the apostles. Having given the names of leading teachers under the reigns of the different emperors, he says in the preface to his eighth book that he has already " related the successions of the apostles in all his Seven Books," the application being obvious. Clement of Alexandria also speaks of himself as coming under the influence of various eminent teachers during the formative period of his life. " The last of these," he says, " who was first in power, gathering the spoil of the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic fields, engendered in the souls of his hearers a deathless element of knowledge " {Strom., i. i). Eusebius says this passage refers to Clement's teacher Pantsenus, who was head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria : " This same man also Clement seems to me to refer to in the first book of his Stromata when he points out the most distinguished of the Apostolic Succession " {aTroGTo\iKy}g StaSox»?c)- It is obvious from this that Eusebius re- garded Pantaenus, though he was not a bishop, as not only in the apostolic succession, but as one of the most distinguished in that succession. ^ It is clear also that he regards the succession of the other teachers whom Clement names along with Pantaenus as forming part of the Apostolic Succession. With Eusebius, as with Hegesippus before him, the fragments of whose writings ' Harnack, Die Chronologic der altchristlicheu Li/teratur, 1S97, pp. 64-67. 96 Apostolical Succession [lect. he has preserved for us, the master-idea of the succes- sion was the handing on of apostoHc teaching, not the transmission of a special commission or of supernatural grace. Hegesippus, who wrote nearly a century and a half before Eusebius (c. i8o A.D.), seems to have been the first to draw up a list of the various pastors or bishops. While at Rome, he says, " I drew up the list of the succession as far as Anicetus," but the great point with him was that " in every succession and in every city they adhered to the teaching of the Law and the Prophets and the Lord." He conversed with most of the bishops as he travelled to Rome, and " he received the same teaching from all " (77. E., iv. 22). Not only in those first ages of the Church of which Eusebius wrote, but in all ages, the great religious teachers of mankind have never been confined to the official circles of the priestly systems. A writer of our own time has reminded us that, by the highest rank of the whole profession of the clergy — the Pontificate of Rome — the key of knowledge has been perhaps wielded less than by any other great institution in Christendom ; that of the 257 prelates who have been Popes of Rome only about four have done anything by their writings to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge and to raise the moral perceptions of mankind, and that the services of these were in the form of occasional acts of toleration towards the Jews, the rectification of the calendar, and a few similar examples of enlightenment. He contends also that if one-half of mediaeval Christendom was influenced in its desires after goodness by the clerical work of Thomas a Kempis, the other half was no less elevated by the lay work of the divine poem of Dante ; that if the religion of England has been fed in large III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections 97 part by Hooker, by Butler, by Wesley, and by Arnold, it has also been fed, perhaps in a yet larger part, by Milton, by Bunyan, by Addison, by Cowper, and by Walter Scott ; and, finally, that the almost uniform law by which the sins and superstitions of Christendom have been bound or loosed, has been that some one conscience or some few consciences, more enlightened or more Christlike than their fellows, have struck a new light or opened some new door into truth ; and then the light has been caught up and the opening widened by the gradual advance of wisdom and knowledge in the mass.i Such services as have been rendered by the clergy of the Church to the great cause of spiritual enlightenment and progress — and they have been many and great — have come from their possession of a Divine influence which they shared in common with the rest of their brethren in Christ rather than from any special grace received from episcopal consecration. The qualities displayed and the services rendered were Catholic only because they were Christian. Any other theory of the Christian ministry than this of personal gifts and spiritual fitness is sure to act disastrously. In order to establish the theory of x-lpostolical Succession and the validity of sacraments as dependent upon the presence and acts of an officiating priest, it has been found necessary to show that the acts are valid irrespective altogether of the character of the man who performs them. It is a sound instinct, which surely comes from God and commends itself to every sensible man, that raises the searching question, How is it conceivable that men of evil or utterly unspiritual lives, such as too many of the clergy ' Stanley's Christian Institutions, pp. 138-9. 98 Apostolical Succession [LECT. have been, can be God's instruments to impart His spiritual gifts to others ? Dire indeed must be the exigency which led a man like Leighton to reply : " God can convey grace by those to whom He has given none ; He can cause them to carry this treasure and have no share in it ; carry the letter and not know what is in it." Canon Gore maintains that the objection to unspiritual men performing spiritual functions is one that rather admits of being strongly felt than con- sistently argued, forgetting that that which is strongly felt is often truer than that which is consistently argued. The unworthiness of the minister, he says, hinders not the grace of the sacrament, because the Holy Spirit, and not the minister, is the giver of the grace ; that even our Lord recognised the official authority of the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses' seat ; and that in a visible society in which good and bad are mingled together there is really no more difficulty in believing that bad men can share the functions of the ministerial priesthood than that bad men share the priesthood which belongs to all Christians. Apart from the fact that it has yet to be shown that bad men do share the priesthood which belongs to all Christians, we feel instinctively that this kind of argument is confusing to one's moral sense, and would never have been used except under the stress of direst emergency, and for the purpose of bolstering up, by a perversion of Scripture, an ecclesiastical system foreign to the Scriptural idea. The power of God is not conveyed by physical contact, but by the reception of a spirit. God in His spiritual realm works not through the hands of a man, but through his soul, and thus working love begets love, and faith generates faith. The mind of Christ, as set forth in the III.] FurtJier Uncertainties and Objections 99 minds of His servants, acts on other minds, whether by- ideas or character, and so produces Hkeness to itself. On the mechanical theory of transmission one is shocked to find that no amount of wickedness can invalidate Holy Orders, though, strange to say, a mere technical informality at ordination may. The Pope has definitely and formally decided that the absence of certain words in ordination has completely invalidated clerical Orders in the Church of England for three centuries and more. On the other hand, the Orders of the Holy Father Rodrigo Borgia, and his son C?esar, the cardinal, were not invalidated, though the record of their lives presents a picture of flagitiousness, treachery, rapine, and murder unsurpassed in the records of guilt. Of the Papal Court at Avignon we have in Petrarch's Letters the report of an eye-witness, who calls it the third Babylon, the shameless abode of cruelty, avarice, and lust, where honour, innocence, and piety are of no avail against gold ; and heaven and Christ themselves are put up to sale. The men who did these things were in Holy Orders ; violations of the most sacred human obligations were committed on the steps or from the very seat of the Papal throne, still these Orders were not invalidated. Straightforward, single-minded men, uncorrupted by ecclesiastical systems, refuse to bewilder their moral sense by these outrages upon Scripture ; and since sanctity is an attribute which belongs to the indivisible will or personality, refuse to draw a dis- tinction between private character and official functions. What would He have said who in other days, with stern severity and holy scorn, drove out worldliness from the temple of God ? He did say, by their fruits ye shall know them. 100 Apostolical Succession [LECT. In addition to the objections already urged against the theory of Apostolical Succession, there is one of constitutional sort not to be lightly set aside : it is that the undue stress laid upon official authority in the Church has had the effect of superseding the self-governing and viutually edifying functions of the Church itself. The Christian Churches of the earliest time were com- munities gathered from the outside world, and when thus gathered each community was complete in itself and self-governing. They were communities existing within the greater community of the national life. They regarded themselves as sojourners (irapoiKoi), dwellers by the side of others. As to their heavenly citizenship, they were no more strangers and sojourners {wapoiKoi), but as dwellers in the cities of this world they were sojourners ever. In the Greek version of the Old Testament scriptures the Hebrew captives in the cities of Babylon were so described, and those who returned after the seventy years were known as " the sons of the sojourning " (irapoiKiag). The word passed over to the Christians because they felt that they lived in a world of their own, and in a real sense separate from their neighbours. The letter known as the Epistle of Clement bears the superscription : " The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth [irapoiKoixDJl ^^ Corinth." They were transitory dwellers (TrapoiKOi) as contrasted with those who made their home in this world, and were per- manent residents in the secular sphere (kutoikoi). The feeling is finely expressed in the Epistle to Diognetus (c. 5.) : " Christians," says this writer, " are not dis- III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections loi tinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality, or in speech, or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, . . . but while they dwell in cities of Greeks or barbarians, as the lot of each is cast, and follow the native customs in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, their own citizenship is quite of other sort. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners ; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign." This feeling of separateness from the outside un- spiritual world drove them quite naturally the closer to each other. United by the most powerful of bonds, that of common religious sympathies and aspirations, they came together under a feeling of common brotherhood and received that kind of stimulus which men always get from association with those animated by like aims and hopes. Spiritual brotherhoods thus constituted, and dwelling in the midst of unsympathetic surroundings, were almost of necessity autonomous communities, and all the facts which have come to our knowledge show- that they actually were. For example, from the earliest time, and for long after, they elected their own officers. They even took prominent part in choosing an apostle to fill the place left vacant by Judas. It was among the hundred and twenty disciples that Peter made the proposition that the vacancy should be filled, and they, that is, the whole company, put forward two men to be decided on as the lot should direct. Again, at a later time, when the apostles needed help in the administra- tion of affairs, they called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said : " Look j'^ out, brethren, from among 102 Apostolical Sticcession [LECT. you seven men of good report." The saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen and others to be set apart by the apostles. As we learn from the Epistle of Clement, the Church in Corinth not only elected its presbyters but also dismissed them. It is true their brethren in Rome remonstrated with them for doing it, but not because they had no right to dismiss their officers, but only because they had exercised their power in the case of men who did not deserve to be dismissed, who had " ministered unblameably to the flock of Christ in lowliness of mind," and who had been appointed " with the consent of the whole Church." We gather that Polycarp approved of the action of the Church at Philippi in setting aside an unworthy presbyter in the person of Valens {Ep., c. ii). The Didache of about the same date charges the Churches to appoint for themselves bishops and deacons, worthy of the Lord, men true and approved. The Apostolic Canons, as we have just seen, in the case of a Church so small that " there are not twelve persons who are com- petent to vote at the election of a bishop," urges them to send for three persons from some neighbouring Church to assist them in making their choice. The Apostolic Constitutions also enjoin that the bishop shall be " chosen hy the whole people, who, when he is named and approved, let the people assemble with the presbytery and bishops that are present on the Lord's Day and let them give their consent" (viii. 4). Up to and even after the conversion of the Empire under Constantine bishops and presbyters were chosen by the whole body of the people by show of hands (x^tporovia) ; and Eusebius tells us (//. E., vi. 29) that when Fabianus was chosen successor to Anteros, all the brethren were III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections 103 met for the purpose, and the whole body with all eager- ness and with one voice, as if moved by the one Spirit of God, proclaimed him worthy, and without delay placed him in the bishop's seat. Other elections, such as that of Damasus at Rome, of Gregory at Constantinople, of Ambrose at Milan, and of Chrysostom at Constanti- nople, prove conclusively that the right of popular election continued in the Church for centuries, and that too after great constitutional changes in other important respects had been brought about. Even Cyprian, with all his strongly pronounced ecclesiastical proclivities, charged the people to separate themselves from an unworthy minister, especially since they themselves have the power either of choosing worthy ministers or of rejecting unworthy ones. He speaks also of his colleague Sabinus as having had a pastorate conferred on him " b\- the suffrage of the whole brotherhood " ; and he regards it as a thing of Divine authority that a minister be chosen in the presence of all the people, under the eyes of all, and be approved worthy and suitable by jDublic judgement and testimony. Returning to early apostolic times, we find that the Churches not only elected their own permanent officers, but also chose their representatives for special occasions and purposes. They sent forth Paul and Barnabas as missionaries to the heathen (Acts xiii.) ; and the Churches afterwards received the accounts of the work of God which were brought back by such missionaries. When tidings of the work at Antioch " came to the ears of the Church which was in Jerusalem, they sent forth Barnabas as far as Antioch " (Acts xi. 22). When Paul and Barnabas returned " they gathered the Church together, and rehearsed all things that God had done 104 Apostolical Succession [LECT. with them." When the question arose at Antioch as to the Gentile converts being required to conform to the Jewish custom of circumcision, it was the brethren there who appointed Paul and Barnabas and certain others to go up to Jerusalem and hold consultation with the apostles and elders on the question ; when these delegates set forth they were " brought on their way by the Church," and when they reached Jerusalem " they were received of the Church " as well as of the apostles and elders. It is said that the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider of the matter, but it is clear from what follows that it was really a conference of the whole Church, for we read that when Peter spoke " all the multitude kept silence ; and they hearkened unto Barnabas and Paul rehearsing what signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them." Then when a decision in favour of liberty had been arrived at, " it seemed good to the apostles and elders with the whole Church to choose men out of their company and send them to Antioch along with Paul and Barnabas." The document containing the decision arrived at in Jerusalem ran in the name of the apostles and elder brethren and was addressed " unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting." The delegates thus appointed when they were dismissed came down to Antioch, and having gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle. " And when they " {i.e., the multitude) " had read it they rejoiced for the exhortation " (or declared decision). These brethren having spent some time in Jerusalem "were dismissed in peace //'c*;;/ the brethren unto those that had sent them forth " (Acts xv.). In another instance we find Paul saying that along with III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections 105 Titus he was sending to Corinth " the brother whose praise in the Gospel is spread through all the Churches," but he straightway adds that this very brother whom he is sending had really been elected by the Churches to assist the apostle in the matter in hand (x^ipoTovriOeig vTTo tCov lKK\r](Tuov). Tlius spccial commissioners as well as ordinary officers were elected by the Church, as the word seems to indicate, by show of hands. Then, too, each Church controlled its own expenditure and exercised discipline within its own borders. The Church, as a Church, as a primary assembly, passed judgement upon erring brethren in their fellowship. Paul, referring to the action of the whole body, enjoins upon the Galatians to restore a lapsed brother in a spirit of meekness ; and he calls upon the Church at Corinth to deal firmly with a case of grave immorality which had occurred among them. They " being gathered together " are to ex- ercise discipline upon the man who has dishonoured the Christian name. They have the right, and duty is involved in the right : " Do not ye judge them that are within, whereas them that are without God judgeth? Put away the wicked man from among your- selves." ^ This autonomy of the several Churches is further recognised in the fact that it was to the Churches themselves and not to their officers that the apostle addressed his various Epistles. This was universally the case. These Epistles were addressed to the Church in Rome, " beloved of God," to the Church in Corinth, ' " Nothing, perhaps, has been more prominent in our examination of the Ecclesi3e of the apostoHc age than the fact that the Ecclesia itself, i.e., apparently the sum of all its male adult members, is the primary body, and, it would seem, even the primary authority " (Hort's Christian Ecclesia, p. 229). io6 Apostolical Successioji [lect. " called to be saints," to " the Churches of Galatia," to " the saints which are in Ephesus," to " the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossae," and to " the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." The one exceptional instance of an opening salutation where reference is made to the officers of the Church is that in the Epistle to the Philippians, but even here the people take precedence, and the letter is addressed " to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." On the other side it may be alleged that Paul reminded Titus that he had left him in Crete to set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every Church. But, if we may judge by analogy elsewhere, even in Crete the people would choose their own elders, and the function of Titus would be confined to seeing the arrangements carried out and setting those apart whom the Churches had chosen. We have no reason to suppose he exercised any kind of surveillance over these Churches afterwards. No doubt in the case of converts newly gathered and communities newly formed the missionary who intro- duced the Gospel among them would have more than ordinary influence for a while. But the normal con- dition was that of self-government. So again when Paul says that there pressed upon him daily " anxiety for all the Churches," we have no reason to suppose that this implied formal or authoritative supervision of their affairs, but only brotherly care for the great enterprise which lay so near his heart. We may be reminded, too, of the letter of Clement to the Church at Corinth, in which he seems to exercise a sort III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections loj of episcopal authority over the brethren there. But this letter proves too much. For when we look more carefully into it we find it is from a Church, to a Church, not from a bishop to a Church. It is, as we have seen already, a letter from " the Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth, to them which are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Dr. Lightfoot is emphatic enough on the point : " There is every reason," he says, " to believe the early tradition which points to St. Clement as its author, and yet he is not once named. The first person plural is maintained throughout : ' We consider,' ' we have sent.' Accord- ingly the writers of the second century speak of it as a letter from the community, not from the individual. Thus Dionysius of Corinth, writing to the Romans, (c. 170, A.D.) refers to it as the Epistle 'you wrote us by Clement ' (Euseb., H.E., iv. 23). Irenaeus says, ' the Church in Rome sent a very adequate letter to the Corinthians urging them to peace.' Later still Clement of Alexandria calls it the Epistle of the Romans to the Corinthians. . . . Now that we possess the work complete we see that the existence of Clement is not once hinted at from beginning to end. The name and personality of Clement are absorbed in the Church of which he is the spokesman." ^ Whatever changes after years may have brought, there was at first no diocesan episcopate, no authority exercised by one Church over another.