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The Cunningham Lectures 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE MINISTRY 
 IN THE EARLY CENTURIES 
 
 THOMAS M. LINDSAY, D.D. 
 
THE CHURCH AND 
 
 THE MINISTRY IN THE 
 
 EARLY CENTyRIES 
 
 The Eighteenth SeHes'hf'^-''''''''''' 
 The Cunningham Lectures 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS M. LINDSAY, D.D. 
 
 Principal of the Glasgow College of the 
 United Free Church of Scotland 
 
 NEW ^UflP YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 

 THE CHUBCH AND THE MINISTRY IN THE EABLT CENTURIES 
 
 HC — 
 
 PRINTBD IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 
 
TO 
 
 TOE REV. GEORGE C. M. DOUGLAS, D.a 
 
 709105 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ^nr^HE aim of these Lectures is to pourtray the organized life 
 of the Christian Society as that was lived in the thousands 
 of little communities formed by the proclamation of the Gospel 
 of our Lord during the first three centuries. 
 
 The method of description has been to select writings which 
 seemed to reveal that hfe most clearly, and to group round the 
 central sources of information illustrative evidence, contemporary 
 or other. The principle of selection has been to take, as the cen- 
 tral authorities, those writings which, when carefully examined, 
 reveal the greatest number of details. Thus, the Epistles of St. 
 Paul, especially the First Epistle to the Corinthians, have been 
 chosen as furnishing the greatest number of facts going to form 
 a picture of the life of the Christian Society during the first 
 century, and the material derived from the other canonical 
 writings such as the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse and 
 the Pastoral Epistles, have been arranged around them. Simi- 
 larly the Didachey the Sources of the Apostolic Canons and the 
 EpisUes of Ignatius have been selected for the light they throw 
 on the life and work of the Church during the second century' 
 The Canons of Hippolytus, supplemented by the writings of 
 Irenaeus and of Tertullian, have furnished the basis for the de- 
 scription of the organization during the first, and the Epistles of 
 Cyprian of Carthage for that of the second half of the third cen- 
 tury^ 
 
 ^ b 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 The method used has the disadvantage of making necessary 
 some repetitions, which the form of Lectures rendered the more 
 inevitable ; but it puts the reader in possession of the contem- 
 porary evidence in the simplest way. 
 
 Quotations from the original authorities have been given in 
 EngUsh for the most part, and, as a rule, the translations have 
 been taken from well known versions — from the. Ante-Nicene 
 Library, from the late Bishop Lightfoot's translations of Clement 
 of Rome and of Ignatius, and from Messrs. Hitchcock and 
 Brown's version of the Didache. This has been done after con- 
 sultation with friends whose advice seemed to be too valuable to 
 be neglected. 
 
 Dr. Moberly, in his eminently suggestive book. Ministerial 
 Priesthood^ has warned all students of early Church History to 
 beware of mental presuppositions, unchallenged assumptions, 
 hypotheses or postulates. The warning has been taken with all 
 seriousness, even when the perusal of his book has suggested 
 the thought that mental presuppositions, Uke sins, are more 
 readily recognized in our neighbours than in ourselves. I feel 
 bound to admit that three assumptions or postulates may be 
 found underlying these lectures. Whether they are right or 
 wrong the reader must judge. 
 
 My first postulate is this. I devoutly believe that there is a 
 Visible Catholic Church of Christ consisting of all those through- 
 out the world who visibly worship the same God and Father, 
 profess their faith in the same Saviour, and are taught by the 
 same Holy Spirit ; but I do not see any Scriptural or even 
 primitive warrant for insisting that cathoUcity must find visible 
 expression in a uniformity of organization, of ritual of worship, 
 or even of formulated creed. This visible Church Catholic of 
 Christ has had a life in the world historically continuous ; but 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 the ground of tliis historical oontinuity does not necessarily 
 exist in any one method of selecting and setting apart office- 
 bearers who rule in the Church ; its basis is the real succession 
 of the generations of faithful followers of their Lord and Master, 
 Jesus Christ. It is with devout thankfulness that I can make this 
 assumption with perfect honesty of heart and of head, because 
 it reUeves me from the necessity — sad, stem and even hateful 
 it must seem to many pious souls who feel themselves under its 
 power — of unchurching and of excluding from the " covenanted *' 
 mercies of God, all who do not accept that form of Church 
 government which, to my mind, is truest to scriptural principles 
 and most akin to the ecclesiastical organization of the early 
 centuries. 
 
 My second postulate concerns the ministry; There is and 
 must be a valid ministry of some sort in the churches which are 
 branches of this one Visible Catholic Church of Christ ; but I 
 do not think that the fact that the Church possesses an authority 
 which is a direct gift from God necessarily means that the autho- 
 rity must exist in a class or caste of superior office-bearers en- 
 dowed with a grace and therefore with a power "specific, exclusive 
 and efficient," and that it cannot be delegated to the ministry 
 by the Christian people. I do not see why the thought that 
 the authority comes from " above," a dogmatic truth, need in any 
 way Interfere with the conception that all official ecclesiastical 
 power is representative and delegated to the officials by the 
 membership and that it has its divine source in the presence of 
 Christ promised and bestowed upon His people and diffused 
 through the membership of the Churches. Therefore when the 
 question is put : " Must ministerial character be in all cases 
 conferred from above, or may it sometimes, and with equal 
 validity, be evolved from below ? " it appears to me that a fallacy 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 lurks in the antithesis. "From below" is used in the sense 
 "from the membership of the Church," and the inference 
 suggested by the contrast is that what comes " from below," 
 i.e. from the membership of the Church, cannot come " from 
 above," i.e. cannot be of divine origin, warrant and 
 authority. Why not ? May the Holy Spirit not use the 
 membership of the Church as His instrument ? Is there no 
 real abiding presence of Christ among His people ? Is not 
 this promised Presence something which belongs to the sphere 
 of God and may it not be the source of an authority which is 
 ** from above " ? The fallacious antithesis has apparently 
 given birth to a formula, — that no valid ministry can be evolved 
 from the membership of the Christian congregation ; and this 
 formula has been treated as expressing a dogmatic truth which has 
 been compared with the truth of the dogma of the Incarnation, 
 and which has been used as a guiding principle in the interpre- 
 tation of the references in the New Testament writings and in 
 other early Christian literature to the origin and growth of the 
 Christian ministry. Fortified by this supposed dogmatic truth 
 one Anglican divine can contentedly rest the Scriptural warrant 
 for the theory of " Apostolic Succession " and all the sad and 
 stem practical consequences he deduces from it, on an hypo- 
 thesis and on a detail in a parable, and another can find evidence 
 for the same " gigantic figment " in a statement of Clement of 
 Rome which describes the earliest missionaries of the Christian 
 Church doing what missionaries of all kinds, from those of the 
 Church of England to those of the Society of Friends, have done 
 in all generations to secure the well-being and continuance of the 
 communities of believers who have been converted to the faith 
 of Jesus. 
 
 My third postulate belongs to an entirely different sphere from 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 the two akeady mentioned, but it has been so much in my mind 
 that it ought to be mentioned. It is that analogies in organiza- 
 tion illustrative of the life of the primitive Christian communities 
 can be more easily and more safely found on the mission fields 
 of our common Christianity than among the details of the or- 
 ganized life of the long estabUshed Churches of Christian Europe. 
 In the early centuries and on the Mission field we are studying 
 origins. It was my good fortune some years ago to spend twelve 
 months in India, examining there the methods, work and results 
 of the Missions of the various branches of the Church of Christ. 
 One seemed at times to be transported back to the early centuries, 
 to hear and to see what the earliest writers had recounted and 
 described. Portions of the Didachej of the Sources of the Apos- 
 tolic CanonSy of the Canons of Hippolytus were living practices 
 there. One lived among scenes described by Tertullian and by 
 Clement of Alexandria. The Arabian Nights tell us of the for- 
 tunate possessor of a magic carpet who, when seated on his trea- 
 sure, had only to wish it to be carried anywhere in space he desired. 
 Historians might long to be owners of a similar mat to carry them 
 anywhen backwards and forwards throughout the past centuries. 
 A visit to the Mission field, especially to one among a people of 
 ancient civilization who have inherited those original specula- 
 tions which were the fertile soil out of which sprang the earliest 
 Christian Gnosticism, is the magic carpet which transports one 
 back to the times of primitive Christianity. The visitor sees the 
 simple meaning of many a statement which seemed so hard to 
 understand with nothing but the ancient Hterary record to guide 
 him. He learns to distrust some of the hard and fast canons of 
 modem historical criticism, and to grow somewhat sceptical 
 about the worth of many of those " subjective pictures " which 
 Bome modem critics first construct and then use to estimate the 
 
zii PEEFACE 
 
 date, authorship and intention of ancient documents. He learns 
 that the modem western mind cannot so easily gauge the oriental 
 ways of thought as it persistently imagines. Modern missionary 
 work appears to me to be full of helpful illustrations of the life 
 and organization of the early centuries. 
 
 These Lectures are the fruit of long, careful, and, I trust, 
 reverent study of the literary remains of the early Christian 
 centuries. The last quarter of a century has brought many 
 ancient documents to light which were formerly unknown, and 
 these have not been passed over. The extent of my obligations 
 to others may be seen in the notes ; but the debt owed to such 
 writers as Bishop Lightfoot, Professor Harnack and Dr. Hort 
 far exceeds what can be acknowledged in such a way; 
 
 I have to express my sense of the great assistance given to 
 me by my old friend, the Rev. A. 0. Johnston, D.D., who read 
 the lectures in MS., and who has also gone over the proofs with 
 great care. The book owes much to his labour and to his criti- 
 cisms. 
 
 THOMAS Mi LINDSAYi 
 
EXTRACT DECLARATION OP TRUST. 
 March 1, 1862. 
 
 I, William Binny Webster, late Surgeon in the H.E.LCS.i presently 
 residing in Edinburgh, — Considering that I feel deeply interested in the 
 success of the Free Church College, Edinburgh, and am desirous of advanc- 
 ing the Theological Literature of Scotland, and for this end to establish 
 a Lectureship similar to those of a like kind connected with the Church 
 of England and the Congregational body in England, and that I have made 
 over to the General Trustees of the Free Church of Scotland the sum of 
 £2,000 sterling, in trust, for the purpose of founding a Lectureship in 
 memory of the late Reverend William Cunningham, D.D., Principal of the 
 Free Church College, Edinburgh, and Professor of Divinity and Church 
 History therein, and under the following conditions, namely, — Firstt The 
 Lectureship shall bear the name, and be called, ' The Cunningham Lecture- 
 ship.' Second, The Lecturer shall be a Minister or Professor of the Free 
 Church of Scotland, and shall hold the appointment for not less than two 
 years, nor more than three years, and be entitled for the period of his hold- 
 ing the appointment to the income of the endowment as declared by the 
 General Trustees, it being understood that the Council after referred to 
 may occasionally appoint a Minister or Professor from other denomina- 
 tions, provided this be approved of by not fewer than Eight Members of the 
 Council, and it being further understood that the Council are to regulate 
 the terms of payment of the Lecturer. Third, The Lecturer shall be at 
 liberty to choose his own subject within the range of Apologetical, Doc- 
 trinal, Controversial, Exegetical, Pastoral, or Historical Theology, includ- 
 ing what bears on Missions, Home and Foreign, subject to the consent of 
 the Council. Fourth, The Lecturer shall be bound to deliver publicly at 
 Edinburgh a Course of Lectures on the subjects thus chosen at some time 
 immediately preceding the expiry of his appointment, and during the 
 Session of the New College, Edinburgh ; the Lectures to be not fewer than 
 six in number, and to be delivered in presence of the Professors and Stu- 
 dents under such arrangements as the Council may appoint ; the Lecturer 
 shall be bound also to print and pubhsh, at his own risk, not fewer than 
 
adv EXTBAOT DECLARATION 0¥ TEUST 
 
 750 copies of the Lectures within a year after their delivery, and to depoe 
 three copies of the same in the Library of the New College ; the form 
 the publication shall be regulated by the Council. Fifths A Council shall 1 
 constituted, consisting of (first) Two Members of their own body, to 1 
 chosen annually in the month of March, by the Senatus of the New Colleg 
 other than the Principal ; (second) Five Members to be chosen annual 
 by the General Assembly, in addition to the Moderator of the said Fr 
 Church of Scotland ; together with (third) the Principal of the said Ne 
 College for the time being, the Moderator of the said General Assemb 
 for the time being, the Procurator or Law Adviser of the Church, ar 
 myself the said William Binny Webster, or such person as I may nomina 
 to be my successor : the Principal of the said College to be Convener of tl 
 Council, and any Five Members duly convened to be entitled to act no 
 withstanding the non-election of others. Sixths The duties of the Ojunc 
 shall be the following : — (first). To appoint the Lecturer and determii 
 the period of his holding the appointment, the appointment to be mac 
 before the close of the Session of College immediately preceding the te 
 mination of the previous Lecturer's engagement; (second). To arranj 
 details as to the doHvery of the Lectures, and to take charge of any add 
 tional income and expenditure of an incidental kind that may be connecte 
 therewith, it being understood that the obligation upon the Lecturer 
 simply to deUver the Course of Lectures free of expense to himself. Seventl 
 The Council shall be at liberty, on the expiry of five years, to make an 
 alteration that experience may suggest as desirable in the details of th 
 plan, provided such alterations shall be approved of by not fewer tha 
 Eight Memben of the Council. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH OE 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 JAGE 
 
 The Promise of the Church (Ecclesia) . . • • 3 
 
 Jewish and Greek Meanings of Ecclesia • 4 
 
 The Word has its Home in the PauUne Literature 6 
 
 It includes five great Thoughts 5 
 
 ii Fellowship with Christ and with the Brethren , . » . • 6-9 
 
 St. Paul rings the changes on this Thought 7 
 
 Fellowship with Christ manifested in " gifts '? to the Church 8 
 Fellowship among BeHevers implied in the early Names 
 
 for Christians 9 
 
 lij Unity 10-16 
 
 Church and Churches 10 
 
 The Unity of the Church a primary Verity of the Christian 
 
 Faith 13 
 
 Iii< The Church is a visible Community 16-24 
 
 It can be seen in every Christian Community large or small 
 
 for it is an ideal Reality , 16 
 
 This Ideal ought to be made manifest 18 
 
 St. Paul's way of manifesting the Unity of the Church of 
 
 Christ 20 
 
 His leading thought was" fellowship " (Koii'wj'ta). . , • 20 
 
 How he grouped his Churches • . • 21 
 
 The great " Collection '' 22 
 
 The Methods of the Twelve . • . 23 
 
xri CONTENTS 
 
 PAQl 
 
 Itj The Church has AtUhoriiy 24-33 
 
 The Promise of Authority made to St. Peter, to the Twelve 
 
 and to the whole Company of the Believers .... 25 
 How these Promises were interpreted by the primitive 
 
 Church 32 
 
 The Self-government and Independence of the Apostolic 
 
 Churches 32 
 
 n The Church is a Sacerdotal Society 33-37 
 
 The ideal Israel 33 
 
 The sacerdotal Character belongs to the whole Membership 34 
 Lather on the sacerdotal Character of the Church ... 85 
 No Idea of a maimed Sacerdotalism in primitive Times . • 36 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 Tlie local Churches in primitive Times met in private Houses. , . 41 
 
 The Brethren had three Kinds of Meetings 43 
 
 U The Meeting for Edification 44 
 
 The Service and the Arrangement of the Parts • • • • 44 
 
 Almost unlimited Freedom in Worship 49 
 
 Bi The Meeting for Thanksgiving (Eucharistia) 50 
 
 The Details indistinctly given 50 
 
 May be reconstructed 52 
 
 iii. The Congregational Business Meeting 54 
 
 It was the Centre of the Unity and the Seat of the In- 
 dependence of the local Church 56 
 
 It settled even the civil Disputes among the Brethren . . 55 
 
 Every local Church was a little self-governing Republic . 57 
 Leadership within the Christian Communities had a Distinctive 
 Character, and implied Service and the possession of 
 
 i* Gifts" 62 
 
 Traces of a double Ministry, the prophetic and the local .... 64 
 These Ministries quite separate, but the Men composing them 
 
 might belong to both 66 
 
CJONTENTS xvii 
 
 LECTURE III 
 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 
 
 PAQl 
 
 The Christian Community is a Body of which the Spirit of Christ 
 
 is the Soul 69 
 
 The " Gift " to " speak the Word of God " the most prized ... 70 
 Its Complement was the " Gift " to " discern '' or test those who 
 
 ^* spoke the Word of God " 70 
 
 The prophetic Ministry was three-fold. Apostles, Prophets and 
 
 Teachers 73 
 
 This three-fold Ministry is to be traced throughout the Church of 
 
 the first and second Centuries ; 74 
 
 ti Apostles were the Missionaries who founded the Churches. 75 
 
 Various Classes of Apostles 76 
 
 Their Number increased during the earlier Decades ... 82 
 The wider and narrower uses of the Word " Apostle " . , 86 
 The special Character of Apostolic Work and Authority • 87 
 St, Paul as the Type of an Apostle 88 
 
 ii,' Prophets were found in every Christian Community, and 
 
 sometimes wandered from one to another 00 
 
 What Prophecy was , . 93 
 
 Prophecy and Ecstasy ••••• 94 
 
 Prophecy and visions •••• 94 
 
 Prophets were not Office-bearers 96 
 
 They exercised a great deal of influence in matters of 
 discipline, and had a unique place in the restoration of 
 
 the lapsed 06 
 
 Wandering Prophets and the Firstfruits 07 
 
 Their Claims were to be tested by the " Gift " of Discern- 
 ment 09 
 
 False Prophets 100 
 
 111. Teachers, their special Work 103 
 
 Hio Prophets of the Old and of the New Testaments compared. . 106 
 
xvui CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE IV 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURY— CREATING ITS 
 
 MINISTRY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Traces of several Types of Organization in the New Testament 
 
 Churches 113 
 
 The Seven of Acts vi. and the Jewish Village Community. . , . 115 
 
 Elders in Churches outside Palestine 118 
 
 The Supremacy of James in Jerusalem, and a Series of Rulers who 
 
 were of the Kindred of Jesus 119 
 
 Office-bearers in the Pauline Gentile Churches 121 
 
 The ProA»stom€no* and the Relation of Patron and Client. , • . 123 
 
 The heathen Confraternities and their Organization 125 
 
 The Jewish Synagogues outside Palestine and their Organization. . 129 
 The Christian Churches did not copy either the Synagogue or the 
 
 Confraternities 131 
 
 They had an external Resemblance to both Synagogue and Con- 
 fraternity 132 
 
 The Organization in the Pastoral Epistles 137 
 
 The Information given in the Pastoral Epistles is complementary to 
 
 what is to be found in the earlier Epistles of St. Paul .... 148 
 
 Names for Office-bearers in early Christian Literature 152 
 
 Episcopus designates the Kind of Work done and is not the Name 
 
 of an Office 153 
 
 The Meaning and Origin of the Christian " Elders *^ 163 
 
 The Churches in the first Century were ruled by a College of Pres- 
 byter-bishops who were assisted by a Body of Deacons . . .164 
 The Unity of the Church never forgotten in the Independence of 
 
 the local Churches 155 
 
 Note on « Presbyter " and '■'■ Bishop "^ 
 Hamack's Theory that Bishops were distinct from Presbyters from 
 
 the first 157 
 
 The Witness of aement 169 
 
 The Identity of the New Testament " Presbyters '^ and " Bishops 'J 163 
 
CONTENTS idx 
 
 LECTURE V 
 
 THE CHURCHES OF THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES- 
 CHANGING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 PAQB 
 
 The Ministry of the first Oentury was changed during the second . 169 
 
 The Ministry in the Didache 171 
 
 The Congregational Meeting .••••••••173 
 
 The Prophetic Ministry • • • • 174 
 
 Elected Office-bearers 175 
 
 The Ministry in the Sources of the Apostolic Canons 177 
 
 The smallest Christian Communities to be organized under 
 
 Bishop or Pastor, Elders and Deacons 178 
 
 A Ministry of Women 181 
 
 The Reader and uneducated Bishops 182 
 
 The Document shows a three-fold Ministry in a transitional 
 
 Stage 183 
 
 The Letters of Ignaiius 186 
 
 Their Characters and Contents 187 
 
 They plead for Unity through Obedience to the Office- 
 bearers 190 
 
 The Organization they bear Witness to: a Bishop, a 
 Session of Elders and a Body of Deacons, which form 
 
 one whole 196 
 
 They reveal a three-fold Ministry but not Episcopacy . . 198 
 
 The Authority of the Bishop or Pastor limited .... 198 
 
 The Powers of the Congregational Meeting 200 
 
 An unpaid Ministry explams how the smallest Body of Christians could 
 
 have a complete Organization 200 
 
 The Organization of Bishop, Session of Elders and body of Deacons 
 
 became almost universal within the Empire . . . . . . 204 
 
 The Reasons for the Change from a two-fold collegiate Ministry to 
 a three -fold Ministry and the Paths by which the Change 
 
 advanced can only be guessed 205 
 
 The Church has always the Power to change its Ministry . . • • 210 
 
XX CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE VI 
 
 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY AND THE 
 CONSERVATIVE REVOLT 
 
 The Work of Edification began to pass from the prophetic Ministry 
 
 to the ordinary Office-bearers 213 
 
 The Oanses which led to the Fall of the prophetic Ministry are not 
 
 specifically known but may be guessed 217 
 
 The Need to make a combined Stand against HeresieB . • • • 217 
 
 The Gnostic Treatment of Christianity 218 
 
 Mansion's Canon, Creed, and Churches ' • • • 219 
 
 IrenaeuB voiced the Need which his Time felt 221 
 
 The Guarantee for Christian Truth is to be found in the Succession 
 
 of Office-bearers in the Churches from the Times of the Apostles 223 
 
 Office-bearers were supposed to have a charisma veritatis. . . . 227 
 
 Effect of this on the prophetic Ministry 228 
 
 The Growth of a Desire to come to some Accommodation with the 
 
 Empire 229 
 
 The Apologists 230 
 
 The Deterioration of Prophecy 233 
 
 Protests against the silent Movement in the Church 235 
 
 The Phrygian Movement the Centre and Exaggeration of what was 
 
 affecting the whole of the Churches 236 
 
 Montamsm properly speaking was conservative 238 
 
 Proof from Montanist Prophecy 239 
 
 The Break with the " great " Church 243 
 
 The Fate of the later Montanists 243 
 
 The Organization of the Churches after the Montanista were outside 244 
 
 What the Canons of Hippolytus tell us 245 
 
 A three-fold Ministry of Bishop, Elders, and Deacons 245 
 
 Qualifications, Choice and Ordination (which might be done by 
 
 an Elder) of Bishops 246 
 
 Elders and Bishops were theoretically equal but practically very 
 
 distinct 247 
 
 The two Meetings for public Worship 250 
 
 The Meeting for Exhortation ••••• 251 
 
 The Eucharistic Service 252 
 
 The Distribution of the Offerings 256 
 
 Comparison between the Organization of the Churches in the Be< 
 
 ginningof the third Century and those of modem Times. • • 259 
 \ 
 
CONTENTS xxi 
 
 LECTURE VII 
 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 FAOB 
 
 In the Course of the third Century the Conceptions of the local and 
 
 of the universal Church began to change 265 
 
 The Changes led in the End to the Idea that a local Church was a 
 Body of Christians obedient to their Bishop and that the uni- 
 versal Church was the Federation of these obedient Communities 266 
 
 The Phases m this Change 266 
 
 The novel Position and Autocracy of the Bishop needed a Sanction 
 
 which was found in the legal Fiction of an Apostolic Succession 278 
 The Idea first emerged in the Quarrels between Hippolytus and 
 
 Calixtus 280 
 
 The Work and Influence of Cyprian •• 283 
 
 The Decian Persecution 287 
 
 The Lapsed 290 
 
 The " Authority " of the Martyr confronts the " Authority "- of the 
 
 Bishop 295 
 
 Cyprian's Theory of the Position and Power of the Bishop . . . 299 
 The Bishop is the Representative of Christ and has the Right to 
 
 forgive Sins 305 
 
 Cyprian's maimed Sacerdotalism : the Bishop a unique Priest and 
 
 the Eucharist a unique Sacrifice 307 
 
 Cyprian's Method of exhibiting the universality of the visible 
 
 Church by Means of Councils 313 
 
 His Theory confronted by a Roman one which was in the End tri- 
 umphant in the West. •••••••••••• 317 
 
 , LECTURE VIII 
 
 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE 
 ORGANIZATION OP THE CHURCH 
 
 The Instrument for effecting the Grouping of federated Churohes 
 
 round the definite Centres was the Council or Sjrnod . • • . 323 
 Sohm's Theory of the Origin and Meaning of Synods • • • • • 327 
 
xxii CONTENTS ' 
 
 The Synod was really the Application of the Oongregational Meeting 
 
 to a wider ecclesiastical Sphere 334 
 
 This democratic Principle of Organization confronted with an 
 
 imperialist one ; the two subsisted for long side by side . . . 335 
 Councils became a regular part of the Organization of the Churches 
 
 before the End of the third Oentury 336 
 
 The same Period saw other Changes 337 
 
 In the more compact Organization of the federated Churches the 
 Roman Organization for the State pagan ReUgion was largely 
 
 copied 340 
 
 The religious Reforms of Augustus 341 
 
 The Worship of the Emperors 342 
 
 The Organization of the Priesthood of the imperial Cult . • • . 348 
 This Organization copied within the Christian Churches .... 350 
 
 The Churches also copied the State Temple Service 353 
 
 The Church thus organized was still a Federation of Churches . . 358 
 Numerous and flourishing Christian Churches existed which did not 
 
 belong to the Federation 359 
 
 After the Conversion of Constantine these outside Christians were 
 vehemently persecuted by the State, which only acknowledged the 
 federated C*hurohes 359 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Sketch of the History of modem Controversy about the OiKce- 
 
 bearers in the primitive Christian Churches 364 
 
 INDEXES 
 
 Index of References to Contemporary Authorities, Canonical and 
 
 Non-canonical 379 
 
 Index of Names and Subjects 386 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 AND I say also unto thee, that thou art Petros, and on this 
 petra I will build My Church (Ecclesia) ; and the gates 
 of Hades shall not prevail against it." ^ Our Lord was far from 
 Galilee and farther from Jerusalem when He uttered these words. 
 He was sojourning in an almost wholly pagan land. The rocks 
 overhanging the path were covered with the mementos of a 
 licentious cult ; and in the neighbouring city of Caesarea Philippi 
 Herod Phihp had built and consecrated a temple to the Emperor 
 A-ugustus, who was there worshipped as a god.* It was among 
 
 ' Mattxvi. 18. Some modem critics (cL Schmiedel in the Encyc. Bibk 
 p. 3105) declare that this passage could not have come from the lips of our 
 Lord in the form in which it has been recorded, and in particular that He 
 could not have used the word " ecclesia " ; the main reason given being 
 that our Lord sought to reform hearts and not external conditions. To 
 argue from that statement, however true it may be, that Jesus had no 
 intention of founding a reHgious community and could not have used the 
 word " church," seems to me to be purely subjective and therefore untrust- 
 worthy reasoning. Besides, the use of the word by St. Paul in GaL i. 13, 
 shows that St Paul found the word existing withhi Christian circles when 
 he embraced the new faith ; and to find it in common use at so early 
 a period entitles us, in my judgment, to trace it back to Jesus Himself. 
 The trend of modern criticism has been to place St. Paul's conversion 
 much closer to the crucifixion than it was foimerly held to be. St. Paul 
 implies that the words of the eucharistic formula (Mk. xiv. 22-24, Matt; 
 xxvi. 26-28) came from Jesus ; he takes it for granted that every one 
 who becomes a Christian (himself included) must be baptized. We have 
 thus, quite independently of the Gospels or of the Acts, " church," 
 " baptism," " the eucharist " — all implying a religious community, all 
 in common use at a time scarcely two years after the death of our Lord^ 
 That entitles us to attribute them to Jesus Himself. 
 
 * Compare Josephus, ArUiq. XV. x.- 3 ; BeU. Jvdi Lj xxij 3j See also 
 
 8 
 
4 THE NEW TESTAMENT CONCEPTION 
 
 scenes which showed the lustful passions of man's corrupt heart 
 and the statecraft of Imperial Rome seating themselves on the 
 throne of God, that Jesus made to His followers the promise 
 which He has so marvellously fulfilled. 
 
 The word translated Church is Ecdesia — a word that had 
 a history both theocratic and democratic, and that came 
 trailing behind it memories both to the Jews who were then 
 listening to Him, and to the Greeks, who, at a later period, 
 received His Gospel. To the Jew, the Ecdesia had been the 
 assembly of the congregation of Israel,' summoned to meet at 
 the door of the Tabernacle of Jehovah by men blowing silver 
 trumpets. To the Greek the Ecdesia was the sovereign assembly 
 of the free Greek city-state,* summoned by the herald blowing 
 his horn through the streets of the town. To the followers of 
 Jesus it was to be the congregation of the redeemed and there- 
 fore of the free, summoned by His heralds to continually appear 
 in the presence of their Lord, who was always to be in the midst 
 of them. It was to be a theocratic democracy. 
 
 Schiirer, Oeschichie des Jvdiachen Volkes (1898, 3rd ed.), iL 168 f. ; G; Aj 
 Smith, Historical Geography of Palestine^ p. 473 ff. ; Wissowa, Religion und 
 KuUu8 der Romer (1902), p. 284, n. 3. 
 
 < Numbers x. 2, 3. In the Old Testament two words are used to denote 
 the assembUng of Israel, qahal and 'edah ; the former is translated " as- 
 sembly " and the latter *' congregation " in the Revised Version. In the 
 Septuagint iKKXycrCa is almost alwaj^ always used to translate qahal, and 
 orvvayoiyi^ to translate 'edah. Both Greek words appear continually in 
 the later Hellenistic Judaism, and it is difficult to distinguish their mean- 
 ings ; but Schiirer is inclined to think that awayoryr] means the assembly 
 of Israel as a matter of fact ; while iKKX-qata has always an ideal reference 
 attached to it. Compare Schiirer, Geschichte des Jiidischen Volkes (3rd 
 ed. 1898), iii 432, n. 10 ; Hort, The Christian Ecdesia, pp. 5-7. 
 
 * This is the common use of the word in classical Greek ; in the later 
 Greek the word denotes any popular assembly, even a disorderly one ; 
 it is this use that is found in Acts xix. 41. Dio Cassius uses the 
 word to denote the Roman comitia or ruling popular assembly of the 
 Bovereign Roman people. The ruHng idea in the word, whether in clas- 
 sical or in Hellenistic Greek, is that it denotes an assembly of the people^ 
 not of a committee or council Against this view compare Hatch, The 
 Organization of the Early Christian Churches (1881), p. 30, n. 11 ; and for 
 ft oiriticism of Hatch, see Sohm, Kirchenrechi (1892), L 17, n. 4a 
 
OF THE CHURCH 6 
 
 The New, if it is to be lasting, must always have its roots in 
 the Old ; and the phrase " My Ecclesia " recalled the past 
 and foretold the future. The roots were the memories the word 
 brought both to Jew and to Greek ; and the promise and the 
 potency of the future lay in the word " My." The Ecclesia 
 had been the congregation of Jehovah ; it was in the future, 
 without losing anything of what it had possessed, to become 
 the congregation of Jesus the Christ. Its heralds, like James,' 
 the brother of our Lord, could apply to it the Old Testament 
 promises, and see in its construction the fulfilment of the saying 
 of Amos about the rebuilding of the Tabernacle of David ; ' 
 or, like St. Paul, could call it the " Israel of God," and repeat 
 concerning it the prayer of the Psalm, " Remember thine ecdesta, 
 which Thou hast purchased of old, which Thou hast redeemed 
 to be the tribe of Thine inheritance." * It had been the self- 
 governing Greek repubhc, ruled by elected office-bearers ; 
 hereafter the communities of Christians, which were to be the 
 ecdesiae, were to be little self-governing societies where the 
 individual rights and responsibilities of the members would 
 blend harmoniously with the common good of all. 
 
 The word with its memories and promises appealed to none 
 of our Lord's " Sent Ones " more strongly than to St. Paul, 
 who was at once an " Hebrew of the Hebrews," and the apostle 
 to the Gentiles. The term " ecclesia " has its home in the 
 Pauline literature.^ It is met with 110 times within the New 
 Testament, and of these 86 occur in the Epistles of St. Paul and 
 in the Acts of the Apostles. We naturally turn to the writings 
 of St. Paul to aid us in expounding the thought which is con- 
 tained in the term. When we do so we are entitled to say that 
 the conception contains at least five different ideas which embody 
 the essential features of the " Church of Christ." 
 
 The New Testament Church is fellowship with Jesus and with 
 
 « Acts XV. 16 ; cf. Amos ix. 11; 
 
 « GaL v'u 16 ; Acts xx. 28 ; cf. Ps, kxiv. 2^ 
 
 3 Weizsacker, Jahrbiicher fur devische Theologie, xviii,- 481| 
 
6 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the bretliren through Him ; this fellowship is permeated with 
 a sense of unity ; this united fellowship is to manifest itself in 
 a visible society ; this visible society has bestowed upon it by 
 our Lord a divine authority ; and it is to be a sacerdotal society. 
 These appear to be the five outstanding elements in the New 
 Testament conception of the Church of Christ. 
 
 1. The Church of Christ is a fellowchip. It is a fellowship 
 with Jesus Christ ; that is the divine element in it. It 
 is a fellowship with the brethren ; that is the human 
 element in it. The Rock on which the Church was to be built 
 was a man conjessing — not the man apart from his confession, 
 as Romanists insist, nor the confession apart from the man, 
 as many Protestants argue. It was a man in whom long com- 
 panionship with Jesus and the revelation from the Father had 
 created a personal trust in His Messianic mission ; ' and the 
 faith which had grown out of the fellowship had the mysterious 
 power of making the fellowship which had created it more vivid 
 and real ; for faith, in its primitive sense of personal trust, m 
 fellowship become self-conscious. Faith is what makes fellow- 
 ship know itself to be fellowship, and not haphazard social 
 intercourse. 
 
 The faith of Peter, seer as he was into divine mysteries, and 
 profhet as he was, able to utter what he had seen, did not involve 
 a very adequate apprehension of the fellowship he had confessed. 
 He knew so little about its real meaning that shortly after his 
 confession he made a suggestion which would have destroyed 
 it ; * a thought prompted by the Evil One succeeded the revela- 
 
 ' The rock on wbich the Church is founded is " a human character ac- 
 knowledging our Lord's divine Sonship." Gore, The Church and the 
 Ministry, 3rd ed- p. 38. " In vijtue of this personal faith vivifying their 
 discipleship, the Apostles became themselves the first httle Ecclesia, con- 
 stituting a Uving rock upon which a far larger and ever enlarging Ecclesia 
 should very shortly be built slowly up, hving stone by Hving stone, as 
 each new faithful convert was added to the society." Hort, The Christian 
 Ecclesia, p. 17. 
 
 * Matt. xvi. 22, 23. The suggestion of the Evil One to Peter, and pre- 
 sented to our Lord by Peter— the possibihty of Messiahship without suf- 
 
A FELLOWSHIP 7 
 
 tion from tlie Father — so strangely and swiftly do inspirations 
 of God and temptations of the Devil succeed each other in the 
 minds of men. The sad experience of Peter has been shared 
 by the Church in all generations. He did not cease to be the 
 Rock-Man in consequence ; nor has the promise failed the 
 Church which was founded on him and on his confession, al- 
 though it has shared his weakness and sin. 
 
 St. Paul rings the changes on this thought of fellowship with 
 Jesus which makes the Church. The churches addressed in 
 his epistles are described as in Christ Jesus. He is careful to 
 impress on believers the personal relation in which they stand 
 to their Lord, even when he is addressing the whole Church 
 to which they belong. If he writes to the Church of God which 
 is in Corinth/ he is careful to add " to them that are sanctified 
 in Christ Jesus, called to be saints " ; and in his other epistles 
 he addresses the brethren individually as " saints," " saints 
 and faithful brethren," " all that are in Rome, beloved of God, 
 called to be saints." ^ The individual behever is never lost in 
 the society, and he is never alone and separate. The bond of 
 union is not an external framework impressed from without, 
 but a sense of fellowship springing from within. The be- 
 liever's union to Christ, which is the deepest of all personal 
 things, always involves something social. The call comes to 
 him singly, but seldom solitarily. 
 
 fering— met the Saviour at the great moments of His earthly ministry ; 
 at the beginning, in the Temptation scene ; here, when he had the vision 
 and gave the promise of the Church ; at the end, in the Garden of Geth- 
 semane. There are indications in the Gospels that it was the temptation 
 never absent from his mind. In the form in which it presents itself to 
 His followers — the possibihty of saving fellowship with Jesus apart from 
 trust on a suffering Saviour — it has perhaps also been the crowning tempt- 
 ation of His Church and followers. If our Lord alluded to this special 
 temptation when He said to St. Peter, near the end, " Simon, Simon, 
 behold Satan asked to have you that he might sift you as wheat," as is 
 most likely from His references to His own temptations and to St. Peter's 
 relation to his brethren, there is a delicate suggestion of fellowship softening 
 rebuke and vivifying the promise ; Luke xxii. 31. 
 1 1 Cor. i. 2. 3 pi^ii, I I . Eph. i. 1 ; Col. i. 2 ; Rom. L 7. 
 
8 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Perhaps, however, St. Paul's conception of the fellowship 
 with Christ which is the basis of the Church, comes out most 
 clearly in the way he speaks of the " gifts " of grace, the charis- 
 mata, which manifest the abiding presence of our Lord in His 
 Church and His continuing fellowship with His people.' He 
 enumerates them over and over again. He points to " apostles," 
 the missionary heralds of the Gospel ; to " prophets," to whom 
 the Spirit had given special powers for the edification of the 
 brethren ; to *' teachers," who are wise with the wisdom of 
 God, and have those divine intuitions which the apostle calls 
 " knowledge " ; to " pastors," who feed the flock in one com- 
 munity. He speaks of " helps " {avTiKrjy^rei^) or powers to 
 assist the sick, the tempted and the tried ; of " insight " to 
 give wise counsels ; of gifts of rule (Kv/Sepmia-ei^) ; of gifts 
 of heaUng, and in general of all kinds of service. They are 
 all gifts of the Spirit, and are all so many different manifestations 
 of the presence of Jesus and of the living fellowship which His 
 people have with Him.' 
 
 These various gifts are bestowed on different members of 
 the Christian society for the edification of all, and they serve 
 to show that it is one organism, where the whole exists for the 
 parts, and each part for the whole and for all the other parts. 
 They also show that the Christian society is not a merely natural 
 organism ; there is divine Ufe and power within it, because it 
 has the abiding presence of Christ ; and the proof of His presence 
 is the possession and use of these various " gifts," all of which 
 come from the one Spirit of Christ in fulfilment of the promise 
 that He will never leave nor forsake His Church. Their presence 
 is a testimony to the presence of the Master which each Chris- 
 tian community can supply. It is a Church of Christ if His 
 presence is manifested by these fruits of the Spirit which come 
 
 « 1 Cor. xiL ; Eph. iv.- 4-13 ; Bom. xii 3-16.' It is important to notice 
 that St. Paul, in Rom. xiL 7, makes StaKovLa a " gift " which manifeete the 
 presence of Christ, and that this word is used to mean any kind of - minis* 
 try " within the Church. See below p. 62^ * See p, 63 Oj 
 
A FELLOWSHIP 9 
 
 from the exercise of the " gifts " which the Spirit has bestowed 
 upon it ; for the Church as well as the individual Christian is 
 to be known by its fruits/ 
 
 This sense of hidden fellowship with its Lord was the secret 
 of the Church. It was a bond uniting its members and separa- 
 ting them from outsiders more completely than were the initiated 
 into the pagan mysteries sundered from those who had not 
 passed through the same introductory rites. While Jesus lived 
 their fellowship with Him was the external thing which dis- 
 tinguished them from others. They were His disciples {juLaOtjrai) 
 gathered round a centre, a Person whom they called Rabbi, 
 Master, Teacher — names they were taught not to give to another. 
 They shared a common teaching and drank in the same words 
 of wisdom from the same lips ; but even then they could not 
 be called a " school," for they were united by the bond of a 
 common hope and a common future. They were to share in 
 the coming kingdom of God in and through their relation to 
 their Master. After His departure the other side of the fellow- 
 ship became the prominent external thing — their relation to 
 each other because of their relation to their common Lord. 
 New names arose to express the change, names suggesting the 
 relation in which they stood to each other. They were the 
 " brethren," the " saints," and they had a fellowship {Koivwvia) 
 with each other.^ This thought of fellowship, as we shall see, 
 was the ruling idea in all Christian organization. All Christians 
 within one community were to live in fellowship vrith each other ; 
 different Christian communities were to have a common fellow- 
 ship. Visible fellowship with each other, the outcome of the 
 hidden fellowship with Jesus, was to be at once the leading 
 characteristic of all Christians and the bond which united them 
 to each other and separated them from the world lying outside. 
 
 * For St. PauFs statement about the " gifts '' compare Hort, The 
 Christian Ecdesia, pp. 153-70 ; Heinrici, Das Erste Sendschreiben des Apostd 
 Pavlus an die Korinther (1880), pp. 347-463 ; Kiihl, Die Oemeindeordnung 
 in den PastoraJbriefen (1885), pp. 42-49. 
 
 « Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age (English translation), I. pi 44 flFj 
 
10 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 2. The second characteristic of the Church of Christ is that 
 it is a Unity. There was one assembly of the congregation of 
 Israel ; one sovereign assembly of the Greek city-state. There 
 is one Church of Christ. 
 
 It must be admitted that the word Church is seldom used in 
 the New Testament to designate one universal and compre- 
 hensive society. On the contrary, out of the 110 times in which 
 the word occurs, no less than 100 do not contain this note of a 
 wide-spreading unity. In the overwhelming majority of cases 
 the word " church " denotes a local Christian society, varying 
 in extent from all the Christian congregations within a province 
 of the Empire to a small assembly of Christians meeting together 
 in the house of one of the brethren. St. Paul alone, ^ if we except 
 the one instance in Matt, xvi., uses the word in its universal 
 •application ; and he does it in two epistles only — those to the 
 Ephesians and to the Colossians — both of them dating from 
 his Roman captivity.* But there are numberless indications 
 that the thought of the unity of the Church of Christ was never 
 
 ' It onght to be noted, however, that although we do not find the word 
 " ecolesia " in 1 Peter, we do find the thought of the unity of all believers 
 strongly expressed in a variety of ways : "Ye are an elect race, a royal 
 priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession" (1 Peter 
 ii. 9) ; and in v. 17 we have the word " brotherhood " used to bring out 
 the same idea. This word in the early centuries was technically used as 
 synonymous with ecclesia. See below p. 21. The double meaning of 
 ecclesia is found in Matt. xvi. 18 compared with Matt xviii. 17. In the 
 Apocalypse the unity is expressed in the phrase " the Bride, the Lamb's 
 wife," and the plurality in the " Psven Churches '- (Rev. xxi. 9 ; ii. 1, etc). 
 * The various passages in which the word " ecclesia " occurs in the 
 sense of the Christian society have often been collected and grouped.. 
 The following classification is based on that of Dr. Hort. 
 
 L The word " ecclesia," in the singular and with the article, is used to 
 
 denote : — 
 
 h The original Church of Jerusalem and Judea, when there was no 
 
 other ; Acts v. 11 ; viiL 1, 3 ; GaL L 13 ; 1 Cor. xv, 9 ; PhiL 
 
 iii. 6. 
 
 2. The sum total of the churches in Judea, Samaria and Galilee ; 
 
 Acts ix, 31. 
 Zi The local church : — Jerusalem, Acts xi. 22 ; xii. 1, 6 ; xvt 4^ 
 Thessalonica, 1 Thess, L 1 ; 2 Thess» L 1. Corinth^ 1 Cor, i, 2 ; 
 
A UNITY 11 
 
 absent from tlie mind of the Apostle. Tlie Christians he ad- 
 dresses are all brethren, all saints, whether they be in Jerusalem, 
 Damascus, Ephesus or Rome. The believers in Thessalonica 
 are praised because they had been " imitators of the churches 
 of God which are in Judea," who " are in Jesus Christ " as the 
 Thessalonians " are in Jesus Christ." ' The Epistles to the 
 Corinthians are full of exhortations to unity within the local 
 
 vi,; 4 ; xiv. 12, 23 ; 2 Cor.; i, 1 ; Rom. xvi. 23, Cenchreay Rom^ 
 xvi. 1; Laodicea, CoL iv. 16. Antioch, Acts xiii. 1 ; xv. 2. 
 Each of the Seven Churches of Asia, Rev. ii. iii. Ephesits, Acts 
 xL 26 ; xiv. 27 ; xx. 17 ; 1 Tim. v. 16.; Caesar ea^ Acts xviiii 
 22. Also in Jas. v. 14 ; 3 John 9, 10. 
 4.' The assembly of a local church : — Acts xv. 22 ; 1 Cor, xiv. 23. 
 6.: The House Church : — at Ephesus, 1 Cor. xvi. 19 ; at Romet xvi; 5 ; 
 at Colossaef Col. iv. 15 ; Philem. 2. 
 ii,; The word " ecclesia," in the singular and without the article, is used 
 to denote ; — 
 I J Every local church within a definite district : — Acts xiv. 23.- 
 2i Any or every local Church : — 1 Cor^ xiv» 4 ; ivj 17 ; Phil, iv, 15 ; 
 
 and probably 1 Tim. iii. 5, 15; 
 Si The assembly of the local church : — 1 Cor, xiv; 19, 35 ; xi^ 18 ; 
 3 John 6; 
 iii. The word " ecclesia '' in the plural is used to denote : — 
 
 1^ The sum of the local churches within a definite district, the name 
 being given or impUed : — Judea, 1 Thess. ii. 14 ; GaL i, 2^ 
 Galatia, 1 Cor. xvi. 1 ; Gal. i. 2; Syria and Cilicia, Acts xv. 41| 
 Derbe and Lystra, Acts xvi. 5; Macedonia, 2 Cor. viii; 1, 19| 
 Asia, 1 Cor. xvi. 19 ; Rev, U 4, 11, 20 ; ii, 7, 11, 17, 29 ; iii, 6, 
 13, 22 ; xxii. 16. 
 % An indefinite number of local churches : — 2 Cor, xi 8, 28 ; viii* 
 
 23, 24 ; Rom. xvi. 4, 16. 
 3.: The sum total of all the local churches : — 2 Thess. i; 4 ; 1 Cor, viij 
 
 17 ; xi. 16 ; xiv. 33 ; 2 Cor. xii. 13; 
 4; The assemblies of all the local churches : — 1 Cor. xiv; 34; 
 iv; The word " ecclesia " is used in the singular to denote : — 
 
 Ii The one universal Church as represented in the individual local 
 Church : — ICor. x. 32 ; xi. 22 ; (and probably) xil 28 ; Acts xx^ 
 28 ; (and perhaps) 1 Tim. iii. 5, 15. 
 2, The one universal Church absolutely: — OoL i 18,24; Eph; i,- 
 22 ; . iii. 10, 21 ; v. 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32. 
 Compare also Bannerman, The Scripture Doctrine of the Churchi p^ 671 Si ; 
 Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, pp, 116-118- 
 I 1 Thess. ii, 14 ; cf, i, 1^ 
 
12 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 cliurch, and the warnings are always based on principles which 
 suggest the unity of the whole wide fellowship of believers. 
 The divisions in the church at Corinth had arisen from a mis- 
 guided apostolic partizanship which implied a lack of behef 
 in Christian unity at the centre ; the apostle repudiates this by 
 holding forth the unity of Christ, and by pointing to the one 
 Kingdom of God to be inherited.' He has the same message 
 for all the local churches. However varied in environment 
 they may be, these local churches have common usages, and ought 
 to unite in showing a common sympathy with each other.* 
 
 Besides these minor indications of the thought, we have, 
 in various of his epistles what may be called its poetic expres- 
 sion. The Church of Christ is such a unity that it has thrown 
 down all the walls of race, sex, and social usages which have kept 
 men separate.^ It has reconciled Jew and Gentile. It has 
 bridged the gulf between the past of Israel and the present of 
 apostolic Christianity.* 
 
 These thoughts and phrases, which run through all the epistles 
 of St. Paul, lead directly to the description of the glorious unity 
 of the one Church of Christ which fills the great Epistle to the 
 Ephesians. Thus, though it is true that we cannot point to a 
 single use of the word " church " in the earher epistles which 
 can undoubtedly be said to mean a universal Christian society, 
 the thought of this unity of all beUevers runs through them 
 all. The conception of the unity of the Church of Christ is 
 one of the abiding possessions of St. Paul in the earliest as in 
 the latest of his writings ; but it is only in the writings of his 
 Roman captivity that it attains to its fullest expression,^ 
 
 » 1 Cor. L 12, 13 ; vi. 9^ 
 
 * 1 Cor. iv. 17 ; viL 17 ; xi 2, 23 ; xvi 1| 
 
 3 GaL iii. 28. ♦ Rom. xi. 17. 
 
 5 Professor Ramsay traces a growth of definiteness in St Paul's use of 
 the word " Church " from its application to a single congregation to its 
 use to denote what he calls the " Unified Church," and ingeniously con- 
 nects the use in each case with political parallels. Thus the phrase " the 
 Church of the Thessalonians '- corresponds in civil usage to the ecdesia 
 
A UNITY 18 
 
 This unity of the Church of Christ which filled the mind of 
 St. Paul was something essentially spiritual. It is a reality, 
 but a reality which is more ideal than material. It can never 
 be adequately represented in a merely historical way. It is 
 true that we can trace the beginnings of the formation of Chris- 
 tian communities, and the gradual federation of these Christian 
 societies into a wide-spreading union of confederate churches ; 
 but that only faintly expresses the thought of the unity of the 
 Church of Christ. It is true that we can see in the fellowship 
 of Christians the illustration of the pregnant philosophical 
 thought that it is not good for man to be alone, and that per- 
 sonality itself can only be rightly conceived when taken along 
 with the thought of fellowship.' Apart, however, from all 
 surface facts and philosophical ideas, there is something deeper 
 in the unity of the Christian Church, something which lies im- 
 plicitly in the unformed faith of every believer, that in personal 
 union with Christ there is union with the whole body of the 
 redeemed, and that man is never alone either in sin or in salva- 
 
 of the Greek city-state, while the phrase " the Church in Corinth," sug. 
 gesting as it does, " the Church " in other places as well as in Corinth, 
 corresponds in civil usage to a universal and all-embracing poUtical or- 
 ganization like the Roman Empire. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 
 124-7. Whether this be true or not, few will fail to jBnd a connexion be- 
 twen the wide meaning the apostle puts into the word " Church " in the 
 Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, and the imperial associa- 
 tions of the city from which he wrote. " Writing now from Rome, he 
 (St. Paul) could not have divested himself, if he would, of a sense of writing 
 from the centre of all earthly human affairs ; all the more since we know 
 from the narrative in Acts xxii. that he himself was a Roman citizen, 
 and apparently proud to hold this place in the Empire. Here then he 
 must have been vividly reminded of the already existing unity which 
 comprehended both Jew and Gentile under the bond of subjection to the 
 emperor at Rome, and similarity and contrast would alike suggest that a 
 truer unity bound together in one society all beUevers in the crucified 
 Lord." Hort, The Christian Ecdesia, p. 143. 
 
 * " Not in abstraction or isolation, but in communion lies the very 
 meaning of personality itself," Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. 6, 
 ** Fellowship is to the higher life what food is to the natural Hfe — witiiout 
 it every power flags and at last perishes," Hort, Hvlsean Lectures, p., 1W« 
 
14 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 tion. The unity of the Church of Christ is a primary verity 
 of the Christian faith : " There is One Body, and One Spirit, 
 even as ye are called in one hope of your calling ; One Lord, 
 One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of all. Who is 
 over all and through all and in all." ' And because the Unity 
 of the Church of Christ is a primary verity of the Christian 
 faith, it can never be adequately represented in any outward 
 polity, but must always be, in the first instance at least, a 
 rehgious experience. Its source and centre can never be an 
 earthly throne, but must always be that heavenly place where 
 Jesus sits at the Right Hand of God.* 
 
 This enables us to see how the word " church " can be used, 
 as it is in the New Testament, to denote communities of varying 
 size, from the sum total of all the Christian communities on earth 
 down to the tiny congregation which met in the house of Phile- 
 mon. For the unity of the Christian Church is, in the first 
 instance, the oneness of an ideal reality, and is not confined 
 within the bounds of space and time as merely material entities 
 are. It can be present in many places at the same time, and in 
 such a way that, as Ignatius says, " Where Jesus Christ is, there 
 is the whcle Church." ^ The congregation at Corinth was, in 
 the eyes of St. Paul, the Body of Christ or the whole Church 
 in its all-embracing unity — not a Body of Christ, for there is 
 but one Body of Christ ; not part of the Body of Christ, for 
 Christ is not divided ; but the Body of Christ in its unity and 
 filled with the fulness of His powers.* It is in this One Body, 
 present in every Christian society, that our Lord has placed His 
 
 » Eph. iv. 4-6.- 
 
 * This thought has been beautifully expressed by Dr. Sanday, The CoiV' 
 ceptum of Priesthood (1898), pp. 11-14/ 3 To the Smyrnaeana, 8. 
 
 ♦ Exegetes differ about the exact translation of 1 Cor. xiL 27 : v/xcts 
 8e €OT€ (Tco^a X/)toTou. A few (such as Godet) translate it : "a body 
 of Christ " ; by far the largest number translate : " the Body of Christ '* ; 
 many " Christ's Body," leaving the exact thought indeterminate. It 
 seems to me that the exact rendering, a or the, cannot be reached from 
 purely grammatical reasoning. St. Paul is completing his metaphor or 
 interpreting his parable. He has been emphasizing the fact that the 
 
A UNITY 16 
 
 "gifts" or charismata^ which enable the Church to perform 
 its divine functions ; and all the spiritual actions of the tiniest 
 community, such as the Church in the house of Nymphas — 
 Prayer, Praise, Preaching, Baptism, the Holy Supper — are 
 actions of the whole Church of Christ. 
 
 The Christians of the early centuries clung to this thought, 
 and we have a long series of writers, from Victor of Rome,' 
 in the second century, down to Clement of Alexandria and 
 Origen,* who tell us that the whole Church of the redeemed, 
 with Christ and the angels, is present in the pubUc worship of 
 the individual congregation. The promise of the Master, that 
 where two or three were gathered together in His Name there 
 would He be in the midst of them, was placed side by side with 
 the thought in the Epistle to the Hebrews that beUevers are 
 surrounded with a great cloud of witnesses ; and the combination 
 suggested that in the simplest action of the smallest Christian 
 fellowship there was the presence and the power of the whole 
 Church of Christ. Tertullian pushes the thought to its furthest 
 hmits when he says in a well-known passage : " Accordingly, 
 where there is no joint session of the ecclesiastical order, you 
 Offer, Baptize, and are Priest alone for yourself ; for where 
 three are there the Church is, although they be laity.'' ' 
 
 Christian community at Corinth is an organism with a variety of parts 
 differing in structure and function. It is a perfect organism in the sense 
 that there is no necessary part lacking that is required for the purpose 
 the organism is intended, to serve for its suport or increase or for work. 
 The Ufe which pervades the organism in its totality and in every minutest 
 part is Christ (Col. iiL 14). The organism is the Body of Christ. 
 
 ' " Esto potius I 9 g Christianus, pecuniam tuam adsidente Christo 
 spectantibus angelis et martyris praesentibus super mensam dominicam 
 sparge." De AleaioribibSy 11 ; Harnack imd v* Gebhardt, Texte u. Unter- 
 euchungen^ V, i* 29. 
 
 * Origen, De Or. 31 : — ** Kai dyycXtKoij' Swd/jnoiv If^KTrafxivtsiv rots 
 adpoL(rfJLacn rwv Tria-Tevovruiv /cat avrov tov Kvpiov koX (r(i>Trjpo<s yjfxoiv 
 8wa/x€(i)S ^Sr; 8c koX Trvev/xarwv ayiW, oT/xat Se, ort koX 7rpoK€KOi.fj.rjjx4vo)V 
 cra<f>€s Sc, ort Kat iv ra ^to) TreptovTcov, €t kol to Trois ovk €v)^€p€<s ctTreti^." 
 
 3 TertuUian, De exhortatione casiitcUis, 7 ; compare De yoenitervtia^ 10 ; 
 Dt jmdicUia, 21 ; De fuga in perseciUionti 14* 
 
16 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 3. The Church of our Lord's promise was to be a visible com- 
 munity. This note of visibility is suggested by the word ecdesia 
 itself, and by the whole environment of its earliest Christian 
 ufie. 
 
 The " congregation of Israel " and the " sovereign assembly " 
 of the Greek city-state had been visible things. The time of the 
 promise suggested a visible community. It came when the 
 visible people of Israel had manifestly refused to accept Jesus 
 as the Messiah. His Church was set over against the Israel 
 which had denied Him — one visible conmiunity against another. 
 The earliest uses of the word ecdesia refer unmistakably to visible 
 communities. When St. Paul persecuted the ** Church of God," 
 he made havoc of something more than an abstraction. He 
 haled men and women to prison and confined real bodies 
 within real stone walls. The churches spoken of in the Acta 
 and in the Epistles were societies of men and women, living in 
 families, coming together for public worship, and striving in 
 spite of many infirmities to live the life of new obedience to 
 which they had been called. They were little societies in the 
 world, connected with it on all sides and yet not of it — lamps 
 set on lamp-stands to enlighten the darkness of surrounding 
 paganism. The " gifts " of the Spirit, which manifested the 
 presence of Christ, were seen at work in the public assembly 
 of the congregation, and were given to edify a visible society. 
 
 The two universal rites of the new society — Baptism and the 
 Lord's Supper — show that it was a visible thing. St. Paul 
 makes it clear that entrance into the Church was by the visible 
 rite of Baptism, and that he himself had come into the Church 
 by this door.' The Lord's Supper was a visible social institution, 
 and could only occupy the place it did in a visible society.* 
 
 Even the Church Universal, which is described in the Epistle 
 
 to the Ephesians, is a visible Church. It is an ideal reality ; 
 
 but an ideal Church is not invisible because it is ideal. It can 
 
 be seen in any Christian community, great or small ; seen in a 
 
 « Rom. vi, 3-8,; Gal. iii. 27/ » 2 Cor, xi» 23-27j 
 
A VISIBLE UNITY 17 
 
 measure by the eye of sense, but more truly by the eye of faith. 
 For it is one of the privileges of faith, when strengthened by 
 hope and by love, to see the glorious ideal in the somewhat poor 
 material reality. It was thus that St. Paul saw the universal 
 Church of Christ made visible in the Christian community of 
 Corinth. 
 
 St. Paul has described the Church in that great trading and 
 manufacturing city of Corinth, where the rich were very rich 
 and the poor were very poor ; where the thoroughness of char- 
 acter, inherited from the early Roman colonists, had pushed 
 the sensuous side of Greek civilization into all manner of ex- 
 cesses, until the city had become a by-word for foul living, 
 and religion itself had become an incentive to lust.^ This en- 
 vironment had tainted the Christian society. St. Paul saw it 
 all and has described it. He has made us see the very Love- 
 feasts, which introduced the Holy Supper, changed into banquets 
 of display on the part of the rich, while the poor were swept into 
 comers or compelled to wait till their wealthier brethren were 
 served. He has shown us petty rivalries disguising themselves 
 under the mask of faithfulness to eminent apostolic teachers.; 
 He has depicted the tainted morals of the city appearing un- 
 checked within the Christian society. What a picture the 
 heathen satirist Lucian, with his keen eye and his outspoken 
 tongue, would have drawn of sjach a community ! St. Paul saw 
 all the frailty, the feebleness to resist the evil communications 
 and the fickleness ; and yet he saw in that community the Body 
 of Christ. He needed the love that " beareth all things, that 
 believeth all things, and that Kopeth all things," to make his 
 vision clear — and that is perhaps the reason why the wonderful 
 chapter on Christian love comes in the middle of this epistle ; 
 but his vision was clear, and he saw the life there with its potency 
 and promise. He could say to that Church Ye are the Body 
 of Christ, He could see it, as he saw the Ephesian Church, 
 
 * Compare Dobschiitz, Die Urchriatlichen Oemeindent SiUensgeschicht- 
 liehe Bilder (1902), pp^ 18 flfj 
 
 CM. 2 
 
18 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 becoming gradually rooted and grounded in love, gradually 
 strengthened to apprehend with all saints the height, the depth, 
 the length and the breadth of that love of Christ which passeth 
 knowledge, and at last filled with all the fulness of God. 
 
 All things earthly have a double element, whether they be 
 of good or evil report. They are in the present and they are 
 making for the future. They are what they are to be. It is 
 the same with all things belonging to Christianity on the human 
 side. We are " sons of God," and yet we " wait for the adop- 
 tion " ; we are redeemed, and yet our redemption " draweth 
 nigh." Those who " have been saved " are enjoined to " work 
 out their own salvation." So it is with the Church of God. 
 It is what it is to be.* And we are definitely taught by the very 
 ways in which St. Paul uses the word " Church " to see the 
 Church Universal in the individual Christian community.^ 
 
 It will be admitted, however, that ideals are given us to be 
 made manifest to the eye of sense as well as to the vision of 
 faith, and that a duty is laid upon every Christian and upon 
 every Christian society to make the universality of the Church 
 of Christ which is manifest to faith plainly apparent to the eyes 
 of sense. If the duty has been but scantily performed since the 
 beginning of the third century, we may find that the neglect 
 has come from abandoning apostoHc methods in favour of 
 others suggested by the great pagan empire of Rome. The 
 duty of trying to make visible to the senses the inherent unity 
 of the Church of Christ was always distinctly present to the mind 
 of the great apostle to the Gentiles, and it may be useful to see 
 how he set himself to the task. 
 
 One thing meets us at the outset. He would not for the sake 
 
 ^ Compare Robertson, Regnum Dei, p. 64 : — " It (the kingdom of 
 Christ) is the Kingdom of God in its idea — in potency and in promise : 
 but visibly and openly not yet. This is St. Paul's well-known paradox 
 of the Christian life. Our whole task as Christians is to become what we 
 are. - 
 
 ' As in 1 Cor, x, 32 ; xi. 22 ; and zil 28 ; compare above p^ 11, note 
 2, § Ivi 1, 
 
A VISIBLE UNITY 19 
 
 of an external universality agree to anything which would 
 sei limits on the red universality of the Church of Christ. The 
 preservation of the liberty with which Jesus had made His 
 people free was of more importance in His eyes than the mani- 
 festation of the visibility of the universal fellowship of Chris- 
 tians with each other. Jewish believers were inclined to think 
 that the practice of circumcision " embodied the principle 
 of the historical continuity of the Church," ' and that no one 
 who was outside the circle of the " circumcised," no matter 
 how strong his faith nor how the fruits of the Spirit were manifest 
 in his life and deeds, could plead the " security of the Divine 
 Covenant." For this they could give reasons stronger than 
 are brought forward by many who, in our own day, insist on 
 different external " successions " as marks of catholicity. The 
 Scripture had said : " My covenant shall be in your fleshy an 
 everlasting covenant." ^ The Saviour Himself had been cir- 
 cumcised on the eighth day. He had never, in so many words, 
 either publicly to the people or privately to His disciples, de- 
 clared that circumcision was no longer to be the sign of the 
 covenant of God. 
 
 St. Paul recognized that to limit " the security of the cove- 
 nant " to something defined by what the Jews believed to be the 
 " principle of the historical continuity of the Church," would be 
 to destroy the real for a limited, though more sensibly visible, 
 universality. He bent his whole energies to break down this 
 false principle of continuity which placed the " succession " 
 in something external, and not in the possession and trans- 
 mission from generation to generation of the " gifts " of the 
 Spirit within the community. This done, he used his adminis- 
 trative powers, and they were those of a statesman, to create 
 
 ' The principle which underlies the claim generally associated with the 
 ambiguous phrase " apostolic succession " is so curiously like the demand 
 made by '* those of the sect of the Pharisees who believed " in the day* 
 of St. Paul, that it can be most naturally expressed in the same language 
 if only a " succession of bishops -' takes the place of " circumcision,^ 
 
 2 Gen, xvii» 13^ 
 
20 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 channels for the flow of the manifestation of the visible unity of 
 the Church of Christ. 
 
 His ruling thought was to provide that all the various Christian 
 communities should manifest their real brotherhood in the 
 cultivation of the " fruits of the Spirit." The method of carving 
 out a visibly universal Church by means of regulations affecting 
 organization and external form is not without its attractions, 
 which are irresistible to minds of the lawyer type and training, 
 such as we see afterwards in Cyprian of Carthage. It seems a 
 short and easy method of showing that the whole Church is 
 visibly one. But it was not Paul's method. He seems to have 
 thought as little about the special " construction of sheep- 
 folds " as his Master. What concerned him was that the sheep 
 should be gathered into one flock around the One Shepherd. 
 He nowhere prescribed a universal ecclesiastical polity, still 
 less did he teach that the universality of the Christian brother- 
 hood must be made visible in this way. He regarded all the 
 separate churches of Christ as independent self-governing 
 societies. He strove to implant in all of them the principle 
 of brotherly dealing with one another, and he dug channels 
 in which the streams of the Spirit might flow in the practical 
 manifestation of Christian fellowship. 
 
 Fellowship {Koivwvla), word and thought, is what filled 
 his mind. All the brethren within one Church were to have 
 fellowship with each other. The local churches within a de- 
 finite region were to be in close fellowship. The churches 
 among the Gentiles were to maintain brotherly relations with 
 the Mother-Church in Jerusalem. What this fellowship primarily 
 meant can be learnt from what the apostle says in Gal. ii. 9.' 
 He tells us that the apostles to the Jews, and he the apostle 
 to the Gentiles, gave each other the right hand of fellowshify 
 
 ' GftL iL 9 : -' And when they perceived the grace that was given unto 
 me, James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars^ 
 gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go 
 unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcisiont'' 
 
A VISIBLE UNITY 21 
 
 because they recognized that they had a common faith in the same 
 Christ. It was the recognition of a common belief in the One 
 Christ, the knowledge that they all had within them a new 
 faith which had revolutionised their lives, and was to express 
 itself in their whole character and conduct, that made them feel 
 the kinship with each other which was expressed in the common 
 name " brethren." All down through the early centuries this 
 idea that Christians form one brotherhood finds abundant 
 expression. Brotherhood alternates with Ecdesia in the oldest 
 sets of ecclesiastical canons,* while omnis fraternitas and 7ra<ra rj 
 dSeXcpoTTjg are used to denote the whole of Christendom.* 
 
 The graceful deference which St. Paul always showed to the 
 leaders in Jerusalem, who had been in Christ before himself; 
 his anxieties about the welfare of the poor " saints " at Jeru- 
 salem, and his care to provide for their needs ; ^ the letters 
 he asks to be read to all the members of the churches to which 
 they are addressed, and sometimes to other churches also ; * 
 the eagerness with which he conmiunicates the fact that the 
 church he is writing to enjoys a reputation for hospitality to- 
 wards wayfaring brethren ; ^ the salutations his letters contain 
 from one church to another,* and from individual Christians 
 to the churches ; ^ the messages sent by his assistants ; his 
 and their frequent journeyings from church to church — ^are all 
 evidences of his unwearied efforts to make the universality 
 of the Christian brotherhood widely manifest. 
 
 He did more. He grouped his churches in a statesmanlike 
 
 ' See Sources of the Apostolic Canons^ where iKKX-qa-Ca appears in § 1 
 and dScXc^oriys in § 2 ; Texte u. Untersuchungen, II. v. 7, 12. 
 
 * For universa fraternitas^ see the tract De Aleatoribits, 1; Texte u. 
 Untersuchungen, V. i. II ; omnis fraternitas^ V. i. 14 ; compare Tertullian, 
 Apologia^ 39 ; De praescriptionet 20 ; De pudicitia, 13. For iraara rj 
 aSeX(f}6Tr]<;, see 1 Clem. ii. 4 ; and Hamack's note on the passage ; also 
 1 Peter iL 17. 3 Acts xi. 30 ; cf. xii. 25. 
 
 ♦ CoL iv. 16 ; where St, Paul asks that his letter be read to the Church 
 of Laodicea. 
 
 5 1 Thess. iv. 9-11? ^ Rom. xvi. 16 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 19. 
 
 y Rom, xvi, 21-23 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 19 ; Gal. L 2 ; Phil. iv. 21, 22 ; Coli U 
 U2t 
 
22 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 way so that each could support the others. His statesmanship 
 discerned the advantages which the imperial system, with its 
 trade routes, its postal arrangements and its provincial capitals, 
 gave not merely for the propagation of the Gospel, but for the 
 fellowship of the churches. Corinth was the centre for the 
 churches of Achaia, and the second Epistle to the Corinthians 
 is addressed to all the Christians within that important Roman 
 province.' Round Ephesus* were grouped the churches of Asia — 
 Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, 
 with Troas and others on the coast, and Colossae and Hierapolis 
 in the Lycus valley.^ The churches of Macedonia were, in all 
 probability, grouped round Thessalonica,* and those of Galatia 
 formed another group, although we are not told what the centre 
 was.' 
 
 While engaged in giving visibility to the unity of the churches 
 he had planted St. Paul was never unmindful that he wished 
 also to see them united visibly with the churches of Jerusalem 
 and Judea. He had started with the thought of a visible fellow- 
 ship between Jew and Gentile, and the union which was symbo- 
 lised when Barnabas and he gave and received the right hand 
 of fellowship with Peter, James and John, was never far from 
 his thoughts. He thought of One Church of Christ which em- 
 braced Jew and Gentile all the world over.^ 
 
 But perhaps the evidence of the apostle's method of im- 
 planting a sense of a visible unity within the Church of Chiist 
 is best seen in the methods, plan and motive of the great collection 
 for the saints at Jerusalem, which fills so large a place in his 
 epistles. 
 
 This great collection was no mere spontaneous outburst of 
 Christian charity like the previous succours sent to the poor of 
 Jerusalem. It was a carefully-planned attempt to unite a 
 host of independent churches, which represented wide areas, 
 
 » 2 Cor. i. 1; » 1 Cor. xvi 19 ; Acte xixi 10. 
 
 5 Ramsay, SL Paul the Traveller, p. 274. ♦ 1 Thess. iv* 1(H 
 
 3 1 Cor» xvi, li ^1 Cor, x, 32 ; xii, 13 ; R011L5 iii 29; 
 
A VISIBLE UNITY 23 
 
 in co-operative brotlierly action. Tlie preparations occupied 
 more than a year's time. The principle of representation was 
 introduced. Each group of contributing churches sent deputies, 
 all of whom joined the apostle at different places and at different 
 dates, and accompanied him to Jerusalem, bearing- with them 
 the money collected. The anxiety which the apostle displayed 
 in the careful arrangement of all the details ; the patience with 
 which he awaited the complete mustering of the delegates on the 
 road ; the determination that nothing should prevent him from 
 accompanying the delegates to Jerusalem — ^not even prophetic 
 warnings of danger nor the hindrance of cherished plans to 
 visit Rome — all combine to show that he regarded it as the ful- 
 filment of long cherished plans for making visible the fellowship 
 of all beHevers in the way that best commended itself to his 
 mind.' 
 
 It may be that the success of this mustering of his mission 
 churches, this triumphant experiment of co-operation and re- 
 presentation, combined with the assurance that Jew and Gentile 
 were at last dwelling harmoniously within the One Household 
 of God, kindled the thoughts which find expression in the epistles 
 of his Roman captivity. The unity of the wide-spreading Church 
 of Christ was at last made visible to the eyes of sense, not by 
 uniformity of external polity, but by the manifestation of 
 brotherly love. The actual unity of all believers was conspicuous 
 in this great fruit of the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 If we follow the accounts given us in the AdSy the tests of what 
 was required for visible fellowship by the leaders of the church 
 in Jerusalem did not differ greatly from those demanded by St. 
 Paul. It seemed to be their custom when they heard of some 
 new and imexpected appearance of faith in Jesus to send down 
 
 ' Kendall, The Pauline Collection for ihe Saints, Expositor, Nov. 18934 
 For St. Paul's conception of what was meant by " fellowship " and the 
 methods he took to make it visible, see Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age of 
 the Christian Church (Eng. Trans.) I. p, 46 £E. ; II. pp. 307-9 ; and Ramsay, 
 St, Paul ihe Traveller, pp, 64, 130 ffj 
 
24 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 some one to inquire about it. Peter and John were sent to 
 Samaria to inquire into tlie conversions among the Samaritans 
 made by the preaching of Philip.* Barnabas was sent down 
 to Antioch on a similar errand.* The tests applied in both 
 cases seem to have been : Are there any manifestations of the 
 fruits of the Spirit in the lives of the new converts ? The case 
 of Antioch is most instructive. The Gospel had been pro- 
 claimed there, we know not how or by whom. The apostles 
 at Jerusalem seem to have had nothing to do with the procla- 
 mation. An infant church had come into being without their 
 guidance or assistance. Its birth is unrecorded ; its earliest 
 history unknown ; the congregation is in being before the apostles 
 seem to have heard of it. When the delegate from Jerusalem 
 appeared and made his inquiries, what satisfied him was that 
 the grace of God was manifestly with the brethren there. The 
 believers in Antioch and the delegate from Jerusalem had the 
 same faith in the same Saviour, and their faith found its proper 
 outcome in a renewed hfe. That was enough for fellowship or 
 visible and fraternal union. We see no attempt to impose 
 any external ecclesiastical ordinances, no suggestions about 
 the need for showing themselves to be in the line of the " his- 
 storic continuity of the church " by accepting circumcision or 
 otherwise. Whether we take the reception of Cornelius, the 
 welcome accorded to the Samaritan converts, or the joy ol 
 Bami;bas when he perceived that the grace of God was manifest 
 in Antioch, the imity of the Christian Church was made visible 
 to the eyes of sense, not by uniformity of organization, but by 
 the manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit ; that was the one 
 feature that was regarded as proof that it was worthy of being 
 received into the common fellowship. 
 