^ The members of one Church ' Apostolic Fathers, Part i. vol. i. 69. ^ "Of officers higher than elders we find [in the New Testament] nothing that points to an institution or system, nothing like the episcopal system of later times " (Dr. Hort's Christian Ecclesia, p. 232). io8 Apostolical Succession [lect. received the members of other Churches to hospitahty, letters of commendation were given and received, apostles, prophets, and teachers moved to and fro among the various Churches, tarrying and teaching here and there, and so begetting a kind of corporate congregational unity among the many brotherhoods scattered abroad. But anything like authoritative control from without came much later. Even Councils when they first began were simply brotherly con- ferences without power of legislation. There is a significant passage in Tertullian i^De Jejuniis, c. xiii.) in which he says that " throughout the provinces of Greece (J)er Grcscias) there are held in definite localities those Councils gathered out of the universal Churches, by whose means not only all the deeper questions are handled for the common benefit, but the actual representation of the whole Christian name is celebrated with great veneration. And how worthy a thing is this, that under the auspices of faith men should congregate from all quarters to Christ ! ' See how good and how enjoyable for brethren to dwell in unity ! ' This psalm you know not well how to sing except when supping in a goodly company ! " From these words we gather that up to the time of Tertullian Church Councils were confined to the nations bearing the name of Greeks, and had not been adopted either in Africa or in the Latin Church, or among the Churches along the Nile ; that they were mere con- venient human arrangements and not Divine institu- tions ; that they did not interfere with the internal government of the several Churches, but conferred in brotherly manner on spiritual matters of general interest and importance ; and finally that the bishops or pastors III.] Further Uncertaifities and Objectio7is 109 present at these Councils were there as representatives of their respective Churches, and not in their private and individual capacity. The general history of the period, so far as known to us, bears out this statement of Tertullian. There is no reference to any ecclesiastical Council prior to the second century. The Conference recorded in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts was not really a Council proper. A Council in the technical sense means an assembly of several associated Churches, or a congregation of delegates representing a number of Churches met to consult on the common welfare. The gathering on the occasion referred to was merely a meeting of the members of one individual Church consisting of the apostles, elders, and people. Ecclesi- astical Councils properly so called came much later, and, as Tertullian says, were at first confined to Greece, from which towards the close of the second century they passed into Palestine and Syria. Mosheim, whose keen insight into early Church history has not been surpassed by more recent writers, said long since that while in the first age of Christianity the Churches were united in one common bond of faith and love, "yet with regard to government and internal economy, every individual Church considered itself an independent community. Neither in the New Testament nor in any ancient document whatever do we find anything recorded from which it might be inferred that any of the minor Churches were at all dependent on, or looked up for direction to, those of greater magnitude or consequence ; on the contrary, several things occur therein which put it out of all doubt that every one of them enjoyed the same rights, and was considered no Apostolical Succession [lect. as being on a footing of the most perfect equality with the rest." ^ This equality of the Churches among themselves was the natural outcome of the equality of all the brethren in each separate Church. They were all sons of God through faith in Christ, and therefore all entitled to participation in their common affairs. All differences of gifts or vocation were outweighed by the common dignity. Self-government was the logical outcome of sonship, and ecclesiastical office could only represent the rendering of service. These early communities were fully empowered to exercise the most important rights. They, as we have seen, elected and dismissed their own officers ; chose representatives for special service ; sent out missionaries and received reports of their work ; exercised discipline, controlled finance, and ' Cof/imentaries on the Affairs of the Christians before the Time of Constatitine, i. 263, Vidal's ed., 181 3. Dr. Hort is quite explicit on this point in his Christian Ecclesia. Speaking of Paul's Epistles he says, "Connected with this carefulness to keep individual membership in sight is the total absence of territorial language (so to speak) in the designations of local Ecclesise" (p. 114). "Plural designations of a plurality of Ecclesia are designated by a genitive of the region : the Ecclesise of Judsea (Gal. i. 22), of Galatia(i Cor. xvi. i), of Macedonia (2 Cor. viii. i), of the nations or Gentiles (Rom. xvi. 4). We find no instance of such a form as the Ecclesise of Ephesus (a city) or the Ecclesiae of Galatia " (a region), p. 115. "It is important to notice that not a word in the Epistle [Ephesians] exhibits the One Ecclesia as made up of many Ecclesias. To each local Ecclesia St. Paul has ascribed a corresponding unity of its own ; each is a body of Christ and a sanctuary of God : but there is no grouping of them into partial wholes or into one great whole. The members which make up the One Ecclesia are not communities but individual men" (p. 168). "Thus there is a multiplication of single . Ecclesia. We need not trace the process further. We find St. Paul cultivating the friendliest relations between these different bodies, and sometimes in language grouping together those of a single region ; but we do not find him establishing or noticing any formal connexion between those of one region, or between all generally " (p. 227). Whether this was anything like modern Congregationalism or not, it certainly was very unlike to modern diocesan episcopacy, or a National Church system. III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections 1 1 1 carried on correspondence in their own name with sister Churches. It has been well said : " An ecclesiastical office endowed with independent authority could not exist along with this self-government. It could only take the form of a ministry whose warrant rested from day to day on the voluntary approval of the members." ^ VI, By way of conclusion to this part of the subject we have now only to add that the practical consequences of the theory of Apostolical Succession — the estrangement, exclusiveness, and intolerance engendered by it — are pre- sumptive evidence against it. It is true that for the purpose of mitigating its seeming intolerance the theory is sometimes advanced with an air of pious humility. For example, in 1836 Dr. Pusey wrote to a friend as follows : " Apostolic Succession, what is this but to say that we have a privilege which scarcely any other body of Christians has in the West, which is freed from the corruptions of Rome. Or again, if we speak of it with reference to Dissenters, with what real sorrow we ought to feel their loss, and with what humility our own privileges ! "2 Mr. Haddan again sought to lessen the appearance of assumption by making pious concession : " The Churchman," he says, " often may well feel that he must watch and labour and pray if he would rival many a Dissenter in spirituality and holiness. But the truth is unaltered none the less ; nor is the vantage ground both of faith and of grace diminished upon which the Churchman stands and by which he will be ' Weizsacker's Apostolic Age, bk. v. c. ii. 2, § i. = Life of Pusey, vol. i. 403 (E. B. P. to J. F. Russell, Dec, 1836). 112 Apostolical Succession [lecT. judged."'' Men who have lived in a clerical atmosphere for the greater part of a lifetime can, no doubt, write in this way with the most perfect sincerity, believing that they, and they only, are commissioned and privileged from heaven. But pious concession is not the best substitute for sound argument, and we cannot forget that the artifice of inculcating absurdities by the use of " an awful and reverential manner " has been said to be the approved receipt for sanctifying, in the eyes of the timid and credulous, the most enormous deviations from truth and common sense. Imitators are seldom equal to those they imitate. It is difficult for Anglican writers to rival the Jesuits in the subtle art of pro- pounding doctrines subversive of Scripture and insult- ing to human reason with an air sanctimonious and a show of pious gravity. It might well be supposed that so able a writer as the one just quoted would have some misgivings as to his theory, if, as he says, a Churchman with his supernatural privilege would have to strive so resolutely in order to rival in spirituality and holiness many a Dissenter who on his hypothesis was destitute of this privilege. There must be serious lesion somewhere. While there is an air of piety in this way of putting the case, there is also the appearance of resolute fidelity to truth in the manner in which responsibility for the conse- quences of the theory is disavowed. In Tract No. 4 of the Tracts for the Ti?nes, Hurrell Froude first raised the question as to whether by accepting Apostolic Suc- cession they did not unchurch all Christians who have no bishop, and then answered his own question by saying, " We are not judging others, but deciding on ' Apostolic Succession in the Church of England, by Arthur W. Haddan, P- 73- in.] Further Uncertainties mid Objections 113 our own conduct. We do not pass sentence on other persons, but we are not to shrink from our deliberate views of truth and duty because difficulties may be raised by such persons. To us such questions are abstract, not practical, and whether we can answer them or no, it is our business to keep fast hold of the Church Apostolical whereof we are actual members." In like manner Mr. Haddan also defends the exclusiveness of his party by saying that " truth is none the less to be held fast because there are good men who, unhappily for themselves, do not hold it ; least of all, truth that forms part of the elementary creed of Christendom." Archbishop Bramhall, less courteous, puts the matter more brusquely : If continental Protestants, or Dis- senters at home, go wrong, that is their affair, not his. " What have I to do with the regulations of foreign Churches, to burn mine own fingers with snuffing other men's candles ? Let them stand or fall by their own master."! In company with these writers Canon Gore, also, has no misgiving on the score of uncharitableness. He declines to discuss the question as to whether Churches calling themselves Episcopal, but not Anglican, have really the historical succession, but he has not a vestige of doubt about others : " It will appear at once as a consequence of all this argument that the various Presbyterian and Congregational organisations, however venerable on many and different grounds, have, in dispensing with the episcopal succession, violated a fundamental law of the Church's life. ... It follows, then, not that God's grace has not worked and worked largely, through many an irregular ministry, when it was exercised or used in good faith, but that a ministry ' Warning against Scottish Discipline. ' 114 Apostolical Succession [LECT. not episcopally received is invalid, that is to say, falls outside the conditions of covenanted security, and cannot justify its existence in terms of the covenant." ^ On reading this one is disposed to ask where is this covenant to be seen, the " terms " of which seem to be known in episcopal circles, but nowhere else? What are " uncovenanted mercies," and if, as it seems, they reach even to the salvation of a man's soul and to the building of him up in nobleness of Christian life and character, wherein do they differ from mercies that are covenanted ? The only covenant we who read our Bibles know of is that new covenant, the " terms " of which were first set forth by the prophet Jeremiah (xxxi. 31-34), and afterwards more clearly and fully stated by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (viii. 6-13), and of which Christ Himself is the Mediator. This only covenant of which we know anything in these New Testament days has for its " terms " : that God's great law of life and truth is now to be no mere external law written on tables of stone, but a law inscribed by the living Spirit on the inward heart ; that to men thus illumined the promise is made, " I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people " ; that there shall be a universal reign of light, so that " they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know Him from the least to the greatest " ; and finally this new, this better covenant, carries this gracious promise, " I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." There is nothing here, not a word, which authorises any man to narrow the flowings forth of Divine grace to an official ' The Ministry of the Christian Chiirch, pp. 344-45. III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections 115 line of priests. The only priest with whom this cove- nant is concerned is the one great Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. If there is any other covenant in existence by which the Eternal has promised to tie Himself down to the com- munion of the Anglican Church, it is high time it was produced, that its credentials may be examined. We know nothing of it, and it appears that the Pope of Rome, the great authority on all matters of ecclesias- tical etiquette, knows nothing of it either. In terms, the meaning of which cannot possibly be mistaken, he has decided, as we have seen, that Anglican Orders for the last three hundred years have been and are abso- lutely null and void, altogether invalid. Canon Gore cannot place the non-episcopal Churches lower down in the scale than the Pope places the Church to which Canon Gore himself belongs. Canon Gore will probably reply to the Pope that his assumptions do not alter facts ; we say precisely the same thing to Canon Gore and those who are with him. The mere fact that ordinations have been performed by bishops for a given number of centuries is nothing to the purpose in face of the further fact that diocesan bishops were unknown for two centuries after the time of the apostles, that what bishops there were were simply individual pastors of separate Churches, with no more authority than a simple pastor has to-day. An exclusive theory of the ministry on which such momentous results are made to depend should surely have a broader and deeper foundation to stand on than a metaphor or a hint, a guess or a criti- cism. It cannot be shown when the commission for which so much is claimed was first given, or to whom, ii6 Apostolical Succession [lfxT. how it was passed on, or along what h'ne it came, and yet on such frivolous grounds Christian men are inso- lently consigned to uncovenanted mercies, and bidden to withdraw from the Holy Place to the Court of the Gentiles. A vigorous writer of half a century ago said then what needs to be repeated now, that the strongest and most irrefragable argument against so-called Church principles is not so much their absurdity, though that is flagrant enough, but their essential uncharitableness. One stands absolutely confounded at the fatuity of men who, with the New Testament in their hands, are ready to fraternise with Rome while they treat Lutheran and Presbyterian with scorn and contumely ; who for the sake of mere figments remorselessly exclude a large portion of the communities of Christendom from the very name, rights, and privileges of Christian Churches ; who can imagine the great doctrines in which both they and their opponents coincide, and which form the theme and triumph of inspired eloquence, of less moment than doctrines and rites on which Scripture is ominously silent, or which seem to stand in shocking contrast to the moral grandeur and magnanimous spirit of the Christian institute. The facts of life and of the spiritual world cannot be explained on the theories of these men, and may well give them pause. There have been and are saintly men and women by thousands who show all the graces of the Christian life, and whose Christian character is unim- peachable, who yet have remained outside the episcopal communion all their lives. There are thousands of godly ministers, whose work God has graciously owned in the saving and upbuilding of men, who can point to the fruits of their ministry and say, " Need we, as do III.] Further Uncertainties and Objections 117 some, epistles of commendation ? Ye are our epistles, written in our hearts, known and read of all men ; being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, minis- tered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God ; not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh." On the other hand there have been numbers of clerics, it is no breach of charity to say, who have gone through all the forms of initiation into the episcopal ministry, and yet, so far as men could judge, were mere blind leaders of the blind. The facts of life make havoc of the fictions of priests. God refuses to be bound by the narrow notions of half-enlightened men. What they please to call His " uncovenanted mercies " are only His own Divine way of showing to these men, as He showed to Israel of old, that He will not be restrained within the pitiful metes and bounds which men in their pride and prejudice are for ever rearing. The love of God is broader than the measures of man's mind ; and, throwing down the middle walls of partition built up by men in their littleness. He says sublimely, " I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. The same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon Him : for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." LECTURE IV EARLIEST FORMS OF CHURCH LIFE LECTURE IV EARLIEST FORMS OF CHURCH LIFE THUS far in our inquiry we have found not a few weighty reasons for hesitating to accept that mechanical conception of the Church and the ministry involved in the idea of Apostohcal Succession. Let us now turn to the more positive aspects of the question, in the hope of discovering, if we may, what the primitive constitution of the Church really was. We ought to set forth on our search by laying aside, as far as we can, our own preconceived ideas ; for though these may harmonise with our own preferences, they may not necessarily correspond with facts. With all their serious defects the Tubingen School rendered us one important service — they stated the problem of Primitive Church History in clearer and more tangible form than it had been stated before. Their main contentions have now been discredited and left behind, but Baur has the credit of being the first writer who asked him- self, not what does Early Christianity prove, but what was it like ? Let us ask the same question. It is direct and to the purpose, and has the advantage of clearing away much useless discussion and leading us to a straight issue. 