 IV. To this visible society belongs Authority. The very thought 
 
 of a Christian Church visible suggests the idea of a separate 
 
 community with a distinct sphere of religious life ; and this in 
 
 turn implies that the society must have, like every form of cor- 
 
 < Aoti yiiij 14-27i * Acts zi^ 22, 23i 
 
ITS AUTHORITY 25 
 
 porate social existence, powers of oversiglit and discipline to 
 be exercised upon its members. But the authority wbich the 
 Churcb possesses is altogether different from what a voluntary 
 association of men may exercise upon its members, and of 
 another kind from what is possessed by lawful civil government. 
 The authority comes from Christ Himself. The Christian 
 Democracy is also a Theocracy ; it combines the two ideas of 
 rule associated with the Greek and the Hebrew uses of the word 
 " ecclesia." While the authority belongs to the whole member- 
 ship, and is therefore democratic ; it nevertheless comes from 
 above, and is therefore theocratic* It comes from Jesus Christ, 
 who is the Head of the Church.' 
 
 Our Lord has intimated that He has imparted this authority 
 to His Church in many recorded sayings, and in particular 
 in three well-known passages : in Matt. xvi. 13-19 ; Matt, xviii. 
 15-20, and in John xx. 21-23. 
 
 The first promise was made to St. Peter in very special cir- 
 cumstances. Our Lord had asked a question of all His disciples. 
 St. Peter, answering impetuously in their name, made himself 
 their representative. His answer was an adoring confession 
 of his faith in the Person of Christ ' — a confession which contained 
 in germ all the future confessions of the Church of Christ, and 
 which made him the spokesman for the mighty multitude which 
 
 * Some Anglican divines make strange deductions from the truth 
 that the authority which belongs to the Church comes from above. They 
 at once infer that inasmuch as the authority comes from above it cannot 
 come directly to the whole Christian society ; but must come through an 
 official class of ministers who act as a species of plastic medium between 
 our Lord and His people. Strange how Gnostic and Arian ideas banished 
 from the creeds of the Church linger in thoughts about Orders ! Then 
 by a confusion of ideas they transfer the phrase " from above " to the 
 human sphere, and make it an essential idea of legitimate ecclesiastical 
 rule that it must be invariably communicated from a higher to a lower 
 order of ministry ! Why should authority imparted through the Christian 
 Society be regarded as " from beneath," as of the earth earthy ? 
 
 « Ephes. V, 23 ; CoL i. 18. 
 
 3 " There is a tone of loving reverence and worship in the words ' Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God,- They answer to our Lord's 
 
26 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 no man can number, who were to make the same confession of 
 adoring trust in their Saviour. The confession was an inspired 
 one ; it had been revealed to St. Peter by the Father ; there 
 was divinity in it, for God gave the revelation which prompted 
 the confession ; and there was humanity in it, for the man 
 appropriated and made his own what the Father had revealed 
 to him. It was the first of what was to become a multitudinous 
 sea of voices of men inspired by the Father to know and to con- 
 fess that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Li\'ing God. It 
 was to the Peter who answered as representing the Twelve, to 
 Peter who was the spokesman for countless thousands of the 
 faithful who down through the march of Time would make the 
 same glad confession, that the promise was given. 
 
 The promise was of authority to bear the key of the household 
 of the faithful, to have the power to let in and keep out from 
 the household. The words and metaphor used were the familiar 
 Jewish terms to denote a delegated authority. The thought 
 conveyed is commonly and correctly explained by a reference 
 to the substitution of Shebna for EUakim in the stewardship 
 of the House of David ; ' and it is implied that our Lord, in the 
 word He used, made St. Peter, and those he represented, stewards 
 of the Household of the faithful with the authority to " bind '* 
 and to " loose," to " prohibit" and to " permit," to " admit " 
 and " exclude." Other passages in the New Testament, making 
 use of the same simile of the major-domo with his key and his 
 power of letting in or locking out, assist us to see the fuller mean- 
 ing of the promise recorded. The one is a warning and the other 
 
 picture of the spiritual experience of His disciples in His great interces- 
 sory prayer ; - 1 manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest 
 Me out of the world ; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me ; 
 and they have kept Thy word. Now they know that all things, whatso- 
 ever Thou hast given Me, are from Thee ; for the words which Thou 
 gavest Me, I have given unto them ; and they received them, and knew 
 of a truth that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst 
 send Me." Bannerman, The Scripture Doctrine of the Church, p. 169. 
 
 ' Isaiah xzii, 20, 22^ Compare Gore, The Church and the Ministry, p^ 
 22^ 
 
ITS AUTHORITY 27 
 
 an encouragement. Our Lord called tlie attention of his fol- 
 lowers to the scribes and Pharisees, who " sat in Moses' seat," 
 and had to be obeyed. They had the keys and they used them 
 to shut the door of the kingdom of heaven against men.' Jesus 
 pronounces woe on them for using the keys in this way. Their 
 shutting out, although they have the keys officially, was evidently 
 not ratified in heaven. Hence we must infer that the mere 
 official position of being the bearer of the " keys " does not always 
 ensure that what is done on earth by the bearer wiU be ratified 
 in heaven. Then in the message to the Church in Philadelphia, 
 the brethren there were told that the real bearer of the " keys " 
 is the Lord Himself.^ It is only when He lets in that there can 
 be no exclusion ; it is only when He shuts out that there is any 
 real exclusion. A real authority is bestowed, and real powers 
 are given ; but just as Peter's confession depended on the in- 
 spiration of the Father, so the ratification of the exercise of power 
 depends on its Christ-like use. 
 
 It is doubtful whether the second sa5dng was addressed to the 
 Twelve, or to a larger group of disciples, but the advice which 
 precedes the promise is to be applied and can only be applied 
 to all the followers of Jesus within a community. It gives direc- 
 tions for dealing with offences and offenders within the Christian 
 society, and has been commonly regarded as the Scriptural 
 warrant for the exercise of discipline within the Church. It 
 proceeds on the idea that offences may arise from thoughtless- 
 ness as well as from wilful sin, and that the offender, in spite of 
 his offence, is a brother to be won back to brotherhness. It 
 prescribes a threefold attempt to win back the erring brother 
 to a state of brotherly feeling. If everything fails, if the offender 
 has refused to hear the offended person pleading with him in 
 his own person, if he has rejected the remonstrances of two or 
 
 ^ Matt. xxiiL 2, 3, 13 : — ori k\€L€T€ rrp/ (SacnkeLav tS>v ovpavwv t^K' 
 irpo(TO(.v Tuiv av6p(x)Tru)V' 
 
 * Rev, iU. 7 : — raSc Xcyci 6 ayios, o aXyjOivos, 6 €)(0iv r-qv kXciv 
 AttjStS, 6 avoiytjiv koX ovScis KA,€t(r€i, koL Kkciijiv /cat oiScls di/oiya. 
 
28 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 three fellow-Christians pleading with him, if he finally spurns 
 the warnings of the Church or whole Christian society, then, 
 and not till then, does the thought of punishment enter. The 
 punishment, if punishment it can be called, is expulsion of a 
 certain kind from the Christian communion. The offender is 
 to be treated as the Jewish Synagogue acted towards a Gentile 
 or a publican. He was to be looked on as if he had never be- 
 longed to the society, or as if he had voluntarily excluded himself 
 by the course of life he had chosen to persist in. 
 
 We are told that the decisions of the Church on earth in such 
 cases as those described will be ratified in Heaven. This is a 
 confirmation of the promise given to St. Peter, and like it is 
 strictly conditional. The condition attached is that there 
 must be a real and living communion between the Church and 
 its Head the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the Church decides in a 
 Christ-like spirit. It is impossible to separate the promise from 
 the verses which immediately follow. Our Lord Himself joins 
 them together by very solemn words. This condition does not 
 render the promise of ratification deceptive. The fellowship 
 with Christ, which is the condition, is to be had provided it is 
 sought for earnestly, honestly and trustingly in prayer (v. 19). 
 
 The authority is given to the society of behevers, whether 
 two or three meeting together in a place far from any others, or 
 a great and organised community. It is not entrusted by our 
 Lord directly to any official class ; it is not given to any human 
 power not rising out of the company of the faithful. It is given 
 to the visible fellowship, and it belongs to them in reality, as 
 well as in name, in the measure in which they have living com- 
 munion with Him Who is their Head. 
 
 The third promise seems to have been made to the nucleus 
 of the infant Church in Jerusalem, if we are to accept Luke xxiv. 
 33 ff. as the parallel passage — ^to " the disciples and those who 
 were with them." It is commonly held to include all that is 
 bestowed in the other two, and perhaps something even more 
 solemn — the power to pronoimce the divine sentence of pardon 
 
ITS AUTHORITY ^ 29 
 
 involved in the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ. Whatever 
 be the powers granted, they are given to the whole company 
 of believers and not to any class among them. They are also, 
 as in the earlier passages, given under conditions. The power 
 can only manifest itself in those who are filled with the Spirit 
 of Christ.' In virtue of this promise with its gift of power the 
 visible Church of Christ can with absolute confidence declare 
 the gospel of pardon through the work of Christ, and can assert 
 that the divine conditions are those which it proclaims. In 
 virtue of the same promise every individual Christian is entitled 
 to affirm with absolute certainty to every penitent sinner that 
 God pardons his sins if he accepts Jesus as his All-sufficient 
 Saviour.* 
 
 The authority was given in the first passage to one man ; in 
 the second probably to the Twelve ; in the third to the whole 
 Christian community. In each case the more particular is 
 absorbed in the more general. The power given to St. Peter 
 
 * John XX.! 22, 23 : — koI tovto cittwv iv€<j>v(nj(r€V kox Xeyet avrots, 
 Aa^€T€ Tlv€vfJia 'Ayiov av riviav d<f>rJT€ tols d/xapria?, dcfiUvTaL 
 (d^ecovTttt Ti., W.- H.) avTOts* av tivwv Kpar^r€j KeKpdrrjvTai. 
 
 - " The main thought which the words convey is that of the reality 
 of the power of absolution from sin granted to the Church and not of the 
 particular organization through which the power is administered. There 
 is nothing in the context to show that the gift was confined to any particular 
 group (as the apostles) among the whole company present. The com- 
 mission must therefore be regarded as properly the commission of the 
 Christian society, and not as that of the Christian ministry (cf. Matt, v; 
 13, 14). The great mystery of the world, absolutely insoluble by thought, 
 is that of sin ; the mission of Christ was to bring salvation from sin ; and 
 the work of the Church is to apply to all that which He has gained. Christ 
 risen was Himself the sign of the completed overthrow of death, the end 
 of sin, and the impartment of His hf e necessarily carried with it the fruit 
 of His conquest. Thus the promise is in one sense an interpretation of 
 the gift. The gift of the Holy Spirit finds its application in the communi- 
 cation or withholding of the powers of the new lifej ? ? s The promise, 
 as being made not to one but to the Society, carries with it of necessity 
 : ; s the character of perpetuity : the society never dies. ? s s The exer- 
 cise of the power must be placed in the closest connexion witib the 
 faculty of spiritual discernment, consequent on the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit,'-: Westoott, Oospd of St. John, p, 295, 
 
90 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 in the first passage is merged in the authority given to the 
 Twelve in the second ; and the authority given to the Twelve is 
 in turn merged in the authority given to the whole congregation. 
 St. Peter received the power because he represented the Twelve 
 directly, and the whole Church founded on him and on his con- 
 fession indirectly. The Twelve received it because they repre- 
 sented the Church which was to come into existence through 
 their ministry. After the Resurrection the whole infant Church 
 received the same, if not greater, authority. St. Peter was to 
 die ; the Twelve also were to go the way of all flesh ; but the society 
 was to remain, and with it the authority bestowed upon it by its 
 Lord. 
 
 It is needless to say that very varying interpretations of these 
 three passages have been given by difierent schools of theolo- 
 gians ; that Romanists found on the promise given to St. Peter, 
 and that some Anglicans insist that the third promise was made 
 to the Eleven only, even if the company included other disciples, 
 and build up the edifice of Apostolic Succession on this narrow 
 foimdation ; and that both afi&rm that the authority which our 
 Lord gave to His Church was placed directly in the hands of 
 oflfice-bearers, and not in those of the whole membership. 
 
 To examine at length the various exegetical arguments brought 
 forward in support of these positions would lead far beyond the 
 space at our disposal ; but two general considerations may be 
 adduced. Such an interpretation seems to be against the 
 analogy of our Lord*s teaching ; and He was not so understood 
 by His New Testament Church. 
 
 While our Lord chose Twelve to form an inner circle of dis- 
 ciples, while He trained them by close companionship with Him- 
 self for special service, while He weaned them in half-conscious 
 ways from their old life, it nowhere appears that He bestowed 
 upon them a special rank or instituted a peculiar or exceptional 
 office of stewardship of divine mysteries in their persons.^ It 
 
 * Of . 1 Peter iv. 10: " According as cacA hath received a gift, ministering 
 it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." 
 
ITS AUTHORITY 81 
 
 is improbable that He bestowed on them tbe name apostles to 
 be a general and distinguisbing title, and one imshared in by 
 other disciples besides the Twelve. Our Lord called them 
 a/postles when He sent them on a special mission among the 
 villages ; they were apostles while this mission lasted ; when 
 it came to an end they were the Twelve or inner circle of inti- 
 mates of the Master/ After the Death and Resurrection of 
 the Lord the task to which they had been trained by companion- 
 ship with the Saviour and in the apprentice mission among the 
 villages, became their life work, but it was shared in from the 
 very beginning by others who bore with them the common 
 name apostle.* Nor does our Lord make any promises to the 
 Twelve which imply that He had bestowed upon them a special 
 rank in the Church which was to come. He told them that 
 whoever received them received Him ; but this was a privilege 
 shared in by the least of His followers, for whoever received a 
 little child in His name received Him.^ It is impossible to avoid 
 noticing how the ancient manuals of church organization have 
 caught the spirit of Christ's teaching, that there are to be no 
 lordships in His Church. The qualifications set forth for office 
 
 ^ The relations of the Twelve to the Church of Christ are strikingly 
 brought out by Dr. Hort in his Christian Ecdesia, pp. 23-41. On the title 
 artostle he says : -' Taldng these facts together respecting the usage of the 
 Gospels, we are led, I think, to the conclusion that in its original sense the 
 term Apostle was not intended to describe the habitual relation of the 
 Twelve to our Lord during the days of His ministry, but strictly speaking 
 only that mission among the villages, of which the beginning and the end 
 are recorded for us." ? ; ; " If they (the Twelve) represented an 
 apostolic order within the Ecclesia then the Holy Communion must have 
 been intended only for members of that order, and the rest of the Ecclesia 
 had no part in it. But if, as the men of the apostolic age and subsequent 
 ages believed without hesitation, the Holy Communion was meant for 
 the Ecclesia at large, then the Twelve sat down that evening as repre- 
 sentatives of the Ecclesia at large ; they were disciples more than they 
 were apostles."- 
 
 * St. Paul in his account of the appearances of our Lord after BUs 
 Resurrection distinguishes between the Twelve and apostles ; 1 Cor. xv, 
 5-8 ; cf. below, pp. 74-85. 
 
 3 Matts X, 40 ; cf, Luke x, 16 ; Matt, xviii» 6 ; Mark ix^ 37 ; Luke ix, 48. 
 
S2 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 are those winch every Christian ought to possess ; and the 
 duties said to belong to office are those which for the most part 
 all Christians ought to perform. We do not see orders in the 
 sense of ecclesiastical rank whose authority does not come from 
 the people ; we see ecclesiastical order and arrangement of 
 service. Whatever power and authority the Church of Christ 
 possesses in gift from the Lord resides in the membership of the 
 Church and not in any superior rank of officials who have re- 
 ceived an authority over the Church directly from Christ Him- 
 self. 
 
 The Church of the New Testament evidently interpreted the 
 words of our Lord to mean that He placed the authority which 
 He had bestowed upon His Church in the hands of the member- 
 ship, of the community which formed the local church.; 
 
 Even in the Primitive Church in Jerusalem, where the pre- 
 sence of an apostle was seldom lacking, the community was 
 self-governing, and acted on the conviction that the authority 
 bestowed by Christ on His Church belonged to the whole congre- 
 gation of the faithful and not to an apostolic hierarchy. The 
 assembly of the local church appointed delegates and elected 
 office-bearers. The vice-apostle Matthias and the Seven were 
 elected by the assembly,' and a similar assembly appointed 
 Barnabas to be its delegate to Antioch.* The assembly of the 
 local church summoned even apostles before it, and passed 
 judgment upon their conduct.^ The apostles might suggest, but 
 the congregation ruled. 
 
 When we pass from the Church at Jerusalem to the churches 
 planted by the ministry of St. Paul, the proofs of democratic 
 self-government are still more abundant. When the apostle 
 urges the duty of stricter discipUne, or when he recommends 
 
 ' Acts L 23 ; VL 5. ^ Acta xi 22. 
 
 3 On the conduct of St. Peter at Caesarea, Acts xi 1-4; on the opinions 
 and practices of St. Paul, xv. 12, 22-29, and whatever differences may be 
 found in the account of the proceedings in this chapter and in St Paul's 
 statement in the Epistle to the Galatians (GaL ii. Iff.) there is no ques- 
 tion that both recognize the supremacy of the assembly of the Church, 
 
A SACEEDOTAL SOCIETY d8 
 
 a merciful treatment of one who had lapsed, he writes to the whole 
 commmiity in whose hands the authority resides. He pictures 
 Inuiself in their midst while they are engaged in this painful 
 duty. He assures them that they have the authority of the Lord 
 for the exercise of discipline. For however thoroughly demo- 
 cratic the government of the New Testament Church was, it 
 was still as thoroughly theocratic. The presence of the Lord 
 Himself was with them in the exercise of the authority He had 
 entrusted to their charge.' The evidence of the presence of 
 Christ was of the same kind as witnessed His presence in the 
 actions of public worship. The local churches recognised His 
 presence in the manifestation of the " gifts " of His Spirit be- 
 stowed upon them. These " gifts " included not only the be- 
 stowal of grace needed for exhortation to edification, but also 
 the wisdom to " govern '* and to " guide." The theocratic 
 element was not given in a hierarchy imposed upon the Church 
 from without ; it manifested itself within the community. It 
 appeared in the presence, recognition and use made of gifts of 
 government bestowed upon its membership which were none the 
 less spiritual, divine and " from above," because they concerned 
 the ordinary duties of oversight and manifested themselves in 
 the natural endowments of members of the community. The 
 presence of Christ among His people may be as easily mani- 
 fested in the decision which the assembly of the local church 
 arrives at by a majority^ of votes as in the fiat launched from 
 an episcopal chair. The latter is not necessarily from above, 
 and the former is not of necessity from beneath. 
 
 V. Lastly, the Church of Christ is a sacerdotal society. 
 
 The Church of Christ is continually represented as the " ideal 
 Israel." This is a favourite thought of St. Paul's, and it implies 
 that the special function of the Church of Christ is to do in a 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. V. 3-5 ; Gal. vi. 1; 
 
 2 The censure inflicted on the member of the Corinthian Church who 
 had disobeyed the Apostle Paul was carried by a majority : 2 Cor. ii. 6, 
 rj €7riTt/xia avrrj -q viro Toiv -jrXeidvwv. 
 
 CM. 3 
 
84 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHUECH 
 
 better manner what the ancient Israel did imperfectlj. When 
 we ask what the special function of the ancient Israel was, 
 we find it given in a great variety of ways, all of which include 
 one central thought, best expressed perhaps by the phrase, 
 "To approach God." This central idea was connected with 
 the thoughts of special times of approach, or Holy Seasons ; 
 with a special place of approach, which was the Temple of God's 
 Preasnce ; and with a special set of men who made the approach 
 on behalf of their fellows, and who were called Priests, When 
 we turn to the Church of Christ we find the same central thought 
 and the same dependent ideas. The main function of the New 
 Testament Church is also to approach God. Just as in the 
 Old Testament economy the priests when approaching God 
 presented sacrifices to Him, so in the New Testament Church 
 gifts are to be presented to God, and these gifts or ofierings 
 bear the Old Testament name of sacrifices. We are enjoined 
 to present our bodies ; ' our praise^ *' that is the fruit of our lips 
 which make confession to His name " ; * our faith ; ' our alms- 
 giving ; * our " doing good and communicating." ' These are 
 all called " sacrifices," or " sacrifices well-pleasing to God," 
 and, to distinguish them from the offerings of the Old Testament 
 economy, ** spiritual or living sacrifices." * The exertions 
 made by St. Paul to bring the heathen to a knowledge of the 
 Saviour is also called a sacrifice or offering.^ The New Testament 
 Church is the ideal Israel, and does the work which the ancient 
 
 ' Rom. xii 1 : "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
 God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, 
 which is your reasonable service {rrjv XoyiKrjv Xarpilav vfxoiv).^'- The 
 thought expressed is that the Christian should consecrate the whole 
 personality, body, soul and spirit to God ; and thus all service whether 
 of work or worship became a sacrifice. Compare Ps. U. 15-17. 
 
 * Heb. xiiL 15. 3 PhiL iL 17. 
 
 ♦ Paul's great collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem is an offering : 
 Acts xxiv. 17 ; so is the contributions which the members of the Church 
 at PhiHppi sent to the apostle : Phil. iv. 18. 5 Heb. xiiL 16. 
 
 ^ ©vo-iai irvevfxaTLKaC : 1 Pet. iL 5 ; 6v(rLa ^wcra : Romv xiL: 1 ; ofi 
 Phil^ iii 17j 7 Romi xv, Idg 
 
A SACERDOTAL SOCIETY S5 
 
 Israel was appointed to do. The limitations only have dis- 
 appeared. There is no trace in the New Testament Church 
 of any specially holy places or times or persons. The Christian 
 ideal is, to quote the late Dr. Lightfoot, a Holy Season extending 
 all the year round, a Temple confined only by the limits of the 
 habitable globe, and a Priesthood including every believer in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ.' 
 
 This does not mean that the New Testament Church may not 
 select special days for the public worship of God ; that it may 
 not dedicate buildings where the faithful can meet together to 
 unite in offering the sacrifices of prayer and praise ; that it 
 may not set apart men from among its membership and appoint 
 them to lead its devotions. But it does mean that God can be 
 approached at all times, and in every place, and by every one 
 among His people. His fellow believers may select one from 
 among themselves to be their minister. There may be a minister- 
 ing priesthood, but there cannot be a m£diating priesthood within 
 the Christian society. There is one Mediator only, and all, men, 
 women and children, have the promise of immediate entrance 
 into the presence of God, and are priests. 
 
 Luther has expressed the thought of the sacerdotal character 
 of the Church of Christ when he says, in a description of the 
 Eucharistic service : " There our priest or minister stands before 
 the altar, having been publicly called to his priestly function ; 
 he repeats pubHcly and distinctly Christ's words of the Institu- 
 tion ; he takes the Bread and the Wine, and distributes it 
 according to Christ's words ; and we all kneel beside him and 
 around him, men and women, young and old, master and servant, 
 mistress and maid, all holy priests together, sanctified by the 
 blood of Chxist. We are there in our priestly dignity. . . ; We 
 do not let the priest proclaim for himself the ordinance of Christ ; 
 but he is the mouthpiece of us all, and we all say it with him 
 in our hearts with true faith in the Lamb of God Who feeds us 
 with His Body and Blood." 
 
 ' Commemtary on the EpisUe to the PhUippians (1881), 6th ed.j p^ 183^ 
 
86 THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Tliis sacerdotal character of the whole Church of Christ was 
 maintained in the primitive Christian Church down to at least 
 the middle of the third century. Whatever evinced a whole- 
 hearted dedication of one's self to God was a sacrifice which 
 required no mediating priesthood in the offering. For the Chris- 
 tian sacrifice always means a sacrifice of self. When Polycarp 
 gave his body to be burnt for the faith of Jesus, he gave it in 
 sacrifice, and every martyr's death or suffering was a sacrifice 
 well-pleasing to God.' When poor and humble believers fasted 
 that they might have food to give to the hungry, they were 
 sacrificing a spiritual sacrifice.' When Christians, either at 
 home and in private or in the assembly for public worship, 
 poured forth prayers and thanksgivings, they were offering 
 sacrifice to God.' Justin Martyr does not hesitate to call such 
 devotions " the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God." ♦ 
 
 And the Holy Supper, the very apex and crown of all Christian 
 
 * Compare Letter of the Smymaeans on the Martyrdom of Polycarp, 14 : 
 *' Then he, placing his arms behind him and being bound to the stake, like 
 a goodly ram out of a great flock for an offering, a burnt sacrifice made 
 ready and acceptable to God, looking up to heaven, said : Lord God 
 Almighty. . . ." 
 
 * Aristides, Apology, 16 : ** And if any among the Christians is poor and 
 in want, and they have not overmuch of the means of Ufe, they fast two 
 or three days, in order that they may provide those in need with the food 
 they require." 
 
 A favourite phrase to describe widows and orphans was " the altar 
 of God " on which the sacrifices of almsgiving were offered up. It is used 
 by Polycarp, To the Philippians, 4 ; also in the Apostolic ConstittUions, 
 ii. 26 and iv. 3, of the orphans, the old and all who were supported by the 
 benevolence of the faithful Tertullian says of the widow : -* aram enim 
 Dei mundam proponi oportet," Ad Uxor. i. 7. 
 
 5 Clement of Alexandria spiritualizes the Old Testament sacrifices to 
 make them the forerunners of Christian prayers. " And that compounded 
 incense which is mentioned in the Law, is that which consists of many 
 tongues and voices in prayer j 5 : brought together in praises with a 
 pure mind, and just and right conduct, from holy works and righteous 
 prayer," Strom, vii. 6. Li the same chapter he says : " For the sacrifice 
 of the Church is the word breathing as incense from holy souls, the 
 sacrifice and the whole mind being at the same time unveiled to God," 
 
 4 Dialogut, 117^ 
 
A SACERDOTAL SOCIETY 87 
 
 public worship, where Christ gives Himself to His people, and 
 where His people dedicate themselves to Him in body, soul and 
 spirit, was always a sacrifice as prayers, praises and almsgi\ring 
 were. The Church of Christ was a sacerdotal society, its members 
 were all priests, and its services were all sacrifices.' 
 
 Such is the New Testament thought of the Church of Christ 
 — a Fellowship, a United Fellowship, a Visible Fellowship, 
 a Fellowship with an Authority bestowed upon it by its Lord, 
 and a sacerdotal Fellowship whose every member has the right 
 of direct access to the throne of God, bringing with him the 
 sacrifices of himself, of his praise and of his confession; 
 
 ' The conception of a mutilated Bacerdotalism, where one part of tiie 
 Christian worship is alone thought of as the true sacrifice, and a small 
 portion of the fellowship — the ministry — is declared to be the pries thood| 
 did not appear until the time of Cyprian, and was his invention^ 
 
A Christian Church in Apostolic Times 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 CAN we, piercing the mists of two thousand years, see a 
 Christian Church as it was in ApostoUc times — a tiny 
 island in a sea of surrounding heathenism ? Our vision gets 
 most assistance from the Epistles of St. Paul, which not only are 
 the oldest records of the literature of the New Testament, but 
 give us much clearer pictures of the earhest Christian assemblies 
 for edification and thanksgiving than are to be found in the Acts 
 of the Apostles. The more we study these epistles the more 
 clearly we discern that we must not project into these primitive 
 times a picture taken from any of the long organized churches 
 of our days. On the other hand, we can see many an analogy 
 in the usages of the growing churches of the mission field. This 
 is not to be wondered at. The primitive church and churches 
 growing among heathen surroundings have both to do with the 
 origins of organization. 
 
 For one thing, we must remember that the meetings of the 
 congregation were held in private houses ; ' and as the number 
 of beUevers grew, more than one house must have been placed 
 at the service of the brethren for their meetings for pubHc worship 
 and for the transaction of the necessary business of the congre- 
 gation. We are told that in the primitive church at Jerusalem 
 the Lord's Supper was dispensed in the houses,^ and that the 
 brethren met in the house of Mary the mother of John Mark,^ 
 
 ^ It is true that we read in Acts xix. 9, 10 that St. Paul held meetings 
 in the Schola of Tyrannus : but this is a unique instance,: 
 
 ^ Acts ii. 46 : kX^tc's re Kar oIkov aprov. 
 
 3 Acts xii. 12 : " The house of Mary, the mother of John whose sur- 
 name was Mark ; where many were gathered together and were praying,-} 
 
 41 
 
42 A CHRISTIAN CHUECH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 in the house of James the brother of our Lord,' and probably 
 elsewhere. At the close of the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul 
 sends greetings to three, perhaps five, groups of brethren gathered 
 roimd clusters of distinguished Christians whom he names. One 
 of these groups he calls a " church," and the others were pre- 
 sumably so also.* The account of Saul, the persecutor, making 
 havoc of the Church, entering every house and haling men and 
 women to prison, reads like a record of the persecution of the 
 Huguenots among the house-churches of Reformation times in 
 France, or like raids on house-conventicles in the Covenanting 
 times in Scotland. It becomes evident too as we study these 
 early records that when it was possible, that is, when any member 
 had a sufficiently large abode and was willing to open his house 
 to the brethren, comparatively large assemblies, including all 
 the Christians of the town or neighbourhood, met together at 
 stated times and especially on the Lord's Day, for the service 
 of thanksgiving. Gains was able to accommodate all his fellow 
 Christians, and was the " host of the whole Church." ' 
 
 Traces of these earUest house-churches survived in happier 
 days. The ground plan of the earliest Roman church, dis- 
 covered in 1900 in the Forum at Rome, is modelled not on the 
 basilica or public hall, but on the audience hall of the wealthy 
 Roman burgher, and the recollections of the familiar surround- 
 ings at the meetings in the house-churches probably guided 
 
 ' Acts xxL 18; xiL 17; 
 
 « Rom. xvi 3-5 : " Salute Prisca and Aquila ,- s : and the church 
 that is in their house " ; xvi 14 : " Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, 
 Patrobas, Hennas, and the brethren that are with them " ; 15 : " Salute 
 Philologus and JuUa, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the 
 saints that are with them " ; 10 : " Salute them which are of the house- 
 hold of Aristobulus " ; 11: ** Salute them of the household of Narcissus." 
 The groups saluted in verses 10 and 11 may have been a number of freed- 
 men or slaves belonging to the households of the two wealthy men men- 
 tioned ; but the other three groups are evidently house-churches. 
 
 St. Paul sends salutations to other house-churches ; to that meeting 
 in the house of Philemon at Colossae (Philem. 2), to that meeting in the 
 house of Nymphas in Laodicea (CoL iv, 15), and to that meeting in the 
 house of Stephanas (1 Cor, xvi. 15), 3 Rom. xvi 23» 
 
HOUSE CHUECHES 48 
 
 the pencil of the architect who first planned the earliest public 
 buildings dedicated to Christian worship.' Old liturgies which 
 enjoin th6 deacon, at the period of the service when the Lord's 
 Supper is about to be celebrated, to command the mothers to take 
 their babies on their knees, bring ^ with them memories of these 
 homely gatherings in private houses, which lasted down to the 
 close of the second century and probably much later, except 
 in the larger towns.^ 
 
 It is St. Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians^ who gives 
 us the most distinct picture of the meetings of the earliest 
 Christian communities. The brethren appear to have had three 
 distinct meetings — one for the purposes of edification by prayer 
 and exhortation, another for thanksgiving which began with a 
 
 ^ Compare C. Dehio, Die Genesis der christlichen Basilika in the Sitz- 
 ensber. d. Miinchen. Akad. d. Wiss. 1882, ii. 301 £f. 
 
 ^ In the so-called Liturgy of St. Clement there is the following rubric : — 
 
 ?• The order of James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee.: 
 
 " And I James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, command that 
 forthwith the deacon say, 
 
 " Let none of the hearers, none of the unbelievers, none of the heterodox 
 stay.! Ye who have prayed the former prayer, depart. Mothers^ take up 
 your children. Let us stand upright to present unto the Lord our offer- 
 ings with fear and trembling.'' Neale and Littledale, Translations of 
 Primitive Liturgies^ p. 75. 
 
 The writer had the privilege of worshipping in a house-church in the 
 Lebanon under the shoulder of Sunim in the autumn of 1888. The long 
 low vaulted kitchen had been swept and garnished for the occasion, 
 though some of the pots still stood in a comer. The congregation 
 sat on the floor — the men together in rows on the right and the women 
 in rows on the left. During the services which preceded the Holy Com- 
 munion, babies crawled about the floor making excursions from mother 
 to father and back again. When the non-communicants had left, and 
 the " elements," as we say in Scotland, were being uncovered, the mothers 
 secured the straggling babies and kept them on their laps during the whole 
 of the communion service, as was enjoined in the ancient rubric quoted 
 above. 
 
 3 The earliest trace we find of buildings set apart exclusively for Chris- 
 tian worship dates from the beginning of the third century (202-210) : 
 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, vii. 5. Clement speaks of a building 
 erected in honour of God, while he insists that it is the assembly of the 
 people and not the place where they assemble that ought to be called 
 the churchj 
 
44 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 common meal and ended with the Holy Supper/ and a third 
 for the business of the little society. 
 
 I. In his description of the first the apostle introduces us 
 to an earnest company of men and women full of restrained 
 enthusiasm, which might soon become unrestrained. We hear 
 of no officials appointed to conduct the services. The brethren 
 fill the body of the hall, the women sitting together, in all prob- 
 ability on the one side, and the men on the other ; behind them 
 are the inquirers ; and behind them, clustering round the door, 
 unbelievers, whom curiosity or some other motive has attracted, 
 and who are welcomed to this meeting " for the Word." 
 
 The service, and probably each part of the service, began 
 with the benediction : " Grace be to you and peace from God 
 our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," which was followed by 
 an invocation of Jesus and the confession that He is Lord.* 
 One of the brethren began to pray ; then another and another ; 
 one began the Lord's Prayer,' and all joined ; each prayer was 
 followed by a hearty and fervent "Amen."* Then a hymn 
 was sung ; then another and another, for several of the brethren 
 
 ' The beet account of the Ag<ipe if in Keating's The Agape and the 
 Eucharist (1901). 
 
 * St Paul doee not mention the benediction as forming part of the 
 Christian worship, but the way in which it occurs regularly at the begin- 
 ning of hia epistlee, preserving always the same form« warrants us in sup- 
 posing its liturgical use in the manner above indicated. The invocation 
 of Jesus as the Lord is made the test of all Christian public utterance for 
 edification, and must have preceded the prophetic addresses if not the 
 whole service : 1 Cor. xiL 3. 
 
 3 The use of the Lord's prayer is not mentioned but it may be inferred. 
 " Paul nowhere mentions the Lord's prayer. But we may assume that 
 we have a trace of it in Rom. viiL 15, and in GaL iv. 6. In speaking of 
 the right to call God Father, he gives the Aramaic form for father, in each 
 instance adding a translation ; and this is only to be explained by sup- 
 posing that he had in mind a formula which was known wherever the 
 Gospel had penetrated, and which, by preserving the original language, 
 invedted the name with peculiar solemnity, in order to maintain its sig- 
 nificance unimpaired in the believer's consciousness." Weizsiicker, The 
 Apostolic Age, ii. p. 258 (Eng. Trans.). According to the Didache the Lord's 
 Prayer was to be said three times every day {Did, viii,)^ 
 
 4 1 Cor, xivi IS. 
 
THE MEETING FOB EDIFICATION 46 
 
 have composed or selected liymns at home which they wish to 
 be sung by the congregation.' Several of these hymns are pre- 
 served in the New Testament, and one is embodied in one of our 
 Scotch paraphrases :* — 
 
 To Him be power divine ascribed^ 
 And endless blessings paid; 
 Salvation, glory, joy, remain 
 For ever on His Head? 
 
 Thou hast redeemed us with Thy Bloodj 
 And set the prisoners free ; 
 
 « 1 Cor. xiv; 26j 
 
 * If it be permitted, as I think it is, to believe that the author of the 
 Apocalypse used the outline of the Christian worship of the earliest age 
 as the canvas on which he painted his glorious prophetic visions, 
 then we can disentangle many a short hymn used in the services of the 
 apostoUc Church and also get many a detail about that service. The 
 paraphrase quoted above combines two of the songs given in Revelation 
 (v. 9-13). We have another in xv. 3 f. : — 
 
 Great and marvellous are Thy workSj; 
 
 Lord God the Almighty ; 
 
 Righteous and true are Thy waysj 
 
 Thou King of the Ages. 
 
 Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy Namet 
 
 For Thou only art Holy ; 
 
 All the Nations shall come and worship before Thee; 
 
 For Thy righteous acts have been made manifest; 
 
 and yet another in xi. 17 : — 
 
 We give Thee thanks, Lord God, the Almighty,- 
 
 Which art and which wast; 
 
 Because Thou hast taken Thy great power and didst reigiij 
 
 And the Nations were wroth. 
 
 And Thy wrath came. 
 
 And the time of the dead to be judged. 
 
 And the time to give their reward to Thy servanta,- 
 
 To the prophets and to the saints. 
 
 And to them that fear Thy Name, 
 
 The small and the great; 
 
 And to them who destroy the earthy 
 
 It is likely that the singing was antiphonal ; there are alternate strophes 
 in the hymns in the heavenly worship, and PUny says that the Christians 
 " carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem " (Ep. 96 [97]). 
 
46 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 Thou mad'st us kings and priests to God^ 
 And we shall reign with Thee, 
 
 m m nt m m 
 
 To Him that sits upon the throne 
 The God whom we adore, 
 And to the Lamb that once was slaloj 
 Be glory evermore,' 
 
 After the hymns came reading from the Old Testament Scriptures, 
 and readings or recitations concerning the life and death, the 
 sayings and deeds of Jesus.' Then came the " instruction " — 
 sober words for edification, based on what had been read, and 
 coming either from the gift of " wisdom," or from that intuitive 
 power of seeing into the heart of spiritual things which the 
 apostle calls " knowledge." ' Then came the moment of greatest 
 expectancy. It was the time for the prophets, men who be- 
 lieved themselves and were believed by their brethren to be 
 specially taught by the Holy Spirit, to take part. They started 
 forward, the gifted men, so eager to impart what had been given 
 them, that sometimes two or more rose at once and spoke to- 
 gether ; * and sometimes when one was speaking the message 
 came to another, and he leapt to his feet,' increasing the emotion 
 
 ' Sooieh Parapfurases, Ixv.- 7-1 li 
 
 * St Paul doee not mention the reading of Scripture in his order of 
 worship ; but it must have been there. In Mb epistles to the Corinthians, 
 to confine ourselves to them, he implies such a knowledge of the Old 
 Testament and of deeds and sayings of Jesus as could only be got from 
 the continuous public reading of the Scriptures, and the reciting sentences 
 about Jesus. He takes it for granted that the Old Testament Scriptures 
 are known and known to be the law for life and conduct, in 1 Cor. vL 16 ; 
 ix. 8-13 ; xiv. 21 ; 2 Cor. vL 16, 18 ; viil 16 ; ix. 9. In the beginning 
 of 1 Cor. XV. he clearly refers to formal statements, not yet perhaps com- 
 mitted to writing, which he himself had handed over as he had received 
 them, and which recited the facts about the sayings and deeds of Jesus. 
 The opening and reading from the book comes after the singing in the 
 heavenly worship (Rev. v. vi). 
 
 3 Instruction (StSaxij). teaching or doctrine includes the -- wisdom " 
 and " knowledge '■- of 1 Cor. xiL 8 ; -■ wisdom,"- (Aoyos oro^ias) is 
 described in 1 Cor. iL 7 ; vi 5 ; and " knowledge '' (Xoyo? yvuxT€oy:) in 
 2 Cor. X. 5 ; xL 6 ; and perhaps the ttiVtis of 1 Cor, xiL 9, which may mean 
 depth of loyal spiritual experience^ 
 
 ♦ 1 Cor, xiv. 31. 3 1 Cor; xivi 30i 
 
THE MEETING FOR EDIFICATION 47 
 
 and taking from the edification; When tlie prophets were 
 silent, first one, then another, and sometimes two at once, began 
 strange ejaculatory prayers,^ in sentences so rugged and dis- 
 jointed that the audience for the most part could not understand, 
 and had to wait till some of their number, who could follow the 
 strange utterances, were ready to translate them into intelHgible 
 language.* Then followed the benediction : " The Grace of 
 the Lord Jesus be with you all " ; the " kiss of peace" ; and 
 the congregation dispersed. Sometimes during the meeting, at 
 some part of the services, but oftenest when the prophets were 
 speaking, there was a stir at the back of the room, and a heathen, 
 who had been hstening in careless curiosity or in barely con- 
 cealed scorn, suddenly felt the sinful secrets of his own heart 
 revealed to him, and pushing forward fell down at the feet of the 
 speaker and made his confession,^ while the assembly raised the 
 doxology: "Blessed be God, the Father of the Lord Jesus, 
 for evermore,* Amen." 
 
 ' I have followed Weizsacker's conception of what was meant by speaking 
 -' in a tongue."' These things have to be noted about the phenomenon^ 
 It occurred in prayer only (1 Cor. xiv; 2, 14) ; it appeared like a soHloquy 
 (1 Cor. xiv. 2) ; the speaker edified himself (xiv. 4), but seems to have lost 
 conscious control over himself (xiv. 14) ; what was said was not intelli- 
 gible to others (xiv. 2) ; it could be compared to the sound of a trumpet 
 which gave no clear call (xiv. 7, 8) ; or to the use of a foreign and bar- 
 barous language (xiv. 10, 11) ; the speaker in a tongue ought to interpret 
 what he has said, and that he may be able to do this he ought to pray 
 for divine assistance (xiv. 13) ; that such speaking was not all of one sort 
 — there were " kinds of tongues '' (xii. 10). Upon the whole then we may 
 conceive it to have been rapt ejaculatory prayer uttered during unre- 
 strained emotion, where words often took the place of sentences. This 
 enables us to see how brethren, who were sympathetic enough, could 
 follow the obscure windings of thought and expression, and interprets 
 Our knowledge is exclusively derived from 1 Cor. xiv. ; the two passages 
 in Acts X. 46 ; xix. 6, and the references in the post-apostolic period do 
 not enUghten us. Compare Heimici, Daa Erste Sendschreiben an die 
 Korinther, pp. 376-393 ; Bleek, Studien u. Kritiken (1829), pp. 3-79 ; 
 Hilgenfeld, Die Glossolalie in der alien Kirche, Leipzig, 1850. This " gift " 
 of tongues is referred to by Irenaeus, v.. 6, and Tertullian, Advi Marcioni 
 V. 8j « 1 Cor, xiv. 27, 28. 3 l Cor. xiv. 25. 
 
 4 The other form of doxology common to St, Paul's epistles ia " Unto 
 
48 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 Such was a Christian meeting for public worship in Corinth 
 in apostolic times ; and foreign as it may seem to us, the like 
 can be still seen in mission fields among the hot-blooded people 
 of the East. I have witnessed everything but the speaking 
 " with tongues " in meetings of native Christians in the Deccan 
 in India, when European influence was not present to restrain 
 Eastern enthusiasm and condense it in Western moulds. 
 
 The meeting described by the apostb is not to be taken as 
 Bomething which might be seen in Corinth but was peculiar 
 to that city ; it may be taken as a type of the Christian meeting 
 throughout the Gentile Christian Churches ; for the Apostle, 
 in his suggestions and criticisms, continually speaks of what 
 took place throughout all the churches.' 
 
 It is to be observed that if the apostle finds fault with some 
 things, he gives the order of the service and expressly approves 
 of every part of it, even of the strange ejaculatory prayers.* He 
 gives his Corinthian converts one broad principle, which he ex- 
 pects them to apply for themselves in order to better their service. 
 Everything is to be done for the edification of the brethren, and 
 the first qualification for edification is that all things be done 
 " decently and in order," for God is not a God of confusion but 
 of peace.' He gives examples of his principle. The prophets 
 were to restrain themselves ; they were to speak one at a time, 
 and not more than two or three at one meeting ; * and those 
 who prayed " in tongues " were to keep silence altogether unless 
 some one who could interpret was present, for it is better to 
 speak five words with understanding than ten thousand in a 
 tongue. The women too who had the gift of prophecy were to 
 
 God our Father, be glory for ever. Amen." These doxologies are found 
 running through St. Paul's and other epistles in the New Testament 
 They are used to end a prophetic utterance, or an exposition of divine 
 wisdom, and they occur in the description of the heavenly worship in the 
 Apocalypse. * 1 Cor. xiv. 33 ; xi 16. 
 
 * 1 Cor. xiv. 39. The order of service is given by St. Paul in 1 Cor^ 
 xiv. 26 ; where the *' psalm " includes the supplication and thanksgiving 
 of JiTi I6i s 1 Cor, xiv. 33, 40» 4 1 Cor, xiv, 29-33^ 
 
THE MEETING FOR EDIFICATION 49 
 
 use it in private, and not start forward at the public meeting 
 and deliver their message there. So far from finding fault 
 with the kind of meeting described, St. Paul seems to look on the 
 manifestation of these gifts of praise, prayer, teaching, and 
 prophecy, within the congregation at Corinth, as an evidence 
 that the Christian community there was completely furnished 
 within its own membership with all the gifts needed for the 
 building up in faith and works.' 
 
 What cannot fail to strike us in this picture is the untram- 
 melled Hberty of the worship, the possibility of every male 
 member of the congregation taking part in the prayers and the 
 exhortations, and the consequent responsibihty laid on the 
 whole community to see that the service was for the edification 
 of all. "When we consider the rebukes that the apostle considered 
 it necessary to administer, it is also somewhat surprising to find 
 so few injunctions which take the form of definite rules for 
 public worship, and to observe the confidence which the apostle 
 had that if certain broad principles were laid down and observed, 
 the community was of itself able to conduct all things with that 
 attention to decency and order which ensured edification. 
 
 Our wonder is apt to be increased when we remember the social 
 surroundings and conditions of these Corinthian Christians. 
 They were a number of burghers, freedmen and slaves, who, 
 as their names show, were mostly of Roman origin, gathered 
 from the wealthiest and most profligate city on the Mediter- 
 ranean. The population of Corinth was as mixed as that of 
 Alexandria. At Cenchrea, on the eastern shore of the isthmus, 
 the wealth of Asia and Egypt poured in, and was sent ofi to 
 Rome and Italy from Lechaeum, the western harbour. The 
 flow of commerce brought with it the peoples, religions and habits 
 of all lands. The religion of the city was a strange medley of 
 cults Eastern and Western. Aphrodite and Astarte, Isis and 
 Cybele, were among her deities ; Romans, Jews, Egjrptians 
 and Phoenicians among her people. The familiar illustrations 
 ' 1 Cor, xii. 4 £E, : cfi Eph; iv, 16. 
 
 CM. 4: 
 
50 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOUC TIMES 
 
 which the apostle uses in his epistles indicate the habits of the 
 population. He speaks of the arena and the wild-beast fights/ 
 of the theatre,* of the boxing match and the stadium race,^ 
 of the great idol-feasts and processions.* The city, we know, 
 was honeycombed with "gilds" — rehgious corporations for 
 the practices of the Eastern religions, and trades unions for the 
 artizans and the seamen. The Christian society was gathered 
 from all classes ; from the poor and the slaves,' from the well- 
 to-do like the city treasurer,^ and an elder from the Jewish 
 Synagogue ; '' it included ladies of rank Uke Chloe,® and men of 
 abounding wealth like Gaius.' It was this heterogenous society, 
 including so many jarring elements, that the apostle expected 
 to develop into an orderly Church of Christ in virtue of the 
 ** gifts " of the Spirit implanted within it. 
 
 2. It is by no means so easy to get a clear picture of the second 
 meeting of the Christian community — the meeting for thanks- 
 giving — as it is to see what the meeting for edification was Hke.'° 
 With the latter we have only to remove the blemishes which the 
 apostle found, and the vision of the meeting as he approved of 
 it stands clearly before us. But the abuses which had corrupted 
 
 « 1 Cor. XV. 32. • 1 Cor. iv. 9 ; vii, 31« s 1 Cor. ix. 24-27. 
 
 ♦ 1 Cor. viiL 10. 5 i Cor. L 26. * Erastus, Rom. xvi, 23, 
 
 7 Crispufl, Acta xviii. 8 ; 1 Cor, L 14, * 1 Cor, i, 11| 
 
 9 Rom. xvL 23 ; 1 Cor. L 14. 
 
 '° It is Btztoige that, apart from the deBcriptions of the Last Supper 
 in the Synoptio Gospels (and for obvious reasons they cannot be taken 
 as descriptions of the way in which the Eucharistic service was celebrated 
 in the Apostolic and post- Apostolic Church), we have no very clear account 
 of how the Service of Thanksgiving was observed among the primitive 
 Christians till the middle of the second century, when we have the state- 
 ment of Justin Martyr in his Apology ^ L 67. The earliest account, so 
 far as I know, which gives as full a description of the Holy Communion 
 as we have of the meeting for exhortation in the First Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians, is to be found in the Canons of Hijypdyiua (Gebhardt and Har- 
 nack, TtxU Ui Untersuchungen, VL iv. pp. 118-22). Yet the whole line 
 of the history of worship, of the organization of the local churches, and 
 of the administration of ecclesiastical property follows the development 
 of this part of the public worship of the Church. We can learn many 
 details, but we have no complete account In the account of the Last 
 
THE MEETING FOE THANKSGIVING 51 
 
 the meeting for thanksgiving had so changed it, from what it 
 ought to have been, that it could not serve what it was meant 
 to do. The framework of the degenerate meeting and of the 
 same gathering re- organized according to the apostle's directions 
 can easily be traced. The members of the Christian community 
 in Corinth assembled together in one place, where they ate 
 together a meal which they themselves provided ; and this 
 meeting ended with the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The 
 Holy Supper was the essential part. The common meal and 
 what belonged to it were accessories, the casket to contain the 
 one precious jewel, the body to be vivified by this soul. It 
 was the Holy Supper that really brought them together; but 
 their conduct had made it impossible for them to be the Lord's 
 guests at His Table.' The apostle tells the Corinthians that their 
 meeting could not be a Lord's Supper nor even a love-feast 
 if each ate his own meal and one was hungry, while another 
 drank his fill.^ The common meal showed that all the brethren 
 belonged to one hving organism which was the Church in Corinth, 
 of which the Lord was the Head. Nothing could so wound 
 this thought as making the distinctions between rich and poor, 
 which had been done. It banished the whole idea of fellow- 
 ship, and sensuality was introduced where, above all places, 
 it ought to have been absent.^ God had manifested His dis- 
 pleasure by sending sickness and death into the congregation/ 
 The apostle lays down a general principle, and gives instances 
 of its appHcation, which if followed out will make the common 
 meal a fitting introduction to the Holy Supper, and then shows 
 how the Lord's Supper itself is to be solemnly and fitly cele- 
 
 Supper, here in the Epistle to the Corinthians, in the Didache{xi 1), in the 
 description of Pliny, in Gement of Alex. {Paidagogos, ii. 1), in Ignatius 
 {Ad SmyrncBOS, viii. ), the celebration follows a common meal ; in Justin 
 it takes place during the meeting for exhortation ; in the Canons of Hip- 
 polytus, the meeting for exhortation, the Holy Communion, and the Lord's 
 day common meal are all separate from each others 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xi 20^ « 1 Cor. xi. 21. 
 
 3 1 Cor. xi. 22, 4 1 Cor, xi. 30-32j 
 
52 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 brated according to the commands of Jesus. If we take the 
 principles which the apostle lays down and suggestions from other 
 portions of the New Testament, with those which come from 
 the earliest post-apostolic descriptions of similar meetings, we 
 may perhaps venture to reconstruct the scene. 
 
 The apostle shows that this meeting for thanksgiving is to be 
 a social meal representing the fellowship which subsists between 
 all the members of the brotherhood, because they have each a 
 personal fellowship with their Lord. They are therefore to 
 eat all together, and if anyone is too hungry to wait for his 
 neighbours he ought to eat at home. It is also to be a fitting 
 introduction for the Lord's Supper, which both symboHses 
 and imparts that personal fellowship with Christ which is the 
 permanent basis of their fellowship with each other. This 
 thought that the Holy Supper is to come at the end of it must 
 dominate the meeting during its entire duration. From be- 
 ginning to end the brethren are at the Lord's Table and are 
 His guests. 
 
 The whole membership of the Church at Corinth met together 
 at one place on a fixed day, the Lord's day,* for their Thanks- 
 giving Meeting. The meeting was confined to the member- 
 ship ; even catechumens, as well as inquirers and unbeUevers, 
 were excluded. The partakers brought provisions, accord- 
 ing to their ability. Some of the brethren, who belonged to 
 that honoured number who were recognized to have the prophetic 
 gitt, presided.* The food brought was handed over to them, 
 and they distributed so that the superfluity of the rich made 
 up for the lack of the poor. They also conducted the devo- 
 tional services at the feast and at the Holy Supper which fol- 
 lowed. The presidents began with prayers of thanksgiving 
 for the food prepared for them and before them ; ^ it was an 
 
 ' The Lord's day : Acta xx. 7 ; Didache, xiv. 1 ; Canons of Hippolytus 
 {TexU u, Vnlersuchungen, VL iv. p. 106, cl p. 183 n,). 
 
 * Didache^ x. 
 
 3 The beautiful prayer given in the Didache is (x.) : " We thank Thee, 
 Holy Father, for Thy holy name, which Thou ha^t caused to dwell in our 
 
THE MEETING FOR THANKSGIVING 53 
 
 evidence of the bounty of God the Creator ; a pledge of His 
 fellowship with them His creatures ; a warrant for their con- 
 tinuous trust in His Fatherly care and providence ; and a sug- 
 gestion of the bounties of His redemption which were more 
 fully symbolised in the Holy Supper which followed.^ During 
 the feast the brethren were taught to regard themselves as in 
 God's presence and His guests ; but this did not hinder a pre- 
 vailing sense of gladness, nor prevent them satisfying their 
 hunger and their thirst ; God the creator had placed the food 
 and drink before them for that purpose.^ It did prevent all 
 
 hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which Thou hast 
 made known to us through Jesus Thy Servant ; to Thee be the glory 
 for ever. Thou, Lord Almighty, didst create all things for Thy Name's 
 sake, both food and drink Thou didst give to men for enjojmient, in order 
 that they might give thanks to Thee ; but to us Thou hast graciously 
 given spiritual food and drink and eternal Ufe through Thy Servant. 
 Before all things we thank Thee that Thou art Mighty ; to Thee be the glory 
 for ever. Remember Thy Church, Lord, to dehver it from every evil and 
 to make it perfect in Thy Love, and gather it from the four winds, the 
 sanctified, into Thy Kingdom. Let Grace come and let this world 
 pass away. Hosanna to the Son of David, Whoever is holy, let him 
 come ; whoever is not let him depart Maranatha. Amen." This 
 prayer was to be said at the dose of the feast. " Now after ye are filled 
 thus do ye give thanks "- is the introductory sentence. It is also to be 
 remembered that when prophets conducted the love-feast they were 
 not confined to prescribed prayers. " Permit the prophets to give thanks 
 as much as they will." 
 
 ^ The common meals which our Lord shared with His disciples were 
 always looked upon as showing His intimate fellowship with them, and 
 spiritual associations clustering round the thought were enhanced by His 
 frequent comparison of the Kingdom of God to a common meal (Matt, 
 xxii. 4 ; Luke xiv. 15 f. ; Luke xxii. 30 ; cl Rev. liL 20). Those who had 
 sat at meat with Him supposed that they had a claim upon Him (Luke 
 xiii. 26) ; while the miraculous feeding was a picture of the providence 
 of God which ought to awaken our continuous trust in Him. There are 
 evidences of all these thoughts. 
 
 * The note of gladness is always marked. The brethren in the primitive 
 Church at Jerusalem " breaking bread at home, did eat with gladness 
 and singleness of heart." Acts ii. 46 ; cf. Acts xxvii. 33-35. " Both 
 food and drink Thou didst give to man for enjoyment, in order that they 
 might give thanks to Thee," Didache, x. " Edant bibantque ad satietatem, 
 neque vero ad ebrietatem ; sed in divina praesentia cum laude Dei," Carum* 
 of Hippolytm {Texte «» UrUerauchungeny Yl^ ivi p, 107)i 
 
64 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 unseemly behaviour, all unbrotherly conduct in speech or action, 
 and it insisted on the absence of all who were at variance with 
 their neighbours until the quarrel had been put an end to.* 
 During the feast hymns were sung at intervals, and probably 
 short exhortations were given by the prophets.* Then when 
 all was decently j&nished the Holy Communion was solemnly 
 celebrated as commanded by the apostle. 
 
 3. It is to be remembered that the apostle regarded the 
 community of Christians at Corinth as something more than a 
 , society for performing together acts of public worship, whether 
 eucharistic or for prayer, praise and exhortation. It was a little 
 self-governing republic. This made the third kind of meet- 
 ing necessary. The common worship of the society, especially 
 the eucharistic service, united it with the whole brotherhood of 
 believers throughout the world, and showed it to be in the 
 
 ' " But every one that hath controversy with his friend let him not 
 come together with you until they be reconciled," Didache, xiv. In the 
 special " Lord's day *' love-feast which may be given to the poor, as set 
 forth in the Canons of Hippdytus, it is said : " Ne quis multum loquatur 
 neve clamet, ne forte voe irrideant, neve sint scandalo hominibus, ita ut 
 in contumeliam vertatur qui voe invitavit, cum appareat, vos a bono 
 ordine aberrare" {Textty etc. VL iv. p. 108). These love-feasts naturally 
 became the means of helping the poor attached to the Christian congre- 
 gations, as we can see in the primitive Church at Jerusalem (Acts vi. 1, 2), 
 and from such ancient ecclesiastical manuals as the Canons of Hippdyttis. 
 Gentile Christians had been accustomed to pagan banquets and the more 
 modest common meals of the ** gilds," and could the more readily accom- 
 modate themselves to the Christian observance, but this familiarity with 
 the heathen usages would the more readily lead to such corruptions as 
 St. Paul censures in the Corinthian Church. Ct W. Liebenam, Zur 
 Oeschichte u. Organisation des Rdmischen Vereinswesens, pp. 260-264. 
 Liebenam thinks that the evidence goes to prove that the eating at these 
 common meals of the confraternities was for the most part frugal and that 
 the excess arose from over-drinking. He and Foucart {Des associations 
 rdigietises chez les Orecs, p. 153 ff.) have collected the evidence. The ex- 
 cesses at Corinth arose from the pagan associations connected either with 
 these common meals of the contratemities or more probably with the 
 temple banquets (1 Cor. x. 14-22). 
 
 2 " Psalmos reoitent, antequam recedant,'' Can^ Hippi {TextCf VLi in 
 I06}i 
 
THE CONGREGATIONAL MEETING B5 
 
 succession from tlie ancient people of God ; ' but it had a cor- 
 porate unity of its own whicli manifested itself in actions for 
 which the whole body of the Corinthian behevers were respon- 
 sible. This local unity took shape in the meeting of the congre- 
 gation which is expressly called the " Church " ^ by the apostle, 
 at which all the members apparently had the right of appearing 
 and taking part in the discussion and voting — women at first 
 as well as men. 
 
 This meeting had charge of the discipline of the congregation 
 and of the fraternal relations between the community and other 
 Christian communities. Letters seeking apostoUc advice were 
 prepared and dispatched in its name ; ^ it appointed delegates 
 to represent the church and gave them letters of commendation,* 
 and in all probabiHty it took charge of the money gathered in 
 the great collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem.^ The whole 
 administration of the external affairs of the congregation was 
 under its control ; and this was a work of very great import- 
 ance, because it was this fraternal intercourse that made visible 
 the essential unity of the whole Church of Christ. 
 
 It exercised the same complete control over the internal 
 administration of the affairs of the congregation. It expelled 
 unworthy members ; ^ it deliberated upon and came to con- 
 clusions about the restoration of brethren who had fallen away 
 and showed signs of repentance.^ It arrived at its decisions 
 when necessary by voting, and the vote of the majority decided 
 the case.^ We hear nothing in the epistles of a common congre- 
 gational fund for purposes common to the brethren ; if such 
 existed it was probably under the care of this meeting also* 
 
 All these things implied independent self-government ; and 
 the apostle asks the brethren to undertake another task which 
 shows even more clearly how independent and autonomous he 
 
 ' 1 Cor. X. 1-4. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 19, 34, 35 ; xi. 18.' 
 
 3 1 Cor. vii. 1. The epistle known as the First Epistle of Clement begins : 
 " The Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, elect and consecrate, 
 greeting."- 4 2 Cor. iii. 1, 2 ; viii. 19, 3 1 Cor. xvi, 1-2^ 
 
 6 1 CoTi Vi ISi 7 2 Cor. 11. 6-9, » 2 Cor, ii, 6i 
 
56 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 expected the congregation to be. He censured Christians for 
 bringing their fellow-believers before the ordinary law-courts 
 should disputes arise between brethren ; he urged that such 
 matters should be settled within the congregation. He used 
 stronger language about this than about any other side of the 
 practical expression of their religious life. " Dare any of you," 
 he says, " having a matter against his neighbour, go to law 
 before the unrighteous, and not before the saints ? " * To 
 grasp the full significance of his meaning we must remember 
 that the apostle is speaking to men living in the busiest com- 
 mercial city of the age, and to a Uttle community within it 
 which included city officials, merchants, and artizans, as well 
 as slaves. He is not addressing men belonging to a small rural 
 village where life is simple and the occasions of dispute few and 
 mainly personal. The Christians of Corinth lived in the grasp 
 of a highly artificial and complicated commercial life, where 
 the complexity of affairs offered any number of points at which 
 differences of opinion might honestly arise between brethren 
 
 ' 1 Cor. vi h This advice of St, Paul passed into the ecolesiastical 
 legislation of the primitive Church. We read in the Apoatolic Con- 
 ititxUiona (IL xlvi. xlviL xlviiL xlii.) : " Let not tlierefore the heathen 
 know of your differences among one another, nor do you receive imbe- 
 lievers as witnesses against yourselves, nor be judged by them : : : but 
 render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's ... as tribute, taxes 
 or poll-money. .- .- . Let your judicatures be held on the second day 
 of the week, that if any controversy arise about your sentence, having 
 an interval till the Sabbath, you may be able to set the controversy right 
 and to reduce those to peace who have the contests one with another 
 before the Lord's day. Let the deacons and the elders be present at your 
 judicatures, to judge without acceptance of persons, as men of God with 
 clear conscience. .- ; : Do not pass the same sentence for every sin, 
 but one suitable to each crime, distinguishing all the several sorts of of- 
 fences with much prudence, the great from the Uttle. Treat a wicked action 
 after one manner, and a wicked word after another ; a bare intention 
 still otherwise ; ; . Some thou shalt curb with threatenings only ; 
 some thou shalt punish with fines to the poor ; some thou shalt mortify 
 with fastings ; others shalt thou separate according to the greatness 
 of their several crimes. . . .- When the parties are both present (for 
 we will not call them brethren until they receive each other in peace) 
 examine diligently concerning those who appear before you. 5 i ,** 
 
THE CONGREGATIONAL MEETING 67 
 
 related as masters and servants, buyers and sellers, traders 
 and carriers. It was men living in these surroundings whom the 
 apostle ordered to abstain from going before the ordinary law 
 courts for the purpose of setthng disputes which might arise 
 between them, and whom he commanded to create tribunals 
 within the community before which they were to bring all 
 differences. Have they not one single " wise man," he asks, 
 among them who could act as judge ? ' We are apt to forget 
 that Christianity came to establish a new social living as well 
 as a religion, and that from the first it demanded that all the 
 relations between man and man ought to be regulated on Chris- 
 tian principles. That means now that our national laws ought 
 to conform to the principles of the Gospel ; it meant then that 
 all disputes were to be settled within the Christian community, 
 and that nothing was to be taken before the heathen tribunals. 
 
 Such is the picture of a Christian church in the Apostolic 
 age, as it appears in the pages of the Epistles of St. Paul to the 
 Corinthians, and, although no such clear outline is given us of 
 any other Christian community, still we are warranted, as we 
 shall see, in assuming that the Church in Corinth did not differ 
 much from the other churches which came into being through 
 the mission work of the great apostle to the Gentiles." We 
 see a little self-governing repubhc — a tiny island in a sea of 
 surrounding paganism — with an active, eager, enthusiastic 
 life of its own. It has its meetings for edification, open to all 
 who care to attend, where the conversions are made which 
 multiply the little community ; its quieter meetings for thanks- 
 giving, where none but the believing brethren assemble, and 
 where the common meal enshrines the Holy Supper as the com- 
 mon fellowship among the brethren embodies the personal 
 but not soHtary fellowship which each beUever has with the 
 Redeemer ; its business meetings where it rules its members 
 
 « 1 Cor. vi. 6. 
 
 * Compare Weizsacker's The Apostolic Age, ii. 246-290, Heinrici, Das 
 Erste Sendschreiben des Aposiels Pavlua an die KoritUheTf pasairm 
 
68 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 in the true democratic fashion of a little village republic, and 
 attaches itself to other brotherhoods who share the same faith 
 and hope, trust in and live for the same Saviour, and have 
 things in common in this world as well as beyond it. The 
 meeting for thanksgiving represents the centre of spiritual 
 repose, the quiet source of active life and service ; the meeting 
 for edification, the enthusiastic, eager, aggressive side of the Hfe 
 and work ; and the business meeting, the deliberative and 
 practical action of men who recognize that they are in the 
 world though not of it. 
 
 We can see our brethren in the faith living, loving, working 
 together, quarrelling and making it up again, across these long 
 centuries, and all very human as we are. 
 
 The evidence for the independence and self-government of 
 the churches to which St. Paul addressed his epistles is so over- 
 whelming that it is impossible even to imagine the presence 
 within them of any ecclesiastical authority with an origin and 
 power independent of the assembly of the congregation, and th=i 
 apostle does not make the slightest allusion to any such govern- 
 ing or controUing authority, whether vested in one man or in a 
 group of men. The apostle was so filled with the sense of high 
 rank to which all Christians are raised in being called to be 
 " sons of God " through Jesus Christ, that in his view this 
 sublime position makes all believers of equal standing no matter 
 with what spiritual gifts and natural abihties particular in- 
 dividuals may be endowed.' It was a natural and practical 
 consequence of this thought that all beUevers should share 
 the responsibihties of control in the community to which they 
 belonged. So we find it as a matter of fact in the churches 
 to which St. Paul addressed his epistles. He did not write to 
 ecclesiastical persons to whom the brethren owed obedience 
 as to an authority different from, and superior to, the assembly 
 of the congregation. He addressed his letters to the whole 
 coEomunity, who, in his eyes, are responsible for the progress 
 « Gal, iiii 26-28 ; cf, 1 Cor.: xiiv xiiL 
 
THE MINISTRY 69 
 
 and good behaviour as for the misdeeds and decline of the 
 society and of individual Christians within it. His letters are 
 quite consistent with the existence of ministering officials who 
 owe their position to the assembly and are responsible in the 
 last resort to it ; but they are not consistent with the existence 
 within the community of any authority whose power comes 
 directly from a source outside the brotherhood. 
 
 In his letters to the Church at Corinth, the apostle makes 
 scant allusion to office-bearers of any kind. The meeting of 
 the congregation is the one thing which gathers up the unity 
 of administration within the community. The apostle appears 
 to acquiesce in this state of matters, unless we consider the query 
 as to whether there are no wise men within the society who can 
 settle disputes within the brotherhood to be a suggestion that 
 some kind of recognized officials are needed for the furtherance 
 of the orderly life of the local church. In verses 3-15 of the 
 last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, whether these be a 
 short letter addressed to the Church at Ephesus, as some think, 
 or whether they be an integral part of the letter to " all that be 
 in Romfc, beloved of God, called to be saints," the apostle ad- 
 dresses Christians who appear to be living in an even less or- 
 ganized condition of Christian fellowship. They form a unity 
 because of their common faith and love ; but that unity does 
 not appear to find expression even in one common congregational 
 meeting. Little companies, to whom the apostle unhesitatingly 
 gives the name of " churches," have gathered round prominent 
 persons who appear to have been the first converts, or those who 
 had placed their houses at the disposal of the brethren for hold- 
 ing meetings for worship, or those who had voluntarily done 
 special services to their fellow behevers. The same condition 
 of things is to be found atColossaeand at Laodicea. The apostle 
 sends greetings to persons of different sexes and positions in 
 life, but never to office-bearers as such. Nor among his many 
 exhortations does he allude to the need of organization under 
 hierarchical authority, still less does he prescribe a form of 
 
60 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 organization which was to be uniform throughout the whole 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 We do, however, find traces of an organization within the 
 Christian communities, if we use the word in the most general 
 way, in the Epistles of St. Paul. The meeting of the congre- 
 gation is almost as prominent in the Church of the Thessa- 
 lonians as it is at Corinth ; it exercises discipline ; ' it selects 
 faithful men to accompany the apostle to Jerusalem with the 
 money brought together in the great collection ; ' it evidently 
 has all administrative powers in its hands. But besides this, 
 we hear of men who are called " those who are over you in 
 the Lord," and the brethren of Thessalonica are told to value 
 them highly for their works' sake.' In the Corinthian Church 
 we hear of " gifts," of " helps " (ain-i\»h//e/p), anything that 
 could be done for the poor or outcast brethren, either by rich 
 and influential brethren, or by the devotion of those who stood 
 on no such eminence ; and guidances or " governments " {Kv^ep- 
 lojcrexf), men who by wise councils did for the community 
 what the steersman or pilot does for the ship.* These " gifts " 
 were bestowed on members of the community for the service 
 of all ; and men who were recognized to be able to guide wisely 
 as well as others from whom all kinds of subordinate service 
 could be expected, were present within the Christian comtmunity 
 at Corinth.' Again the Corinthian Christians are told " to be 
 in subjection " to Stephanas, the first convert, and others like 
 him who have ministered to the saints and who have laboured 
 among them, putting heart into their work.^ In the Epistle 
 
 » 1 Thees. v. 14. » 2 Cor. viil 19. 3 1 Thesa. v. 13, 
 
 ♦ Hort, The Christian Ecdesia, p. 159. 5 i Cor. xiL 28. 
 
 * 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16. The phrase " to minister unto the saints *' 
 (cts BuLKovLav Tots (xyioi?) corresponds with the StaKovelv rpaTrc^ai? of 
 Acts vi. 2. This ministry to the saints, which is connected with leader- 
 ship of some kind, is expanded in the Epistle to the Romans to include 
 L'beraUty, showing mercy and leadership (Rom. xii. 6-8) ; and these 
 three heads read Uke a brief summary of the qualifications of the elder 
 or episcopus enumerated in the First Epistle to Timothy (1 Tim. iii. 1-9). 
 In the First Epistle to the Thessalonians the thought of ministry to the 
 
THE MINISTRY 61 
 
 to the Romans there is express mention of men who are over their 
 brethren, and they are told to do their work diligently.' These 
 references and others show us that there were men in these 
 Christian societies who were recognized as leaders and who 
 rendered continuous and valued services to their brethren 
 by so doing. They may not have been office-bearers by election 
 and appointment, but they were engaged in doing the work 
 that office-bearers do in a Christian church. 
 
 Altogether apart, however, from the organization of the local 
 churches, whether developed or undeveloped, we find a ministry 
 which existed in all the churches of the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 and indeed in all the churches of the New Testament. We 
 meet everywhere with men who are caUed prophets, and who 
 occupy a distinguished place in the primitive churches. St. 
 Paul esteemed them highly. He placed them second to apostles 
 in his enumeration of the " gifts " bestowed by God on the 
 churches.* He exhorts the Corinthian Christians to cultivate 
 the " gift " of prophecy, and the Thessalonian Christians are 
 told to cherish " prophesyings." It becomes evident the more 
 these epistles of St. Paul are studied, that teaching and exhorta- 
 tion, associated afterwards in a very special manner with the 
 functions of rule and leadership, were in the hands of the prophets 
 to a very large extent in the apostolic Church, and that no 
 inquiry into the " ministry " of the primitive Church can omit 
 the functions and position of prophets and prophecy. 
 
 This brings us to consider the " ministry " and organization 
 of the churches in the apostolic age, a thing necessary to com- 
 plete our conception of what a Christian society was like in 
 these early times. The subject is interesting, but confessedly 
 difficult. Yet we have light enough, from the writings of the 
 New Testament and the earliest extra-canonic Hterature, to 
 
 saints includes the three heads of caring for the spiritual and bodily wanta 
 of the brethren, having oversight of moral behaviour, and leadership or 
 presidency — K07nu)VT€Sj vov^erovvrcs, and TrpoCoTdfievoL (1 ThesSj Vj 12)j 
 « Romi xiii 8i « 1 Cor. xii, 28^ 
 
62 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 show us that it was entirely unlike anything which has existed 
 in any part of the Christian Church from the beginning of the 
 third century downwards. 
 
 Before we begin to inquire what this ministry and organiza- 
 tion were, it may be useful to note two things : first, it must 
 be remembered that our Lord has clearly intimated that leader- 
 ship within His Church was to have a distinctive character 
 of its own ; and secondly, there is from the very first beginnings 
 of organization a clearly marked separation between two different 
 kinds of ministry.' 
 
 ' If we examine the various usee of the words " minister -* or " servant '* 
 or " deacon *' (Sioxot'Of ), ** he who ministers or serves "• (6 BiaKoviov) 
 •* ministry or service '* (Staxoi^ia), and '* to minister or to serve '* 
 [BiaKovtlv) we have the following extensive application : — 
 
 1. The ordinary service which a hired servant renders to his master, 
 
 such as waiting at table, etc., as in Luke xii. 37 and elsewhere. 
 