122 Apostolical Succession [lect. But when we have resolved to keep to the simple question, What was Early Church organisation like ? we ought to define what we mean by. the word " early." Clement of Rome and Cyprian of Carthage are some- times quoted in a general way as if they were con- temporaries, whereas there was a century and a half between them — a century and a half of most eventful years during which momentous changes were made. It is not enough therefore to go back merely to Cyprian's time and to his treatise " de Unitate " in our search for what was primitive. More than forty years ago Bunsen drew attention to the fact that the Tractarian Party, while exalting " tradition " and " antiquity," reserved for themselves the task of determining, by a process of picking and choosing, what should be accepted as valid tradition and decisive antiquity. This he called intro- ducing " Popery without authority." To avoid laying ourselves open to the same objection let us take the earliest time of all, the century and a half after the founding of the Church at Pentecost. There is nothing arbitrary in this selection, for this was the period immediately under the formative influence of the apostles or of men who knew them, and it is sufficiently long to give definite character to Church life. It may fairly be claimed that whatever was unknown to the Church in the first century and a half of its existence cannot be regarded as indispensable to its integrity through subsequent ages. Divine authority can no more be claimed for later innovations than it can be claimed for any ecclesiastical invention of our own times. The period being thus restricted, the materials for judgement, so far as they have been preserved to us, are IV.] Earliest Forms of CJiurcJi Life 123 brought within definite and reasonable compass. The works thus included as being original sources are, of course, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of the New Testament ; following these in sub- apostolic times we have the two documents improperly called the Epistles of Clement ; the recently discovered " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles " ; the Epistle of Barnabas ; the Shepherd of Hermas ; the Epistle to Diognetus ; the Apologies of Aristides and Justin Martyr ; the fragments of Papias and Hegesippus, and the Letters from the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, preserved by Eusebius ; the writings of Irenaeus ; the Apostolic Canons and portions also of the Apostolical Constitutions, though these were not collected in their present form till a much later date. The Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp, for well-known reasons, stand by themselves and require separate consideration. In dealing with a period like that we have marked out for ourselves, where materials are scanty and un- certainties are many, we are under the necessit)' of feeling our way from the known to the unknown. It so happens that, as far as Church organisation is concerned, the time of which we know least is the critical and important period between the death of the Apostle Paul (c. 64 A.D.) on the one hand, and the time of Justin Martyr (c. 150 A.D.; on the other hand — a period, speaking roughly, of between eighty and ninety years. If the actual arrangements of those years could be made clear, many of our difficulties would vanish. But failing this, if we could gain something like certain knowledge on Church organisation as it existed midway between these two points, we should have gained a great step in advance. From this vantage ground we could look 124 Apostolical Succession [LECT, back to the state of things as described in Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians and the Ephesians, and forward to the conditions of Church life as described by Justin Martyr in his Apology, and if we found any- thing like continuity and agreement from point to point we should have reasonable presumption of some- thing like certainty. Now it so happens that the discoveries of recent years have placed us in this fortunate position of being able to look both backward and forward from a midway point. The coming to light of the little manual known as the Didache or " The Teaching of the Apostles," or " The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," as it is variously described, consti- tutes a new era in our knowledge of the Early Church. It may therefore be worth while to give some brief description of the work before proceeding to use it. In the quarter of Constantinople know as Phanar, inhabited almost exclusively by Greeks, is the patri- archal church and the residence of the Greek Patriarch. Here too is the confused and irregular mass of build- ings belonging to the Patriarch of Jerusalem and forming what is called the Jerusalem monastery of the Holy Sepulchre. The building, a stone's throw to the east, has been for years the residence of Philotheos Bryennios, Metropolitan of Diocletian's ancient capital, Nicomedia. He is second only in ecclesiastical rank to the Patriarch, and eminent among his countrymen for his learning. In 1873, while looking over the MSS. in the Jerusalem monastery at Constantinople, he came upon a small bulky volume he had not noticed before. To his great surprise and satisfaction he found therein, in complete form, the two so-called Epistles of Clement. So occupied was he with these that he failed to notice IV.] Earliest Forms of ChurcJi Life 125 the Didache, which was in the middle of the book ; and it was not till 1880 that, looking again at the little treatise, he began to realise the value of the find he had made. In 1883 he published the work, together with an introduction and copious notes, and since then the original MS. has been removed to Jerusalem, to the headquarters of the fraternity. The volume in which it was found comprises 120 leaves of vellum, or 240 pages, contains seven different works, including the Didache, and ends with a colophon stating that it was " finished in the month of June, the i ith day, Tuesday, the ninth year of the Indiction in the year 6564" {i.e., a.d. 1056) " by the hand of Leo, notary and sinner." This Didache with which we are now specially concerned is admitted to be a very early Christian book, its probable date being c. 95 A.D. Zahn and Lightfoot both place it between 80 and 100 A.D. ; Funk, Langen, De Romestin and others content themselves with placing it in the last quarter of the first century. It has been long known that there had been such a book. As early as 200 a.d. Clement of Alexandria quoted- it as Scripture, regarding it as semi-apostolic and semi- inspired ; Eusebius also speaks of it in the same way. Dr. Taylor has shown from the writings of Justin Martyr that he was probably familiar with it ; and Professor Rendel Harris notes that it was current in the second century in Rome, Ephesus, Corinth, and Alexandria, and indeed was more widespread than almost any other early document that can be compared with it. It was incorporated into patristic writings and Early Church manuals ; it is the basis of the seventh chapter of the Apostolic Canons ; and a sermon b)- Boniface, the apostle of Germany, shows that he was 126 Apostolical Succession [LECT. familiar with it from beginning to end, using it almost as a text-book, so that it seems to have been known along the banks of the Rhine as late as the beginning of the eighth century. This little manual had, therefore, a remarkable record to begin with ; and it was no sooner published on its re- discovery in 1883 than scholars at once recognised its great importance. Dr. Lightfoot stated that the interest and value of the work were proved to exceed the highest expectations. It was accepted as a genuine fragment of the earliest traditions of the Church. Dr. Schaff, after a careful analysis of language and substance, pointed out that it bore close affinity in style and vocabulary to the writings of the New Testament, as distinct both from classical and patristic Greek ; that while its vocabulary comprises 552 different words, of these 504 are New Testament words. Then, as to its substance, he showed that there is nothing in the Didache which could not have been written between 70 and 100 A.D. On the one side there are no allusions to facts, move- ments, customs, and institutions known throughout Christendom from the middle or beginning of the second century ; there is no mention made of a New Testament canon or of any New Testament book, except the Gospels. It is silent on the Easter con- troversy, which in the second century became a burning question in the Church, and it is silent also on certain ascetic practices which began to prevail. Then, on the positive side, it is seen to present Christian teaching and Christian institutions in primitive, childlike simplicity. The love-feast and the Eucharist, which from the beginning of the second century were gradually sepa- rated, in the Didache were still one ; there was no class IV.] Earliest Forms of ChurcJi Life 127 distinction between clergy and laity, no mention made of ordination or of the three orders of which so much was made later, and there was still room left for extemporaneous prayer in the worship of the Church which had not yet stiffened into fixed liturgical form. From the general consensus of opinion as to the genuineness of the Didache there was only one dis- sentient voice, that of Dr. Krawutzcky, of Breslau, who, as a Roman Catholic writer, felt that its theology did not come up to the orthodox churchmanship of Peter, and assigned it to an Ebionitizing source, c. 200 A.D. On the other hand, another Roman Catholic writer {^Dublin Review^ October, 1884) speaks enthusiastically of the work as a compendium of the apostolic teaching, as accepted in 140 A.D., but which presented a state of things which had already died out in a great part of the Church, thus resembling, as he said, that cathedral of St. Magnus, in the capital of the Orkneys, which wit- nesses at this day to a survival of Norman architecture in a remote district after it had ceased in England. Enough has been said to show that Harnack does not use too strong language when he describes this book as of " epoch-making importance for the understanding of the earliest history of the Church constitution." We may now proceed, therefore, to the fuller consideration of that passage in the Didache, of which he said that " in the whole of Early Christian literature there is no other passage so important for the initial history of the Catholic episcopate." This occurs in the fifteenth chapter, where, after speaking of the reception accorded to apostles, prophets, and teachers, the manual charges the brethren thus : " Appoint for yourselves, therefore, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are 128 Apostolical Succession [lect. meek and not lovers of money, and true and approved ; for unto you they also perform the service of the prophets and teachers. Therefore despise them not ; for they are your honourable men [or men to be honoured], along with the prophets and teachers." Taking this passage with what had gone before, we arrive at this result, that at the end of the first century there was a twofold organisation in the early Churches, one based on the ministry of the Word, and regarded as directly from God — God-endowed and God-commis- sioned, belonging to all the Churches, and consisting of apostles, prophets, and teachers ; the other part an organisation fixed and local, chosen by the individual congregation, having for its function the management of the affairs of the community, and consisting of bishops and deacons. It is clear from the Didache that the latter were regarded as inferior to the former. It was necessary to urge that they were not to be despised, but to be regarded with honour along with the prophets and teachers ; for indeed, probably in the absence of these, they also performed the service of the prophets and teachers. The vital question now to be asked is, Does this two- fold division of Church officers correspond with what we find in the Scriptures in the matter of Church organisa- tion? In seeking an answer to this question we note first that both in the Didache and the Scriptures the place of honour is assigned to the teachers rather than to the administrators of the Church. The Didache says : " My child, thou shalt remember him that speaketli unto thee the Word of God night and day, and shalt honour him as the Lord ; for whencesoever the Lordship speaketh there is the Lord " (c. 4). In like manner in i\'.] Earliest Forms of ChurcJi Life 129 the Epistle to the Hebrews we read : " Remember your rulers who spake unto you the Word of God" (xiii. 7). The same Greek phrase is in both places, and also in the Epistle of Barnabas, as if it were a technical expression : " Thou shalt love as the apple of thine eye every one that speaketh unto thee the Word of the Lord" (xix. 19, 10). Then, when we come to differentiate these teachers, we again find the Didache and the Scriptures agreeing. The Didache speaks of apostles, prophets, and teachers : " Concerning the apostles and prophets, so do ye according to the ordinance of the Gospel. Let every apostle when he cometh unto you be received as the Lord" (c. 11). "Every true prophet desiring to settle among you is worthy of his food. In like manner a true teacher is also worthy, like the workman, of his food" (c. 13). Turning now from the Didache to the Acts of the Apostles, we find that in the Church at Antioch, besides the Apostle Paul, there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas and Symeon, Lucius and Manaen (xiii. i). In the First Epistle to the Corinthians also we read that " God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers," after which mention is made of helps, govern- ments, and other special and temporary charismata (xii. 28). To the same purport it is said in the Epistle to the Ephesians that Christ at His ascension gave gifts to men : " He gave some to be apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministry, unto the building up of the body of Christ " (iv. II, 12). Further, in this same Epistle, it is said that Christian men are " of the household of God, being- built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets " (ii. 10 130 Apostolical Succession [leCT. 20). The prophets here spoken of are usually taken to be those of the Old Testament, but they are nanmed after the apostles, and later on in the same Epistle it is said that the mystery of Christ, long hidden, " hath now been revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit," which can only mean prophets in Christian times. Tertullian says that Marcion, quoting the passage " built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets," erased the words " and prophets," " for- getting that the Lord had set in His Church not only apostles, but prophets also," and " fearing, no doubt, that our building was to stand in Christ upon the foundation of the ancient prophets " (Adv. Marcioti, V. 17). Thus both the New Testament and the Didache agree in recognising three classes of propagandists or teachers God-commissioned for all the Churches, and not officially connected with any one Church — apostles, prophets, and teachers. Alike in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xiii. 7, 17, 24), the Epistle of Clement (xxi. 6), and in the Shepherd of Hermas (Vis. iii. 9, 7) they are spoken of as " rulers," " leaders " (ir/ovfievoi), as dis- tinguished from the permanent officers or " elders " (■n-peaj^vTspoi). Clement urges the Corinthians to rever- ence their rulers (irpotijoviuievovg) and to honour their elders {Trpta^vTipovg). This, he said, they had done in their better days ; they walked after the ordinances of God, " submitting yourselves to your rulers [/jyou^tvofc] and rendering to the presbyters the honour which is their due " (c. i); while Hermas distinguishes between " rulers " and those " elders " who, as in the synagogue, occupy the chief seats (TrpwroKudi^piTaiQ). In Acts xv. 22 Judas and Silas are called chief men among the brethren (i)yoviuitvoi), and ver. 32 explains in what way, " Judas and Silas, being themselves also prophets." IV.] Earliest Forms of C/i/irch Life 131 Harnack maintains that there is no passage in the whole of Early Christian literature from which we can safely identify " rulers " (J}^ov\iivoi) with " elders " (irpiajivTepoi) ; that in all places where the word occurs before Hermas, namely, in the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Epistle of Clement, it refers only to the teachers and preachers, the spiritual guides of the community. Of the three classes — apostles, prophets, and teachers — -thus designated as " rulers " or " leaders " the apostles take precedence. Of course, when apostles are men- tioned we naturally think of the Twelve appointed by our Lord Himself. But even before the discovery of the Didache Dr. Lightfoot pointed out that the term " apostle " was not restricted to the Twelve, and that the case of Paul himself shows that the original number was broken in upon. ^ Speaking of the appearances of Christ after His resurrection, it is said (i Cor. xv. 6, 7) that He showed Himself to the Twelve, and after that " to all the apostles," as if there were others besides the Twelve. Andronicus and Junias are spoken of as " of note among the apostles," the most natural interpreta- tion of which indicates a considerable extension of the term, and was so understood by Origen and Chrysostom. Barnabas also is described as an apostle, and even men- tioned as such before Paul, and Paul himself designates his missionary assistants, Timothy and Silvanus, not merely as apostles of the Churches, but as apostles of Christ (i Thess. ii. 6), and it is evident from the way he speaks of Barnabas and Apollos that he so regarded them also. It would appear, indeed, that apostles in the later sense of the word, that is, as missionaries ' Ep. to the Galat. , pp. 92 sq. 132 Apostolical Succession [LECT. opening- new fields of service, were so numerous that unworth}- men could pass themselves off as such. Paul speaks of " false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ" (2 Cor. xi. 12, 15); and in the Apocalypse (ii. 2) it is said of the Church at Ephesus " thou didst try them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false." From all this it would appear that the New Testament recognises the existence of such apostles as we find spoken of in the Didache — men outside the circle of the Twelve, and continuing after they were gone. They could not, of course, stand as witnesses of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, as did the Twelve whom Paul calls chiefest apostles (v-n-epXiav uttocttoXoi, 2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11), but they were as the Twelve in being travelling missionaries, propagandists of the new faith, preachers of Christ's Gospel in the new fields of service to which they were the first to go. Of course we are not to regard Paul as founding his claim to be an apostle on this practice of appointing additional apostles ; his title to stand on the same footing as the Twelve resting on higher grounds and springing from a special Di\'ine call. But this practice does account for the condition of things existing at the end of the first century, and regarded by the Didache as recog- nised by the Churches. The looser and more general meaning of the word held its place side by side with its special and distinctive application. Next, after the apostles, the Didache speaks of the pi'opJiets as the spiritually endowed teachers of the Church. While the apostles go to uninstructed heathen peoples, the prophets have their mission to the Christian communities already gathered, for the purpose of IV.] Earliest Forms of Church Life 133 building up the Church in knowledge, and faith, and holiness. The first prevailing idea concerning the prophet was that his function was that of prediction ; then came the conception which was mainly true that his work was rather that of forthtelling than of fore- telling, and that prophesying meant preaching. There needs still another modification of the idea before we arrive at the exact truth. The prophet in the Early Church differed from the preacher, inasmuch as his utterance was the spontaneous prompting of the Spirit. The afflatus comes upon him and he speaks because he cannot refrain. He was not a Church officer in the ordinary sense, inasmuch as the Divine gift bestowed upon him w^as not official but personal. " No prophecy ever came by the will of man : but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost." Such were the prophets meant by the Didache, which represents them as playing a more important part than either the apostles or teachers with whom it associates them. Prophets are mentioned fifteen times in its few pages, apostles and teachers only thrice each. They are the chief priests of the Christian community. While a form for celebrating the Supper of the Lord is given, the Church is to " permit the prophets to offer thanksgiving as much as they desire." An apostle may not stop more than one day in a community, or two at most, whereas the prophet may settle for a length of time if he so desire. If he decides to settle he is to be duly cared for : " Every firstfruit of the produce of the wine- vat and of the threshing-floor, of thy oxen and of thy sheep, thou shalt take and give as the firstfruit to the prophets ; for they are your chief priests. If thou makest bread take the firstfruit and ffive according 134 Apostolical Siiccession [LECT. to the commandment. In like manner, when thou openest a jar of wine or of oil, take the firstfruit and give to the prophets ; yea, and of money, and raiment, and every possession take the firstfruit as shall seem good to thee, and give according to the commandment " (c. 13). Since he speaks under a Divine influence he is not to be judged by ordinary standards : " Any prophet speaking in the Spirit ye shall not try nor discern ; for every sin shall be forgiven, but this sin shall not be for- given " (c. 11). Still, while his utterances may not be judged he himself may. If he teaches truth and yet lives not the truth he teaches, he is a false prophet. This testing of the man by his life is spoken of in other writings of the time besides the Didache. In the " Shepherd " Hermas says : "As I shall tell thee so shalt thou test the prophet and the false prophet. By his life test the man that hath the Divine Spirit. He that hath the Spirit which is from above is gentle and tranquil and humble-minded, and abstaineth from all wickedness and vain desire of this present world, and holdeth himself inferior to all men " ; the false prophet, on the contrary, "exalteth himself, and desireth to have a chief place, and straightway he is impudent, and shameless, and talkative, and conversant in many luxuries and many other deceits." " Being empty him- self he giveth empty answers to empty inquirers," taking care to keep clear of righteous, discerning men : " He never approacheth an assembly of righteous men ; but avoideth them and cleaveth to the doubtful-minded and empty, and prophesieth to them in corners, and deceiveth them, speaking all things in emptiness to gratify their desires." Among men who have the Spirit of God the mere pretender is emptied, struck dumb and altogether n.] Earliest Forms of Church Life 135 broken in pieces, being unable to utter a word. " Trust thou the Spirit that cometh from God and hath power ; but in the earthly and empty spirit put no trust at all ; for in it there is no power " {Mand. xi.). That there were spiritually endowed prophets having great influence in sub-apostolic times in the Christian Church is not only to be gathered from the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas, but also even from a heathen writer like Lucian (c. 1 65-1 70 A.D.). In his De Morte Peregrini he brings his hero Proteus among the Christians, describes how he became a prophet among them, and as such was plentifully supplied with all he needed ; he tells how at one time he wandered about attended by a crowd of satellites, and at another, when cast into prison, the Christians visited him and ministered to him in many ways. Lucian meant to be sarcastic on what he thought to be the simplicity of the Christians ; incidentally he has, as an outsider, recorded a phase of their Church life. If we now compare these statements from outside writings with those found in the books of the New Testament we shall find them to correspond. From the time of Pentecost this gift of prophesying, that is, the gift of free, spontaneous utterance of spiritual truth under Divine influence, was certainly possessed by many in the Church. The ancient promise was fulfilled — your sons and your daughters shall prophesy ; and the Church was charged not to resist this manifestation, not to undervalue it : Quench not the Spirit : despise not prophesyings, is the injunction given. But beyond the general gift thus bestowed upon the Church as a sign and token of the descent of the Spirit, there were some who were specially endowed, and were recognised 13^ Apostolical Sitccession [LECT. as speaking the mind of the Spirit with exceptional power. The names have been preserved of several in the Church at Jerusalem specially designated as prophets. We read of Agabus, who, along with other prophets, went down from Jerusalem to Antioch (Acts xi. 27, 28 ; xxi. 10) ; of Judas and Silas, who, being themselves also prophets, exhorted the brethren at Antioch with many words and confirmed them (Acts XV. 32). Also in the Church of Antioch itself we read there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, and Symeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen the foster brother of Herod the tetrarch (Acts xiii. i). These prophets are evidently not regarded as officials of the Church in which we find them. Their work is spiritual, incidental, voluntary, and for the universal brotherhood. God set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers ; or, as it is otherwise stated, on His ascension Christ gave some to be apostles and some prophets . . . for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministry, unto the build- ing up of the body of Christ ; and so the Church was built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner-stone. These prophets, moving from place to place, the servants of all the Churches, coming into community after community for instruction and enlightenment, formed an important element in, and a striking proof of, the corporate unity of the Church. They did much to bind the scattered, independent, self-governing communities into one great visible whole. Their selection was not determined by human choice. The gift was heaven-bestowed, and was at once recognised wherever it appeared, raising its possessor to influence and eminence in the Church. IV.] Earliest Forms of Church Life 137 Taking all the evidence, apostolic and sub-apostolic, which has come down to us, it is clear that after the Twelve had gone the prophet and not the bishop was the influential factor in Early Church life. In the New Testament Church, as in Judah of old, the prophet and not the priest was the formative force. Then, finally, among the non-local spiritual leaders of the Church, along with apostles and prophets there were " thirdly teachers^ There was both place and need for these as well as those. For Christianity, passing beyond Jewish life, was in many directions, entering that great Greek world which was intellectually educated and endowed with the literary instinct, a world where stress was laid upon a knowledge of the literature of the past, and upon the habit of cultivated speech in the present. For intellectual purposes teaching had come to be a lucrative profession, the teachers being recog- nised by the State and by the separate municipalities, and in consequence enjoying immunities from public burdens. The schools where these travelling professors or teachers exercised their calling were not confined to Rome or Athens. As early as the middle of the first century Marseilles was even more frequented than Athens, and there were great intellectual institutions at Antioch and Alexandria, at Rhodes and Smyrna, at Ephesus and Byzantium, and even as far West as Naples and Bordeaux. ^ Into a world thus quick with mental life Christianity went forth on its mission of winning all classes of men for Christ. Out of the ranks of these teachers it is probable there arose those apolo- gists, those defenders of the Christian faith against the heathenism of the time, who made their appeal to ' Hibbert Lecture, Ijy Dr. Hatch, p. 35. 