 2, Kindly personal attentions rendered to our Lord, as by St Peter's 
 
 mother-in law (Matt viii. 15 ; Mk. L 31 ; Luke iv. 39), by Martha 
 (La. X. 40 ; John xiL 2), or by the women from Galilee (Matt xxviL 
 S5 ; Mk. XY. 41 ; Luke viiL 3) ; or rendered to our Lord's followers 
 and looked on as done to Himself (Matt xxv. 44 ; Heb. vi. 10) ; 
 or rendered to St Paul by Timothy, Erastus and Onesimus 
 (Acts xix. 22 ; Philem. 13 ; 2 Tim. L 18). 
 8. The service of angels rendered to our Lord and to men (Matt iv. 11 ; 
 
 Mark L 13 ; Hcb. L 14). 
 4. The service rendered by the 0. T. economy (1 Peter I, 12 ; 2 Cor, 
 
 ill 7). 
 fi. The work of our Lord Himself (Matt xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45 ; Luke xxiL 
 
 26, 27 ; 2 Cor. iiL 8 ; v. 18 ; Rom. xv. 8). 
 «. WITHIN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH we find the foUowing 
 widely extended application : — 
 a. Discipleship in general (John xiL 26); 
 
 6, Service rendered to the Church because of -- gifts *• bestowed and 
 specially connected with the bestowal and posesssion of these 
 " gifts -' (Rom. xiL 7 ; 1 Cor. xiL 5 ; 1 Peter iv. 10. 11). 
 e. Hence all kinds of service, whether the " ministry of the Word 'i 
 or ministry not distinctly of the Word (Acts vL 2 ; Matt xx. 26 ; 
 xxiiL 11 ; Mark ix. 35 ; x. 43). 
 di Specifically the -■ ministry of the Word " (Acts vi. 4 ; Eph. iv. 12 ; 
 2 Tim. iv. 5) ; and most frequently the " Apostleship " (Acts 
 L: 17 ; XX. 24 ; xxL 19 ; Rom. xL 13 ; 2 Cor. iii. 3, 6 ; iv. 1 ; 
 vL 3 t ; 1 Tim. L 12 ; 1 Cor. iiL 5 ; Eph. iiL 7 ; CoL L 23, 25). 
 ti Service which was not a " ministry of the Word " : — Feeding the 
 
RULE, SEEVICE, AND GIFTS 63 
 
 The distinctive character of leadership in the Christian Church 
 is given in the saying of our Lord contained in Luke xxii. 26 : 
 " He that is greater among you let him become as the younger, 
 and he that is chief as he that doth serve " ; and this junction 
 of service and leadership is maintained throughout the Epistles 
 of St. Paul. The Corinthian Christians were to place them- 
 selves under the guidance of Stephanas and those Hke him who 
 had served them and laboured among them. Those that are 
 " over the Thessalonian brethren in the Lord " are the men 
 who spend most labour upon them. Everywhere service and 
 leadership go together. These two thoughts are continually 
 associated with a third, that of " gifts " ; for the quaUfications 
 which fit a man for service and therefore for rule within the 
 Church of Christ are always looked upon as special " gifts " of 
 the Spirit of God, or charismata.^ Thus we have three thoughts ; 
 
 poor (Acts vi. 1) ; providing, bringing and dispensing resources 
 in tlae time of famine (Acts xi. 29 ; xii. 25) ; organizing, gathering 
 and conveying the great collection for the poor saints at Jeru- 
 salem (Rom. XV. 25, 31 ; 2 Cor. viii. 4, 19, 20 ; ix. 1, 12, 13) ; 
 to which we may probably add the service of the whole Church 
 of Thyatira (Rev. ii. 19). 
 /,• Services rendered by specially named men, and which probably 
 included both the " ministry of the Word " and other kinds of 
 service : — The ministry of Stephanas (1 Cor. xvi. 15), of Archip- 
 pus (Col. iv. 17), of Tychicus (Eph. vi. 21 ; Col. iv. 7), of Epaphras 
 (CoL i. 7), and of Timothy (1 Thess. iii. 2 ; 1 Tim. iv. 6). 
 g^ Men who are office-bearers in a local church and are called " dea- 
 cons " as a title of office (1 Tim. iii. 8-13) ; men who may be 
 office-bearers but who may get the name appHed to them not 
 because of office but because of the work they do — a work which 
 has not yet ripened into a permanent office as in Phil. i. 1, and 
 as in Rom. xvi. 1 (" Phoebe, our sister, who is a deacon of the 
 Church which is at Cenchrea," and who is also called " patron- 
 ess "). 
 7i The idea of " rule '* is conveyed in Rom. xiii. 4, where kings are 
 called the " deacons " of God ; and in John xii. 26 ; Matt. xxv. 44 ; 
 Heb. vi. 10, where it is said that those who serve are honoured of 
 the Father, and where all service done to the Church or its mem- 
 bers is said to be done to our Lord Himself. 
 
 * The " gifts " (xapicr/x,aTa) are individual capacities or excellencies 
 laid hold on, strengthened, vivified and appUed by the Spirit to service 
 
64 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 of qualification, which is the " gift " of God ; the service to the 
 Church of Christ which these " gifts " enable those who possess 
 them to perform ; and lastly the promise that such service is 
 honoured by the Father/ and is the basis of leadership or rule 
 within the Church of Christ. 
 
 The earliest evidence we have for the beginnings of the or- 
 ganization of a local church is given in Acts vi., where we are 
 
 within the community. They are the natural capacities which men 
 poflsetB apart from their own power of acquiring them and which come 
 from the free bounty of Qod the Creator. Men are not all aUke ; their 
 capacities and natural powers differ; and thus when the Spirit works 
 through these powers there is nothing mechanical in the activities set in 
 motion. These natural endowments are laid hold on by the Spirit, 
 strengthened by His agency, and used, each of them, for a special service 
 {8iaKovia) within the Christian society. They may be the natural capa- 
 cities for teaching, for evangelization, for the vision, and utterances of 
 spiritual truths, for ecstatic praise, for leadership of men, for organiza- 
 tion, for duties to the poor and sick, for the performance of all the prac- 
 tical and social duties needed for the welfare of the community. These 
 natural endowments are seized by the Spirit and so influenced that they 
 become the specialized "gifts'* of the Spirit, and fit the possessors for 
 all kinds of service, so that as Chrysostom says, ** ^cpyi^/iara xai \apL(T' 
 fiara Kai SuiKOvCai SvofAartov Sia<^opai fiovat^ «rei Trpay/xaro to, airrd " 
 {Cat. 233). Lists of these ** gifts " are given, none of them being meant 
 to be exhaustive. In 1 Cor. xiL 4-1 1 appear : the word of wisdom (Xoyos 
 (To^uis), the word of knowledge (Xdyo? yfuKrcoif ), faith (mori?) gifts of 
 healing {xapia-fiaTa tafuxro»'), prophecy (irpix^i/Tcia), workings of powers 
 {ivtpyiifiaTa hvvdfitoiv), testing of spirits (3iaKpurct« Trrcv/jiaTwv), kinds 
 of tongues (ytvrj y\w<rawy), and interpretation of tongues {(pfxrjvtLa 
 ykuxraiov). In 1 Cor. xii. 28-31 appear : apostles (AttoottoXoi), prophets 
 (irpoc^^Tcu), teachers {BiSdua-Kakoi), powers (Wa/twi?), gifts of healing 
 {xapurpMTa la/xarwv), helps {dvTtXrjij/m)t governments (icv/^cpj/ijcrci?), 
 kinds of tongues (yhnrj yXaxro-wv). In Rom. xii. 6-8 appear : — prophecy 
 {irpo<f>rjT€ia), service {Siaxovia), teaching {SiSaaKaXia), the Uberal man 
 (6 /AcraSiSovs), the ruler (o TrpoUrrdfixvo^), and the merciful man (6 iX€uiv). 
 And in Eph. iv. 11 we have: Apostles (dTrocrroXot), prophets (Trpo^^rai), 
 evangelists (ruayyeXurrat), pastors and teachers {Troi/i€V€^ xat Si^da-KoXoi,). 
 To these we may add " a man's capacity for the married or ceUbate Ufe " 
 (1 Cor. viL 7). The conception ot "gifts" in their relation to the 
 Christian society is given in its widest extent in 1 Peter iv. 9-11 : 
 ** Usinq; hospitality one to another witnout murmuring ; each, as he 
 bath received a * gift,' ministering it to one another, as good stewards 
 of the manifold bounty of God." 
 < John xiL 26. 
 
TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF MINISTRY 65 
 
 men being set apart for what is called 
 the " ministry of tables," and whicb is contrasted with the 
 " ministry of the Word." * We have thus at the very beginnings 
 of organization a division of ministry, or rather two different 
 kinds of ministry, within the Church of Christ in the apostohc age. 
 Harnack calls this division the " earliest datum in the history 
 of organization." * The distinction which comes into sight at 
 the very beginning runs aU through the apostolic Church, and 
 goes far down into the sub-apostolic period. It can be traced 
 through the Pauline epistles and other New Testament writings, 
 and down through such sub-apostolic writings as the Bidache, 
 the Pastor of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas^ the Apology of 
 Justin Martyr, and the writings of Irenaeus. It is also found 
 in the Christian Hterature which does not belong to the main 
 stream of the Church's history, among the Gnostics, the Mar- 
 cionites and the Montanists.^ The distinction ceases to be an 
 essential one or one inherent in the very idea of the ministry 
 when we get down as far as Tertullian, but it does not cease 
 entirely. Prophets are found long after Tertullian's time, but 
 they no longer occupy the position which once was theirs. 
 
 The common name for those who belong to the first kind of 
 ministry is " those speaking the Word of God," and this name 
 is given to them not only in the New Testament, but also in the 
 Bidache, by Hermas, and by Clement of Rome. To the second 
 class belonged the ministry of a local church by whatever names 
 they came to be called, pastors, elders, bishops, deacons. We 
 may call the first kind the prophetic, and the second kind the 
 local ministry. The great practical distinction between the 
 two was that the prophetic ministry did not mean office-bearers 
 in a local church; while the local ministry consisted of these office- 
 bearers. The one was a ministry to the whole Church of God, 
 and by its activity bound all the scattered parts of the Church 
 
 ' Acts vi 2^ * Expositor, Jaiu-June, 1887, p. 324^ 
 
 3 The evidence has been collected by Hamack in Texte u. Unter- 
 aitchungeni 11^ ii« pp. Ill £^ 
 
 CM. 5 
 
66 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 visible together ; the other was a ministry within a local church, 
 and, with the assembly of the congregation, manifested and pre- 
 served the unity and the independence of the local community. 
 In the apostoUc and early sub-apostoUc church the prophetic 
 ministry was manifestly the higher and the local ministry the 
 lower ; the latter had to give place to the former even within 
 the congregation over which they were ofl&ce-bearers. 
 
 But while this higher ministry can be clearly separated from 
 the lower ministry of the local churches, it does not follow 
 that these office-bearers did not from the first count among 
 their number men who possessed the prophetic gift. Prophecy 
 or the gift of magnetic utterance might come to any Christian, 
 and St. Paul desired that it might belong to all.* The two 
 ministries can be clearly distinguished, but no hard and fast 
 line can be drawn between the men who compose the ministries. 
 The " prophetic" gift of magnetic speech was so highly esteemed 
 that it is only natural to suppose that when congregations 
 chose their office-bearers they selected men so gifted, if any 
 such were within their membership. This, we can see, was 
 the case in later times. Polycarp was an office-bearer in the 
 Church at Smyrna, but he was also a " prophet." ' Ignatius 
 of Antioch was a prophet.' Cyprian and other pastors m North 
 Africa had the same gift, which was a personal and not an official 
 source of enlightenment.* We have by no means obscure indi- 
 cations that what took place later happened in the earhest 
 period. The " Seven," who were selected for the lower ministry 
 in Jerusalem, did not confine themselves to the " service of 
 tables," but were found among those who " spoke the Word 
 of God" with power.* 
 
 » 1 Cor. xiv. 5. 
 
 « " The glorious martyr Polycarp, who was found an apostolic and 
 prophetic teacher in our own time."- Epistle of the Smyrnaeana^ 16.: 
 
 3 Epistle to the Philadelphians, 7. 
 
 4 Epistles, IviL 5 (liiL) : Ixvi^ 10 (Ixviii,)^ » Acts viii, 6, 40^ 
 
The Prophetic Ministry of the 
 Primitive Church 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 ST. PAUL'S conception of a Christian community' is a body 
 of wliich the Spirit of Christ is the soul. The individual 
 members are all full of the Spirit, and their individual powers 
 and capacities are laid hold of, vivified, and strengthened by 
 the indwelling Spirit in such a way that each is " gifted " and 
 enabled to do some special service for Christ and for His Church 
 in the society in which he is placed. Every true Christian is 
 " gifted " in tJiis way. In this respect all are equal and of the 
 same spiritual rank. Th? equality, however, is neither mono- 
 tonous nor mechanical. Men have different natural endow- 
 ments, and these lead to a diversity of " gifts," all of which 
 are serviceable in their places, and enable the separate members 
 to perform different services, useful and necessary, for the 
 spiritual life of the whole community and for the growth in 
 sanctification of every member. Some have special " gifts " 
 bestowed on them which enable them to do corresponding 
 services, and some are " gifted " in a pre-eminent degree. Thus, 
 although every Christian is the dwelling place of the Spirit, 
 and is therefore to be called " spiritual " ^ (irveviuLaTiKo^), some 
 are more fitted to take leading parts than others, and are called 
 the " spiritual " in a narrower and stricter sense of the word. 
 
 * This is equally true of the whole Church of Christ throughout the 
 whole world : for each local church is the Church in miniature. The 
 relation of the prophetic ministry to the whole Church on the one hand 
 and to the local church on the other is an instructive illustration of the 
 visibility of the Church Universal in every Christian community 
 
 2 1 Cor. iii. 1 ; cf. Gal. vi, 1, and ] Cor. ii. 15f 
 
TO THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 These specialized gifts of the Spirit included all kinds of service, 
 and were all, in their own place, valuable and equally the " gifts " 
 of the one Spirit. Some of them, however, were sure to be more 
 appreciated than others. To men and women, quivering with 
 a new fresh spiritual life, nothing could be more thirsted after 
 than to hear again and again renewed utterances of that " word 
 of the Spirit," which had first awakened in them the new life 
 they were Uving. Hence among the specially " gifted '* persons, 
 those who had the " gift " to speak the " Word of God," for 
 edification and in exhortation, took a foremost place, and were 
 specially honoured.' It would be a mistake, however, to call 
 this ministry of the " Word " the " Charismatic Ministry," 
 as if it alone depended on and came from the " gifts " of the 
 Spirit ; for every kind of service comes * from a " gift," and 
 the ministry of attending to the poor and the sick, or advising 
 and leading the community with wise counsels, are equally 
 charismatic.^ 
 
 St. Paul always assumes that this "gift" of speaking the 
 " Word of God " required a " gift " in the hearers which corre- 
 sponded to the " gift " in the speakers, and that it would have 
 small effect apart from the general "gift" of discernment of 
 spirits. The spiritual voice needs the spiritual ear. The min- 
 istry of the Word depends for its effectiveness upon the ministry 
 
 « Compare the renfirjfi^voi of the Didache (iv. 1 ; xv. 2) and 1 Tim. 
 V. 17 : •' ol KaXu>« x/xxcrruiTcs ir/wo-^urepot SiirX^ Tifirji d^tovor^oxrav, 
 fiaXioTa ol KOTTtwvTC? cV koyw koI Bihaa-KoXia.*' 
 
 * Rom. xii. 7 : " <tT< ^taAcoi'iai', iv r-g BiaKovi^" and SioKovCa ia any 
 kind of service in the Christian community. 
 
 3 '* Helps " {ain-iX^KJ/ti^) and " wise counsels 'i (KvjScpvrJo-cw) are 
 placed in the same list of " gifts "• with apostles, prophets, teachers 
 and those who have powers of healing. The ministry of the local church, 
 which is the foundation whence has come the present ministry in the 
 Church in all its branches, was as much founded on the *' gifts " of the 
 Spirit as was the ministry of the Word. Sohm appears to ignore this in 
 his otherwise admirable discussion of the " Lehrgabe " {Kirchenrecht, L 
 28 ff.) ; and Hamack does not have it always before him, as it ought to 
 be, in the dissertations appended to his epoch-making edition of theDu^^ 
 HT&cU Ui Untersitchungent IL IL)^ 
 
THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 71 
 
 of discernment : for the " natural man receiveth not the tilings 
 of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him ; and 
 he cannot know them because they are spiritually examined." ' 
 There was therefore in this ministry of the " Word " the exer- 
 cise of a two-fold " gift " or charisma ; on the one hand the 
 charisma which enabled the speaker to declare what was the 
 message of God, and on the other hand the charisma in the hearers 
 which enabled them to recognize whether the message was 
 really what it professed to be, a declaration of the Spirit, to 
 receive it if it was and to reject it if it was not. The duty 
 laid upon the speakers was to speak forth the Word of God in the 
 proportion of the faith that was in them, or to the full measure 
 of the Christ that was in them ; and the duty laid upon the 
 hearers was to test whether what was said to them was really 
 an utterance of the Spirit.^ 
 
 This " ministry of the Word " was the creative agency in the 
 primitive Church, and it may almost be said to have had the 
 same function throughout the centuries since. It was over- 
 thrown or thrust aside and placed under subjection to an official 
 ministry springing out of the congregation, and it has never 
 regained the recognized position it had in the first century and 
 a half. But whenever the Church of Christ has to be awakened 
 out of a state of lethargy, this unofficial ministry of the Word 
 regains its old power though official sanction be withheld. From 
 
 I 1 Cor. ii. 14^ 
 
 * The prophets who speak the " Word of God " are told to prophesy 
 according to the measure of the faith that is in them : /cara rrjv avaXoyiav 
 TYJ^ TTia-rews (Rom. xii. 6) ; and the hearers are told to test the speakers 
 (1 Cor. xii. 10, compare vv. 1, 4 ; 1 Thess. v. 21 ; cf. 1 Cor. x. 15 ; xi. 13) ; 
 and in 1 John iv. 1-3 it is said, " Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test 
 the spirits whether they be of God," etc. This charisma of discernment 
 lay at the basis of the '* call " given by the congregation to men to be 
 their office-bearers : compare Canons of HippolytiiSy ii. 7-9 {Tezte und 
 Unterstichungen, VI. iv. pp. 39, 40) ; and its use showed that the spiritual 
 " gift " which belonged tc the whole community was higher than the 
 " gift " possessed by an individual prophet inasmuch as it was the judge 
 of that gift." Compare Sohm, KirchenrecU (1892), i. 56 ff., whose 
 remarks, however valuable, seem too doctrinaire. 
 
72 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 one point of view, and that not the least important, the history 
 of the Church flows on from one time of revival to another, 
 and whether we take the awakenings in the old Catholic, the 
 mediaeval, or the modem Church, these have always been the 
 work of men specially gifted with the power of seeing and de- 
 claring the secrets of the deepest Christian life, and the effect 
 of their work has always been proportionate to the spiritual 
 receptivity of the generation they have spoken to. The Refor- 
 mation movement, which may be simply described as the trans- 
 lation into articulate thought of the heart religion of the mediaeval 
 Church, and which revived in so many ways the ideas and usages 
 of the primitive times, has expressed the two cardinal ideas of 
 this primitive ministry of the Word, in its declaration that the 
 essential duty of the ministry of the Church is the proclamation 
 of the Gospel, and in its statement that the principle of authority 
 in the last resort is always the witness of the Spirit in the hearts 
 of believers.' 
 
 The divine "gift," whose possession placed men among the 
 class of those who spoke the Word of God (XaXovvre^ tov \6yov 
 rod Ocov)' gave the primitive Church its preaching ministry.' 
 Those so endowed were in no sense office-bearers in any one 
 Christian community ; they were not elected to an office ; 
 they were not set apart by any ecclesiastical ceremony; the 
 
 ' " Ut hano fidem consequamur, institutum est ministerium docendi 
 Evangdii et porrigendi Sacramenta " {Augsburg Confession^ Ft. L art. v.). 
 " Nam sicuti Deus solus de se idoneus est testis in suo sermone ; ita etiam 
 non ante fidem reperiet sermo in hominum cordibus, quam interiore 
 Spiritus testimonio obsignetur " (Calvin, Instit, I. viL 4). *- Our full 
 persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority 
 thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and 
 with the Word in our hearts " {West. Conf. i. 6), 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 7 : Didache iv. 1 : "My child, him that speaheih to thee 
 the Word of God thou shalt have in remembrance day and night, and honour 
 him as the Lord : for, where that which pertaineth to the Lord is spoken, 
 there the Lord is." 
 
 3 This statement ought to be qualified: the local presidents or 
 Trpo'LoT a fitv 01 of 1 Thess. v. 12 seem to have had other duties besides 
 merely to exercise oversight ; they had also to warn and instruoti 
 
APOSTLES, PROPHETS, TEACHERS 73 
 
 Word of God came to them, and they spoke the message that 
 had been sent them. They all had the divine call manifested 
 in the " gift " they possessed and could use. They were sent 
 for the extension and edification of the whole Church of God, 
 and although they used their gifts in the meetings of the local 
 communities yet they were always to be conceived as the min- 
 isters of the Church universal. Some of them were wanderers 
 by the very nature of the work they were called to ; many 
 of them, perhaps most, did not confine themselves to one com- 
 munity. They came and went as they pleased. They were 
 not responsible to any society of Christians. The local church 
 could only test them when they appeared, and could receive 
 or reject their ministrations. The picture of these wandering 
 preachers, men burdened by no cares of office, with no pastoral 
 duties, coming suddenly into a Christian community, doing their 
 work there and as suddenly departing, is a very vivid one in 
 sub-apostolic literature. Their presence — men who were the 
 servants of all the churches and of no one church — was a great 
 bond which linked together all the scattered independent local 
 churches and made them one corporate whole. 
 
 We find in this " prophetic ministry " a threefold division. 
 They are apostles, prophets and teachers. It does not seem 
 possible to make a very strict or mechanical division between 
 the kinds of " Word of God " spoken by each class of men, but 
 it may be said that what was needed for zealous missionary 
 endeavour was the distinguishing characteristic of the first 
 class, exhortation and admonition of the second, and instruction 
 of the third. In virtue of their personal " gifts " they were the 
 venerated but not official leaders' (^yov/mevoi) of every com- 
 munity where they were for the time being to be found, and 
 were worthy, not only of honour, but of honorarium.^ We can 
 
 ' Heb. xiiL 7 : " MvrjixoveveTi rStv "^ov/ievwy vix<aVj oirtves eX-aXyjaay 
 Vfuv rov \6yov rov ®€ov" 
 
 2 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14 ; GaL vi. 6 ; ct 2 Cor. xi. 8, 9, and PhiL iv, 10 f^ 
 " But every true prophet who will settle among you is worthy of his sup- 
 port.: Likewise a true teacher, he also is worthy, like the workman, of 
 
74 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 trace tliis threefold ministry of the Word from the most primitive 
 times down till the end of the second century, if not later. It 
 existed in the oldest Gentile Christian community, that of 
 Antioch, where a number of prophets and teachers sent forth 
 two apostles from among their own number.' Apostles, prophets 
 and teachers are mentioned in the First Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians and in the Epistle to the Ephesians.^ The same three- 
 fold ministry is given in the Pastor of Hermas, which dates 
 about ^ 140 A.D., and in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies^ which 
 can scarcely be earlier than 200 a.d.* In all these authorities 
 we have the three classes mentioned together, and in all save one 
 we have them in the same order. The three classes are also 
 placed in pairs : apostles and prophets in the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians and in the Apocalypse ; ' prophets and teachers in 
 the Didache and in the Pseudo-Clementine Letters ; * apostles 
 and teachers in Hermas and in the Epistles to Timothy/ 
 1. Apostles. The distinguishing characteristic of an apostle ' 
 
 his support, Every first-fruit then, of the products of the wine-press 
 and threshing-floor, of oxen and of sheep, thou shalt take and give to the 
 prophets." Didache, xiii, 1-3. Tifirj has the two meanings of " honour '' 
 and " honorarium/' and it is difficult to know sometimes how to translate 
 it ; a case in point is 1 Tim. v. 17. 
 
 » Acts xiiL 1-3. * 1 Cor. xii. 28 ; Eph. iv. 11; 
 
 J Hermas, SimU. ix. 16 : " The thirty-five are the prophets of God and 
 His ministers ; and the forty are the apostles and teaches of the preaching 
 of the Son of God."- 
 
 ♦ Homilies, xi. 35 : " Wherefore, above all, remember to shun apostle 
 or prophet or teacher who does not first accurately compare his preaching 
 with that of James, who was called the brother of my Lord.'' 
 
 5 Rev. xviiL 20 : " Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye saints and 
 ye apostles and ye prophets.'* Eph. ii. 20 : ** Being built on the foundation 
 of the apostles and the prophets.'' Didache^ xi 
 
 ^ Didache, xiii. 1, 2 ; xvi. 2. Psevdo-Clementines, De Virginitate, i. 11, 
 " Ne multi inter vos sint doctores, fratres, neque omnes sitis prophetae " ; 
 but this is a quotation, said to be from Scripture. For fuller list of authori- 
 ties compare Hamack, Texte u. UrUersttchungen, IL ii. 93-110, and tabular 
 summary in note pp. 110-112. 
 
 7 Hennas, Pastor, Vis. iii. 5 : 1 Tim. ii. 7 ; 2 Tim. i. 11; 
 
 * For the meaning and work of an apostle : compare Lightfoot, St: 
 PauTs Epistle to the GakUians, 7th ed. pp. 92-101 ; note on The name and 
 
APOSTLES 76 
 
 was tliat he had given himself, and that for life,' to be a mission- 
 ary, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ to those 
 who did not know it. He had received the " gift " of speaking 
 the "Word of God," and he was distinguished from others 
 who had the same " gift " in this, that he had been called either 
 inwardly or outwardly to make this special use of it. The 
 prophet and the teacher had the same " gift " in the same or 
 in less measure than the apostle, but they found their sphere 
 of its use within the Christian community, while the apostle's 
 sphere was for the most part outside, among those who were 
 not yet within the Church of Christ. They built on the founda- 
 tion laid by the apostle ; he laid the foundation for others to 
 build upon.^ The apostles were men who in virtue of the im- 
 planted " gift " of " speaking the Word of God " and of the 
 " call " impelling them, were sent forth to be the heralds of the 
 kingdom of Chri«t. This was their life-work. They were not 
 appointed to an office, in the ecclesiastical sense of the word, 
 but to a work in the prosecution of which they had to do all 
 that is the inevitable accompaniment of missionary activity 
 in all ages of the Church's history. 
 
 Our Lord has Himself shown us where to look for the origin 
 and meaning of the term " apostle." He declared Himself 
 to be the Apostle or Sent One of the Father ; as the Father 
 had sent Him, so He sent others in His name to be His apostles 
 or sent ones, to dehver His message of salvation.^ The apostles 
 
 office of an apostle ; Harnack, Texte u. Untersuchungen, II. ii. 111-118 ; 
 Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age (Eng. TransL), ii. 291-299; Sohm, Kirchen- 
 recht, i. 42-45 ; Loening, Die Gemeindeverfassung des Urchriatenthums, 
 pp. 33-37 ; Armitage Robinson, Encyc. BibL, art. Apostle, pp. 264-'6 ; 
 Schmiedel, Encyc^ Bihlic, art. Ministry, pp. 3114-3117 ; Hort, The 
 Christian Ecclesia, pp. 22-41 ; Seufert, Ursprung und BedeiUung des Aposto- 
 lais ; Gwatkin, art. Apostle, Hastings^ Bible Dictionary, i. 126^ 
 
 « 1 Cor. XV. 10 ; GaL ii. 7, 8. « Rom. xv. 20. 
 
 3 This appears to be the line of thought in our Lord's address in the 
 synagogue at Nazareth. He quoted from Isaiah Ixi. 1, about the one sent 
 from God, and declared that He was the " Sent One " (Luke iv. 18, 21) ; 
 He had come to deHver a message from the Father which was to be pro- 
 claimed in the cities of Palestine (Luke iv. 41 ; cf, Matt, xv, 24). He 
 
76 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 were the representatives and " envoys " of Christ, the pioneers 
 of Christianity. The word, therefore, lends itself to a very 
 wide application, for in a sense every Christian ought to be an 
 " envoy " or herald of the Master. Our Lord sanctioned the 
 widest use of the word when He declared that whoever received 
 a little child in His name received Himself ; ^ the little ones 
 can be and are His " envoys." 
 
 But there were concentric rings in this wide circle of appli- 
 cation ; and the men belonging to each were distinguished from 
 the others by the kind of preparation they had received, and by 
 the nature of the call which had come to them. 
 
 Our Lord, personally and by living human voice, selected 
 twelve men and called them " apostles," * that by personal com- 
 
 paade His followers His representatives in Matt x. 40-42 (cf. the parallel 
 passages in Mark ix. 37, and Luke ix. 48). The two thoughts are com- 
 bined in John xx. 21 : *' Jesus therefore said unto them again, Peace 
 be unto you ; as the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you "• ; cf. 
 Clement, Ep. L xliL 1, 2 ; Tertullian, De Praescriptione, 37. 
 
 In earUer classical Greek " apostolos " meant a messenger who is also a 
 representative of the man who sent him ; in later Greek, the Attic use 
 of the word to mean " a naval expedition, a fleet dispatched on foreign 
 service," seems to have superseded every other. The word however was 
 used in later Judaism to mean the messengers sent from Jerusalem to 
 collect the Temple tribute from the Jews of the Dispersion and who were 
 at the same time charged with the business of carrying letters and advice 
 from the Jewish leaders in the capital of Judaism, and of promoting re- 
 ligious fellowship throughout all the Jews scattered over the civilized 
 world. Hence Dr. Lightfoot says, " In designating His immediate and 
 most favoured disciples ' Apostles ' our Lord was not introducing a new 
 term, but adopting one which from its current usage would suggest to 
 His hearers the idea of a highly responsible mission." Commentary on the 
 Epistle to the Qalatiana (7th ed) ; The name and office of an Apostle, pp. 
 93, 94 ; ct also Seufert, Ursprung und Bedeviung des Apostolats, pp. 8-14. 
 But is is very doubtful if the word was in use in Judaism until after the 
 time of our Lord, and it seems in every way simpler to believe that the 
 Christian origin and use of the word were what are given above, 
 
 ' Matt, xviii. 6. 
 
 * In Mark iil 13-16 we are told that Jesus appointed Twelve, " whom 
 He also called Apostles " (that is the reading adopted by Westcott and 
 Hort) for a double purpose (the two parts of the purpose being made 
 emphatic by the repetition of Iva), of being in close companionship with 
 Him, and of sending them forth to preach and to cast out demons^ TbiBj 
 
APOSTLES 77 
 
 panionship with Him in the inner circle of His disciples, and by 
 experience gained in a limited mission of apprenticeship among 
 the villages of Galilee, where following their Master's example 
 closely they preached and cast out demons, they might have 
 the training to be witnesses for Him in the universal mission 
 which was to be theirs after His death. Their preparation 
 was their intimate personal companionship with their Lord 
 and their apprentice work under His eyes. Their call was 
 the living voice of the Master while He was with them in the 
 flesh. These two things separated the " Eleven " from all 
 others ; they were both of them incommunicable and rested 
 on a unique experience. 
 
 One, Matthias, who had enjoyed the personal companion- 
 ship with Jesus, though in a lesser degree, and who had been 
 an eyewitness during the Lord's ministry on earth and could 
 testify to the Kesurrection, was called by the voice of his fellow- 
 beUevers and by the decision of the lot to the same " service 
 and sending forth " (SiaKovla koi aTroo-roX?/)/ His prepa- 
 ration was the same as that of the " Eleven," though less 
 complete ; but his call was quite different. 
 
 Another, Paul, was " called " and prepared by Jesus Him- 
 self, but in visions and inward inspirations. We have no evi- 
 dence that St. Paul ever saw Jesus in the flesh, still less that he 
 had any opportunity of converse with Him. His " call " came 
 to him on the road to Damascus in the vision of the Risen Christ 
 Whom he had been persecuting ; it was repeated from the hps 
 of Ananias, also instructed in vision ; * it came to him over 
 and over again in his lonely musings, where he was obliged to 
 think out for himself the principles which were to guide him in 
 
 that they had to do, was what Jesus Himself had been doing (Mark i. 39 ; 
 cf. Mark i. 14-34). Thus their training was both intimate companion- 
 ship and close imitation in service. The acount is confirmed by Luke 
 vi 13, where He called the Twelve ; by Luke ix. 2, where He sent them 
 forth to do and to teach ; and by Luke ix. 10, where we are told that they 
 did what they had been commanded. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, pp. 
 22-41, ' Acts U 25i * Acts ix^ 10 Si 
 
78 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 his new life: His preparation was altogether different both 
 from that of the " Eleven " and of Matthias. They had been 
 gradually prepared ; they had been led step by step, and had 
 been weaned from their old hfe in half-conscious ways. He had 
 been torn out of his by a sudden wrench ; and his preparation 
 had been given him in inward moral struggle and spiritual 
 experience, in musings and visions and raptures, " whether 
 in the body or out of the body " he could not tell.^ It was this 
 difference id " call " and preparation — ^the difference between 
 personal intercourse with Jesus in the flesh and intercourse 
 with Him in visions — ^that separated St. Paul from the "Eleven." 
 And it was this difference that St. Paul's opponents of the 
 " sect of the Pharisees who believed " seized upon when they 
 refused to acknowledge his claims to apostohc authority. If 
 we take the Pseudo-Clementine hterature to represent the 
 opinions of these men and their successors, and discern in the 
 attacks made on Simon Magus an example of their arguments 
 against the apostle to the Gentiles, there is abundant proof 
 of this. The whole argument in the last chapter of the 17th 
 Homily turns on the impossibility of trusting to information 
 received in visions, or of verifying and authenticating them. 
 The argument comes to a climax in the question : " Can any 
 one be rendered fit for instruction through visions ? And if 
 you say, * It is possible,' then I ask. Why did our teacher abide 
 and discourse a whole year to those who were awake ? And 
 how are we to believe your word, when you tell us that He 
 appeared to you ? " * 
 
 In others who were called " apostles " the Spirit had implanted 
 the inward " call " to consecrate themselves to a life of mission- 
 ary endeavour, and had given them that gift of speaking the 
 Word of God which made the " call " fruitful. Yet another class 
 had been selected by Christian communities and sent forth 
 to be their apostles, the " apostles of the churches," who were 
 
 « 2 Ck)r. xiL 1-4 ; GaL I 15-17. 
 
 * Olemeniine Homilies, xviL 13-20 ; the quotation is from seot« 19j 
 
APOSTLES 79 
 
 also the apostles of tlie Master, and who were called by St. Paul 
 " the glory of Christ." ' 
 
 Men belonging to all these classes, and to others besides, 
 are called " apostles " in the writings of the New Testament, 
 where the name is by no means confined to the "Eleven," 
 Matthias, and St. Paul. Barnabas * was an " apostle." He 
 had been selected at the bidding of the Spirit by the circle of 
 prophets and teachers at Antioch, and had been sent, with 
 prayer and laying on of hands, to be the companion missionary 
 of St. Paul ; he is called an apostle to the Gentiles in the 
 Epistle to the Galatians, and St. Paul associates him with him- 
 self when he claims the privileges everywhere accorded to ac- 
 knowledged apostles. Andronicus and Junias were " apostles," 
 who had been in Christ before St. Paul.^ Silas or Silvanus and 
 Timothy are, on the most natural interpretation, classed as 
 apostles in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, St, Paul and 
 
 ' 2 Cor. viii. 23 : " Our brethren, the apostles of the churches, the glory 
 of Christ."- 
 
 2 Acts xiii. 2, 3 : " The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and 
 Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then when they had 
 fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away " ; 
 xiv. 4 : " But the multitude of the city was divided ; and part held with 
 the Jews and part with the apostles (Barnabas and Paul) "- ; xiv. 14 : 
 " But when the apostles, Barnabas and Saul heard it s ; ;" ; GaL ii. 9 : 
 -' They who were reputed to be pillars gave to me and to Barnabas the 
 right hands of fellowship that we should go unto the Gentiles and they 
 to the circumcision. '5 Compare 1 Cor. ix. 5, 6. 
 
 3 Rom. xvi. 7 : " Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my 
 fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also have been 
 in Christ before me.'' The phrase " of note among the apostles " has 
 often been translated " highly esteemed among the apostles.'' Upon this 
 Dr. Lightfoot remarks : " Except to escape the difficulty involved in such 
 an extension of the apostolate, I do not think the words otrtves cio-w 
 iTTLGrrjfxoL iv rots aTro(rT6\oi<; would have been generally rendered " who 
 are highly esteemed by the apostles " ; and he goes on to say that 
 the Greek fathers took the more natural interpretation and included 
 Andronicus and Junias among the apostles. He quotes Origen and 
 Chrysostom. The latter thought that Junias or Junia was a woman's 
 name, and yet he numbered her among the apostles.; Lightfoot, Commen- 
 tary on the Epistle to the OcUatians (7th ed.), p. 96 nj 
 
80 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 his companions in his missionary work among the Thessalonians 
 had received no material support for their labours, " though we 
 might have been burdensome to you, being apostles of Christ " ; 
 and the we most probably includes Silas and Timothy, whose 
 names appear with that of St. Paul in the superscription of the 
 letter.' In 1 Cor. iv. 9, when St. Paul says : " I think that 
 God hath set forth us the apostles last of all as men doomed 
 to death ; for we are a spectacle unto the world, both to angels 
 and to men," Apollos, on the most natural interpretation of 
 the passage, is classed with St. Paul among the apostles who 
 are thus set forth.^ Epaphroditus is mentioned as one of the 
 
 ' 1 Thess. i. 1, 6. Dr. Lightfoot includes Silas among those who are 
 called apostles by St Paul, but refuses to include Timothy: (1) because 
 Timothy had not seen the Lord, and (2) because when the apostle 
 mentions Timothy elsewhere he carefully excludes him from the apostolate.; 
 He writes in CoL L 1 and in 2 Cor. LI,"' Paul an ajpostU and Timothy the 
 brother "; and in Phil. LI:" Paul and Timothy servants of Jesus Christ.'5 
 In the Pastoral Epistles Timothy is described as an evangelist : " Do the 
 work of an evangelist ; fulfil thy ministry " (2 Tim. iv. 6). It ia held by 
 many, among others by Lightfoot and Sohm, that the evangelists of 2 Tim^ 
 iv. 5, of Eph iv. 11, and of Acts ixi 8 (PhiUp the evangelist), were men 
 who did the work of wandering missionaries but lacked the indispensable 
 characteristic (as they think) of an apostle, viz. having seen the Lord 
 and received a commission from Him (Luke xxiv. 48 ; Acts i. 22 ; 1 Cor.- 
 ix. 1). This distinction may prove good for the apostoUc period, though 
 it seems doubtful that it does, but it entirely falls to the ground in the 
 immediately succeeding times. I am inclined to conclude that there is 
 really no distinction between a wider use of the term apostle and the evan- 
 gelist. The word " evangelist " occurs very seldom. The three references 
 exhaust the New Testament uses ; it disappears entirely in the immedi- 
 ately post-apostolic Uterature, it is not to be found in the ApostoUc fathers 
 nor in the Didache. When it reappears, as in Tertullian, De Praescrip- 
 tione 4 (Qui pseudapostoli nisi adulteri evangeUzatores) and in Eusebius 
 (Hist. Eccl. III. xxxvii. 2, 4) it is used to describe such men as were 
 called " apostles " in the Didache. On the other hand the apostles are 
 described as " entrusted with the evangel " (GaL L 7, 8) ; as those who 
 " preach the evangel " (1 Clement, 42) ; as the twelve evangeUzers (Bar- 
 nahas, viiL 3). Light, Com. on the Epistle to the Oalatians (7th ed.), p^ 
 96 n,, 97. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, L 42 n. ; Hamack, Texte und Unters. Hi 
 iL 113 n., 114 ; Sources of the Apostolic Canons (Eng. Trans.), p. 16, n. 8, 
 
 * Lightfoot excludes Apollos on the double groimd that it is extremely 
 unlikely that he had seen the Lord, and because Clement of Rome, speaking 
 
APOSTLES 81 
 
 " apostles of the churches," (the church of Philippi), and is called 
 by St. Paul " my brother, and fellow- worker and fellow-soldier." ' 
 Many scholars include James the brother of our Lord among 
 those called apostles by St. Paul ; but the evidence is very 
 doubtful, and James had not the missionary work which be- 
 longs to an apostle.* Besides these St. Paul speaks of men 
 whom he calls ironically " pre-eminent apostles," ^ and more' 
 gravely " false apostles," who had come among the Corinthian 
 believers to seduce them from their allegiance to the apostle, 
 probably from Jerusalem, furnished with letters of commenda- 
 tion* from St. Paul's enemies there, and who had insinuated 
 that St. Paul was no true apostle. There is no reason to believe 
 that St. Paul denied that these men were apostles so far as 
 outward marks went. They were missionaries and had given 
 themselves to the work ; they had come furnished with cre- 
 dentials. In all outward respects they were apostles like many 
 
 of Peter, Paul and ApoUos, calls the two former aTrocrToXoi fitfiapTvprjfii" 
 VOL and the latter avijp BeSoKLfMaarfievos (1 Clem. 48). 
 
 ^ Phil. ii. 25. 
 
 * The evidence for including James, the brother of our Lord among 
 those called apostles by St. Paul is contained in 1 Cor. xv. 7 : " Then He 
 appeared to James ; then to all the apostles ; and, last of all, as unto one 
 born out of due time, He appeared to me also " ; in 1 Cor. ix. 6 : " Even 
 as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of our Lord, and Cephas " ; 
 and Gal. i. 19, which may read : " But other of the apostles saw I none, 
 save James the Lord's brother," and would then include James among 
 the apostles, or : " But I saw no other apostle, but only James the 
 Lord's brother." which would exclude James. James is included by Light- 
 foot, Sohm, Weizsacker {Apostolic Age (Eng. Trans.), iL 294) and many 
 others. 
 
 3 The phrase, twv vTrepXiav dirooroXwv, is translated in the R; Vi 
 " the chiefest apostles," which would imply that the " Twelve " were 
 meant. But this is impossible. St Paul would never have called the 
 " Twelve " " false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into 
 apostles of Christ " (2 Cor. xi. 13), as he does the men mentioned in xi. 6 
 and xii. 11. The marginal reading, " those pre-eminent apostles," is in 
 every way to be preferred. Cf. Heinrici's masterly exposition, Das Zweite 
 Sendschreiben des Aj^ostd Paulus an die Korinther, pp, 401-412 ; also 
 Schmiedel, Encyc. Bihl. art. Ministry ^ p. 3114. 
 
 4 2 Cor. iii. 1. 
 
 CM. 6 
 
82 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 others ; but their message was false ; they preached another 
 Christ ; they were among the false prophets who the Master 
 had said would come/ 
 
 As the earlier decades passed the number of men who were 
 called apostles increased rather than diminished. They were 
 wandering missionaries whose special duties were to the heathen 
 and to the unconverted. In writings like the Didache they are 
 brought vividly before us. They were highly honoured,* but 
 had to be severely tested. They were not expected to remain 
 long within a Christian community nor to fare softly when 
 they were there. They were the special envoys of One Whose 
 kingdom is not of this world, and Who had sent forth His 
 earliest apostles with the words : " Go, provide neither gold 
 nor silver nor brass in your girdle nor wallet for your journey, 
 neither two coats, neither shoes nor staff." ^ Primitive Chris- 
 tians insisted on as rigorous an imitation as did St. Francis, 
 and accordingly formulated the saying into the rule that if the 
 apostle spent more than three days among his fellow Christians, 
 if he asked for money, if he were not content with bread and 
 water, he was no true apostle, and was not to be received.* 
 
 All these men, called apostles^ have one distinguishing char- 
 acteristic : they have given themselves for life to be missionary 
 preachers of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ. Hence it 
 seems superfluous to accumulate from the epistles of St. Paul 
 a great variety of marks of the apostolic character and work.' 
 
 ' Matt xzivj 11 ; Mark xiiL 22^ 
 
 * Didache^ xL 4 : " Every apoetle who cometh to yon let him be re- 
 ceived as the Lord.*' 
 
 3 Matt. X. 10 ; ct Luke ix. 3 ; Mark vi 8. 
 
 4 Didache, xL 6, 6 : " He shall not remain except for one day ; if how- 
 ever, there be need, then the next day ; but if he remain three days, he 
 is a false prophet. But when the apoetle departeth, let him take nothing 
 except bread enough till he lodge again ; but if he ask for money, he is a 
 false prophet" 
 
 3 Dr. Lightfoot has made a list of what he conceives St Paul thought 
 were the indispensable quaHfications for theapostoUc office: — the apostle 
 must have been a witness of the Resurrection (Acts i, 21-23) ; and this was 
 
APOSTLES 88 
 
 The one distinctive feature about all of them was not so much what 
 they were, but what they did. They were aU engaged in a life 
 work of a peculiar kind, aggressive pioneering missionary labour. 
 The crowning vindication of their career was what they put into 
 it and what they were able to accompHsh ; their courage/ 
 their self-sacrificing endurance,* the " signs, wonders and mighty 
 deeds " which accompanied their labours,^ and, above all, the 
 results of their work. It was to this last that St. Paul appealed 
 over and over again. His Corinthian converts were the seal 
 of his apostleship ; he did not need written certificates from 
 coterie or council, from Jerusalem or Antioch, for the Corin- 
 thians were his Uving " letter " of commendation known and 
 read of all men."* He appealed to what every great missionary 
 would point to if he were asked to justify his work, to what 
 our Lord Himself appealed to when He was put to the question.^ 
 
 supplied to St. Paul by a miraculous revelation ; a commission received 
 either directly from our Lord or through the medium of the Church as 
 was the case with Matthias (Acts i. 23-26), and with St. Paul himself, who 
 was not actually invested with the rank of apostle till he received it along 
 with Barnabas at Antioch (Acts xiii. 2) ; the conversions which resulted 
 from his work (1 Cor. ix. 2) ; possessing the signs of an apostle, which were 
 partly moral and spiritual gifts such as patience, self-denial, effective 
 preaching, and partly supernatural " signs, wonders and mighty deeds. "- 
 Com. on the Epistle to the Gcdatians (7th ed), pp. 98, 99. 
 
 Weizsacker has also made a collection of the quahfications of an apostle, 
 but he, rightly enough, considers that they were the qualifications demanded 
 from St. Paul by his enemies, and are therefore what they declared a true 
 apostle ought to possess. " According to them the candidate for the 
 apostolate required above all to be a Jew by birth (2 Cor. xi. 22). He 
 must have seen Jesus (1 Cor. ix. 1 ; cf. 2 Cor. v. 16) and been an acknow- 
 ledged promoter of His cause (2 Cor. xi. 23 ; cf. Acts i. 21). Personal 
 quaUties, like courage (2 Cor. x. Iff.) and eloquence seem also to have been 
 required. On the other hand the apostle was then expected to attest 
 himself by certain signs (2 Cor. xii. 12), above all by miraculous powers 
 and achievements ; again by visions and revelations (2 Cor. xii. 1), and 
 further, by attacks which could not fail to be made upon him, and by his 
 bearing under them (2 Cor. xi. 13 ff.).'' He adds, " All this would have 
 been meaningless, if only a given number of definite individuals had been 
 recognized as apostlea.'i The Apostolic Age, ii. 295 (Eng. Trans.). 
 ' 2 Cor, iii. 12 ; x.j 1 ff . ; xi. 21. ^ 2 Cor. vii. 6 ; xii. 10^ 
 
 3 2 Oori xiL: 12j 4 1 Cor, ix, 2 ; 2 Cor, iii, 1-3.: 5 Matt, xi.: 2-6j 
 
8A THE PROPHETIC MINISITIY 
 
 There could not but be gradations in this wide company of 
 apostles, and these depended on things personal and incommuni- 
 cable. Nothing could take from the " Eleven " the fact that 
 they had been personally selected and trained for their mission- 
 ary work by Jesus while He was still with them in the flesh. 
 This gave them a unique position not only within the Jewish 
 Christian Church, but also throughout all Christendom. This 
 also was the basis of the apostolate in the narrower sense of the 
 term. Others might be, and were, " separated unto the Gospel 
 of God," might devote themselves, in obedience to the " call " 
 that came, to a life of active missionary work, and have their 
 " call " vindicated in the abundant fruit of their labours. The 
 Risen Christ had appeared to many others besides themselves. 
 What separated the " Eleven " from other apostles was that the 
 Lord, while in the fleshy had selected them and had spent long 
 months in training them for their work. They were mission- 
 aries like the others, and made missionary tours like them, but 
 this special and unique preparation which no others possessed 
 gave them a position apart. St. Paul claimed that he too be- 
 longed to this inner circle ; his claims were admitted when 
 Peter, James and John " saw that he had been entrusted with 
 the Gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the Gospel 
 of the circumcision," in that memorable interview, when the 
 older apostles gave Barnabas and Paul the right hand of fellow- 
 ship. St. Paul proved to them that hi8 call and preparation 
 had been as intimate as theirs. Christ, Who *' had wrought 
 for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision," had 
 " wrought for Paul unto the Gentiles," ' and they had seen that 
 it was so. And as his preparation had been the same, so the 
 " call " had come to him directly, as distinctively, and as immedi- 
 ately from God, as it had come to the Twelve,' and his vision 
 of the Risen Saviour had been as evident.' 
 
 « GaL il 7-9. 
 
 • 1 Cor. i. 1 : " Paul called to be an apostle of Jeeofl Christ, by the will 
 of God." 2 Cor. L L GaL i. 1 : '' Paul, an apostle not from men nor 
 through man, but through Je«ua Christ, and God the Father^S 
 
 3 1 Cor, ix) 1 ; xv^ 8^ 
 
APOSTLES 86 
 
 These two uses of the term apostle, the wider and the narrower, 
 continued beyond the apostolic age. We can see this in the 
 Didache, which carries the reference to the narrower circle 
 in its title,' while in its description of the wandering " apostles " 
 it paints the itinerant missionaries to whom the term belonged 
 in its widest extent. We can also see it in the difficulties which 
 the early fathers had to determine what was the number of the 
 apostles, and who were to be included within it.* 
 
 The unique position occupied by the " Eleven " and by St. 
 Paul was personal to themselves ; it was based on a unique 
 and immediate experience ; no succession could come from it. 
 But apostles, in the wider sense of the term, have always existed 
 in the Church of Christ, and are with us still in the missioners 
 and missionaries of the various branches of the Christian Church. 
 In lands where the language of the New Testament is still spoken, 
 the name as well as the thing survives ; the missionaries and 
 missioners of the modern Greek Church are still called " holy 
 apostles." ' 
 
 It was the apostolate in its widest extent that was a part 
 of the " prophetic ministry " of the primitive Church. When 
 we think of apostles as part of the triad -of " apostles, prophets 
 and teachers," we must have in mind, not twelve or thirteen, 
 but large numbers who were missionaries in the Church, and took 
 the first rank in the prophetic ministry because their duty was 
 to extend the boundaries of the Church of Christ. They all 
 belonged to the class of those " gifted " to " speak the Word of 
 God," men who were to be tested by the discriminating " gift," 
 
 ^ The full title is AtSa^^ rwv SwScKa *Airo<rToXa)v, " The Teaching of 
 the Twelve Apostles." 
 
 2 Compare Lightfoot, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galaiians, 99, 100. 
 
 3 Missionaries and missioners in the Greek Church are called UpaTroarro- 
 XoL. " The delegates of the Archbishop of Canterbury's mission to the 
 Nestorians are regularly called apostles by the Syrians of Urmi " ( Armitage 
 Robinson, Encyc. Bibl., art. Apostle, p. 265). So are the priests who 
 itinerate in the Peloponnesus preaching to great open air gatherings on the 
 market-days at such towns as Tripolitza. 
 
86 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 but who, when received, were to be honoured and their word 
 obeyed. The spiritual " gift " which they possessed was a per- 
 sonal and not an official thing ; and in one sense they were 
 all on the same level, for they had all the same " gift." But 
 they differed in natural endowments, and the spiritual gift had 
 been bestowed in larger measure on some than on others. Some 
 could, and did, fill a large sphere and wield an enormous in- 
 fluence ; others had to content themselves with a much inferior 
 position ; but whether their sphere was large or small they had 
 the same work to do. They were the pioneers of primitive 
 Christianity. They cannot be compared with the officials 
 of a long established church. The only safe comparison is with 
 the missionary of modem times, and their work has the curious 
 double action which must characterize pioneer Christian work 
 in all places and at all times. 
 
 They had to teach Christian morality to converts ignorant 
 of its first principles, and this could only be done when stem 
 command mingled with sweet persuasiveness. They had to deal 
 with people who could but awkwardly apply the moral prin- 
 ciples they had been taught, and had to select typical cases, 
 and to point out how they must be decided. On the one side 
 their action must appear to be highly autocratic ; on the other 
 their influence was entirely personal, and their only means of 
 enforcing their decisions was by persuasion. 
 
 They had to show their converts not merely how to live lives 
 worthy of their new profession ; they required to train them 
 in the art of living together in Christian society, and they had 
 to do it in such a way as to foster social as well as individual 
 responsibility. So on the one hand they can be represented 
 as shaping constitutions, selecting and appointing office-bearers, 
 and generally controlling in autocratic fashion the communities 
 their teaching had gathered together ; and on the other hand 
 this very work can be truly described as the almost independent 
 efiort of the communities themselves.^ For it is the missionary's 
 ' Many of the differences, which make the Pastoral Epistles so different 
 
APOSTLES 87 
 
 business, and often the hardest part of it, to create the feelings 
 of corporate responsibility and independent action. His work 
 is that of a parent training his children, and dependent on 
 natural relationship and personal character for the obedience 
 he demanded, not that of an ecclesiastical superior with official 
 rights to support his injunctions. 
 
 If this double characteristic inherent in all missionary work 
 be forgotten, it is possible to take the most opposite views of 
 apostolic methods and of the rights which an apostle claimed 
 to have and to exercise.' Men, like Sohm, who dwells upon the 
 power to command inherent in the possession of the " gift '* 
 of speaking the Word of God, search for, find and point to St. 
 Paul's interference in the details of the life of his communities. 
 
 from the earlier epistles of St.- Paul, disappear when the missionary 
 character of the apostle's work is kept steadily in view; 
 
 ^ Sohm {Kirchenrecht, L pp. 42-5) declares that with the " gift " of 
 " speaking the Word of God '' there went as its accompaniment the 
 " gift '' of spiritual rule, and that all " apostles, prophets and teachers " 
 who had the one were also entrusted with the other. He shows how the 
 apostles in the primitive church of Jerusalem led in all things : in the 
 ministry of the " Word," in prayer, in the appointment of office-bearers 
 (the community elected but the apostles appointed — /caTao-TTJo-o/Acv, 
 Acts vi. 3 — and presided in the laying on of hands) ; and when they were 
 absent at their missionary work James took their place. St. Paul decided 
 for his communities questions of arrangement, sometimes by quoting a 
 " word of the Lord," sometimes by giving his own opinion (1 Cor. xiv^ 
 37) ; decided upon questions of marriage (1 Cor. vii. 10, 12), of virgin 
 daughters (1 Cor. vii. 25, 40), and generally declared " how ye ought to 
 walk " (1 Thess. iv. 1). Timothy and Titus, not because they were the 
 apostle's delegates, but because they had the " gift '' of the " Word,"- 
 appointed to office (Titus L 6 ; 1 Tim. iii. 1 ff. 8 fiE,), and directed eccle- 
 siastical discipline (1 Tim. v. 19, 20 ; Titus iii. 10). 
 
 Loening {Die Gemeiiideverfassung des UrchristerUhums^ pp. 34, 35), on 
 the other hand, thinks that the duties of an apostle were purely ethical : 
 to teach believers how they should behave as Christians, and in particular 
 what changes they had to make in their conduct (1 Cor. iv. 16, 17) ; when 
 the apostle has a " word of the Lord " then he commands, but otherwise 
 the apostle is not master of the faith of his converts (2 Cor. i. 24), and his 
 directions are only counsels founded on his own experience ; and it is 
 with entreaties and persuasion that he asks the exclusion of a grievous 
 sinner and the reception again of a repentant one (1 Cot._ v^ 3 ff . ; 2 Cor^ 
 ii. 5 ffi ; viii 11 ff,)a 
 
8B THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 Wliile others, like Loening, who see the plain evidences of the 
 independence and self-government in these same commimities, 
 insist that the apostle's whole relation to his converts was purely 
 ethical, and had nothing to do with organization and its working. 
 Six months spent in watching a missionary at work would have 
 taught them how to combine their views. 
 
 No apostle stands forth so clearly before later generations 
 as does St. Paul. His letters reveal the man, his modes of work, 
 the authority he possessed and the way in which he used it. 
 We may take him as the highest type of the first order of the 
 prophetic ministry. His duties and the authority which lay 
 behind them were what belonged to the planting of Christianity. 
 
 His claims to authority rested upon a double basis. He had 
 received words, sayings and commandments of Jesus which he 
 could hand on to his converts and which were the " traditions " 
 which he asked them to hold fast ; ' and being filled with " the 
 Spirit of God," i.e., one of those who were " gifted," to " speak 
 the Word of God," he could give the authoritative interpretation 
 of these commands, and could show the true application of the 
 principles of Christian moraUty.* He might have demanded 
 to be honoured for these possessions and " gifts," ^ but he pre- 
 ferred to rest his claims to the obedience, reverence, and affec- 
 tion of his converts on the personal relation which had grown 
 up between them and himself.* 
 
 He was the first who had made the Gospel known to them, 
 and their faith in the Lord was of itself witness to his power 
 over them and to his claims upon them ; and this intimate 
 personal relation between teacher and pupil, between preacher 
 
 » 1 Cor.! xii 2 : " Hold fast the traditions^ even as I delivered them to 
 you. ■• 
 
 * The direct command of Jesus St Paul calls cTrcray^, while his own 
 suggestions receive the name of avyyvui^-q or yvwfxrj ; cf. 1 Cor. vii. 6, 
 10, 25; these suggestions have a measured authority for the giver has 
 the Spirit of God : 1 Oor. vii 40 ; xiv. 37. 
 
 s 1 Thess. iL : " When we might liave claimed honour from you, as 
 apostles of Christ" ♦ 1 Cor. ix. 2 ; 2 Cor, iii, 1-3. 
 
APOSTLES 89 
 
 and convert, between guide and follower on the pathway heaven- 
 ward, ought to beget on their part gratitude, affection, trust and 
 imitation.' He was their spiritual father, and he could claim 
 the affectionate obedience due to a parent, while as a father 
 he had the right both to praise and to blame, and that with 
 severity.* 
 
 St. Paul never forgot that he was doing the work of a pioneerj 
 and that his work was but half done if his communities of con* 
 verts remained in a state of pupilage. He was therefore careful 
 to cultivate their sense of personal and corporate responsibility. 
 While he was ready to answer any questions about difficulties "* 
 which had arisen in the communities, he was very careful to 
 make suggestions only, and to leave the full responsibility for 
 the decisions to come on the shoulders of the society. Even 
 in the case of the gross sin of incest " the condemnation he pro- 
 nounces is not from a distance or in his own name only ; he 
 twice represents himself as present, present in spirit, in an as- 
 sembly where the Corinthians and his spirit are gathered together 
 with the power of our Lord Jesus. That is, while he is peremptory 
 that the incestuous person shall be excluded from the com- 
 munity, he is equally determined that the act shall be their 
 own act, and not a mere compliance with a command of his." * 
 
 It is not to be supposed that all the numerous apostles 
 of the primitive Church were men like St. Paul ; his natural 
 
 « GaL iv. 13 ff. ; 1 Cor. iv. 16 ; xi. 1 ; Phil. iii. 17. 
 
 « GaL iv. 19 ; 1 Cor. iv. 14 ; 18-21 ; 2 Cor. ii. 9 ; xiii. 2, 3j 
 
 3 1 Cor. vii.-x. 
 
 * Hort, The Christian Ecdesia, p. 130; cf. pp. 84-5. For the case 
 mentioned above, cf. 1 Cor. v. 1-13, with the conclusion : " Do ye not 
 judge them that are within, whereas them that are without God judgeth ? 
 Put away the wicked man from among yourselves." For the authority 
 exercised by the apostles, besides Hort as above, compare Weizsiicker, 
 The Apostolic Age, ii. 297-299; (Eng, Trans.) ; Schmiedel, Encyc. BibL, 
 art. Ministry, pp. 3116, 3117. Gore, The Church and the Ministry (3rd 
 ed-), pp. 233-238, an account in which history suffers from being looked 
 at through the coloured glass of apostoUc succession. Gwatkin, art,- 
 Apostle in Hastings' Bible Dictionary, i. 126. 
 
90 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 endowments and the large "gift" of the Spirit he possessed 
 give him a place by himself. Yet, the due deductions made, we 
 can see in him the type of these unknown men who were the 
 pioneers of Christianity in the first century; men who carried 
 the Gospel to Antioch, who sowed its seeds in imperial Rome, 
 who made hundreds of little barren spots the gardens of the 
 Lord. They went first ; the prophets and the teachers followed 
 in their steps. 
 
 2. While the apostle was the missionary of the primitive 
 Church, the prophet ' found his work within the Christian 
 communities which had been created by the energy of the 
 apostles. Prophecy was the universal and inseparable ac- 
 companiment of primitive Christianity and one of its most 
 distinctive features. Wherever the Spirit of Jesus had laid hold 
 on men, and believers were gathered into societies, there appeared 
 among them some who believed themselves to be specially filled 
 with the Spirit of the Master, and able to speak His Word as 
 He wished it to be spoken. When such an one addressed them, 
 his fellow Christians seemed to hear the Lord Himself speaking : 
 ** for," they said, " where that which pertaineth to the Lord 
 is spoken, there the Lord is." ' 
 
 Prophecy had its home in Palestine ; the ancient prophets, 
 with the " Word of Jehovah " on their lips, were the spiritual 
 guides in Israel of old. It had been silent for generations, 
 but its reappearance was expected and longed for by pious Israel- 
 ites as a sign of the nearness of the Messianic time. They looked 
 
 * For the Prophetic Ministry compare: Mosheim, Disseriaiiones ad 
 historiam ecdesiasticam pertinentes (1743), ii. pp. 132-308: De prophetia 
 ecclesiae apostdicae disaartatio ; Hamack, Encydojxxdia Britan. art. Prophet 
 {New Testament) ; Texte und Unteratichungen, II. ii. 119 S. ; Heinrici, 
 Das erste Sendschretben des Apoatel Pauiua an die Koriniher, pp. 347-462 ; 
 Loening, Die Oemeindeverfassung dea Urchriatenthuma, pp. 33 ff. ; Robin- 
 son, Encyc. Biblica, 3883 S. ; Gayford, Eastinga* Bible Dictionary ; 
 art. Church, i. 434 S. ; Selwyn, Christian Prophets (1899) ; Weinel, Die 
 Wirkungen des Oeistea und der Geister im nachapoatoliachen ZeUaUer bia 
 Irenaeua (1899)— an extravagant bookj 
 
 * Didache, iv^ 1| 
 
PHOPHETS 91 
 
 for the return of Elijah or Jeremiah or another of the prophets ; ' 
 and the apostles could appeal to the prophecies of Joel to ex- 
 plain the outpouring of the Spirit and its universal diffusion 
 on the day of Pentecost.^ Our Lord too had led His followers 
 fco expect a revival of prophecy. He had said that He would 
 send prophets ; had foretold that unbelievers would maltreat 
 them when they appeared ; ^ and had promised a prophet's 
 reward to those who received His prophets. 
 
 We need not wonder then that Christian prophets arose 
 in the Jewish Christian Church, and were to be found there 
 from the very beginning ; but what is to be remarked is that 
 prophecy was not confined to the Jewish Church. It appeared 
 spontaneously wherever the Christian faith spread. We find 
 prophets in the churches of Jerusalem and Caesarea among 
 purely Christian Jewish communities ; * at Antioch where Jews 
 and Gentiles mingled in Christian fellowship ; ^ and everywhere 
 throughout the Gentile churches — ^in Rome, in Corinth, in 
 Thessalonica, and in the Galatian Church.^ Prophets are 
 mentioned by name in the New Testament writings — ^Agabus,^ 
 Barnabas, Saul, Symeon Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen,* 
 Judas and Silas.^ Women prophesied, among them the four 
 daughters of Philip." Prophecy, with prophets and prophet- 
 esses, appears in almost uninterrupted succession from the 
 very earliest times down to the close of the second century, 
 and indeed much longer, although it did not retain its old posi- 
 tion. From the beginning too we find the true prophet confronted 
 by -the false, who preached a strange Christ, and attempted 
 to turn behevers away from the faith. 
 
 The primitive Church had its birth at a time when the old 
 
 ' Matt. xvi. 14 ; Mark vi. 16 ; viii. 28 ; Luke ix, 8j 
 * Acts ii. 16 ; cf. Joel ii. 28, 29. 
 
 3 Matt. X; 41 ; Matt, xxiii. 34 ; Luke xi. 49j 
 
 4 Acts xi. 27 ; xv. 32 ; xxi. 9, 10. 5 Acts xi. 27 ; xiii. 1: 
 
 6 Rom xiL 6, 7 ; 1 Cor; xiv. 32, 36, 37 ff. ; 1 Thess. v. 20 ; Gal. iii. 3-6, 
 y Acts xi. 28 ; xxi^ lOj * Acts xiii. 1. » Acts xv. 32. 
 
 " Acts xxi. 9i 
 
92 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 religions, whether Jewish or Pagan, had lost their power ; when 
 the old religions formulae no longer appealed to the hearts and 
 consciences of men ; when an immediate revelation of the mind 
 of the Master was the one pressing religious need for which all 
 craved. Prophecy gave this to the young Christian communi- 
 ties. The effect of the presence of these inspired men, who 
 spoke soberly enough at times, and often burst forth into rap- 
 tures and recited the visions they had received, can scarcely 
 be overrated. They confirmed the weak, they admonished the 
 lax, they edified the whole society. 
 
 The word " prophet," like the term " apostle," was used 
 in a wider and in a narrower sense. In its widest meaning 
 it could be, and it was, apphed to all the three classes who were 
 " gifted " to " speak the Word of God." St. Paul himself was 
 called a prophet long after he had begun his apostolic mission.* 
 He had the peculiar prophetic gift of speaking in visions and 
 " revelations." * The " teachers " also had something in 
 common with the " prophets." * In this wider use the whole 
 Church was said to be composed of " saints and prophets," * 
 and the prophets when present, assumed the lead in the local 
 churches (nyovfAcvoi),^ 
 
 ' Acts xiiL L Dr. lightfoot seemi to think that Saul was only a 
 prophet until he had reoeived the *' call ** from the prophets and teachers 
 at Antioch. ** The actual investiture, the completion of his call, as may 
 be gathered from St Luke's narrative, took place some years later at 
 Antioch. It was then that he, together with Baranbas, was set apart 
 by the Spirit acting through the Church, for the work to which God had 
 destined him, and for which he had been quaUfied by the appearance on 
 the road to Damascus." Commentary on the Epistle to the Oalatiana (7th 
 ed.), p. 98. But this surely contradicts St Paul's own statements. He 
 claimed to have been an apostle from his conversion, in Acts xxiL 21, and 
 in Acts xxvi 17. Ramsay, St. Paid the Traveller, pp. 66, 67, answers this 
 curious theory very thoroughly. * 2 Cor. xiL 1-5. 
 
 3 The '* prophet " is continually called a teacher and said to teach, 
 Didache, xL 10 ; and the woman Jezebel, who called herself a prophet, 
 is said to have tavght and seduced many in the church at Thyatira, Rev. 
 iL 20. 4 Rev. xL 18 ; xvi. 6. 
 
 ' Silas and Judas, who were prophets in the church at Jerusalem are 
 called ^ovfX€vot there: Acts xv. 22; ci Heb. xiiL 7 and above p. 73. 
 
PROPHETS 98 
 
 In the narrower sense of the term prophecy had its distinct 
 sphere between apostleship and teaching. St. Paul, following 
 his Master, places it second in his list of the " gifts '* which 
 God has bestowed on His Church.* It had its place within 
 the congregation, and was part of the preaching ministry of the 
 apostolic Church. In the picture St. Paul gives us of the meeting 
 for edification, prophecy in the order of service ^ comes between 
 the part devoted to instruction and " speaking in a tongue." 
 St. Paul's statements lead us to believe that the prophetic 
 " gift " was not confined to a favoured few. He expected that 
 it should manifest itself in every community of Christians. He 
 desired that every member of the Corinthian Church should 
 possess it, and that all should strive to cultivate it.^ The Chris- 
 tians in Thessalonica were exhorted to cherish " prophesyings," * 
 and the brethren in Rome to make full use of the " gift." ^ If 
 he criticised the action of prophets at Corinth it was for the 
 purpose of teaching them how to make the best of the " gift " 
 which had been entrusted to them for the edification of their 
 brethren.^ 
 
 What then was prophecy ? The new revelation of God in 
 Jesus Christ, the new way of approach to the Infinite Father 
 manifested in the appearance of the Son, had created for the 
 primitive Christians a new life and had illumined them with 
 a new light. It gave them a new insight into the relations 
 between God and man, and a fresh manifestation of the bonds 
 uniting our Father in Heaven with His children on earth. It 
 made them see with new vividness the way of God's salvation 
 and the duties which God required of man. There arose in the 
 midst of the primitive Christian societies men specially filled 
 with all this wealth of insight, and inspired or " gifted " to dis- 
 close to their fellows the divine counsels and the hidden mys- 
 teries of the faith. These were the prophets. 
 
 They were teachers. A large part of what they uttered was 
 
 « 1 Cor. xii 28, * See above, p, 46, 3 i Ckjr. xiv. 1, 5, 39^ 
 
 4 1 Thes8» Ti 20i 5 Rom. xii, 6^ . * 1 Cor* xiv» 29-33^ 
 
M THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 instruction, but their peculiar " gift " was distinct from that of 
 the teacher. He had to make known the new facts and events 
 which the Gospel had disclosed ; he had to trace the connexion 
 between these divine events, and to explain the rationale of 
 the divine forces at work for man's salvation. He had to show 
 the bearings of these divine facts and forces upon beliefs and 
 ways of living. The distinctively prophetic task was different. 
 The prophet was a producer, not an expounder simply, not a 
 man whose task was finished when he had taught others to assi- 
 milate the divine knowledge which lay at their disposal. The 
 prophet added something more. He was a revealer bringing 
 forth something new. For prophecy presupposed revelation ; 
 it rested upon it ; and apart from revelation it did not exist.* 
 The prophet was a man of spiritual insight and magnetic speech. 
 What he uttered came to him as an intuition of the Spirit, as 
 if he had heard a voice or seen a sight. 
 
 This does not mean that the prophet spoke in a state of ecstasy 
 or amentia. St. Paul's suggestions in 1 Cor. xiv. 29-33 imply 
 that the prophet retained his consciousness throughout and had 
 the power to control himself. The apostle counselled that 
 whatever number of revelations had been received, not more 
 than two or three should be uttered during one meeting, and 
 that if a brother received a revelation while another was speak- 
 ing the speaker should give way. Prophecy might be ecstatic, 
 and we have evidence that it frequently was, but it was not so 
 necessarily. Non-ecstatic prophecy lasted in the Church for 
 two centuries, and can be shown to have existed among the 
 Montanists, notwithstanding the accusations of theii oppo- 
 nents.* 
 
 Prophecy might be based on "visions." St. Paul appeals 
 to his own visions as well as to his " revelations." ^ The Apo- 
 calypse, which is the great prophetic book of the New Testa- 
 
 « 1 Cor xii. 3 ; xiv. 6, 26, 30, 32 ; Matt xvi, 17< 
 
 • 01 Ritschl, Die Enstehung der aUkathdischen Kirch^i p^ 475* 
 
 t 2 Cor. xiL 1-5^ 
 
PROPHETS 06 
 
 ment and the most conspicuous relic we have of the prophecy 
 ol the primitive Christian Church, is a series of visions seen by 
 a prophet and related by him.' Sub-apostolic prophecy had 
 its " visions " also. The Pastor of Hermas, a Roman presbyter 
 or elder who was a prophet, is largely composed of " visions." ' 
 But " visions " were not essential to prophecy, nor do they 
 seem to have been its conmion accompaniment. All inspired 
 witness-bearing was prophecy, and we may almost say that 
 free, spontaneous discourse about spiritual things was its 
 essential characteristic. We learn, for example, from the 
 Didache that, while a definite form of words was prescribed 
 for the celebration of the Eucharist, the prophets were not 
 bound to use it. They were to be allowed to " give thanks 
 as much as they wUl" ^ At the same time it must be remem- 
 bered that the prophets were always believed to speak in a very 
 special fashion in the name of God and with His authority. 
 When the prophet spoke God was present, and the prophet 
 was to be listened to as the messenger of God.'^ 
 
 There is nothing in the whole series of descriptions of prophecy 
 
 ' Rev. xxii. 9. 
 
 ^ Compare the very full account of Hermas in the Diet: of Chr. Biog. ii.- 
 912-927. It is interesting to notice how many of the " visions " of the 
 sub-apostolic prophets were concerned with some question of Christian 
 Ufe and practice. Hermas had a vision about the restoration of repentant 
 sinners to Church privileges { Vis. iii. 7) ; Cyprian had one about the 
 subject which interested him most — the obedience which ought to be given 
 to bishops ; and Eusebius {Hist. Eccl. V. iii. 2-3) relates how while the 
 confessors of Lyons were in prison, it was revealed to one of them, Attains, 
 after his first conflict in the arena, that his companion did not act wisely 
 in prison in keeping to his ascetic living, that he told his vision to his 
 companion Alcibiades, who gave heed to him and left off his ascetic usages, 
 for, it is added " they were not deprived of the grace of God, but the 
 Holy Spirit was their director,'-! 
 