138 Apostolical Succession [lpxt. Roman emperors and to the culti\'ated classes of the Empire. There was also the work of further instruc- tion to be carried on amongst the new converts who had simply received the first principles of Christian truth. The difference between the prophet and the teacher was that the latter was more quietly didactic and systematic than the former. Chrysostom, in a homily on i Cor. xii. 27, explains the difference thus : " He \h-aX prophesieth speaketh all things from the Spirit, but he that teacheth sometimes discourses also out of his own mind." The Catechetical Schools were a prominent and important feature of the time ; that of Alexandria has been described as the first Divinity Hall of the Christian Church, and we have in the Apostolical Constitutions (vii. 39) a sort of synopsis of the course of instruction pursued in these schools. The catechumen was to be taught " in the knowledge of the unbegotten God, in the understanding of His only begotten Son and in the assured acknowledg- ment of the Holy Ghost." He was to "learn the order of the several parts of creation, the series of providence, and the different dispensations of the Divine laws." He was to be taught " to know his own nature, of what sort it is ; also how God has punished the wicked and glori- fied the saints in every generation " ; and finally he was to be shown that even when the world had gone astray " how God still took care of and did not reject mankind, but called them from their error and vanity to the acknowledgement of the truth at various seasons, reducing them from bondage and impiety unto liberty and piety, from injustice to righteousness, from death eternal to everlasting life." After his initiation the young disciple was to be further " instructed in the IV.] Earliest Forms of Church Life 1 39 doctrines concerning- our Lord's incarnation, and in those concerning" His passion and resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven." The work of the teacher was thus not less living or less needful than that of the apostle or the prophet. Having thus dealt with the spiritually endowed, the God-commissioned teachers of the community, we pass now to the local officers of administration elected by the Church and variously described as presbyters, bishops, deacons, presidents (TrpoearioTeg) and rulers {jr p6iaTu\iivoi). These had a different origin from the former. While it is said that " God hath set some in the Church first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers " and further "helps and governments," it is nowhere said that He gave presbyters, bishops, or deacons. These arose from the necessity which every society feels lor some form of government, and they took shape according to local feeling and past association. The kingdom of God as a Divine society was set up in the earth, being planted in the hearts of believing men and the spiritual forces by which it was to be perpetuated and extended were pro- vided in the shape of apostles, prophets, and teachers, while the machinery of organisation by which these believing men should become a self-governing society was left to be evolved according to local circumstances and the necessities of the case. In the constitution of the society by which the kingdom of God is to find human expression much has been left to the judgement and free action of spiritually enlightened men. While God bestowed the charismatic gifts, the Church elected its own administrative officers. The community chose the Seven to serve tables as described in the ^^cts of the Apostles, and the Didache of a later date enjoins the 140 Apostolical Succession [lkct. Churches as follows: "Appoint for yourselves therefore bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are meek and not lovers of money, and true and approved ; for unto you they also perform the service of the prophets and teachers " ; that is, as we may suppose, in the absence of itinerant prophets and teachers : " there- fore despise them not ; for they are your honourable men along with the prophets and teachers" (c. 15). As we now enter a region which has long been one of thorny controversy we shall probably best disentangle the whole question if we first of all carefully draw a dis- tinction which the Apostle Paul himself has drawn, and which has been too often overlooked — a distinction between Churches existing among different nationalities and in various countries. For national preference and local custom naturally exercised their influence on the ecclesiastical as well as on the civil life of the time. We have first the ChiircJies of Judea, in which only Jewish ideas prevailed and where the administration was in the hands of presbyters or elders (Gal. i. 22 ; i Thess. ii. 14). Then besides these " Churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus," we have the Churches of the Gentiles (ejcicXr)(T('ot TMv Idvuiv), in which there was also often a considerable Jewish element, and in which the local administrators were "bishops and deacons"; these two classes of officers being described in one general term by the Gentile Christians as " rulers " {wpdiaTufitvoi) or " presidents " {TrpoicjTtoTtg), and by the Jewish Christians, in one general term as " elders " (Trpitrftvrepoi). Let us now see how this distinction works itself out in fact, taking for our starting-point the " Churches of Judea." Remembering the central place in the national life of Palestine which was held by the synagogue, we IV.] Earliest Foi-nis of CJiurcJi Life 141 might naturall}- suppose that the organisation of the Christian Ecclesia would be largely shaped by it. For in the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era the synagogue was more closely associated with the religious life of the people than even the temple itself. There was but one temple, to which the people repaired only at distant intervals, while there must have been thousands who, from infirmity or other causes, scarcely ever joined the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On the other hand the synagogue was in every town and village, was, so to speak, at every man's door, and the elders who sat in the chief seats were the familiar objects of a lifetime. Week by week all the year round the people, young and old, repaired to the synagogue, not only on Sabbath and feast days, but also on Mondays and Thursdays, " the days of congregation," when the peasantry brought their produce to the market and their causes of dispute to the judgement of the elders. What was true of the Jewish people generally was, of course, true also of our Lord and His apostles. In the synagogues they worshipped through the days of their youth ; in the synagogues our Lord wrought some of His greatest works and spoke some of His most memorable words. After His ascension the apostles and early believers still kept up for a while their con- nexion with the Jewish services in synagogue and temple. It was the most natural thing therefore for them to repeat in the Christian Church the only organisation of which they had any practical knowledge. When, then, the necessity for further development arose, as it did in the matter of the daily ministration, the Twelve called the multitude of the disciples together and desired them to look out, from among themselves, sevoi 142 Apostolical Succession [lect. men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom they, the apostles, might appoint over the business. The course suggested was the one they were accustomed to. The election of the elders of the synagogue depended on the choice of the congregation,^ and the number elected for smaller towns and villages was usually seven. When Josephus organised Galilee he said, " Let there be seven men to judge in every city ; and these such as have been before most zealous in the exercise of virtue and righteousness." 2 Following wonted use and custom, therefore, the apostles asked that seven men might be chosen for the diakonia of tables^ while they gave themselves to the diakonia of the Word. (Acts vi. 1-6). Now what were these seven men ?— were they deacons or elders ? Those of us who have long been accustomed to regard the account in the sixth chapter of the Acts as precedent and warrant for the election of seven deacons in a Church may regard the question as superfluous. Yet the question is asked and there are substantial reasons for asking it. Vitringa 3 in the seventeenth century, and the learned canonist. Just Henning Boehmer,4 and the historian Mosheim in the eighteenth, maintained that the .seven were simply the elders of the Jerusalem Church. In our own time Lechler and others agree with this view, while Ritschl and Lange maintained that the office of the seven included both the eldership and the later diaconate. Apart, however, from the authority of names, let us .see what are the facts. The first thing to be noticed is that the seven officers ' Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, i. 438. ^ Antiquities of the Jews, IV. viii. 14. •^ De Syiiai^. Vet. iii. 926. * Dissert. Jtris Eceles. Aiitiqui., Disserl. vii. 373. IV.] Earliest Forms of ChurcJi Life 143 elected are nowhere in Scripture described as deacons. They are simply called the Seven (Acts xxi. 8). So far as we know the first writer who spoke of them as deacons was Irenaius,! but this was a hundred and fifty years after the time of their election, and it was the description of a man who was familiar only with the Gentile Churches of Asia Minor and Gaul, and in Gentile Churches the local administrators were bishops and deacons. Dr. Lightfoot points out that though the word " deacon " does not occur the corresponding verb and substantive (S^aKovai' and SiaKovia) are repeated more than once. On the other hand it must be noted that when these words do occur it is simply in the general sense of service, and the noun (SiaKovia) is applied to the apostles as well as to the seven, a contrast being instituted between the diakonia of tables and the diakonia of the Word. As a matter of fact the word " deacon " {^uikovoq) never occurs in the Acts of the Apostles, and even in the Epistles it is in the original applied to those who certainly were not deacons in the ecclesiastical sense of the word. The magistrate is the " deacon " of God (Rom. xiii. 4) ; " what then is Apollos ? and what is Paul? ' Deacons ' through whom ye believed" (i Cor. iii. 5). Elsewhere, still speaking of himself, Paul says : " in every thing commending ourselves as ' deacons ' of God " (2 Cor. vi. 4) ; " are they ' deacons ' of Christ ? I more " (xi. 23) ; " the Gospel whereof I was made a ' deacon ' " (Eph. iii. 7 ; Col. i. 23) ; he also calls Timothy " our brother and God's ' deacon ' in the Gospel" (i Thess. iii. 2). As describing the officer of a Church the word " deacon " is found in only three verses of the New Testament CPhilip. i. i ; i Tim. iii. 8, 12) ; in ' Adv. HiCrcs., i. 26. 3; iii. I2. lo ; iv. 15. i. 144 Apostolical Succession [Lt:CT. all three it refers to Gentile Churches, and in all three bishops and deacons are associated together, and there is no mention made of elders. The first reference occurs in a salutation to the Macedonian Church at Philippi, the other two in directions given to Timothy, whom he had exhorted to tarry at Ephesus (i Tim. i. 3), that is, among the Greek Churches of Asia Minor. The diaconate, therefore, is a Gentile institution rather than Jewish. Further, not only are the Seven never called deacons anywhere in the New Testament, but when for the first time officials are mentioned as existing in the Church at Jerusalem (Acts xi. 30), they are called " the elders " {rovq irp£(TftvTipovg), the definite article being used as indicating an office already well known, and this though not a single word had been previously said as to the appointment of elders. Nor is this all : these officers are called elders in a case where the function of the deacon was specially concerned, for it involved the receiving and distributing of money to the poor in the Church. In a time of famine the disciples at Antioch, " every man, according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren that dwelt in Judea, which they also did, sending it to t/ie elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul." If there were deacons in the Jerusalem Church why was not this money for the poor handed to them ? Ritschl suggests that possibly by this time the office had fallen into abeyance,^ but certainly long after this it had not fallen into abeyance in the Church either at Philippi or Ephesus, therefore this cannot be the explanation. Davidson thinks they were left out for the sake of brevity. Then further, if it is suggested that there ' Entstehung dcr christlichc Kirchc. 2te aufi., p. 355. I\".] Earliest Forms of ChurcJi Life 145 might be deacons as well as elders, the presbyters taking rank above the deacons, we are inclined to ask how is it, then, that if such an order had been created in the interim, the names of these elders were not given while those of the Seven are all carefully recorded? No mention is made of any appointment after that of the Seven, and no names are given of elders as being appointed. There is also another point. If there were deacons in the Church at Jerusalem as well as elders, it is remarkable that they are never mentioned on occa- sions when we should have expected they would have been. In the important conference recorded in Acts xv. mention is made of " the apostles and the elders with the whole Church" (xv. 22) ; of the "chief men among the brethren," afterwards described as " prophets," and no fewer than five times in the course of the chapter (xv. 2, 4, 6, 22, 23) "apostles and elders" are spoken of together. All this about elders in one chapter while deacons are not mentioned so much as once throughout the whole book. On a later occasion, when Paul and his fellow-travellers returned to Jerusalem, Luke says : " The brethren received us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James, and all the elders were present (Acts xxi. 18). Still not one word about deacons among the officers of the Church. The only conclusion we can come to, in the face of these facts, is that in the Jerusalem Church in apostolic times there were neither bishops nor deacons, that while apostles came and went on missionary work the Churches of Judea were each presided over by a body of presbyters or elders, as the synagogues had been in the times before them. But it may be said that in coming to this conclusion 1 1 146 Apostolical Succession [lect. we are overlooking the fact that James, the brother of our Lord, and after him Symeon, the son of Clopas, are spoken of as bishops of Jerusalem. In reply it must be noted first that in the New Testament, which is our highest authority, neither James nor any other man is ever described as bishop of Jerusalem. Indeed, if we may make a short digression on an important point, nothing is more striking than the contrast between the portentous claims made by and for bishops in eccle- siastical history, and the extremely scanty references made to them in Scripture. First we have the verb " to oversee" (ETrto-KOTTfn'), which occurs only twice, once to urge men to look diligoitly lest any man fail of the grace of God (Heb. xii. 15) ; and once where Peter enjoins the elders to exercise the oversight of the flock, not of con- straint but willingly (i Pet. v. 2). Then we have the substantive " episcopate " Uiria-KOTrn), which occurs only four times, and twice out of the four it has no eccle- siastical bearing, but simply refers to a time of Divine visitation (Luke xix. 44 ; i Pet. ii. 12) ; of the re- maining two instances one is a quotation from the Septuagint version of the Psalms (cix. 8), where it is said of a wicked man " let another take his office " (r?7v l■KlaKo^T^\<), these words being quoted and applied to Judas (Acts i. 20). The remaining passage is the only one of the four having any reference to the function of a bishop, and says: " If a man seeketh the office of a bishop he desireth a good work " ^ (i Tim. iii. i). Finally, we come to the original word for bishop itself (iTriaKOTrog), ' Dr. Hort translates this passage thus : "If any man seeketh after ini(jK0TT7ic (a function of oversight) he desireth a good work. He there- fore that hath oversight must needs be free from reproach." He adds : " So I think we should naturally interpret the words in any case on account of the article " {Christian Ecclesia, p. 193). I\'.] Earliest Forms of CJinrch Life 147 and this occurs only five times in the whole of the New Testament. The first time it appears it is used by Paul in speaking" of the work of men whom, a few verses earlier, Luke had described as the elders of the Church at Ephesus (Acts xx. 17, 28) ; it is used by him also in saluting the saints at Philippi " with bishops and deacons" (Phil. i. i) ; in two other places it is used in describing the qualifications of bishops (i Tim. iii. 2 ; Titus i. 7) ; and finally it is used when our Lord is de- scribed as "the Shepherd and Bishop of souls " (i Pet. ii. 25). These being absolutely the only passages in the New Testament where the word for bishop is used in any of its forms and in any connexion it will be seen how slender is the foundation for the vast hierarchical pretensions of a later time.^ It will be seen also, to return to our point, that James, the brother of our Lord, is nowhere described in Scripture as bishop of Jerusalem. It is true he was ' Referring to Paul's address to the elders of Ephesus atMiletus Dr. Hon asks : In the sentence, "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit set you as tTTKDcoTrouf," how are we to understand this last word? He replies: "No one, I suppose, douljts now that the persons meant are those first mentioned as ' elders of the Ecclesia. ' Have we then here a second title ? The only tangible reasons for thinking so are that in the second century the word was certainly used as a title, though for a different office ; and that it was already in various use as a title in the Greek world. But against this we must set the fact that both in the Bible and in other literature it retains its common etymological or descriptive meaning ' overseer,' and this meaning alone gives a clear sense here. The best rendering would, I think, be, ' in which the Holy Spirit set you to have oversight,' the force being distinctly predicative." Dr. Hort's further notes on Paul's address: " The elders are said to have been set in the flock of Ephesus to have oversight of it hy the Holy Spirit. Neither here nor anywhere else in the address is there any indi- cation that St. Paul himself had had anything to do with their appoint- ment. . . . But the manner in which the Holy Spirit is elsewhere associated with joint acts, acts involving fellowship, suggests that here the appointment came from the Ecclesia itself" {IVic Christian Ecclesia, pp. 98-100). 148 ■ Apostolical Succession [lect. a prominent person in the Church, though neither an apostle nor a bishop. He took an active part in the Conference at Jerusalem (Acts xv.), and Paul tells us that James and Cephas and John, " they who were reputed pillars," gave to himself and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship as they set forth to go to the Gentiles. But there is no reference to any official position as being held by James. He had great personal influence from his weight of character — he is spoken of in later times as James the Just — and from the fact that he was known as the brother of our Lord, and he may have been, in all probability was, the foremost man among the elders of • the Church, but beyond this the New Testament itself tells us nothing. All else is mere tradition, the value of which may soon be estimated. Passing by the simple mention of James which Josephus gives of his being delivered to be stoned under Ananus the high priest, some time before the destruction of Jerusalem, the first reference to his position in the Church is that by Hegesippus which Eusebius has preserved i^H. E., ii. 23). He tells us that James, the brother of the Lord, " received the government of the Church with the apostles," that is, at the same time (/xtra with the genitive). Rothe has pointed out how carefully Hegesippus speaks in this case ; and it is surely laying more stress upon the words than they will well bear when Dr. Lightfoot says " that the Church of Jerusalem presents the earliest instance of a bishop." This state- ment rests upon traditions preserved by Eusebius, and while there is a whole century between James's death and the time when Hegesippus wrote, there are two centuries and a half between James and Eusebius. The latter, therefore, compiled his history long after the I\'.] Earliest Forms of Church Life 149 episcopal idea had received wide development, and when the form of government in the Church at Jerusalem would be likely to be forgotten. Further, his source of information seems to have been the Ebionite writings known as the Clementines {Clem. Recog., i. 68), of which Dr. Lightfoot himself has said, "the fictions of this theological romance have no direct historical value." Eusebius is evidently in a mist of uncertainty on the subject. He says (iv. 5) that he could not ascertain in any way that the times of the bishops in Jerusalem had been regularly preserved on record, but that he had learned from writers that down to the invasion of the Jews under Hadrian there were fifteen successions of bishops — that is, reckoning from Symeon, who died in the reign of Trajan, there were thirteen bishops in succession in less than thirty years, a fact which, as Lightfoot admits, throws suspicion on the accuracy of the list. Then as to James himself Eusebius is not consistent in his statements. He says that the episcopal seat was committed to him by the apostles (ii. 23), then that he received it from our Saviour Himself (vii. 19), and then that he received it after the ascension of the Saviour (iii. 5), while he preserves at the same time the statement of Hegesippus that James was in office in the Church along with the apostles ; he also quotes Hegesippus further to the effect that in the reign of Domitian the grandchildren of Judas, called the brother of our Lord, " ruled the Churches (nyiicTtKrOai) both as witnesses and relatives of the Lord " {H. E., iii. 20). The evidence of Eusebius, therefore, is somewhat conflicting, and all that we know of James from other sources makes it improbable that he would be the man 1 50 Apostolical Succession [lect. to introduce a Gentile office and title like that of bishop. For while he became a Christian disciple his sympathies remained strongly Jewish. Hegesippus relates that he was a consecrated Nazarene from his birth ; that he drank neither wine nor strong drink, that a razor nev^er came upon his head, that he wore only linen garments, that he alone was allowed to enter the holy places, and that he was often found upon bended knees in the temple alone. This traditional account of him is in agreement with what we find in the New Testament. For though in the Conference at Jerusalem (Acts xv.) he spoke on the side of granting tolerance to Gentile Christians in the matter of Jewish observances, he could be rigid enough when Jewish Christians were concerned. Paul tells us (Gal. ii. 12) that at first when Peter was at Antioch he did not hesitate to eat with Gentiles, but that when "certain came from James, he drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circum- cision." A further trace of the Jewish proclivities of James is found in the fact that his Epistle is addressed " to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad greeting," that in it he speaks of the Christian place of meeting as " your synagogue " (ii. 2), and of its officers as "the elders of the licclesia " (v. 14). Looking at all these facts there is every probability that in the Churches of Judea, till the destruction of Jerusalem at all events, there were neither bishops nor deacons, but simply such elders as there were in the s)-nagogues of the time. But now, passing from the "Churches of Judea" to those communities described by Paul as the " Churches of the Gentiles," we find, as we might expect, that in Greek-speaking cities the Christian societies shaped IV.] Earliest Forms of Church Life 151 themselves ver}^ largely in accordance with Greek ideas. For to begin with there was a certain analogy between these societies and the free Greek cities of the time. The Christian Churches formed such a federation of free democracies as the Greeks had striven to realise ; each Church being self-disciplining and possessing authority over its officers, yet maintaining brotherly fellowship with the other Churches. It was only natural, therefore, that where Greek ideas prevailed Greek titles and offices should obtain in the Churches. This really seems to have been the case. Dr. Hatch has, no doubt, connected the title of bishop too closely with the part which that officer took in the finances of the Church, but he has made quite clear that " episkopos " was a well-recognised title of office in the contemporary non-Christian associa- tions of Asia Minor and Syria, that is, among the nearest neighbours of the Christian organisations. The term was in use not only in private associations, but also in public municipalities as descriptive of well-known officials. " Episkopos," bishop, overseer, was a title which designated commissioners appointed to regulate a new colony ; inspectors whose business it was to report to the Indian kings ; magistrates who regulated the sale of provisions under the Romans ; and certain officers in Rhodes whose functions are unknown. Further, as Professor Ramsay has shown, episkopoi were known as the officers of the Greek religious fraternities (Olaaoi) of the time ; and what is even more to the purpose still, in the inscriptions of south-west Phrygia of the pre- Constantinean period, that is, till the beginning of the fourth century, when we meet with diakonoi or episkopoi they are usually the officials of a pagan temple, not of a Christian Church. A diakonos inscription was found at 152 Apostolical Succession [LECl". Cyzicos, and two others at the metropolis of Ionia, which are to be seen in the museum and library at Smyrna. Episkopoi occur not rarely in Syrian pagan inscriptions of the third century. In his third volume Waddington has given us copies of several of these found at Bostra, Salkhad, Mdjemir, and elsewhere. And apart from all other considerations of familiarity and fitness, there was in times of persecution an element of safety in using titles that were in common use. Professor Ramsay has shown that it was part of the policy of the Christians during the years when perse- cution had come, or might come any time, not to make themselves or their institutions too prominent. They put nothing in public documents, such as their epitaphs, which could be quoted as evidence of Christianity, and if an official was mentioned, a title common to the pagans, like that of episkopos, was used.^ It will be seen from all this that before ever there was a Christian Church in existence the titles episkopoi and diakonoi were in common and familiar use both in secular and religious life, and that they did not come into Christian use till the Church had passed beyond Judean boundaries into the great Grecian world outside. We do not find them in the New Testament at all till Paul salutes the Macedonian saints at Philippi " with bishops and deacons," or sends to the elders at Ephesus to come to him at Miletus, or gives direction to Timothy and Titus concerning Church officers in Ephesus and Crete, telling them what kind of men episkopoi and ' Voyage Archcologiqitc en Grcee et in Asie Mineiirc, par Philippe Le Bas, Paris, 1870. Inscriptions, tome iii. — Syrie. Nos. 191 1, 195^9, 1990, 2298. Hatch, B. L., p. 37 ; Lightfoot, Ep. to Philippians, p. 93. Ramsay's Cities and Bishoprics of' Pkrygia, vol. i. pt. ii., 1897, p. 494. IV.] Earliest Forms of Church Life 153 diakonoi ought to be (Phil. i. i ; Acts xx. 17, 28 ; I TuTi. iii. 1-13 ; Titus i. 7). But while Greek ideas and titles naturally prevailed in the Churches founded in Greek cities, we need not be surprised to find at the same time Jewish terms and titles taking their place alongside with them. For Christian Churches, as we know from the Acts of the Apostles, often took their rise in those Jewish syna- gogues scattered through the empire, and in very many places Jews and Jewish proselytes formed the nucleus of Christian communities. It would be quite natural for a Jew to describe in a general way as elders those officers of the Church whom a Greek would describe more specifically as episkopoi and diakonoi. x-\ncl while the Jew had his general term elders, that is, presbyters, the Greek would have his when he wished to speak of the episkopoi and diakonoi as the officers in a body. He would describe them as " those who are over us in the Lord," or as " the rulers " (TrpoiaTafievoi, i Thess. v. 12; Rom. xii. 8; i Tim. iii. 4, 12); or he might describe them as " presidents " (TrpoearMng), as Justin Martyr did {Apol., i. 65, G']') ; or as " presiding elders " {jrpoiaTMT^f^ irpsa-jivTipoi), as Paul did (i Tim. v. 17), or as Hermas did {Shep. v. 2. 4). So that just as there was one term, "leaders" fij-youyUfvot), to describe the spiritually- endowed apostles, prophets, and teachers when spoken of together, so there were general terms for describing the administrative officers, bishops, and deacons when they were spoken of together. Among the three general terms just referred to the Jewish word " presbyter" held the field and took permanent place in the Church, first as presbyter, then as priest. The classification thus s^iven is not mere tjuess-work. 154 Apostolical Successio?i [lkct. Chrysostom, writing in the fourth century, says that "originall}' (ro 7raAa 176 Apostolical Succession [LECT. without reversing or mitigating the cruel sentence against Ignatius himself. It is curious too and im- probable that the Church at Philadelphia should have received an account of the condemnation of Ignatius at Antioch, a city situated some four hundred miles to the south-east of their city, and have so timed their embassy as to meet him at Troas about two hundred miles to the north-west, as he was passing through on his journey to Rome. Thus considerable deputations are supposed to meet him both at Smyrna and at Troas at a time when open profession of Christianity might cost a man his life. There is also another point of difficulty. In his Epistle to the Ephesians (c. xx.) Ignatius expresses his intention to write a second little book specially for them, in which he will set forth the dispensation, of which he had begun to speak to them relating to the new man in Christ Jesus, especially if the Lord should reveal aught to him. That a man condemned to death and in the close custody of ten soldiers by whom, as he says, he is " harassed by day and night, by sea and land," should be able to write even one such Epistle as that which he had sent to the Ephesians seems sufficiently re- markable ; but that while the day of his martyrdom is drawing nearer, and he is being hurried to Rome to undergo a sentence of death, he should still further think of writing a second little book to send to people with whom he seems to have had little to do except to receive a deputation from them in the person of Onesimus, is so much more remarkable as to seem almost incredible. The question is naturally asked, too, why the zeal of this writer is so exclusively directed to other Churches than his own? After weeks of separation under painful v.] The Ignatian Epistles 177 circumstances, and after the remarkable change which is supposed to have come over their fortunes, has he no word of counsel or congratulation or of farewell for his own Church of Antioch ? So strongly was it felt there was something halting here that the forger who made the addition of eight admittedly spurious Epistles to the seven held to be genuine, undertook to supply what was felt to be a want, and in the name of Ignatius fabricated a letter to the Antiocheans. There is also another point to be noted in passing. In the Epistle to Polycarp, "who is bishop of the Church of the Smyrneans," the writer forgets himself for a moment, and urges this Polycarp, who is a bishop himself, to give heed to the bishop, that God also may give heed to him (c. 6). Such are some of the difficulties involved in this Ignatian question, and there are others on which it is not needful to enlarge. So many are they that while Lechler admits the genuineness of these letters, he at the same time confesses, so grave have been his doubts for years, that if, between 118 A.D., when they are supposed to have been written, and 170-175 A.D., when the monarchical idea of the episcopate had come to be asserted, a point of time, an occasion, and a person could be found for the authorship of the letters in case they were forged, he should cease to accept them.i On the other hand, Dr. Killen thinks he is able to fix the forgery both as to time and person. In the early part of the third century, he says, there was a mania for this kind of thing, as the spurious writings attributed to Clement of Rome clearly show. Certain features in the case, he suggests, point to Callistus, whom Hippo- ' Apostolic and Post- Apostolic Tinier, by G. V. Lechler, p. 326. Edin., 1886. 13 1/8 Apostolical Succession [LECT. lytus describes as a man of great versatility of talent allied to deep cunning and much force of character ; and of whom he says further that he was given to intrigue, and so wily in his movements that it was not easy to entangle him in a dilemma. It is suggested that it might occur to such a man to endeavour to strengthen the growing pretensions of the hierarchy by a series of letters in the name of an apostolic father, exalting the bishop and vigorously asserting his claims.^ Practices of the kind certainly did exist as early indeed as the second century. Dionysius, who was bishop, that is, pastor of the Church of Corinth about 170 A.D., wrote a series of Epistles, as Eusebius tells us, to the Lacedae- monians, the Athenians, to the Nicomedians, to the Churches of Crete, to the Romans, and to several other communities ; and even in his own lifetime these were tampered with for a purpose : " As the brethren desired me," he says, " to write Epistles, I wrote them ; and these the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, taking out some things and adding others. To whom a woe is reserved. Not wonderful, then, is it, if some have also endeavoured to corrupt the writings of the Lord, since this has been done with others not to be compared with these" (Euseb., H. E., iv., 23). It might also be said that an age which extended the seven Epistles of Ignatius to fifteen by forgery, was perhaps not unequal to forging the seven to start with. The Decretals of Isidore of a later time, by which the Papacy fraudu- lently supported its claim for centuries, did their work effectively, though now for years past even Roman Catholics have renounced them as forgeries. ' The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Sptiriotis : a Rc]3ly to Dr. Lightfoot, by W. D. Killen, D.D., 1886. v.] The Ignatian Epistles 179 The question of the Date of these Epistles has also been matter of keen controversy as well as that of the authorship. Dr. Lightfoot placed them in the early years of the second century, taking up a middle position between Wieseler, who fixed the martyrdom of Ignatius in 107 A.D., and Harnack, who some years ago was in favour of 138 A.D. He thought that we should be doing no injustice to the evidence by setting the probable limits between 100 and 118 A.D., without attempting to fix the year more precisely, but evidently inclining to the later of these years. He held that these Epistles accord with everything else we know of the beginning of the second century ; that all the evidence, without one dissentient voice, points to episcopacy as the established form of Church government among the Churches of Asia Minor from the close of the first century. The evidence in support of this strong statement is the testimony of Irenaeus to Polycarp, the Epistle of Polycrates of Ephesus to Victor of Rome, and a passage in the writings of Clement of Alexandria. On the other hand, Harnack, who thoroughly accepts the Ignatian Epistles as genuine, maintains that these witnesses are not valid for the purpose for which Lightfoot uses them, for the simple reason that they all belong to the end of the second century or to the beginning of the third, when it is admitted that the episcopal idea had received considerable development. He very decisively sums up his judgement thus: '' Apart from tlie Epistles of Ignatius we do not possess a single zvitness to the exist- ence of the nionarcJiical episcopate in the Churches 0/ Asia Minor as early as the times of Trajan and Hadrian."^ The italics are his, and he goes on to say ' Expositor, Third Series, iii. 16-22. 1 8c Apostolical Succession [lect. that these Epistles, as a source of information, stand alone, not only in assuring us that the monarchical episcopate was thoroughly naturalised in the Churches of Asia Minor of his day, but also in testifying to the existence of that episcopate at all. Such a conception of the bishop as that held by Ignatius, so far as Early Christian literature is concerned, Harnack contends has its earliest parallel in the Apostolic Constitutions of the next century, and that from what we know from other sources of Early Church history, no single investigator would assign the statements about the bishop to the second, but at the earliest to the third century. In his latest work Harnack informs us that he has seen reason to change his mind as to the matter of the date of the Ignatian Epistles. He holds now that both these Epistles and that of Polycarp were almost cer- tainly composed in the last years of Trajan's reign, that is, between no and 117 A.D., possibly between 117 and 125 A.D. ; not impossibly, but certainly not probably, later still. But while thus coming round to agree with Lightfoot in accepting the early date, he still maintains, as against him, it is only from the Ignatian Epistles that we know at all of the existence of the monarchical episcopate in Asia Minor as early as the time of Trajan and Hadrian.' The evidence on which those who contend for the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles is regarded by Dr. Lightfoot as so complete, that no Christian writings of the second century, and indeed few other writings of antiquity, are so well authenticated. Eirst, we have Polycarp, a contemporary, saying in his Epistle to the ■ Die Chrouologic dcr alUJirisllhhcii Litteiatttr bis Eusehiiis, lev Band, s. 396. Leipzig, 1897. v.] TJic Ignatian Epistles i8i Philippians that he received letters from Ignatius, which he is sending to them along with his own, at their request, and asking them if they have any further news of Ignatius and his companions since they left Philippi, to be sure and certify him of the same. It may well be said, with Lightfoot, that if this letter of Polycarp's can be accepted as genuine, the authentica- tion of the Ignatian Epistles is perfect. And there is good reason for so accepting it, since it is vouched for by Irenaius, a most reliable witness, who knew Polycarp personally, and was a pupil of his. Irenasus tells us {H(2r., iii. 3, 4) that Polycarp wrote an emi- nently satisfactory letter to the Philippians, from which those who wish may learn the character of his faith. To the existence of this letter Eusebius in his history also bears testimony, though of course he is merely repeating the statement of Irenaeus. There can be no question that Polycarp was referring to Ignatius the martyr, for in this letter to the Philippians he rejoices that they hospitably received the followers of the true Love and escorted them on their way— those men who are encircled with saintly bonds which are the diadems of them that be truly chosen of God and our Lord. He exhorts them to the obedience and endurance which they saw with their own eyes in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, yea, and in others also who came from among themselves, who are now in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered. It must be admitted that while Polycarp's Epistle is, so far as external evidence goes, the bulwark of the Ignatian Epistles, that Epistle itself is exceptionally well attested, so that only the very strongest internal 1 82 Apostolical Succession [LECT. exidence, such as serious anachronisms, should shake our confidence in it, whereas such anachronisms as were supposed to exist have vanished before a more critical examination. Several years ago Harnack said that after repeated investigations the genuineness of these Epistles seemed to him beyond doubt, and the hypo- thesis of their spuriousness to be untenable. The inner grounds for accepting them as genuine are only capable, he thought, of being fully realised by the careful investi- gator, but to him they are overpowering. Zahn's argu- ments, as confirmed by Lightfoot's investigations, and consisting as they do of careful deductions regarding the historical situation, the individuality of each separate Epistle, especially that to the Romans, and also the route travelled, and the relation of these Epistles to the New Testament, he held to be so many incontestable proofs of their genuineness. ^ This writer has not changed his mind in this respect. In his great work on the Chronolog)- of Early Christian Literature, recently given to the world, he maintains that there are no productions in that early literature more splendidly attested from without than are the Ignatian Epistles by the Epistle of Polycarp, nor more satisfactorily confirmed from within by the consistency of the writer's ideas, his conceptions, his theological position, and even his very peculiarities. He holds that the unit)- of style, both as to form and content, and the freedom with which the writer bears himself, makes it more than ordinarily improbable that we have here before us a mere skilful fabrication. The difficulties connected with the routes traversed he holds not to be of serious sort or incapable of explanation, and they are ' Expositor, Third Series, iii. lo, 15. v.] The Ignatian Epistles 183 decreased tenfold by the way in which details scattered here and there through the various Epistles are yet found to harmonise with each other. The very differ- ences existing between the Epistle to the Romans and the six Asia Minor letters, instead of exciting suspicion, really tend to prove that the letters as a whole are not the product of the brain of some clever schemer ; for, while nearly all the drift and tendencies of the six are wanting in the one, nearly every line of the one shows that it came from the same author as the six. ^ II. And now comes the important practical question. Sup- posing these Epistles are genuine, what do they prove ? Do they furnish a solid foundation for exclusive epis- copal claims? It is this ecclesiastical bearing which has turned the literary inquiry into a burning con- troversy. But for the way in which the claims of the diocesan bishop are asserted by the Established Church on the one side, and challenged by the Free Churches on the other, these Epistles might have slumbered for ever beneath the dust under which they had lain for centuries before Ussher and Voss brought them forth once more to light. So far as the historical basis is concerned, do they settle the controversy ? By way of obtaining an answer to this question let us look at the alternatives. Either these Epistles are (i) altogether genuine, as Lightfoot and Harnack contend ; or (2) only the three Epistles of the short Syriac recension are genuine, as Cureton, Bunsen, and Ritschl maintain ; or (3) the seven are genuine, but have been interpolated by the insertion of the episcopal passages, as Canon ' Die Chronologie, pp. 389, 399, 400. 