 3 Didache, x. 7.- 
 
 ♦ 1 Cor. xiv. 25 ; Gal. iv. 14 ; Didache, iv; 1 : *- My child, remember 
 night and day him that speaketh to thee the word of God and honour 
 him as the Lord ; for where that which pertaineth to the Lord is spoken^ 
 there the Lord is." Acts xiii. 1, 2 : " Now there were at Antioch, in the 
 church that was there, prophets : i . and as they ministered to the 
 Lord and fasted, <Ae JBToZj/ (?Ao5i sattZ, Separate Me Barnabas and SauL: i i g^ 
 
96 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 which have come down to us from apostolic and from sub- 
 apostolic times to suggest that the prophets held any office, 
 or that they were the recognized heads of local churches. Office- 
 bearers, indeed, might be prophets ; for the " gift " might 
 come to anyone, and St. Paul desired that it should be the 
 possession of every member of the Corinthian Church. Office 
 neither brought it nor excluded it ; a prophet was a gift of God 
 to the whole Church, and no community could make exclusive 
 claim to him. 
 
 Nevertheless prophets had an important influence within 
 the local churches of primitive times. We can see this from the 
 Epistles of St. Paul and, from sub-apostohc literature, we can 
 discern that their influence grew rather than diminished during 
 the first decades of the second century. This power seems to 
 have been exercised more particularly in the two matters of 
 discipUne and absolution or restoration to membership after 
 gross cases of sin. St. Paul does not lend his sanction to any 
 such special powers of interference. When he speaks of ex- 
 communication or of restoration he addresses himself to the 
 whole Christian community, in whose hands he takes for granted 
 that these duties rest.' But in writing to the Galatian church 
 about dealing with sinners he uses the words, " Ye that are 
 spirittud'' (iruevfiariKol).* This term "spiritual man" or 
 TTvevfiaTiKo^ came to be used, in a fashion quite different from 
 St. Paul's use, almost exclusively of the prophets ; ' and the 
 phrase of the apostle must have had some eflect in leading 
 primitive Christians to believe that the prophets were the persons 
 to deal with these matters. The primitive Church early adopted 
 the idea that certain sins, of which varying Usts are given, were 
 
 » 1 ThesB. V. 14 ; 1 Cor. v. l-« ; 2 Cor. vL 6-«, 
 
 • GaL VL 1 : v/iet? oi irv€VfiaTLKoX KarapTi^ert tov toiovtov. 
 
 5 Pseudo-Clem., De Virginit. L 11 : " With the gift therefore that thou 
 hast received from the Lord, serve the spiritual brethren, the prophets.'' 
 Irenaeus, Adv. Hoar. V. vL 1 : "In like manner we do hear of many breth- 
 ren in the Church, who poesees the prophetic gifts i i ; whom also the 
 apoetle terms ^spirifcaaL'** 
 
PROPHETS 97 
 
 of such a grievous kind that the sinner could not be received 
 back again into the Christian society. They did not hold that 
 these sins were beyond the mercy of God ; but they did think 
 that, without the direct voice of God commanding them, it was 
 not permitted to them to restore such sinners to the communion 
 of the Christian society. The voice of God they believed that 
 they could hear in the judgment of the prophet ; and the prophets 
 could declare the forgiveness which the community felt to be 
 beyond its power. Tertullian, who represents the older view, 
 expresses this very strongly.^ It was also believed that God 
 dwelt in the martyrs as He did in the prophets, and that con- 
 fessors and martyrs had the right to declare whether sinners 
 ought to be absolved and restored.* There are evidences also 
 that the prophets had a large share in declaring who were to be 
 chosen to fill the posts of office-bearers in the local churches. 
 All these things go to show, that if the statement that the 
 prophets exercised a " despotism " ^ over the primitive Christian 
 churches is too strong, they did possess very great authority — 
 the authority which belongs to one who is believed to utter the 
 Word of God. 
 
 The prophets who are referred to in St. Paul's epistles seem 
 to have been members of the commimities which they edified 
 with their " gift " of exhortation and admonition, and this was 
 no doubt the case with the largest number of these gifted men. 
 
 ^ Tertullian, De Pudicitia, xxL- : " The Church it is true will forgive 
 sins ; but it will be the Church of the Spirit, by means of a spiritual man ; 
 not the Church which consists of a number of bishops. For the right and 
 judgment is the Lord's, not His servant's; God's Himself, not the 
 priest's." Hermas, Pastor, Mandata, IV. iii. 
 
 ^ Sohm has collected the evidence for the right assigned to martyrs to 
 pronounce absolution on the beHef that God was specially present in His 
 martyr, in his Kirchenrecht, i. 32, n. 9. The office-bearers deprived tho 
 prophets of the right of absolution and took it upon themselves in the 
 end of the second and in the beginning of the third centuries ; and Cyprian's 
 long struggle with the confessors in North Africa ended in the overthrow 
 of all such rights in the hands of any but the regular office-bearers in the 
 Church. 
 
 3 Hamack, Theol. Lit, Zeitung, 1889, pp. 420, 421* 
 CM. 7 
 
98 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 But many who had the " gift " in a pre-eminent way took to 
 wandering from one local church to another, in order to awaken 
 Christian Ufe and service in newly planted congregations ; and 
 the wandering habit easily grew when the services of the travel- 
 ling prophets proved welcome to the infant communities. This 
 custom was foreshadowed by our Lord Himself when He pro- 
 mised a prophet's reward to those who received His prophets,' 
 and it evidently existed from the earliest times. Agabus wan- 
 dered from church to church ; we hear of his being at Jerusalem, 
 Antioch and Caesarea.' Such wandering prophets might 
 easily become apostles, and we can see an example of this change 
 of work when Barnabas, who did a prophet's work in Antioch, was, 
 at the call of the Spirit, sent, along with Saul, to undertake the 
 work of an apostle or missionary in Cyprus, Pamphylia, Pisidia 
 and Lycaonia. When these wandering prophets settled down 
 for a time with their families,' in any Christian community, 
 far from home and emplojrment, it was but right that the com- 
 munity they benefited by their labours should support them. 
 St. Paul had laid down the principle that it was a command- 
 ment of the Lord's that " they which proclaim the gospel should 
 live of the gospel,"^ and had said to the Galatian Christians, 
 " let him that is taught in the word communicate to him that 
 teacheth in all good things." * Primitive Christians had also 
 the Lord's promise made to those who received His prophets.* 
 Hence the Christian communities made regulations for the sup- 
 port of the wandering prophets who gave them that exhortation 
 and admonition which were the things chiefly sought in the 
 meeting for edification. The prophets were to have the first- 
 fruits of wine and oil, of com and bread, of oxen and sheep, 
 of clothing and of money.' The local churches supported the 
 
 » Matt X. 4l4 « Acta xL 28 ; xxL 10. 
 
 » 1 Cor. ix. 6j 4 1 Cor. ix. 14 ; Matt x; IO4 
 
 i GaL vi 6. • Matt x. 41. 
 
 f Didaehe, xiiL : " But every true prophet who will settle among you 
 is worthy of his support Likewise a trae teacher, he abo is worthy, 
 lik« the workman of his support Every first-fruit then of the products 
 
PROPHETS 99 
 
 wandering prophets while they settled among them. In return 
 the prophets exhorted in the meetings for edification and pre- 
 sided at the meetings for thanksgiving.* 
 
 The conception that a prophet was inspired to speak the 
 Word of God invested him with such a sacred authority that 
 his position would have been completely autocratic had it not 
 been under some controlling power. This power of control 
 lay in the fact that every prophet required the permission or 
 authorisation of the congregation in order to exercise his " gift " | 
 among them. This authorisation followed the testing or the '; 
 recognition whether the supposed prophet had or had not the ' 
 true spirit of Jesus. The power of testing lay in the witness 
 of the Spirit, which was Hving in every Christian and in every 
 Christian community. For, as has been before remarked, the 
 prophetic ministry rested on a double " gift,'* or charisma ; 
 one, the " gift " of speaking the Word, in the prophet, and the 
 other, in the members of the Christian community, the " gift " 
 of discernment.^ The possession and use of this " gift " of 
 testing preserved the freedom and autonomy of the local Chris- 
 tian churches in presence of men who were persuaded that they 
 spoke in the name of God. Every prophet had to submit to 
 
 of the wine-press and threshing-floor, of oxen and of sheep, thou shalt 
 take and give to the prophets ; for they are your high-priests.- But if ye 
 have no prophet, give it to the poor. If thou makest a baking of bread, 
 take the first of it and give according to the commandment. In Uke 
 manner also when thou openest a jar of wine or oil, take the first of it 
 and give to the prophets ; and of money and clothing and every possession 
 take the first, as may seem right to thee, and give according to the com- 
 mandment." 
 
 ^ Didachey x^ 7j The mode of conducting the Eucharistic meeting is 
 quite unknown except the one fact that when prophets were present they 
 led. It is easy to conceive a collegiate superintendence of the meeting 
 for edification ; but it is hardly possible to think of a collegiate presidency 
 at the dispensation of the Lord's Supper.: Did the prophets select one of 
 their number to preside, or did they preside in turn ? We do not know. 
 Nor can we get out of this difficulty by supposing that the Lord's Supper 
 was dispensed in the family, when the father would naturally preside ; for 
 Stw Paul's description clearly implies a common dispensation^ 
 
 * Compare pp. 70-72, 
 
100 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 be tested before he was received as one worthy to exhort the 
 brotherhood ; and his decisions or admonitions on points of 
 discipline or absolution had to be approved by the congregation 
 ere they were enforced. The right and the duty of Christian 
 communities to test every one who came with a prophetic 
 message was urged repeatedly by St. Paul and in other New 
 Testament writings. The apostle insisted that all prophets, 
 apostles, and even himself, ought to be tested by all Christians 
 to whom they presented themselves. He appealed to their 
 power of judging his own message.' The power to discriminate 
 between the true and the false spiritual gifts was a special 
 charisma which ought to be used.* The Lord had warned His 
 followers against " false ** prophets, and had predicted that 
 they would bring evil upon His Church ; ' and St. Paul, after 
 telling the Thessalonians to cherish prophesyings, insists on 
 their using their power of discrimination. The same command 
 is given in 1 John iv. !.♦ The Church of Ephesus was praised 
 for trying and rejecting men who called themselves apostles 
 and were not.' The Churches of Smyrna and Thyatira were 
 blamed for the untested and unrejected teaching which they 
 had permitted.* 
 
 There was need for testing, for if the genuine Old Testament 
 prophecy was confronted with " gilds " of diviners and sooth- 
 sayers belonging to the old Semitic naturalist religions, as well 
 as with colleges of Jewish prophets who had retained the ex- 
 ternal prophetic characteristics, but had lost the true spirit of 
 Jehovah,^ the prophets of Jesus also had their rivals and their 
 innocent or designing imitators. In that age of crumbling faiths 
 in the Graeco-Roman world. Eastern religions were entering 
 
 ' 1 Cor. X. 16 ; xL 13 ; 2 Cor. xiiL 5, 6 ; ct Rev. iL 2 ; compare H.- 
 Weinel, PatUua als Kirchlicher Organisator (1899), pp. 18, 19. 
 « 1 Cor. xiL 10 ; cl w. 1. 4^ 
 s Matt viL 16 ; zxiv. IL 
 
 4 1 Thees. v. 21 ; 1 John iv. 1-3 ; cf. DidacHe, z. 1, 2, 11 ; j^ h 
 » Rev. iL 2. * Rev. il 14, 16 ; 20^ 
 
 ' Deut ziiL 3 ; Jer. xxiil 21-32. 
 
PROPHETS » ; i'Ai "'.' 101 
 
 to possess the land. The great imperial utypf-eiii Oi .i'Oftd^ J^)ltI 
 sea-routes served other purposes besides the traflGlc of trade, 
 the convoy of troops, or the ordinary coming and going of 
 the, population. Bands of itinerant devotees, the professional 
 prophets and priests of Syrian, Persian, and perhaps of Indian 
 cults, passed along the high-roads. Sohtary preachers of 
 Oriental faiths, with all the fire of missionary zeal, tramped from 
 town to town, drawn by an irresistible impulse towards Rome, 
 the centre of civilization, the protectress of the religions of her 
 myriads of subject peoples, the tribune from which, if a speaker 
 could only once ascend it, he might address the world. It was 
 the age of wandering preachers and teachers, of religious ex- 
 citements, of curiosity about new faiths,' when all who had 
 something new to teach hawked their theories as traders dragged 
 about and exposed their merchandise. We need not suppose 
 that these men were all charlatans or self-conscious impostors. 
 We must not thrust aside carelessly and without question the 
 claims made by the prophets and preachers of many of these 
 Eastern faiths to the possession of a knowledge of hidden powers 
 and processes of nature, and of a command over them. Above 
 all, we must not forget the strange assimilative character of so 
 many Oriental faiths, which was as strong in Syria and Asia 
 Minor in the early centuries as it is in India now. Christianity 
 attracted men then as now ; they were curious about it ; they 
 seized on sides of the new religion which they could best appre- 
 ciate, and could so present their beliefs as to be able to plead 
 that they themselves were Christians of a more sympathetic 
 character and with a wider outlook than others. The great 
 cities which were the centres of trade and commerce — the 
 ganglia of the great empire, as the roads were its nerve-system^ 
 Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Rome, where we find the Chris- 
 tian prophets most active within the Gentile Christian Church, 
 were the very places where this pagan Oriental prophecy most 
 
 ' Compare Wissowa, Religion und Kidtus der Romer (1902), pp. 78-83 ; 
 Boissier, La Religion Romaine d'Aitguste aux Anionina (1878), i, 354-403, 
 
IW: THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 ^bqimded. • S^othing Mndered the presence of such men at the 
 meetings for edification ; nothing prevented them from claiming 
 to speak in the Spirit ; only the SioKpia-i^ lying in the Chris- 
 tian society, only the power of discernment and testing through 
 that " gift " of spiritual insight which was in every true Christian, 
 and therefore in the Christian community, prevented the claims 
 of such men to be inspired guides being admitted. 
 
 The testing was for the purpose of finding whether the pro- 
 phetic "gift" was genuine or not. It had little or nothing 
 to do with the external appearance of the prophet or with the 
 kind of utterance which he selected to convey his message. 
 The question was : Were the contents of the prophetic message 
 such as would come from the spirit of Jesus ? had it the self- 
 evidencing ring about it ? had it the true ethical meaning which 
 must be in a message from the Master ? — something which dis- 
 tinguished it from everything heathenish or Jewish, something 
 which showed that the prophet had drunk deeply at the well of 
 Christ? 
 
 The test that St. Paul gives : " no man speaking in the Spirit 
 of God saith, Jesus is anathema ; and no man can say that 
 Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit " * may seem inadequate 
 and easily eluded ; but St. Paul is not delivering a short verbal 
 creed ; he is setting forth a principle. Prophecy must be filled 
 with the sense of the Lordship of Jesus over the believer's heart, 
 soul and life, if it is true prophecy.* In the later days of the 
 Didacke the need for testing was felt as strongly, if not more so ; 
 
 » 1 Cor. xii. 3. 
 
 ^ The test given in 1 John iv. 1 : " Beloved, believe not every spirit, 
 but test the spirits, whether they be of God ; because many false prophets 
 are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God : every 
 spirit which confesseth that Jeeus Christ is come in the flesh is of God ; 
 and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus (annulleth Jesus) ia not 
 of God," also looks like a creed ; but what follows makes us see that 
 it is to be taken as a principle which can be felt and which means much 
 more than the form of words in which it is expressed. In both cases the 
 statement of the test is immediately followed by an exposition of the 
 necessity of Christian love permeating the whole Christian life^ 
 
TEACHERS 108 
 
 the tests, however, took a much more mechanical aspect. The 
 fine spiritual sense which the apostle trusted to has gone into 
 the background and some wooden maxims have taken its place. 
 " Not every one that speaketh in the spirit," says the Didache 
 warningly, " is a prophet, but only if he have the ways of the 
 Lord." ' The phrase " ways of the Lord " does not, taken by 
 itself, suggest anything mechanical, and has a flavour of the 
 old spirituality. But the subordinate tests appear to indicate 
 a degeneracy both in the prophetic office and in the spiritual 
 discernment of the people. For the prophetic office and its 
 discrimination demanded a somewhat high tone of spiritual 
 Hfe, and might very easily deteriorate. In this, as in other 
 things, there is a close parallel to be drawn between the prophets 
 of the New and of the Old Testament. 
 
 3. The third class of persons who belonged to this prophetic 
 ministry were the teachers (SiSda-KaXoi). 
 
 We can trace their presence along with that of the apostles 
 and the prophets in the promise of Jesus, in the most con- 
 spicuous of the " gifts " of His Spirit to the apostolic church, 
 in the records of the sub-apostohc period. Our Lord promised 
 to send " wise men and scribes " — a " gift " to be recognized 
 and appreciated by His followers, and rejected with hatred 
 by those who refused His salvation.* St. Paul emphasized 
 their presence, when he said that God had set in the Church 
 " thirdly teachers."^ We find them mentioned throughout the 
 apostolic and sub-apostolic periods, holding an honoured place 
 in the infant Christian communities. 
 
 They were not office-bearers necessarily, though there was 
 nothing to prevent their being chosen to office. What made 
 
 ' Didache, xi. 8v The subordinate tests are : A prophet who orders 
 a meal in the spirit and eateth it ; a prophet who does not himself practise 
 what he teaches ; a prophet who asks for money — are all false prophets. 
 But a prophet who has the " ways of the Lord," and who practises more 
 than he preaches is a true prophet. {Did. xi. 9-12.) 
 
 2 Matt, xxiii. 34 : " prophets, wise men and scribes." Luke xi.: 49 : 
 " propheto and apostles," Cf. Matt. x. 41. 3 i Cor. xii. 28^ 
 
104 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 them " teachers " was neither selection by their brethren nor 
 any ceremony of setting apart to perform work which the Church 
 required to be done. They were " teachers " because they had 
 in a personal way received from the Spirit the " gift " of Jcnoto- 
 ledge^ which fitted them to instruct their fellow believers. Their 
 more pubUc sphere of work was in the meeting for edification, 
 where, according to St. Paul, they had a definite place assigned 
 to them after the praise and before the prophesyings ; * but 
 it may be inferred that their work was not limited to public 
 exhortation, and that they devoted time and pains to the in- 
 struction of catechumens and others who wished to be more 
 thoroughly grounded in the principles of Christian faith and 
 life.* St. Paul gives us some indications of the work of the 
 " teacher." The apostle always brought to the communities 
 he had founded what may be called the " oral Gospel " of the 
 Lord Jesus or the saving deeds of the EvangeUcal history, 
 and certain institutions and conmiandments of the Master.^ 
 These were the things which he " had received," and which he 
 " handed over " to his converts to be stored up in the retentive 
 Oriental memory uncorrupted by reading and writing. He 
 had added others — hidden things revealed to him because he 
 was a prophet — which he called " mysteries," about the Resur- 
 rection or the xmiversality of the Gospel.* These things he 
 had handed over to them either " by word or by epistle." ' 
 To these he had added suggestions and opinions of his own.* 
 All these things formed the stock of material on which the 
 " gift " of the teacher enabled him to work for the edification 
 
 » 1 Cor. xiv. 26. • GaL vi 6. 
 
 > We can see from 1 Cor. xv. 1-3, how St Paul had made his convert* 
 acquainted with the sufferings, death, and rising again of our Lord ; how 
 he had enlarged on His character and ethical quaHties (2 Cor. viiL 9 ; x, 1) ; 
 etc., etc. He had taught them the institutions of Jesus (1 Cor. zL 23 ff.)^ 
 We have references to " commandments " of the Lord in I Cor. vii 6, 26i 
 
 4 1 Cot. XV. 61 : " Behold I tell you a mystery : We shall not all sleeps 
 but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at 
 the last trump.'* 1 Cor. ii. 6 flL Ct xiiL 2 ; xiv^ 2, 
 
 • 2 TheMi ii. 16i • 1 Oor. viL 6, 10, 26^ 
 
TEACHERS 105 
 
 of the community. St. Paul's own discourses furnished the 
 teachers in his communities with examples of the way in which 
 all these stores of communicated knowledge could be brought 
 to bear upon the faith, life and morals of the members of the 
 local churches. He had given them a " pattern of teaching " ' 
 which they could strive to imitate, and which they without doubt 
 did copy in their public exhortations or private instructions and 
 admonitions. 
 
 From St. Paul's epistles it would appear that the apostle 
 expected that every Christian community would furnish from 
 its own membership, the teachers required to instruct the mem- 
 bers ; * but it is evident, at least when we get beyond the apos- 
 tolic period, that many gifted men, whose services were appre- 
 ciated, went from church to church teaching and preaching, 
 and that without having any pretension to the prophetic gift. 
 Justin Martyr and Tatian, well-known apologists of the second 
 century, were wandering teachers of this kind. 
 
 Such a wandering master, we learn from the Didache, belonged 
 to the class of "honoured" persons {TeTiiut.rjiuL€voi)j and at once 
 attained a leading position in the community he entered or 
 to which he belonged. He had to submit to the same tests 
 as the prophet, but like him, when once received, he was 
 honoured as one who spoke the " Word of God." ^ 
 
 A position such as this, carrying with it both privilege and 
 support, would be sought after by those who thought more of 
 the honourable position in which the teacher stood than of the 
 serious responsibilities which his office involved; and there are 
 warnings both in apostolic and sub-apostoUc literature that the 
 work of a teacher is not to be lightly undertaken.* It is perhaps 
 worthy of remark that the " teachers " seem to have maintained 
 their position as a distinct class of men, apart from the office- 
 
 ' Rom. vi 17 : rvTros StSaxi}?! * Eph. iv^ 15, 16^ 
 
 3 Didache^ xiii. 2 ; xv. 2. 
 
 ♦ James iii. 1 ; Barnabas, Epistle iv. 9 : " Being desirous to write many 
 things to you, not as your teacher, but as becoineth one who loves you,''! 
 
106 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 bearers of a local church, much longer than the prophets did. 
 In the general overthrow of the prophetic " ministry " during 
 the second century the ofifice of " teacher " was absorbed by 
 the local ministry ; but " teachers " apart from office-bearers 
 seem to have maintained themselves in the Church for some 
 centuries/ and some churches, notably that of Alexandria, 
 seem to have possessed large numbers of teachers.* 
 
 This prophetic ministry and the peculiar place it occupied 
 was the distinctive feature of the organization of the Church 
 of Christ during the apostolic and sub-apostolic periods. It 
 gives this age a place by itself, and separates it from all other 
 periods of the Church's history ; for it must be remembered 
 that while this ministry lasted it dominated and controlled. 
 Whatever administrative organization the local churches 
 possessed had to bend before the authority of the members of 
 this prophetic circle. To them belonged the right to lead the 
 devotions of their brethren — ^to speak the " Word of God " in 
 the meeting for edification, and to preside at the Eucharistic ser- 
 vice — and to influence in a large but indefinite manner the whole 
 
 « Compare the curioua sentence in the Apostolic ConstUuiions (VIII, 
 xxxiL) which can scarcely be earUer than the beginning of the fifth century: 
 ** Let him that teaches, cdthough he be one of the laity ^ yet, if he be skilful 
 in the word and grave in his manners, teach ; '-' where the reference is 
 evidently to the instruction of catechumens. The teachers of the famous 
 catechetical school of Alexandria were laymen during some part of their 
 time as teachers. 
 
 The Christian communities, especially in large towns, must have needed 
 teachers for Christian schools ; for all teaching within pagan lands is 
 closely associated with idolatry. Tertullian (Z)e Idolatria, x. ) has discussed 
 the difficulties of schoolmasters amidst a pagan populace ; the same 
 difficulties attend native Christians in India now. When a Marathi boy 
 first goes to school he is placed upon a small carpet and a board covered 
 with red tile dust is placed before him. The image of Saravasti, the 
 goddess of learning, is painted on the board. Then the master sitting 
 beside him first worships Ganesa and Saravasti, and teaches the boy to 
 make the letters which form the name Ganesa.- The difficulties are exactly 
 those which Tertullian describes. 
 
 2 Eusebius, Hist. Ecd. VIL xxiv. 6 : '-■ The presbyters and the teacher* 
 of the brethren in the villages,'* 
 
THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 107 
 
 action of the infant Cliristian communities. Yet they were not 
 office-bearers in any sense of the word. They were not elected, 
 nor were they set apart by any ecclesiastical action to a place of 
 rule. Their vocation was immediate and personal. They 
 could be tested, and their ministry might be accepted or rejected, 
 but there the power of the Church with regard to them and to 
 their ministry came to an end. 
 
 They appear on the pages of the apostolic and sub-apostolic 
 literature in the three classes which have been described ; but 
 the divisions, we can see, represented functions, not offices, 
 nor can it be said that these functions were separated by any hard 
 and fast line. 
 
 The apostle or wandering missionary was also a prophet and 
 a teacher ; his vocation required him to be all three. The 
 prophet might become an apostle, if he gave himself permanently 
 to the aggressive creative work which was the characteristic 
 of the apostolic activity ; and he was also a teacher, for his 
 prophetic utterances must often have been teaching of the highest 
 and most stimulating kind. But a teacher could fulfil the special 
 work of his vocation without having the " gift " of revelation 
 added to that of knowledge. 
 
 In all three classes we can discern the effects of a real out- 
 pouring of the Spirit, imparting special spiritual gifts, and 
 creating for the service of the infant Christian communities 
 a ministry which " spoke the Word of God " in the same sense 
 as did the prophets of the Old Testament Dispensation. St. 
 Paul was a prophet in the same sense that Isaiah was, and the 
 author of the Apocalypse had visions as vivid as those of Ezekiel.^ 
 The one great difierence between the prophesying of the two 
 
 ' Compare Plumptre, Theology and Life, p. 90 : " Strange as the thought 
 may seem to us, there were in that age (the apostolic) some hundreds it 
 may be, of men as truly inspired as Isaiah or Ezekiel had been, as St. Paul 
 or St. Peter then were, speaking words which were, as truly as any that 
 were ever spoken, inspired words of God, and yet all record of them has 
 vanisheds" 
 
108 THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 dispensations was that tlie gift was much more widely bestowed 
 in the New than it had been in the Old Dispensation. 
 
 It seems to be impossible to draw any line of demarcation 
 between the prophecy of the Old and that of the New Testament, 
 except that the latter partook of the universalist character 
 of the new revelation of the Kingdom which our Lord pro- 
 claimed, and the " gift " was imparted to Gentiles as well as 
 to Jews. The same outstanding features characterized the 
 prophets and prophecy in the two dispensations. In both cases 
 the prophetic " call " came to the prophet personally and im- 
 mediately in a unique experience ; and when the " call " came 
 everything else had to be set aside, and the " word " from God 
 had to be spokan. It is possible to compare narrowly St. Paul 
 and Isaiah, St. John and Ezekiel, Polycarp and Jeremiah. 
 In neither case was the prophetic " call " a call to office in the 
 Church. The New Testament prophets were no more presbyters 
 or bishops in virtue of their " call " than were the Old Testa- 
 ment prophets elevated to the priesthood in Israel ; and in both 
 cases the regular office-bearers had to give way to and bow 
 before the men through whom the Spirit of God spoke. 
 
 In Old Testament prophecy, as in the prophecy of the New 
 Testament, the Spirit of God was given in a larger measure 
 to some men and in a smaller degree to others, and in each case 
 the natural faculties of the prophet had full play to exert them- 
 selves according to the capacities of the man. There were 
 gradations in the prophetic order from men like St. Paul an^ 
 Isaiah, who stood in the foremost rank, to the nameless prophet 
 whom the Uon slew, or the impetuous prophet who interrupted 
 his brother in the meeting of the Corinthian congregation. 
 
 In both cases true prophecy was surrounded with a fringe of 
 prophet life which was hostile, and which was inspired by a spirit 
 at variance with the purposes of Jehovah and with the prin- 
 ciples of Jesus. In the Old Testament, as in the New, there 
 was a marked tendency towards deterioration within the pro- 
 phetic order. 
 
THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 109 
 
 In both cases the power to discriminate between the true 
 and the false prophecy, between the man who spoke full of the 
 Spirit of God and the member of the prophetic " gild," was left 
 to the spiritual discernment of the people spoken to. The 
 discerning faculty was often at fault ; pretenders were received 
 by and misled the faithful. Jeremiah had to protest against 
 the way in which the people received men who claimed to be 
 prophets, and Origen had to repudiate the prophets, or their 
 caricatures, whom Celsus described with graphic irony.' Yet 
 this power of spiritual insight was the only touchstone, and, 
 indeed, there could have been no other in the last resort. For 
 men can never get rid of their personal responsibihty in spiritual 
 things. 
 
 ' Origen, Contra Celsum, vii. 9 : '- Again inasmuch as Celsus announceB 
 that he will describe from personal observation and an intimate knowledge 
 of the facts, the manners pecuhar to the prophets of Phenicia and Palestine, 
 let us consider these statements. Firstly, he declares that there are 
 several kinds of prophesyings, although he gives no list of them . . . .• 
 ' The prophets,' he says, ' are many and unknown persons. They are 
 apparently and very readily moved to speak as if in a divine ecstasy 
 without any special occasion both at the time of service and at other times. 
 Some go about as beggars and visit encampments and towns. Every 
 one of them says readily and simply : ' I am God,' or * I am the Son of 
 God,' or * I am the Holy Spirit. I have come ; for the world is about to 
 be destroyed ; you, O men, will be lost through your wickedness. I am 
 willing to save you ; and you shall see me again coming with heavenly 
 power. Blessed is he who now worships me. On all others I shall cast 
 eternal fire, on cities and lands and on men. Men who do not recognize 
 their impending judgment will repent and groan in vain ; but those who 
 have hearkened unto me, I will protect for ever.' With these threats 
 they mingle words, half-frantic, meaningless and altogether mysterious, 
 whose significance no sensible man could discover. For words that are 
 vague and without meaning give every fool and wizard an opportunity 
 of giving any particular meaning they wish on any matter, to what has been 
 said." One must remember that Celsus was what would now be called 
 a cultured agnostic. His statements are not unlike some criticisms of 
 the Salvation Army preachera^ 
 
The Church of the First Century 
 The Churches Creating their Ministry 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 IN approaching tlie subject of the ministry of the local 
 Christian communities it may be well to note these things 
 at the outset. We have abundant evidence of the thorough 
 independence of the local churches during the apostohc age, 
 whether we seek for it in the epistles of St. Paul or in the Acts 
 of the Apostles.^ We must remember the uniquely Christian 
 correlation of the three thoughts of leadership, service and 
 " gifts " ; leadership depends on service, and service is rendered 
 possible by the bestowal of " gifts " of the Spirit which enable 
 the recipients to serve their brethren.^ The possession of these 
 *' gifts " of the Spirit was the evidence of the presence of Jesus 
 within the community, and gave the brotherhood a divine 
 authority to exercise rule and oversight in the absence of any 
 authoritative formal prescriptions about a definite form of 
 government.^ We have also to bear in mind the general evidence 
 which exists to show that there was a gradual growth of the 
 associative principle from looser to more compact forms of 
 organization.'* Nor should it be forgotten that the members 
 
 ^ Compare what has been said on pp. 32, 33 ; 64-674 
 
 * Compare what has been said on pp. 62 £f. 
 3 Compare p. 33 and pp. 69 ff. 
 
 * This growth of the associative principle is seen in the names given to 
 believers as a united company. The earliest title was disciples {/xaOyjral); 
 which implied that Jesus, their Lord, was also their teacher, and their 
 only teacher — for Jesus expressly forbade His followers calling any one but 
 Himself Master, Teacher, Father or Lord (Matt, xxiii. 8-10) ; and the 
 command was repeated by St. Paul when he forbade the Christians of 
 Corinth to call themselves the followers of any of the apostles (1 Cor^ iii{ 
 
 CM "» 8 
 
114 THE CHUECHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 of these earliest congregations of believers were well acquainted 
 witli social organization of various kinds which entered into their 
 daily life in the world. When we remember these facts it need 
 not surprise us that though in the end the organization of all 
 the churches was, so far as we can see, pretty much the same, 
 this common form of government may have arisen indepen- 
 dently and from a variety of roots which may at least be guessed 
 
 3-9). The name Teacher^ with the corresponding term disciples, lingered 
 long in a sporadic way in Christian literature (for example in Justin Martyr, 
 Ajiol. L 13), and in Sources of the Apostolic Canons, vi. p. 23), and the word 
 discifles occurs frequently in the Acts of the Apostles. It is a name which 
 suggests a purely personal relationship to Jesus, and it was soon displaced 
 in favour of other designations which implied association among the 
 followers of Jesus. Among them we may select the terms saints, brethren, 
 the people of the Way. The last mentioned — oi r^s oSoC ovtcs — is spe- 
 cially interesting. It suggests a common worship and therefore an orga- 
 nization for worship. It impUes groups of men and women, who, though 
 far apart from each other, are united in spite of intervening space by the 
 ties of a common worship. The Christians in Damascus and by implication 
 those in Jerusalem, are so called (Acts ir. 2 ; xxii. 4). It was the name 
 given to the Christians at Ephesus (Acts xxiv. 14) ; it was appUed by 
 St Paul to himself when justifying the special services of the Christian 
 worship as distinguished from the Jewish (Acts xxiv. 14). St. Paul himself 
 usually employs the terms saints or brethren when he speaks of his fellow 
 Christians. The brethren or the sainis who form an independent com- 
 munity, whether in a house or in a town or in a province, are called by 
 St. Paul a Church ; and he, in his epistles to the Galatians and to the 
 Corinthians, usee the same word to denote aU the brethren, wherever they 
 may be. These two terms saints and brethren are, like the phrase those of 
 the Wayi collective, and imply organization of some kind or other. When 
 the brethren or the sainis met together for worship the meeting or the 
 building in which they met was frequently called a synagogue (James iL 2), 
 and this word was used not only by the judaising Christians (Epiphanius, 
 XXX. 18); but also by the Marcionites, though they were the Christians 
 furthest removed from the Jewish beUevers in Jesus. The oldest inscrip- 
 tion stating that the building on which it is carved was used as a Christian 
 place of worship comes from Syria, and states that the erection was a 
 Marcionist church : ^vi/ayoiy^ MapKLoyvurTwv Kwfxrjs Ae^d/Swv rov KvpCov 
 Kox 2(or^po5 *lr)(Tov Xpiorov. It dates from 318 A.D. (Compare Le Bas 
 and Waddiqgton, Inscriptions No. 2568, iii. 583). Compare Weizsackerj 
 The Apostolic Age, i. 45-8 (Eng. Trans.). Hamack Tezte und Unter- 
 siLchungen, EL v.: p. 25, or English Translation, Sources of the Apostolic 
 Canons, p. 22, n. 10, for the use of Teacher. For the general question of 
 designations, cf. Hamack, Expositor, 1887, Jan. -June, pp. 322^ 
 
SEVERAL TYPES OF ORGANIZATION 115 
 
 if they cannot be proved. There are traces of several primitive 
 types of organization within the churches of the apostolic age. 
 
 The first notice we have of organization within a local church 
 is given us in the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles when, 
 at the suggestion of the apostles, seven men were chosen for 
 what is called the service of tables. This took place probably 
 in the year 34 a.d. These men were selected and set apart to 
 take care of the poor and to administer the charity of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 It is too often forgotten that this service had not the second- 
 rate importance which now belongs to it in ecclesiastical or- 
 ganization. It is plain that in apostolic times the primary 
 duty overshadowing all others, was that those who had this 
 world's goods should help their poorer brethren who had need. 
 The sayings of our Lord were ringing in their ears : " If thou 
 wouldest be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give to the 
 poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven " ; " Every one 
 that hath left houses and lands for My name's sake shall 
 receive an hundredfold and shall inherit eternal life " ; ' " Seek 
 ye His kingdom, and these things shall be added unto you . . ; 
 sell that ye have and give alms ; make for yourselves purses 
 which wax not old." * Their devotion to the invisible God 
 was to manifest itself in practical love to the visible brethren.^ 
 The first duty of presbyters, according to Polycarp, was to be 
 compassionate and merciful, " visiting all the infirm, not neg- 
 lecting a widow or an orphan or a poor man " ; * and he calls 
 widows " God's altar " — a phrase repeated by Tertullian.^ 
 
 ' Matt. xix. 21, 23 ; 29^ « Luke xil 31-33. 
 
 3 1 John iv. 20. ♦ Polycarp, PhilippianSf 6,- 
 
 5 Polycarp, Philippians, 4 : Bva-iacrTripiov 0€ov. Tertullian, Ad Uxar^ 
 i. 7 : aram Dei. The phrase Ova-Laa-T-qptov ®€ov is used in the Apostolic 
 ConstittUions to denote widows, orphans and the poor aided by the con- 
 gregation, ii. 26 : " Let the widows and orphans be esteemed as repre- 
 senting the altar of burnt-offering " ; iv. 3 : " But an orphan who, by 
 reason of his youth, or he that by feebleness of old age, or the incidence of 
 disease, or the bringing up of many children, receives alms ; .• .- shall 
 bo esteemed an altar to God.'' The phrase is almost always accompanied 
 
116 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 These men were chusen to fill the highest administrative position 
 which the Church could give, and were to take charge in the name 
 of the community of the most sacred of all ecclesiastical duties. 
 The office instituted was required by the ordinary and permanent 
 needs of the Christian society, for the Lord had said that the 
 poor were always to be with them.' 
 