184 Apostolical Succession [lect, Jenkins and others believe ; or (4) they are altogether spurious, the work of a fabricator like Callistus, as Dr. Killen maintains. Practically it comes to this — if these Epistles are spurious, or if they can be proved to be interpolated or extended for a purpose, they cease to be of any value. The controversy in that case is at an end, and we simply fall back upon that portion of the Christian literature of the second century which is admittedly genuine, and from thence gather our know- ledge of the Christian Church of the time. But there remains the other alternative, that they are neither spurious nor interpolated, but absolutely genuine. Suppose this is freely conceded what will follow ? What will be the effect of this concession on the episcopal claim to Apostolical Succession ? I, The Ignatian Epistles furnish evidence of the existence elsewhere of other forms of Church govern- ment besides the monarchical episcopate obtaining at Antioch and among the Churches of Asia Minor. It has been shown that the one external support on which the advocates of genuineness mainly rely is the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians. Now the tone of this letter, so far as the monarchical episcopate is con- cerned, is widely different from that of the Ignatian Epistles, there being no mention of a bishop in it from first to last. Indeed, Dr. Lightfoot himself has said that it " has proved a stronghold of Presbyterianism ; " and he points out the awkward dilemma in which the French writer Jean Daille found himself while contend- ing against the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles because of the countenance they were supposed to give to episcopacy. If he admitted the genuineness of Polycarp's Epistle he could not do this without ad- v.] The Ignatian Epistles 185 mitting at the same time the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles. If, on the contrary, he denied the genuineness of that Epistle, while a member of the Re- formed Church of France, he would be giving up what was, or what seemed to be, one of the principal evidences that the presbyterial form of government existed in the earliest time. But it may be replied that if Polycarp's Epistle had a double edge for Daille as a Presbyterian, it had a double edge also for Lightfoot as an Episcopalian. For if he sets this Epistle aside he sets aside the strongest evidence he has in favour of the Ignatian Epistles, and if he admits it, he admits a document which he has himself described as a stronghold of Presbyterianism, and as containing no mention of a bishop from first to last. On reading it we find that its ecclesiastical conceptions are those of the Didache and the Epistle of Clement. It begins thus : " Polycarp and the presbyters that are with him unto the Church of God which sojourneth at Philippi ; " he describes the qualifications of elders and deacons as they are described in the Pastoral Epistles ; he urges the Philippians to submit themselves to the presbyters and deacons as to God and to Christ ; while he has not one word as to the respect due to a bishop, or as to his qualifications, or even as to his existence ; he expresses his grief over the lapse of Valens, who aforetime was a presbyter among them, and he urges the Church not to hold this man and his wife as enemies, but to restore them as frail and erring members. Judging from Poly- carp's letter, the monarchical episcopate had no exist- ence as yet, either at Smyrna or Philippi. So, again, with Ignatius' own Epistle to the Romans. Like the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, it is addressed 1 86 Apostolical Succcssio7i [LECT. not to any official, but to the Church itself. He sends greeting " to the Church that is beloved and enlightened through the will of Him who willed all things that are ; even unto her that hath precedence in the country of the region of the Romans, being worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of felicitation, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy in purity, and having pre- cedence in love, walking in the law of Christ, and bearing the Father's name ; which Church also I salute in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of the Father." In this Epistle, as in that of Polycarp, there is not the slightest mention of a bishop from first to last, yet courtesy would have demanded this had there been a bishop in Rome at the time this letter was written, which evidently there was not. There is another point not altogether irrelevant. Dr. Lightfoot imagined that he had found reference to the case of Ignatius in Lucian's satire, " De Morte Peregrini," which describes the career of a charlatan who was first a Christian and afterwards a cynic. He describes how in his Christian days he was thrust into prison on account' of his faith ; how the Christians regarded this as a calamity for the whole brotherhood, doing all they could to rescue and serve him ; and how from certain cities in Asia there came deputies sent by Christian communities to assist and console him. From the fact that these details correspond in some respects with the experience of Ignatius, to whom representatives of Churches were sent while he was at Smyrna and Troas, Dr. Lightfoot infers that Lucian may have been acquainted with the story of Ignatius, if not with the Ignatian letters. But probably most will agree with Professor Ramsay ^ that Lucian's satire may not refer ' The Church in the Roman Entpire, p. 366. v.] The Ignatmn Epistles 187 to any particular case, inasmuch as the facts referred to were the regular and characteristic practice of the Christians ; and that the only safe inference from Lucian's words is that the picture of life given in the letters of Ignatius is true. But if Lucian had any knowledge of the Church life of the Christians about the middle of the second century, as he evidently had, though he may be no witness to the historical character of the Ignatian story, he may furnish evidence as to the Church constitution of the time. The Church as Lucian describes it is just such a simple, loving brother- hood as Justin Martyr sets before us, and as the Didache exhorts, the members of which stand loyally by each other in time of trouble. His hero Peregrinus becomes such a prophet among them as we find described and honoured in the Didache. He associates himself with their priests and scribes, by which terms, familiar to a heathen writer, he might very well mean the presbyters, that is, the bishops and deacons of the community. Be that as it may, the Christian com- munities which Lucian knew seem not to have been under the presidency of a monarchical bishop. 2. Notwithstanding the extravagant terms in which Ignatius speaks of the bishop, it is clear that he did not viean a diocesan bishop, but simply the pastor or overseer of o?ie individual Church community. Of a diocese in the modern sense of the word there is not, as Lightfoot himself admits, so much as a trace in the Ignatian Epistles. Three letters out of the seven are in- cribed as being sent to three neighbouring Churches — those at Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles. Each of these Churches is spoken of as having a bishop, yet Tralles was only about fifteen miles from Magnesia, and Magnesia 1 88 Apostolical Succession [lect. about the same distance from Ephesus, so that within a range of about thirty miles there were no fewer than three bishops. It would seem that the bishop of Ignatius was after all simply a Congregational pastor whose office he had unduly and unscripturally magnified. Even Canon Gore makes a similar admission. " The bishop," he says, " according to the early ideal, was by no means the great prelate ; he was the pastor of a flock, like the vicar of a modern town, in intimate relations with all his people (p. 104). To the same effect Dr. Hatch informs us that " there was a bishop wherever in later times there would have been a parish church. From the small province of Proconsular Asia, which was about the size of Lincolnshire, forty bishops were present at an early Council ; in the only half-converted province of North Africa 470 episcopal towns are known by name " {^B. L., 79). This view is sustained by the early document known as the Apostolic Church Order, which assumes that the smallest Church will have a bishop of its own. It provides, as we have seen, that if in any given Church there are fewer than twelve persons who are competent to vote at the election of a bishop, they shall write to some neighbouring Church, which shall send three selected men to examine carefully whether the man they are about to choose is worthy, that is, if he has a good report among the heathen. The Apos- tolical Constitutions too, describe " a pastor who is to be ordained a bishop for the Churches in every parish ; " and provides that if a parish is so small that a person sufficiently advanced in years to be a bishop cannot be found in it, a younger man, after due inquiry, is to be ordained in peace (ii. i). Even with Ignatius, not- withstanding his extravagant utterances, the bishop is v.] The Ignatian Epistles 189 only the pastor of a single Church and b}- no means entirely autocratic. Office, says he, is not everything ; ' Let not office puff up any man, for faith and love are all in all, and nothing is to be preferred before them " {Sjnyr. 6.) He assumes that there will be other officers associated with the bishop in the government of the Church haying joint authority. He speaks of the bishop and them that preside over you " {Magn. 6). The brethren are to be obedient to the bishop, and to one another, obedience in the latter case qualifying and defining that in the former {ib., c. 13). The TralHans are to be " obedient also to the presbyters as to the apostles " (c. 2). The Philadelphians are to give heed to the bishop and presbyters and deacons " (c. y) : " there is one bishop together with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow-servants " (c. 4) ; and he is devoted, he says, to those who are subject to the bishop, the presbyters, the deacons " {Polyc. 6). 3. Then again, while there is no recognition of diocesan episcopacy in the Ignatian Epistles, neither is there any trace of the later idea of Apostolieal Succession^ or of the bishop as being instituted by the apostles. According to Ignatius it is the presbyters, not the bishop, who take the place of the apostles. There is godly concord in a Church, " the bishop presiding after the likeness of God, and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the apostles, with the deacons who are most dear to me " {Magn. 6). In the Epistle to the Trallians the idea takes a somewhat varied form : he would have the brethren " respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being the type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God, and as the college of apostles " (c. 3). The 190 _ Apostolical Succession [lect. Smyrnaeans, again, are to follow the bishop as Jesus Christ followed the Father and the presbytery as the apostles (c. 8). All through these Epistles the same idea prevails. While exalting the bishop or pastor as the New Testament never does, the writer does not make him the successor of the apostles or trace back to them the institution of his office. The bishop has his place " not of himself or through men, nor yet for vainglory, but in the love of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" {Philad. i). This is what we might expect. For if the Epistles are genuine they are of Eastern origin, the work of the pastor of the Church at Antioch. But the theory that the bishop succeeded to the office and authority of the apostles took its rise in the West. In the East it came much later and spread but slowly. Harnack has reminded us that even in the original of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions, composed about the end of the third century, and representing the bishop as mediator, king, and teacher of the community, his office is still not yet regarded as apostolic. Here, as in the Ignatian Epistles, it is the presbyters who are regarded as continuing the work of the apostles. 4. Again, while in the Ignatian Epistles the bishop is simply a pastor, the president of a Congregational Church, and the elders are looked upon as the repre- sentatives of the apostles, to quote Dr, Lightfoot, " there is not throughout these letters the slightest tinge of sacerdotal language in reference to the Christian ministrj'." The only passage in which there is any mention of a priest or high priest is in the Epistle to the Philadelphians (c. 9), and it reads as follows : " The priests likewise were good, but better is the High Priest, v.] TJie Ignatian Epistles 191 to whom is entrusted the holy of holies ; for to Him alone are committed the hidden things of God ; he Himself being the door of the Father." No exegesis is worth a moment's consideration which refers these priests to the Christian ministry. The writer is simply contrasting the Old Dispensation with the New, and while he allows the worth of the former he claims superiority for the latter. By " priests," as the connexion shows, he could only mean the Levitical priesthood, the mediators of the old covenant ; while the High Priest referred to is none other than Christ the mediator of the new. It is simple literal truth to say that Ignatius never applies the term " priest " to the ministers of the Christian Church. Nor does he represent them as performing priestly functions, as transmuting the simple elements used at the Lord's table. Only the most strained interpretation, such as would pervert the meaning of any writings, can bring the modern priestly ideas out of his words. If he speaks of an altar, it is a symbolic reference to our Saviour Himself: "Come as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ" {Magn. 7). When he says {EpJies. 5), " If any one be not within the precinct of the altar he lacketh the bread," the context plainly shows that what he meant was that if a man keeps back from Church fellowship he loses the blessing which Church fellowship is fitted to give. When he speaks of the blood of God he clearly means His unspeakable love ; for as the blood is the life, life is love and love is life. " I have no delight," he says {Rovi. 7), " in the food of corruption or in the delights of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ who was of the seed of David ; and for a draught I desire His blood, which is love incorruptible." To the same spiritual purport he 192 Apostolical Succession [LECT. says {Trail. 8;, "Arm yourselv^es with gentleness and recover yourselves m faith which is the flesh of the Lord, and in love which is the blood of fesus Christ." His great concern is to prevent the one local community in any one given place from being split up into parties, and observing the communion in sections, of which there appears to have been some danger in his time. " Let that beheld a valid eucharist which is under the bishop" {Sniyni. 8) ; " come as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ " {Magn. 7) ; " be ye careful to observe one eucharist (for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup unto union in His blood ; there is one altar as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery and the deacons my fellow-servants) " {Philad. 4). The simple truth is that while men have used these Epistles as the bulwark of diocesan episcopacy, they have been unwarrantably reading into them the ecclesiastical ideas of a much later time — ideas of which, it is safe to say, Ignatius knew nothing whatever. What he was concerned about was, not to show that there are three Orders in the Church of Divine authority, but to secure peace and unity in each individual Church. He is simply saying in effect, what it is a good thing to say to any Church — rally round the officers you have chosen and keep together. In the concentrated individuality of each single community he sees the safety of the Universal Church. To quote all the passages in proof of this would be to quote a large part of the Epistles. A few taken here and there may suffice for our purpose. " Some persons," he says, " have the bishop's name on their lips but in everything act apart from him. Such men appear to me not to keep a good conscience, forasmuch as the)' do not assemble themseh'es according v.] The Ignatian Epistles 193 to commandment " {Magtt. 4). " Let there be nothing among you which shall have power to divide you, but be ye united with the bishop and with them that preside over you, as an ensample, and lesson of incorruptibility " (c. 6). " Attempt not to think anything right for your- selves apart from others ; but let there be one prayer in common, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and joy unblameable, which is Jesus Christ, than whom there is nothing better. Hasten to come together all of you, as to one temple, even God ; as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ who came forth from one Father, and is with One, and is departed unto One " {Magn. 7). He salutes the Church of the Philadelphians, " more especially if they be at one with the bishop and the presbyters who are with him, and with the deacons that have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus Christ." " As children of light shun divisions and wrong doctrines. . . . For many specious wolves with bane- ful delights lead captive the runners in God's race : but where ye are at one they will find no place " (c. 2). " Assemble yourselves together in common, every one of you severally, man by man, in grace, in one faith and one Jesus Christ, who after the flesh was of David's race, who is Son of Man and Son of God, to the end that ye may obey the bishop and the presbytery without dis- traction of mind " {Eph. 20). Making allowance for a tone of oriental exaggeration here and there, we feel that Ignatius in these and such like utterances gives sound advice to the Churches of his time. His principle is that the right men should be chosen by the society as its officers, and then that they should have its confidence and support when chosen. It may be there was special need for this reiterated 14 194 Apostolical Succession [LECT. exhortation to unity and concert of brotherly action. Indeed, such exhortations are seldom out of place at any time, human nature being what it is. Still, judging these Epistles by their general tenour, it is obvious that Ignatius had no more thought of setting up an auto- cratic diocesan bishop than he had of setting up a world-controlling, infallible Pope. The one would have been an anachronism as well as the other. Professor Ramsay quite expresses one's own feeling when he says : " I can find in Ignatius no proof that the bishops were regarded as ex officio supreme even in Asia, where he was evidently much impressed by the good organisation of the Churches. His words are quite consistent with the view that the respect actually paid in each com- munity to the bishop depended on his individual character" {C. R. E., p. 371). It is a further point of great importance that the onl}^ idea Ignatius has of the relation of the separate Churches to each other is that which manifested itself simply in brotherly intercourse, and in the possession of a common ideal and a common hope. He knows nothing of a union of the different communities into one Church, organised under a diocesan bishop and guaranteed by law and office. With him the bishop is of importance only for the individual community, and has no official control beyond the Church of which he IS pastor. Dr. Loening, who in addition to his great ability and learning has had the advantage of being trained in Kirclioirecht, or canon law, and therefore has a keen appreciation of everything of the nature of constituted authority, distinctl}' says that of organised union of separate communities Ignatius knows nothing. While united in the bonds of a common faith and love, v.] TJie Ignatian Epistles 195 in constitution they are independent. ^ Each separate community is an image of the Universal Church, and is complete in itself. The elders are attuned to the bishop even as its strings to a lyre, therefore, in their concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung. The people and officers of each separate Church are to form them- selves into a chorus that, being harmonious in concord and taking the keynote of God, they may in unison sing with one voice through Jesus Christ unto the Father {Eph. 4). Beyond the law and authority of Christ there is for Ignatius no control of the Christian communities from without. i\t the same time there is most real union maintained among the Churches. The Ignatian Epistles show in what way brotherly inter- course was kept up. As the martyr was on his way to Rome from city after city the Churches sent deputa- tions of honoured brethren to greet him on his way and to assure him of their love and sympathy. Intercourse was also kept up by means of letters, hospitality and brotherly conferences on matters relating to the common welfare. There was real living congregational union while the Churches were separate and self-governing. To sum up the whole question then, if we remember that with Ignatius the bishop meant the pastor of a Church, that his exhortations to honour bishops and presbyters were exhortations to Christian men to rally round the Church and the Church officers, with ' Die Gemeindeverfassimg,'-,. 120: " Alle Schreiben des Ignatius sincl erfiillt v'on dem Gedanken, dass die christlichen Gemeinden ihr Haupt und ihren Mittelpunkt in dem Bischof zu finden haben. Eine Verfassungs- miLssige, organisatorische Vereinignng der einzelnen Gemeinden unter einander kennt er nicht. Die einzelnen Gemeinden sind mit einander vereint durch das Band des gemeinsamen Glaubens und der Liebe, aber der \'erfassung nach stehen die einzelnen Gemeinden selbstiindig und unabhiingig von einander." 196 Apostolical Succession [lecT. v. which they had voluntarily connected themselves ; that there is nothing in his letters favouring Apostolical Succession or sacerdotalism, or the organisation of many Churches under one government — when these things are remembered, it will be seen that Congregationalists, least of all people, have anything to fear from the establishment of the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles. With utmost complacency and calmness of mind we can afford to stand by while great scholars of the English Church like Ussher and Pearson and Lightfoot learnedly labour to prove that Ignatius actually lived and wrote the Epistles which bear his name. The toil of battle has been theirs, the spoils are ours. LECTURE VI THE TRANSITION FROM PROPHET TO PASTOR LECTURE VI THE TRANSITION FROM PROPHET TO PASTOR PAUSING for a moment at the point of transition between the first century and the second, let us note how the various Christian Churches had by this time come to be organised in the leading cities of the empire. Till the flight of the Christians to Pella, previous to the destruction of the city, the Mother Church in Jerusalem seems to have retained the form of organisation brought over from the synagogue ; that is, as a self-governing community they were presided over by a number of presbyters or elders chosen by themselves. The con- nexion of the apostles with the Church was only temporary. Within a few years of Pentecost they had left Jerusalem for other lands as propagandists of the faith. On the outbreak of Herod's persecution of the Church (Acts xii.), so far as we can see, of the Twelve only Peter and James were left in the city. James was slain, and Peter, on his release from prison, " departed and went to another place." The next time we hear of him he is at Antioch. It would seem, therefore, there were only elders left, of whom James, the brother of the Lord, may have been one. At Alexandria, also, next to Jerusalem the most Jewish 199 200 Apostolical Succession [lect. city of the empire, the same arrangement prevailed. We have already learnt from Eutychius that till i88 A.D. " there were no bishops in the whole of provincial Egypt," and that the custom in the Church at Alex- andria was for the twelve presbyters there to choose from their own number a patriarch as president, whom they themselves set apart by laying on of hands. Then, crossing from Alexandria to Rome, even there we as yet find no trace of episcopal organisation. The letter sent from this Church to that at Corinth in the year 95, was, as tradition affirms, written by Clement, but whether he was anything more than a leading presbyter does not appear, inasmuch as he is not described by any official title. Even twenty years later, Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Romans, makes no mention of any bishop as existing among them, a fact difficult to account for, if there were one. What is thus true of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome, we find to be true also of Corinth. We gather from Clement's Epistle that the management of the affairs of this Church was in the hands of a body of elders. At Thessalonica, again, we have Paul's Epistles to the Church there, but in them no mention of any bishop. He states that he had sent Timothy to them as God's minister in the Gospel of Ch'-ist to establish and comfort them, but, as the context shows, it was only on a temporary visit. There are local officers who labour among them and are over them in the Lord, as there were at Corinth, rulers (Trpoiarafiivoi) whom they are to know and esteem highly in love for their work's sake ; prophesyings are heard in their Church gatherings, which they are not to despise ; but there is no salutation to any bishop or presiding officer either in Paul's first Epistle or his VI.] TJie Transition from PropJiet to Pastor 201 second, his salutation being to the Church onl}-. Still keeping in Roman Macedonia and passing from Thes- salonica to Philippi, the apostle salutes the saints there with the bishops and deacons. But sixty years later (117 A.D.) Polycarp, writing to this same Church, urges them to submit themselves to the presbyters and deacons as to God and Christ, and charges the presby- ters to be compassionate and merciful towards all men, visiting the infirm and showing themselves not un- mindful of the widows, the fatherless, and the poor. We can only conclude that the bishops and deacons at Philippi in Paul's time were the presbyters of Polycarp's time, and vice versa. The cities we have thus gone over were the great leading centres of the civilised world — Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, Philippi, yet in none of them have we found so much as a trace of that episcopate which the modern Episcopalian believes to be absolutely essential, not only to the bene esse, but the esse of a Church. It is only when we come to Syria and the Churches of Asia Minor that we find a bishop spoken of separately from the presbyters and deacons ; but as we have seen from the Ignatian Epistles — abso- lutely the only literature of that time in which this form of organisation is spoken of — this bishop is simply the presiding pastor of a single Church, the presbyters and deacons sharing the administration of affairs with him. The process of transition from a government by elders, like that in Jerusalem, to that by bishop, elders, and deacons, as found at Antioch and in Asia Minor, is necessarily somewhat obscure. The period between 70 A.D., the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, and 95 A.D., the date of the Epistle of Clement and the 202 Apostolical Succession [lkct. Didache, is the darkest time of all. We have scarcely a gleam of light, and can only feel our way. Perhaps our safest course will be to follow the fortunes of the Church in Jerusalem, about which Hegesippus tells us all that can now be known. From the fragments of his writings which Eusebius has preserved for us, he supple- ments the account we find in the New Testament. For long after Pentecost the Christians, as we know, while having their own meetings apart, still repaired for worship to the temple. They are described as day by day continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple and breaking bread at home (Acts ii. 46, R. V.). The apostles Peter and John were going up into the temple at the hour of prayer, when they found the lame man at the temple gate. In the outer court of the temple, as a convenient place of concourse, they preached to the people. " Go," said the angel to the apostles he had released from prison — " go ye and stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life " ; and they entered into the temple about daybreak and taught. At a later time we find Paul, with the four men who had a vow upon them, going into the temple, purifying himself with them, declaring the fulfilment of the days of purification, until the offering was offered for every one of them (Acts xxi. 26). He tells us also that he was praying in the temple when he fell into the trance in which he received his Divine commission to the Gentiles (xxii. 17). This connexion, more or less intimate, was probabh' kept up till the martyrdom of James, the brother of the Ford, as described by Josephus and Hegesippus. After his death and before the outbreak of the war (66 A.D.) '' respected men " (^oki/uoi) among them led the Chris- VI.] TJie Transition from PropJiet to Pastor 203 tians to the land east of Jordan, where they settled at Pella, from whence they spread over the Hauran and to the lands still further east. The great tract of country south of Damascus, still called the Hauran, was at that time thickly inhabited and well garrisoned by Roman soldiers. Strabo tells us that the garrisons thus main- tained by Rome had produced a feeling of security which tended greatly to prosperity, and the point to be noted especially is that in this same district to which the Jerusalem Church was transplanted during the stormy years when their own city was desolated by war, the term bishop was the usual title for municipal officials, and in no other part of the Greco-Roman world is this title so often found in inscriptions. ^ The whole district abounds in ruins, and not only in Bozra, its ancient capital, but in numerous towns and villages, frequent Greek inscriptions have been found by recent explorers. It is, perhaps, not without significance that in this same region, where the title of bishop is more frequently found than elsewhere as that of a municipal functionary, the Jerusalem Church found its settlement. Hegesippus tells us (//'. E., iv. 22) that all those who had gone forth into Pella and the neighbourhood chose Symeon, the son of Cleopas, as their head, he being the cousin of our Lord. James's position also had pre- viously rested on his relationship to Jesus, and on personal regard. Hegesippus gives him no title, as holding no formal office ; it is only when the Church has gone into the country east of the Jordan, where episkopos was the common title of a public officer, that Hegesippus gives the title episkopos to Symeon, the ' Le Bas et Waddington, Inscriplions Grecqiies et Latines, vol. iii. Nos. 191 1, 1989, 1990, 2070, 229S, 230S, 2309, 2310, 2412. 204 Apostolical Successio7i [LECT. successor of James, though whether he received the title at the time or not is not certain. What the organisa- tion of this Church continued to be Hke cannot be inferred from the Hst of bishops of Jerusalem given by Eusebius ; for since he gives a list of thirteen bishops in twenty-eight years, as Loening says, it is impossible to say whether this is an arbitrary list or a combination of lists, or whether it contains the names of presbyters. But it is not improbable that from this Church at Pella, where one presbyter became president with the title of bishop, this arrangement passed to the Church of Antioch, and thence to the Churches of Asia Minor. Very little importance can be attached to the statement that episcopacy was introduced into Asia Minor by the Apostle John, resting as it does on a single passage in Clement of Alexandria {Quis Divus c. 42), and on the common desire of all the Churches of a later time to trace their origin to some apostle or other. It is true that Tertullian maintained that John made Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, but Irena^us, who knew Polycarp personally and who refers to the succession of pastors in the Churches, says nothing of this. While the Church in Jerusalem gives us only problematical hints as to the transition from govern- ment by a body of elders to that by a body of elders presided over by a pastor or bishop, there is one Church — that of Corinth — where we are on surer ground. There we can distinctly trace the existence of three successive forms of Church organisation within the space of about a century. Let us, therefore, follow the course of events in this Church as far as we can with the materials at our disposal. I. Taking the year 53 as the probable date of Paul's VI.] TJic Transition from Prophet to Pastor 205 First Epistle to the Corinthians, we can, from the nth, 1 2th, and 14th chapters, with tolerable certainty, infer the kind of arrangement prevailing at that time. On reading these chapters we are struck by the absence of any mention of the official element as such, and by the active part taken in the worship by the various members of the Church. There are diversities of gifts, diversities of ministration, and diversities of workings. To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal. The human body, of which each part has some function to serve, is the analogy employed to describe the organic life of the Church. Ye are the body of Christ and severally members thereof There is special mention made of the fact that God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, the same spiritually endowed leaders, in short, whom we find forty years later described in the Didache as itinerant teachers among all the Churches. But unless described under the general terms " helps and governments," presbyters, bishops, and deacons are not so much as mentioned ; indeed, neither presbyters nor bishops are named even once in either of the two Epistles to the Church at Corinth. While at the time Paul wrote these Epistles the service of the Christians was not unlike that of the synagogue, inasmuch as many took part in it, the Christian service was yet fuller, richer in devotional feeling, and more varied than that of the synagogue. It was still the time of that great efflorescence of spiritual power bestowed at Pentecost, meant rather for temporary sign than for permanent continuance. " When ye come together each one hath a psalm, hath a teaching, hath a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an 2o6 Apostolical Succession [lect. interpretation." " To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom ; and to another the word of know- ledge according to the same Spirit : to another faith in the same Spirit, and to anotlier gifts of heah'ngs in the one Spirit ; and to another workings of miracles ; and to another prophecy ; and to another discernings of spirits ; to another clivers kinds of tongues ; and to another the interpretation of tongues." It needs scarcely be said that prayer and praise entered largely into the worship of that early time. Paul places praying and prophesying side by side, and elsewhere he urges the Christians to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Probably the spiritual song was generic, the psalm and hymn specific ; the psalm designating a composition which took its character from the Old Testament Psalms, though not confined to them, the hymn being a song of praise. Pliny says that the Christians in Bithynia sang hymns responsively {secuvi inviccvi) to Christ as God ; and referring to a much later time, Tertullian, speaking of the Agape, says that as it com- menced with prayer, so with prayer it was closed, and that each one was asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God, either one from the Holy Scripture or one of his own composing {ApoL, 39). Hippolytus, too, speaks of the enemies of the Christians as watching for a fit time, and entering the House of God while all are there praying and praising God, seizing some of them and carrying them off. To these ordinary forms of worship there seem to have been added in the Corinthian Church certain ecstatic and extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit. The speaking with tongues was a form of endowment in VI.] The Transition from PropJiet to Pastor 207 which the man appeared to pass out of himself into an ecstatic condition. It does not seem that we are to regard this gift, as exercised at Corinth, to be the same as that manifested by the cHsciples on the day of Pentecost. The narrative in the latter case seems to imply utterance in an intelligible language other than the speaker's own. The miracle at Pentecost was special for a special occasion, as was that in the house of Cornelius, and also that in the case of those disciples at Ephesus who had previously known only the baptism of John. At Corinth, on the contrary, speaking with tongues appears to have been a form of speech not understood without interpretation by those standing near. The man was speaking to God in an ecstatic manner to be distinguished as different from ordinary speech. It was prayer offered in those exuberant moods of soul when the new faith found common modes of expression insufficient for its exalted con- dition. To the bystander it appeared like soliloquy. " He that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God : for no man understandeth ; but in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries. He that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth edifieth the Church." Therefore it was unintelligible to others ; could be compared only to the use of an instru- ment, a pipe or harp giving no distinction in sounds, to a trumpet giving an uncertain voice. It was a sign, being marvellous, but only to unbelievers ; believers gained no edification from it. Paul had the gift himself in even eminent degree, but he did not greatly value it. " I thank God," he says, " I speak with tongues more than you all : howbeit in the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that I might instruct 2o8 Apostolical Succession [lect. others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue." Still, this mysterious gift in one man must have produced impressions sufficiently definite in another for that other to be able to interpret it. To one was given divers kinds of tongues, on another was bestowed the interpre- tation of tongues. " If any man speaketh in a tongue let it be by two, or at most by three, and that in turn ; and let one interpret : but if there be no interpreter let him keep silence in the Church, and let him speak to himself and to God." Paul had drawn from this source in his own inner life ; but he felt that it was not un- attended with danger. It came perilously near that mysterious borderland of the spiritual nature where excitement oft repeated breaks down the will-power and generates disease, and where prayer is apt to de- generate into mere phrenzy. • It was destined to pass away after doing certain needed work as a sign. The attempt Edward Irving made to revive it in our own century proved, as might be expected, a conspicuous failure. " Whether there be tongues, they shall cease." The fulness of the Spirit showed itself also in simpler and more didactic forms. " What shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation, or of knowledge, or of prophesying, or of teaching ? " " To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom " — the power to understand and expound the Divine con- ception of the world, its progress, God's purpose con- cerning it, and the regulation of human life in accordance with that purpose : " to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit " — that higher enlightenment we receive through Christ — the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. VI.] The Tratisition from Prophet to Pastor 209 2. Such were the conditions of Church Hfe and worship at Corinth in the year 53 A.D. as we gather them from Paul's Epistle. They were characterised by many-sidedness, by great fulness and variety of spiritual life ; but also b}- phenomena which from their very nature could only be temporary. It was inevitable that they should sooner or later give place to those more important and permanent forms of the Spirit's action on the souls of men which belong to all time and all lands. Let us now, while still keeping to the Church at Corinth, pass from the year 53 A.D. to the year 95 A.D., from Paul's Epistle to the Epistle of Clement. During these two and fort}' }'ears a whole generation has passed away, and the inevitable change in Church life has become an accomplished fact. Tongues and the inter- pretation of tongues are now a thing of the past, and Church life has settled down into more ordinary grooves. The Church, for how long we know not, has been presided over by presbyters who have " ministered unblameably to the flock of Christ in lowliness of mind, peacefully and with all modesty, and for long time have borne a good report with all." But at the time of the writing of this Epistle, and indeed as the occasion of its writing, an unworthy revolt had sprung up against these presbyters on the part of some in the Church. " We see that ye have displaced certain persons, though they were living honourably, from the ministration which had been respected b\' them blamelessly." " It is shameful, dearl}- beloved, )^es utterly shameful and unworthy of your conduct in Christ, that it should be reported that the very stedfast and ancient Church of the Corinthians, for the sake of one or two persons, maketh sedition against its presb}'ters." " It will be no light sin for us, 15 2IO Apostolical Succession [lect. if we thrust out those who have offered the gifts [to '^h)pa\ of the episcopate unblameably and hoHly." Their good name has been tarnished " through the unholy sedition, so aHen and strange to the Elect of God, which a few headstrong and self-willed persons have kindled." " Men were stirred up, the mean against the honourable, the ill-reputed against the highly- reputed, the foolish against the wise, the young against the elder. For this cause righteousness and peace stand aloof." Their brethren in Rome plead with them to return to a better mind : " For Christ is with them that are of a lowly mind, not with them that exalt them- selves over the flock. He Himself came not in the pomp of arrogance or of pride, though He might have done so, but in lowliness of mind." Let us walk worthily of Him. " Let us rev^erence our rulers [TTjOorj-yov^Evot], let US honour our presbyters." " We ought to do all things in order, as many as the Master hath commanded us to perform at their appointed seasons. And where and by whom He would have them performed, He Himself fixed by His supreme will : that all things being done with piety according to His good pleasure might be acceptable to His will. They, therefore, that make their offerings at the appointed seasons are acceptable and blessed ; for while they follow the institutions of t'ie Master they cannot go wrong." " Who, therefore, is noble among you ? Let him say : ' If by reason of me there be faction and strife and divisions, I retire, I depart, \\'hither ye will, and I do that which is ordered by the people : only let the flock of Christ be at peace with its duly appointed presbyters.' " The drift of all this is clear enough, and also the VI.] TJie Transition from Prophet to Pastor 2 1 1 form of Church organisation which it assumes. We have here in the year 95 A.D. a self-governing Churcli, over which there are rulers described by the same term (rrpoir/oviiiivoi) as that applied in the New Testament and the Didache to those itinerant spiritual leaders, the apostles, prophets, and teachers. But besides these rulers who are to be reverenced there are also presbyters who are to be honoured, these being local church officers chosen by the people and apparently also set aside by the people, presbyters " who have offered the gifts," that is, discharged the functions, " of the episcopate unblameably." There is nothing in this Epistle of Clement to indicate that up to this point at least, any one presbyter had taken precedence of the rest as presiding bishop or pastor. Here, then, we have what we may describe as the second stage of Church organi- sation in Corinth, the form prevailing at the end of the first century and the beginning of the second. 3. Once more we take a step forward of half a century or more in the history of this Church, and again we find a change has taken place in the interval. About the year 150 A.D., Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius (H. £., iv. 22), tells us he went to Corinth, where he found Primus taking the oversight of the Church (tTTio-fcoTTEiioi'roc), wlth whom he had familiar conversation, passing many days with him as he was on the point of sailing for Rome. He found the Church at Corinth had continued in the true faith, and while he was with Primus, " we were mutually refreshed," he says, " in the true doctrine." Some time later Primus was followed in the pastorate of this Church by Dionysius (H. P., iv. 23J, who imparted freely, Eusebius tells us, not only to his own people, but to others abroad also, the 212 Apostolical Succession [LECT. blessings of his disinterested labours. He seems to have been a public-spirited man, a leader among the Churches, being most useful of all in the general Epistles he addressed to various Churches — to the Lacedaemo- nians, instructing them in the true religion and incul- cating peace and unity ; to the Athenians, urging them to the faith and life prescribed by the Gospel ; to the Nicomedians, in which he refutes the heresy of Marcion and sets forth the standard of truth ; and also to the Church at Cortyna, congratulating Philip, their bishop, on the many instances of fortitude evinced by the Church under his care. He wrote also to the Churches at Amastris and Pontus, mentioning that Bacchylides and Elpistus had urged him to write. These letters do not assume any authoritative control on his part over these Churches, inasmuch as we find him writing also to the Church in Rome, in which he mentions that in his own Church at Corinth they still continue to read Clement's letter of seventy years ago, on the Lord's Day, and also that vv^iich Soter, the Roman pastor, had sent them ; and he commends them for their kindness in sending contributions to many Churches in every city. By thus refreshing the needy in their want and sending to the brethren condemned to the mines what was necessary, they were, as Romans, keeping up the time- honoured custom of their Roman ancestors. Nothing is left of these Epistles of Dionysius beyond the frag- ments preserved by Eusebius, who places him in his Chronicon under the year 171 A.D., as a sacred man celebrated at that time. But they were regarded as of sufficient authority to make it worth while to interpolate them and thej^ are interesting as throwing considerable light on the state of the Church at the time they were VI.] TJic Transition from Prophet to Pastor 2 1 3 written. They show, for example, that it was the custom of the Churches to read letters from other Churches in public assembly and to maintain brotherly relations with each other. But the point to be specially noted is that the Churches far and wide have pastors or bishops presiding over them. This is not only the case in Asia Minor as the Ignatian Epistles have shown us at an earlier time, but also in Rome, Corinth, Athens, Sparta, Xicomedia, Cortyna, and the Churches in Crete. Still, even at this time (171 A.U.) the importance of the pastor or bishop continues to be subordinate to that of the Church over which he presides. i\ll the Epistles of Dionysius, including that to Rome, are addressed in each case to the Church, not to the pastor ; and the one to Rome shows that Soter's letter to the Church at Corinth, like the earlier one of Clement, was written not in his own name, but in that of the Church at Rome of which he was pastor. The Epistles of Dionysius may seem to be an exception, being written in his own name, he using the first person singular, but this is explained by his telling us that he wrote these Epistles at the request of certain brethren, some of whom he names ; they were, therefore, not communications from a Church, but from an individual. Thus, then, following the development of the Church at Corinth, and trying as far as we can to keep to known and assured facts, we find that by about the beginning of the last quarter of the second century there was at the head of this Church a presiding pastor or bishop, and we gather from his letters that the other Churches to which these letters were written had also each of them a presiding pastor or bishop. The important question now arises for consideration — how did it come about 214 Apostolical Succession [l.ECT. that one presbyter began to take precedence of the rest and to occupy the position of presiding pastor or bishop, and what, mainly, were the forces which contributed to this result? I. Dr. Hatch's theory, as to how the change probably came about, is well known. He makes it to turn very largely upon financial considerations. The offerings of the Christians in the time of Justin Martyr were made, as he tells us, not privately but publicly, not directly to those who had need, but to the presiding officer in the general assembl}- of the brethren. The officer thus presiding received the offerings and then and there solemnly dedicated them to God, uttering over them words of thanksgiving and benediction. The president thus became the responsible treasurer of the Church, and his functions, as such, were of great importance. He had to care for the poor, for those who were outcasts because of their confession of faith, for those who were sent to prison or sold into captivity, above all for the widows and orphans of the Church. Then, too, there w'ere brethren from other Churches passing from city to city, who were to be received with Christian hospitality. All this involved a large amount of ecclesiastical admini- stration, of which the episkopos or presiding presbyter was the pivot and centre ; and while, no doubt, there were other duties to be discharged, these were primar}^ and fundamental. In support of this view. Dr. Hatch mentions an inscription in which it is recorded that by a resolution of the municipal authority the episkopoi of the cit)' are directed to accept of a certain offer and to invest the money. In other inscriptions found in the Hauran this title seems to be used of the financial officers of the temple of the gods. VL] The Transition from Prophet to Pastor 2 1 5 Possibly not a few will agree with Loening that, in this argument of his, Dr. Hatch is dazzling rather than convincing. This writer contends that the Hauran inscription is too vague for the stress laid upon it, and he quotes Waddington (iii. 147) to the effect that while that inscription seems to show that the episkopoi exercised some sort of surveillance over the revenues of the temple, the expression used {ra tov deov) might apply to certain taxes imposed by the episkopoi for the reparation of the temple.^ Kiihl - also maintains with great force, that Hatch's basis is not broad enough for his conclusions, resting as they do upon one, or at most two passages where the episkopos acted in a financial capacity ; that there is no reason to hold that the episkopoi mentioned in the inscription quoted were permanent officers of finance ; and that so general a name does not suit so narrow an office. This objection urged by Kuhl is sustained by the researches of Foucart,3 who found the episkopoi to be those officers who had to examine candidates for admission to the Greek Associations. In another case on which Hatch relies, where episkopos was the title of a municipal officer sent by the Athenians to subject states, it would rather seem that the man was a special commissioner sent to reduce conquered cities to order ; this, therefore, was an exceptional case on which no general conclusion can be founded. Dr. Lightfoot's examination of the word as found in the LXX. also shows that it had more than a financial significance. In some instances it signifies " inspectors, superintendents, taskmasters " (2 Kings ' Die Geiiieindeverfassu/ig des Urchristoithums , s. 22. - Die Geineindeordnung in den Pastoralhriefcn. Berlin, 1885. 3 Les Associations Keligiettses Chez les Grecs, 187 '5. 2i6 Apostolical Succession [LECT. xi. 19 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12, 17 ; Isa. Ix. 7). In others it is a higher title, " captains " or " presidents " (Nehem. xi. 9, 14, 22). Of Antiochus Epiphanes it is recorded that, in order to carry out the overthrow of the worship of Jehovah, he appointed episkopoi over all the people to see that his orders were obeyed. The word, therefore, has a wider signification than Dr. Hatch's argument would seem to imply. 2. Professor Ramsay,^ while not ignoring the duty of the presiding elder or bishop in the Christian Church to care for the material wants of the flock, regards the main part of his function, as lying in a different direction to that indicated by Dr. Hatch. With him the central idea in the development of the episcopal office lay in the duty of each community to maintain communication with other communities. The destruction of Jerusalem having annihilated all possibility of one localised centre for Christianity, it was made clear that the unity of the Churches must henceforward be maintained by a process of intercommunication and brotherhood. He thinks it scarcely possible to exaggerate the share which frequent intercourse between the congregations, from a very early stage, had in moulding the development of the Church. Most of the documents in the New Testament are the products and monuments of this intercourse. He holds the Ignatian Epistles to be genuine, but whether genuine or not, they bear witness to a state of things known to exist, and bring out into strong relief the close relations existing between different congregations. Without any power of legislation or external authority, there was real congregational union and true brotherly intercourse. The Epistles represent the most cordial welcome as ' Church in the Koinan Empire, pp., 361, scq. VI.] The TviDisition from Prophet to Pastor 2 1 7 being extended to Ignatius all along the route he travelled. He, too, sends loving messages to the Churches, and receives the deputations sent from them to meet and convoy him. These and similar details presuppose intimate knowledge of each other's affairs, a regular system of intercommunication, and brotherly union of the closest kind along the great routes across the Empire. All this being so, Professor Ramsay thinks that this close connexion could not be maintained by mere unregulated voluntary efforts, that organised action alone would be able to keep it up. It was work to be left not in many hands, but in one. Episkopos merely means overseer, and any presbyter to whom a definite duty was assigned by his brethren would be an episkopos for the occasion ; therefore, any presbyter might become an episkopos for the occasion, and he, by proved aptness and power in some one thing, might come to have executive duties often assigned to him, and in this way the tried episkopos would tend to become permanent. Still, for a long time his authority was delegated, and his influence depended not so much on his official position as on his personal qualities. It became his duty to maintain hospitality towards the brethren coming from other Churches, and to compose the letters sent in the Church's name to sister com- munities. Still, in the earliest time his position was co-ordinate, not supreme. He was simply a presbyter on whom certain duties had been imposed ; he was far removed from the monarchical bishop of A.D. 170 ; and there is no trace of anything to suggest that he exercised any authority ex officio within the community. He was the representative of the Church, and the letters 2i8 Apostolical Succession [LECT. he wrote were written, like Clement's Epistle, in their name, not his, and their contents referred solely to the brethren, not to himself. Even in the Ignatian Epistles Professor Ramsay sees no proof that the bishops were regarded as supreme even in Asia. What Ignatius says is quite consistent with the view that the respect paid to the bishop in each community depended on his individual character rather than on his official position. 3. There is much to be said for the view thus pre- sented. The presiding elders of the scattered com- munities chosen, as they were, as being men of character and position, and acting, as they did, as leaders in facing the storms of persecution which ever and again broke over the hapless suffering brethren, they would naturally be the medium of communication between the various Churches. Still, while Professor Ramsay's theory jDrobably thus comes nearer to the facts of the case than that of Dr. Hatch, we have a sort of feeling that it is defective in an important sense. For it lays too much stress on the external relations of the Churches, and too little on the internal life and worship of each separate Church. Yet the latter is vital and primary, while the former, though important, is secondary and subordinate. The permanent instruc- tion and edification of the Church, the maintenance and extension of Divine truth, and the efficient observance of public worship were of paramount im- portance. Yet there were causes at work which were beyond all human control, and which tended to place this department of service in the hands of the local leaders of the various Churches. {a) The gradual cessation of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, possessed, as we have seen, by nearly all VI.] The Transition frojii Prophet to Pastor 219 the members of sucli a Church as that at Corinth, for example, would necessarily issue in the brethren at large taking a less prominent and active part in the worship and instruction of the Church. The special manifestations of the Spirit were intended to be but temporary, and were to disappear before those ordinar}' influences which, if less striking, were more important and more permanently influential. Even when the extraordinar}- charismata were at their highest point of affluence the apostle sought to prepare men's minds for a time when these would cease to be. He taught that to speak the truth in love is better than to speak it in many tongues ; that charity is greater than intellectual gifts ; and that faith would live on when prophecy had ceased. When this change had come the power of service would inevitably pass, as to its more public forms, from the many to the few. {b) While the charismata declined among the brethren at large, the same cause would be at \vork affecting the spiritually endowed apostles, prophets, and teachers who moved about among all the Churches. These prophets were probably not very numerous at any time, and they would probably be growing fewer at the very time that the Churches were increasing in number. More and more those functions of the prophet which were essential to the welfare of the Church would come to be discharged by the local officers, the bishops and deacons, " for they also minister to you the ministr}' of the prophets and teachers." The future was on the side of the regular and permanent authority rather than with the extemporaneous and enthusiastic. But the permanent office rose in dignity and importance as the temporar}- institution of prophecy declined. Next in 220 Apostolical Snarssion [lkct. importance to the apostles in the Primitive Church stood the Christian prophets, and what was of per- manent value and importance in the work of the prophet was passed on to the bishop or pastor. Thus, in its most spiritual element the gift of prophecy has never ceased in the Christian Church. " Age after age has seen the rise of great, teachers, alike within and without the ranks of the regular ministry — men who were dominated by a sense of immediate mission from God, and filled with a conviction which imparted itself by contagion to their hearers. Prophecy as an institu- tion was destined to pass away, leaving those of its functions which were vital to the Church's well-being to be discharged as a rule by the settled Ministry, which rose to its full height only on its rival's fall." ^ ic) The formation of the New Testament Canon, again, had a decided, though indirect, influence in the elevation of a settled ministry in the Church. On the one hand, when these writings became a recognised and authoritative standard of Divine truth they gradually " put an end to a situation where it was possible for any Christian under the inspiration of the Spirit to give authoritative disclosures and instruction ; " and, on the other hand, possessing these, the permanent leaders of the Church were enabled to unfold and enforce the mind of the Spirit with assured confidence. It is not a mere coincidence that the gradual formation of the New Testament Canon synchronised to a large extent with the gradual elevation of one presbyter from among the rest to be the presiding bishop or pastor of the Church. At the beginning of the last quarter of the ' I'rof. J. Arniitage Robinson, paper on 'J'lic Christian Prophets, 1S95. \I.] The Transition from PropJiet to Pastor 221 second centun' both processes were at work ; at the end of that centur\- both processes were complete. While in the way thus indicated the prophet was merged into the pastor, and the pastor succeeded to the function of the prophet, it must not be overlooked that the germ of the prophet's function was to be found in the office of the presbyter or bishop from the begin- ning. A presbyter took higher rank if he could both teach and exhort as well as take the practical manage- ment of the affairs of the Church : " Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in the Word and teaching." He is to be " apt to teach," but this qualification is merely given in a list of thirteen or fourteen others (r Tim. iii. ^-J ; V. 17). In the same way, in the ancient document worked into the Apostolic Canons it is said of the bishop that " it is good if he is educated, in a position to ex- pound the Scriptures, but if he is unlearned, then he must be gentle and filled with love to all, so that a bishop should never be as one accused of anything by the multitude." When we come to the Apostolic Consti- tutions, that is to such portions of them as experts regard as being genuinely ante-Nicene, we find that a great step forward has been taken in the way of assimi- lating the function of the ruling elders to that of the presiding bishop or pastor. " The bishop to be ordained should be patient and gentle in his admonitions, well instructed himself, meditating in and diligently studying the Lord's books, and reading them frequently, so that he may be able carefully to interpret the Scriptures, expounding the gospel in correspondence with the prophets and with the law, and to let the expositions from the law and the prophets correspond to the gospel. 222 Apostolical Succession [Ll-XT. For the Lord Jesus says, ' Search the Scriptures, for they are those which testify of me.' ... Re careful, therefore, O bishop, to study the Word, that thou mayest be able to explain everything exactly, and that thou mayest copiously nourish thy people with much doctrine and enlighten them with the light of the law" (ii. 5). Thus rose as a permanent office in the Christian Church the important functi(jn of the Christian pastor, " not out of the apostolic order by localisation, but out of the presbyteral by elevation ; and the title, which originally was common to all, came at length to be appropriated to the chief among them.''^ It is here, then, in the transition from the temporary to the permanent forms of the Spirit's action, that we come upon the great epoch-making change in Church organisation, the importance of which has not always been realised. The cessation of supernatural charismata, the withdrawal of those special gifts which from Pente- cost onwards had played so important a part in Church life and worship, would necessarily create a new era in ecclesiastical history. Other changes in after-centuries were brought about b}' officials, synods, and councils of human institution, but this, as it were, by an ordinance of Heaven itself Not that spiritual gifts were now to cease. They were as needful as ever " for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ." They will be needful until the end, " till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." But while the gifts are con- ' Dr. Lighlf