 A few years later we read of money collected outside Palestine 
 and brought for distribution among the poor of the Church in 
 Jerusalem by Barnabas and Saul, who placed it in the hands of 
 men who are called dders or 'presbyters. Unless we are to be- 
 lieve that the appointment of the seven was a merely temporary 
 expedient, it is only natural to suppose that the duty of distri- 
 buting money among the poor was performed by the men who 
 were appointed by the Church to do it, or by others appointed 
 in the same way and for the same purpose ; and the natural 
 inference is that the Seven of Acts vi. were the elders of Acts xi., 
 and that we have in the narrative the account of the beginnings 
 of the organization as a whole in the Church at Jerusalem, and 
 not merely the institution of a special order of the Christian 
 ministry.* 
 
 with the thought that those who receive alms are to pray for their bene- 
 factors. 
 
 ' Dr. Hatch in his Organization of the Early Christian Churches, pp. 
 32-36 (1st ed.), has, 1 think, exaggerated somewhat the pauperism of the 
 early centuries throughout the Roman Empire ; but the case of Jerusalem 
 must have been peculiar. The population of the city was largely supported 
 by the profits the citizens made from the crowds of pilgrims who came 
 from all parts of the Jewish Dispersion to the great festivals. Conversion 
 to the Christian faith must have deprived the converts of this means of 
 support and brought them into a chronic state of poverty. 
 
 ^ Dr. Lightfoot calls the attempt to identify the Seven with the elders 
 afterwards mentioned in the church at Jerusalem a " strange perversity," 
 although it has the support of Boehmer {Diss. Jur. Eccl. p. 373 ff.), of 
 Ritschl (Entstehung der AUkatkolisch. Kirche, 2nd ed., p. 355 ff.), and of 
 Lange {Apostol. Zeitalt. ii. 75), and Gwatkin regards the idea as a possible 
 one {Hastings* Bible Dictionary, i. 440, 574) ; it appears to me that it must 
 be made unless we suppose that the appointment of the Seven was a merely 
 temporary expedient to provide for an immediate necessity, or discredit 
 the narrative altogether, which is what not even such a destructive critic 
 
THE SEVEN AND THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY 117 
 
 The Cliurch in Jerusalem appointed seven men. The apostlea 
 suggested the number. " Look ye out therefore, brethren, 
 from among you seven men." ^ They are never called deacons ; 
 the Seven is the technical name they were known by. Philip, 
 one of them, is not called " Philip the Deacon," but " Philip 
 one of the Seven." * Why this name ? To say with Dr. Light- 
 foot that the number is mystical is scarcely an explanation, 
 and it is not likely that it was merely haphazazd. The Hebrew 
 village community was ruled by a small corporation of seven 
 men,^ as the Hindu village is managed by the council of the Five 
 or the Punchayat. The Seven was a title as well known in 
 Palestine as the Five is now in India. The Church in Jerusalem, 
 in founding their official council of administration, created an 
 entirely new organization required by the needs of the young 
 community, but one which brought with it associations which 
 had deep roots in the past social life of the people. Modern 
 missionary enterprise, which has the same problems of organi- 
 zation before it as confronted primitive Christianity, frequently 
 sheds light on the procedure of the latter. The Church of 
 Scotland (Established) missionaries at Darjeeling, who have 
 based the organization of their native church on the Hindu 
 Punchayat ; the missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of 
 England, who have laid hold on the village representative 
 system in China; Bishop Patteson, who made a similar use 
 of the native organizations in the South Seas — have all uncon- 
 sciously followed in the footsteps of the apostles when they 
 suggested the Jewish village government as a basis for the 
 organization of the primitive Church in Jerusalem. 
 
 This earliest example of Christian ecclesiastical organization 
 
 as Schmiedel is inclined to do {Encyc. Biblical art. Community of Goods, 
 h 879, 880). 
 
 ^ Acts vi. 3. * Acts xxi. 8. 
 
 3 Josephus, AjUiq. IV. viii. 14, 38 ; BeU. Jud. TL xx. 6. Compare 
 Schiirer, Oesch. d. Jiidischen Volkes im Zeitalt. Jesu Christi (1898), iij 
 178 (3rd ed.). Schiirer quotes from the Talmvd, MegiUot 26a, where iba 
 " Seven '* of the town also appear. 
 
118 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 contains in it three interesting elements — apostolic guidance 
 and sanction; the self-government and independence of the 
 community evinced in the responsibility for good government 
 laid upon the whole membership ; and, as a result, a repre- 
 sentative system of administration suggested by the every- 
 day surroundings of the people. 
 
 When we trace the expansion of Christianity and the creation 
 of Christian communities outside Jerusalem, we have no such 
 distinct picture of the beginnings of their organization as is 
 given in Acts vi., but there are indications of what took place. 
 The preaching of the Gospel gave rise to Christian conmiunities 
 in various parts of Palestine which regarded the Church at 
 Jerusalem as their common mother church, and all these com- 
 munities together made the Church of God which St. Paul perse- 
 cuted.' It is probable also that when this Judeo-Christianity 
 spread beyond the bounds of Palestine throughout Syria and 
 Cilicia,* the community in the capital of Judaism, presided over 
 by its college of office-bearers with St. James at their head, 
 was regarded as the mother church and the centre of the whole 
 movement. They had before them the example of Judaism 
 which appeared one visible whole centred in the great council 
 of the elders in Jerusalem. 
 
 Further, the Acts of the Apostles relates that Paul and Barna- 
 bas left behind them at Derbe, Lystra and Iconium, communities 
 of Christians with elders at their head. We are told that the 
 apostles " appointed for them elders in every church." ^ The 
 word, ■)(€ipoTovri(ravT€9y means strictly to elect by popular 
 vote. It suggests that Paul and Barnabas followed the example 
 of their brethren at Jerusalem, and suggested and superintended 
 an election of office-bearers, and the title " elders " (Trpea-^vrepoi) 
 was probably derived from the Church of Jerusalem. It need 
 not have been so, however, for the word was common enough 
 among the Greeks, and the more mature men in the congregations 
 
 ' GaL i 13 ; 1 Cor. iv. 9. » Gal. i. 22. 
 
 3 Acts xiv. 23 : p^ciporonyo-avres Sc avrol? irpco-^vrcpovs Kar iKKX-qcriav, 
 
OFFICE-BEARERS OF THE KINDRED OF JESUS 119 
 
 would be naturally selected.* A second and very different 
 type of organization, though capable of being joined with the 
 first, also comes to us from the primitive Church in Jerusalem. 
 The accounts of the earliest condition of the Church, whether 
 taken from the Acts of the Apostles or from the Epistles of 
 St. Paul, reveal an independent self-governing community 
 under the guidance of the apostles St. Peter and St. John. 
 The leadership of these two apostles is conspicuous throughout 
 the first eleven chapters of the Book of Acts. Then there is 
 a sudden change which is quite imexplained, and in the twelfth 
 chapter (ver, 17) and onwards St. James, the brother of our Lord, 
 is seen to be in a position of pre-eminence.^ The letters of 
 St. Paul also reveal the change, but equally give no hint of when 
 it took place or of the causes which led to it. But if canonical 
 Scripture tells us nothing about the reasons for the change, 
 tradition and early Church history have a good deal to say about 
 it. It is quite impossible to explain the continuous and marked 
 influence of St. James, on any theory of the organization of 
 the Church at Jerusalem which makes it borrow its constitution 
 from the Jewish Synagogue system. When we read the story 
 of the election of his successors we have suggestions of another 
 and very different organization. The James, who was the 
 recognized and honoured head of the community in Jerusalem, 
 was the eldest male surviving relative of our Lord.^ We are told 
 by Eusebius, quoting, it can hardly be doubted, ftom Hege- 
 sippus, that after the martyrdom of St. James and the fall of 
 Jerusalem, the remaining apostles and personal disciples of 
 our Lord, with those that were related to our Lord according to the 
 fleshy the greater part of them being yet living, met together 
 
 ' Deissmann, Bih. Studies (Eng. Trans.), pp. 164-157; The names which 
 afterwards came to denote fixed offices in the Church have all general as 
 well as technical uses, and this adds greatly to the difficulty of investigation. 
 
 « Acts xii. 17 ; xv. 13 ; xxi. 18 ; GaL i. 19 ; ii. 9, 12, This is confirmed 
 by later tradition, Eusebius, Hist. Ecd^ II. i. 2, 3. 
 
 s Matt. xiii. 55 ; Mark vL 3 ; Eusebius, Histi Ecdes. 1: xii; 4 ; II« 
 i, 2, 3 ; IIL xi, U 
 
120 THE CHUKCHES CREi»LTINa THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 and unanimously selected Syrueon to fill the vacant place.' 
 In another passage he says that Symeon was the son of Clopas 
 our Lord's paternal uncle, and adds that " he was put forward 
 by all as the second in succession, being the cousin of the Lord " ; 
 in a third he speaks of " the child of the Lord's paternal uncle, 
 the aforesaid Symeon, son of Clopas," and in a fourth he tells 
 us that Hegesippus relates that Clopas was " the brother of 
 Joseph." * In short he dwells pertinaciously on the natural 
 kinship between the head of the primitive Christianity in Jerusa- 
 lem and our Lord. The last glimpse we have of our Lord's 
 kinsfolk has been recorded by the same gossipy writer, who 
 made it his business to preserve such details, and it reveals them 
 at the head of the Jewish Christian community. He tells us 
 that in the fifteenth year of the Emperor Domitian " there still 
 survived kinsmen of the Lord, grandsons of Judas, who was 
 called the Lord's brother according to the flesh." They were 
 dragged to Rome and brought before the Emperor. He ques- 
 tioned them. They showed him their hands horny with holding 
 the plough, and said that their whole wealth amounted to about 
 9,000 denarii, the value of thirty-nine acres {-n-XeOpa) of land, 
 which they cultivated themselves and on which they paid taxes. 
 The Emperor contemptuously sent them back to Palestine, 
 and there they were made the rulers of the Church because they 
 had been martyrs and were of the lineage of the Lord. They 
 lived till the reign of Trajan, and their names were James and 
 Zoker.3 
 
 A succession in the male line of the kindred of Jesus, where 
 the eldest male relative of the founder succeeds, where the 
 election to office is largely regulated by a family council, and 
 where two can rule together, has no analogy with any form of 
 
 I Eusebius, Hist. Ecd. IIL xi 1, 2. 
 
 * Ibid. xL 1, 2 ; xxxii. 4 ; IV. xxiL 4. 
 
 s Ibid. HI. XX. 1-8 : tovs 8c aTroXv^e^ra* rjyrj<Taa-6ai ruiv iKK\rf(riu>v, 
 oxrav Btj fidprvpa^ ofiov koX oltto yivoxK orra? rov K.vpLOv. For the 
 namee of the two young men, see the ecclesiastical historian Philip- 
 pas of Side, in the fragment printed in Cramer, Anecdota Oraeca, 11. 88. 
 
OFFICE-BEARERS IN THE PAULINE CHURCHES 121 
 
 organization known in the Christian Church. But the type of 
 organization is easily recognizable. It was, and is to this day, 
 a common Oriental usage that the headship of a religious society 
 is continued in the line of the founder's kindred according to 
 Eastern line of succession, from eldest male surviving relative 
 to eldest male surviving relative, whether brother, uncle, son 
 or cousin. Here again we have a Christian community organ- 
 izing itself, and that under apostohc sanction, on a plan borrowed 
 from familiar social custom.' 
 
 When we turn to the churches which owed their being to the 
 apostolic work of St. Paul, we find the independence and self- 
 government evidently taken for granted and formulated in 
 principles laid down by the apostle in his epistles. The churches 
 at Rome and at Corinth were churches because the presence 
 and power of Christ were manifested within the Christian fellow- 
 ship in a series of " gifts," which provided everything necessary 
 for their corporate Hfe as churches, organized according to any 
 form of self-government which recommended itself to them. 
 There is not a trace of the idea that the churches had to be 
 organized from above in virtue of powers conferred by our Lord 
 officially and specially upon certain of their members. On 
 the contrary the power from above, which was truly there, 
 was in the community, a direct gift from the Master Himself. 
 
 We find in the earlier Epistles ^ of St. Paul traces of men who 
 exercised rule or at least leadership of some kind within the 
 churches.^ They may have been elected office-bearers or they 
 may have been men who, without being office-bearers in the 
 
 ^ Dr. Hamack thinks that the position assigned to the " relatives of 
 our Lord " in the choice of the head of the community shows that the 
 thought of Jesus as the " Teacher " had given place to the conception of 
 " king " ; but according to Oriental usage it is precisely the position of a 
 reUgious " teacher " which is transmitted in the line of the founder's 
 kinsfolk. Compare Expositor, 1887, Jan. -June, p. 326. 
 
 =* 1 and 2 Thessalonians written about 48-52 a.d. ; 1 Corinthians and 
 Galatians written about 53-55 a.d ; 2 Corinthians written about 53-56 
 A.D. ; Romans written about 54-57 A.D, 
 
 3 Compare above pp. 60 ff^ 
 
122 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 strict sense of the words, performed services necessary for tlie 
 well being of the commumty such as office-bearers are accus- 
 tomed to do. 
 
 Even in the case of the simplest and smallest Christian com- 
 munities certain services must always be rendered to the whole 
 fellowship. Some one must provide a room for the meetings, 
 take care of the Scriptures and other books required for the acts 
 of public worship, keep the records of the society. The meetings 
 need a president, if only for the time being. There is also need 
 for services which may be called spiritual. Some one must see 
 that brotherly intercourse is maintained, that quarrels are 
 avoided, and that persons at variance are reconciled. The 
 sick have to be visited, inquirers and the young have to be 
 instructed and encouraged in the faith. Some persons have 
 to see to all these things. They will naturally season their work 
 with advice, admonition, warning, and encouragement. The 
 men who begin to do these things from their love to the cause 
 and the work naturally go on doing them ; and their activity 
 which was at first purely personal and voluntary, tends to be- 
 come recognized and official. This is what may be seen on any 
 mission field in the present day, especially in such lands as 
 China and India, where Christianity is doing aggressive work 
 among a civilized people habituated to work together in a 
 society. The epistles of St. Paul reveal the same state of things. 
 The men who are to be honoured as leaders are those who work 
 for their brethren and put some heart into their labour (ol kottl- 
 S)VT€^ ev vfjuv). Their work might include exhortation and ad- 
 monition, for the term applied to them by St. Paul is the word 
 he used to describe his own labours,^ or it might be work of some 
 other kind.* Whatever it was, it was necessary for the founda- 
 tion, growth and stability of the infant churches. The men 
 
 * 1 Cor. XV. 10 : "I laboured (cKOTrtWa) more abundantly than they 
 all** GaL iv. 11 : -' Lest by any means I have bestowed labour (KCAcoTrtaKa) 
 upon you in vain.'-' 
 
 * Rom. xvi. 6, 12 ; where providing for material wants seems to be the 
 meanings 
 
PATRONS AND CLIENTS 123 
 
 who laboured in these ways were the natural leaders of the com- 
 munity, for leadership was to be based on service, and the 
 apostle declared that they were to be " esteemed highly for their 
 work's sake." ^ These workers, as is the case in modern missions, 
 were the first converts, Hke Stephanas,* or the men who had 
 given their houses for the meetings of the brethren.^ These 
 brethren were to have the pre-eminence, and were to be obeyed 
 for their work's sake.'* 
 
 These natural leaders receive a special name in the epistles 
 to the Romans and to the Thessalonians. They are called 
 " those who are over you in the Lord." The word is irpoXa-rafxe^ 
 VOL ; and the term has a history, and would at all events suggest a 
 special kind of relationship between leaders and led. It sug- 
 gested the relation of patron and client, of Trpoa-raTrj^ smd/uLeroiKO^, 
 familiar enough in Rome and in Thessalonica, which no longer 
 bore the old strictly legal meaning, but which in a less definite 
 sense permeated the whole social life of the times. The word 
 or a cognate one {irpoea-Toog) lingered long in the Roman Church. 
 It is found in the writings of Hermas, the Roman presbyter, 
 and was used by Justin Martyr when he wished to explain the 
 organization of a Christian congregation to a Roman Emperor.^ 
 
 ' 1 Thess. V. 13. 
 
 2 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 19, cf. Acts xviii. 2, 26 ; Clement, 1 Epistle, xlii. 4,- 
 
 3 Rom. xvi. 5, 10, 11, 14, 15 ; 1 Cor, xvi. 19 ; Col. iv. 15 ; Philem. 2. 
 
 4 1 Cor. xvi. 16.J 
 
 5 We find the series of related words t—TrpoiorayMevos, Trpoto-ra/Acvot 
 (used as a noun), Tr/DocrraTts, Trpocrrary]^ and ti poecrTio^, Rom. xii. 8 ; 
 xvi. 2 ; 1 Thess. v. 12 ; Hermas, Pastor, Vis. ii. 4 ; Justin^ i. Apol. Ixv ; 
 Ixviii The term Trpoo-ra-nys was used technically in Greek city life (and 
 Thessalonica in Paul's time was a Greek city which had been permitted by 
 the Romans to retain its ancient Greek constitution) to denote those 
 citizens who undertook to care for and rule over the ixctolkoi, or persons 
 who had no civic rights. It denoted technically the Roman relation of 
 patron and cUent and what corresponded thereto in Greek social life. 
 The word was used by Plutarch to translate the Latin paironus (Plu- 
 tarch, Rom. 13 ; Mar. 5). Clement, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 applies the word in three different places to denote our Lord : " the 
 Patron and Helper of our weakness '' (xxxvi. 1) ; the Highpriest and 
 Patron of our souls " (Ixi, 3 ; lxiv.)» It was the custom that the Roman 
 
124 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 Archaeological investigation has proved how families among 
 the privileged Roman aristocracy were the patrons of their 
 poorer Christian brethren. The " church in the house " was 
 not necessarily a " kitchen meeting." The investigations of 
 the late Commendatore de Rossi have shown us that the Chris- 
 tian faith made its way at a very eariy period into the families of 
 some of the noblest and wealthiest Romans. They could, and 
 probably did, open their houses to their poorer brethren and give 
 their great audience halls (basilica) for the worship of the common 
 brotherhood, interposing the protection of the legal sacredness 
 of their private life as a shield on all who joined in their de- 
 votions.' Congregational meetings of this kind had the appear- 
 ance of an assembly of powerful patrons and their humble 
 clients, and thus took the form of a well recognized condition 
 of Roman social life in all its ramifications. This idea is con- 
 firmed by the shape of the earliest Roman churches, which, as 
 has been before remarked, resemble the audience hall of the 
 wealthy Roman burgher. When buildings were erected for 
 the exclusive use of the Christian worship in happier days, the 
 architects naturally copied the arrangement of the buildings 
 they had been used to, and unconsciously transmitted archi- 
 tectural proof of the churchly organization of earlier times. 
 Here, for a third time, we can see the Christian fellowship organ- 
 izing itself under social usages well understood by the members 
 of the infant brotherhood. 
 
 oonfratemitiee, especially those among the poorer classee, had a '* patron "• 
 or " patrons," who were frequently ladies of rank and wealth ; compare 
 Liebenam, Zur Oesch. und Organis. d. roem. Vereinawesens, pp. 213,-18. The 
 Jewish sjmagogues in Rome, which externally resembled the pagan con- 
 fraternities for religious cults, not only had patrons but called their syna- 
 gogues by their names ; Schurer, Die Gemeindeverfassung der Jvden in 
 Bom in der Kaiaerzeiiy p. 15 f., 31. It is probable that Phoebe, who is 
 called by St. Paul a " patroness of himself and of many " (Rom. xvi. 1-3), 
 had a position of this kind at Cenchrea, and that this was the service she 
 had rendered. 
 ' " Nam servis, reBpublic* et quasi dvitas, domus Mt," Plin. Ejt. 
 
THE HEATHEN CONFRATERNITIES 126 
 
 In the Epistles to the Corinthians, while we find exhortations 
 to obey, we do not find any words which designate those to 
 whom obedience is due ; nor have we any description of the 
 organization which prevailed in the Corinthian Church, nor any 
 advice given by the apostle about what it ought to be. The 
 Christians of Corinth lived amidst so many forms of associated 
 life that if organization was to be worked out by the congre- 
 gation for itself, they would naturally have more aptitude for 
 it than most Christian communities. For the people of Corinth 
 were accustomed to confraternities of all kinds, and above all 
 to private religious associations for the practice of special cults. 
 Under the universal state religion of the Roman Empire there 
 were innumerable religions with their different forms of worship. 
 The state religion had its colleges of priesthoods, its great 
 temples and its public sacrifices ; these private religions had 
 their associations for the performance of their peculiar rites. 
 The Jewish synagogues of the Dispersion were enrolled as 
 private religious societies, and seemed to their heathen neigh- 
 bours to be one out of many kinds of institutions for the practice 
 of a religion admitted to be lawful {rdigio licita), although it 
 was the faith of only a small minority of their neighbours. 
 
 The organization of these confraternities, as far as the western 
 division of the Empire is concerned, is known in a general way ; 
 and although it differed in details in different societies, certain 
 common features can be recognized. The confraternities 
 were thoroughly democratic to the extent of admitting slaves 
 to be members provided their masters gave consent. The 
 confraternity was regarded as a great family, and the associates 
 called each other " brothers " and " sisters." They had a 
 common meal at stated times. They paid a monthly subscrip- 
 tion to the common fund (sti'ps menstrua). They were per- 
 mitted to make their own laws provided nothing was enacted 
 which came into collision with the regulations of the State. 
 These confraternities elected their own office-bearers, who were 
 commonly called decuriones ; and the society was strictly divided 
 
126 THE CHUECHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 into office-bearers and commons, though occasionally we find 
 an intermediate class of honoured persons.' The confraternities 
 exercised discipline over their members and inflicted fines in 
 money and in kind for offences. A book was kept (album) 
 containing the names of aU the associates. Women were mem- 
 bers of a large number of these confraternities, more especially 
 of the burial clubs.' Their places of meeting were generally 
 called scholae,^ because they were the scenes of leisure and re- 
 creation, though the words curia and basilica are sometimes 
 found (the Greek word is almost always oIko^). There they 
 had their common meals and their business meetings ; the two 
 were never held together. " Item," says a deoretum, " placuit 
 si quis quid queri aut referre volet, in conventu referat, ut 
 quieti et hilares diebus solemnis epulemur." Almost all these 
 "confraternities had a patron or a patroness, who was always 
 elected by acclamation and never by a mere majority of votes. 
 Sometimes we hear of confraternities belonging to or having 
 their seat in a private house,* consisting probably of the servants 
 or slaves of the mansion. Almost all these confraternities, like 
 their lineal descendants the " gilds " of mediaeval times, whether 
 in England or on the Continent, had a distinctly religious side 
 even when they were not formed for the express purpose of 
 practising a foreign cult. They placed themselves under the 
 protection of some deity or deities — merchants honoured Mer- 
 cury ; the dealers in grain, Ceres and the Nymphs ; the wine- 
 
 I This finds its parallel in the honoured class which existed in the Christ- 
 ian congregations of the early centuries, and who ranked between the 
 clergy and the people — the confessors, martyrs, widows, virgins. 
 
 * This peculiarity has descended to modem times ; it is not very easy, 
 those who have tried it say, to induce women to form trades unions, but 
 they are always ready to become members of burial clubs, 
 
 3 -* The orxoX^ Tvpdvvov '- (Acts xix. 9) was probably such a place — 
 the meeting place of a confraternity, and named after the patron of the 
 -• gild "• according to a usual practice, with a hall which could be hired 
 when not needed for the meetings of the society. 
 
 ♦ The " collegium quod est in domu Sergiae Paulinae " corresponds to 
 li the church which is in the house of Philemon^'S 
 
THE HEATHEN CONFRATERNITIES 127 
 
 dealers, Liber; the weavers and spinners, Minerva; and the 
 fishermen, Neptune, etc. — and paintings of the protecting 
 deity and images of the emperors adorned the walls of the 
 ScholaJ- 
 
 A large number of the Christian converts must have belonged 
 to these confraternities before their conversion ; many main- 
 tained their places as members after their entrance into the Chris- 
 tian Church in spite of all the efforts of masterful ecclesiastics, 
 like Cyprian of Carthage and some bishops of Rome, to prevent 
 the practice,* They must have known how the associations were 
 
 ' For the oonfratemities which existed in the Graeco-Roman world, 
 compare: Foucart, Dc8 Associations Beligieuses chez les Orecs (1873); 
 Liiders, Die dionysischen Kiinstler (1873) ; Ziebarth, Daa Oriechische 
 Vereinswesen (1895), the fullest and most accurate for the Greek asso- 
 ciations ; Mommsen, DecoUegiis etsodcUiciis (1843) ; Ger&rd, Decorporaiions 
 ouvrieres d Rome (1884) ; Boissier, La religion romaine d'Auguste 
 aux Antonins (1878), ii. 292 ff. ; Cohn, Zum romischen Vereinsrechi (1873) ; 
 Liebenam, Zur GescJiicJUe und Organisation des romischenVereinswesen {1890) ^ 
 the fullest and most accurate. 
 
 For the relation of these confraternities to the primitive Christian 
 organization, compare : Renan, Les ApStres (1866), p. 351 ff. ; Heinrici, 
 Ztitschrift fur wissenschaftlichen Theologie (1876), pp. 465 ff. ; (1877) pp. 
 89 ff ; Theologischen Studien und Kritiken (1881), pp. 556 ff. ; Weingarten, 
 in his preface to Rothe's Vorlesungen uber Kirchengeschichte (1876), p. xiv.; 
 and in Sybel's Historische Zeitschrift, yoL ilv. (1881), pp. 441 ff. ; Hatch, 
 The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (1881), p. 36 ff. ; Holtz- 
 mann. Die Pastor alhriefe (1880), pp. 194-202 ; Loening, Die Qemeinde- 
 verfassung des Urchristenthums (1889), p. 8 ff. ; and Qeschichie des 
 deutsches Kirchenrechts (1878), i. pp. 195-210 ; Liebenam, as above, pp. 
 264-274; Schmiedel, Encydopcedia Biblica {IQ02), pi^. 3110-1; Ziebarth, 
 as above, pp, 126-132 ; Reville, Lea Origines de VEpiscopat (1894), pp. 
 180-194. 
 
 * Cyprian's Epistles, Lxvii. 6 : " Martialis also, besides frequenting 
 the disgraceful and filthy banquets of the Gentiles in their collegium, and 
 placing his sons in the same collegium, after the manner of foreign nations, 
 among profane sepulchres, and burying them together with strangers , i . 
 such persons attempt to claim for themselves the episcopate in vain; since 
 it is evident that men of that kind may neither rule over the Christian 
 Church, nor ought to offer sacrifices to God, especially since ComeUus, 
 our colleague, a peaceable and righteous priest, and moreover honoured 
 by the condescension of the Lord with martyrdom, has long ago decreed 
 ■with ns, and with all the bishops appointed throughout all the world, 
 
128 THE CHURCHES CHEATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 organized, and they must have carried that knowledge with 
 them into Christianity. They were likely to make use of that 
 knowledge in the interests of the new faith to which they had 
 attached themselves. 
 
 This line of argument may easily be pressed too far. Scholars 
 like Renan, Heinrici, Hatch and Weingarten, to say nothing of 
 Schmiedel/ have pushed the relation which they think subsisted 
 between the heathen confraternities and the organization of the 
 primitive Gentile Christian communities much further than the 
 evidence seems to warrant. Nothing that they have brought 
 forward bears out the idea that the Christian societies were 
 framed on the model of these pagan confraternities. On the 
 contrary, all the evidence laboriously accumulated to establish 
 the similarity between the Christian organization and that of 
 the pagan confraternities, has not produced many points of 
 resemblance which are not the common property of all forms 
 of social organization.* The primitive Christian communities 
 
 that men of this sort might indeed be admitted to repentance, but were 
 prohibited from the ordination of the clergy and from the priestly honour." 
 Martialis was bishop of Astorga or of Merida in Spain, and was a libella- 
 tictu. 
 
 ' EncydopoBdia Biblical iiL 3110-3111. Schmiedel seems to exaggerate 
 the connexion between the confraternities and the Christian societies when 
 he refuses to see any connexion between the latter and the Jewish com- 
 munities and their synagogue system. 
 
 * The points of similarity which Heinrici has endeavoured to establish 
 between the Christian community at Corinth and the pagan confraternities 
 do not amount to more than this ; Hatch has certainly overrated the 
 evidence he has brought forward that episcopi were finance officials in 
 the confraternities ; points of resemblance found in the records of Greek 
 associations for religious purposes are almost entirely taken from pre- 
 Christian times, and it is forgotten that under the imperial rule the con- 
 stitutions and formations of confraternities for all purposes were entirely 
 altered and that we know almost nothing about these confraternities in 
 the eastern provinces of the Empire during the first century and a half 
 of the imperial rule. What can be shown is, that to an outsider there 
 was an external resemblance of the most general kind between the 
 Christian communities and the confraternities ; and this can be proved 
 only in a general way : Pliny wrote to Trajan that he had meant to pro- 
 ceed against the ChristianB of Bithynia as belonging 4o an illicit confrater- 
 
ORGANIZATION OF JEWISH SYNAGOGUES 129 
 
 organized themselves independently in virtue of the new moral 
 and social life that was implanted within them ; but they did 
 not disdain to take any hints about organization which would 
 be of service from the pagan associations to which they had 
 been accustomed. 
 
 Here then we have, not a fourth type, but a fourth root 
 of early Christian organization. 
 
 A fifth may be found in the Jewish synagogues of the Dis- 
 persion ; for many of the converts must have been Jews, or Gentiles 
 who had become Jewish prosel3rtes. The communities of the 
 Jewish people scattered over the Roman Empire occupied very 
 different positions in different places. In Alexandria and in 
 Gyrene they had acquired almost complete political independ- 
 ence, and formed one large and separate conmiunity distinct 
 from the surrounding population. In Rome, they had no rights 
 that could be called political, and were divided into a number 
 of separate communities apparently quite independent the one 
 of the others. 
 
 Everywhere however throughout the Roman Empire, thanks 
 to the legislation of Julius Caesar and Augustus, the Jews had 
 acquired complete legal protection for their religion.' This 
 had been held to include the right to administer their property 
 within their own communities according to their own laws, 
 and to have a limited jurisdiction over their own members. 
 
 nity {Ep. 96 (97)) ; Tertullian in his Apology plainly pleads for the recog- 
 nition of the Christian Churches as lawful confraternities ; Bishop 
 Zephyrinus succeeded in getting the Roman church recognized as a burial 
 club in the end of the second century ; and Lucian, in his Peregrinua 
 Proteus, describes Peregrinus while a Christian in words which would bo 
 appUcable to the official of a Greek confraternity for religious purposes 
 {6Lacrdpxr}s), which would imply that he looked on the Christian com- 
 munity as 6ia(T0<i or an association for the promotion of a private cult. 
 Compare Liebenam, Die Oeschichte und Organisation des romischen Vereins- 
 wesen, pp. 264-74, and Ziebarth, Oriechische Vereinswesen, pp. 126-32. 
 
 * Both Julius Caesar and his nephew and successor began legislation 
 against the confraternities that abounded ; but the Jewish communitieB 
 were recognized by them as lawfvl confraternities. 
 
 CM. 8 
 
180 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 Thus even where they had the fewest political rights the Jewish 
 communities were always recognized as lawful associations 
 permitted to practise the rites of a rdigio licita. The unit of 
 the Jewish organization was the synagogue. In Alexandria 
 the syngagogues seem to have been united under a common 
 council ; but in Rome, as has been said, the synagogues were 
 independent associations, each having its own council, its own 
 president, and its own office-bearers/ The privileges of ad- 
 ministering their own property and of exercising jurisdiction 
 over their own members, made these synagogues as much civil as 
 religious communities, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, 
 to distinguish between the two sides. At the head of each com- 
 munity was a council, the yepova-lay with a president, the 
 y€pova-idp')(rj9 ; the official leaders of the community were called 
 apyovre^^ and these archons were commonly elected for a term 
 of years and sometimes for life.* They were purely civil officials ; 
 they decided questions of property ; they had some criminal 
 jurisdiction ; and they were permitted to punish disobedience. 
 The communities had also almoners — at least three, who are 
 commonly classed among the ecclesiastical office-bearers, but 
 whose work was almost purely civil. The only purely ecclesi- 
 astical office was that of a p-)(ia' way wyo?. All the actions of 
 pubUc worship, reading the Scriptures, preaching, praying, 
 
 ^ These synagogue communities were sometimes named after their 
 patrons — the " synagogue of the cUents of Augustus," of Agrippa, of 
 Volumnus ; sometimes after the quarter of Rome where they stood — the 
 synagogue of Campus Martius, of the Subura, etc. ; sometimes after the 
 occupations of the members — the synagogue of the burners of lime. 
 Schiirer, Oeschichte des jvdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3rd ed, 
 1898), iiL 44-7. 
 
 * The term " elder," which one expects, is not found in inscriptions 
 nor in laws until the fourth century ; archon is found almost universally. 
 Schiirer seems to think that the members of the gerusia were the elders 
 and that they were not office-bearers, but the honoured heads of the com- 
 munity by whom the archons were appointed. If so this would be a 
 parallel to what Hamack believes to be the organization of the early 
 Christian communities, where the elderswere not office-bearers but honoured 
 persons from whom the episcopi were chosen. 
 
ORGANIZATION OF JEWISH SYNAGOGUES 131 
 
 were performed by tlie private members, and it was tbe duty 
 of the official to select those who were to take part in tbe services. 
 Some synagogues had more than one ap')(Lcrvvay(jo'yo<Sy and in 
 later times the title must have become an honorary one, for 
 we find it given to women and to boys. Besides this purely 
 ecclesiastical official there was the " servant of the synagogue " 
 (vTrrip€Tfis;)y who seems to have combined the offices of school- 
 master, beadle and public executioner ; he taught the children, 
 brought in and removed the copies of Scripture used in pubUo 
 worship, and corporal punishment for misdeeds was admin- 
 istered by him,' 
 
 However the internal organization of these Jewish communities 
 differed from the pagan confraternities, their external appear- 
 ance was such that they were undoubtedly classed among 
 them, and by the names they gave their officials and by some 
 of their customs they would appear to have tried to carry out 
 the likeness as far as possible.^ 
 
 This synagogue organization has some points in common 
 with that of the early Christian communities, and these were 
 probably taken over into Christianity, but the differences were 
 so great that it is impossible to say that the one organization 
 comes from the other. Whether we regard its connexion with 
 the pagan confraternities on the one hand, or with the Jewish 
 synagogues on the other, it may be said that the organiza- 
 
 ^ For the organization of the Jewish synagogue system, compare Schiirer, 
 Oeschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3rd ed,' 1898), 
 ii. pp. 427-463 (Eng. Trans, ii. 55-68, 243-270) ; also his Gemeindeverfas- 
 sung der Juden in Bom in der Kaiserzeit (1879) ; Vitringa, De Synagoga 
 veiere (1696). 
 
 * Schiirer notes these customs among others: the Greek communes 
 were accustomed to honour with garlands and with special seats at the 
 public entertainments their public benefactors, the leaders of the syna- 
 gogues voted garlands and front seats in the synagogues to theirs ; slaves 
 were set free in the temples, among the Jews they were brought to the 
 synagogues ; women were honoured with titles — presbytera, mater syna-. 
 gogae, archisynagogos. As for the names of office-bearers, none of them are 
 exclusively Jewish ; even apxi-<Tvvdy(oyo<i has a pagan use so common that 
 it is impossible to say that it is of strictly Jewish origin.: 
 
132 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 tion of the Christian communities proceeded by a path peculiar 
 to themselves. Starting from the simplest forms of combina- 
 tion they framed their ministry to serve their own needs in accord- 
 ance with what they saw was best fitted for their own peculiar 
 work.' This did not mean that the training acquired in pagan 
 confraternity or in Jewish synagogue was altogether without 
 effect on the members of the infant Christian churches, or that 
 usages suitable for their purposes were not adopted ; but it 
 does mean that the organization of the primitive Gentile churches 
 was not a copy either of pagan confraternity or of Jewish syna- 
 gogue. What is to be insisted upon is that, on the supposition 
 that the apostles did not prescribe any definite form of Church 
 government (and there is not only no evidence that they did, 
 but the indications are all the other way), the Christians of 
 Corinth and of other cities in the East and in the West were 
 sufficiently acquainted with forms of social organization to 
 be able to organise their communities in such a way that the 
 possibilities of rule and service which lay in the possession of 
 those gifts of the Spirit that manifested the presence of Christ, 
 could find free exercise for the benefit and edification of the 
 whole conmiunity. 
 
 One thing, however, in this connexion must not be forgotten, 
 as it often is. The infant Christian churches came into being 
 in the Graeco-Roman world at a time when the imperial policy 
 was extremely jealous of any forms of social organization, and 
 when its officials were on the watch to prevent any new develop- 
 ment of the principle. Julius Caesar, on political grounds, 
 had suppressed all confraternities except those of ancient origin,* 
 but, also from motives of policy, had expressly excepted the 
 Jewish synagogues.^ His nephew and successor Augustus 
 
 ' Schiirer, Theologische LiteraiurzeUung for 1879, pp. 644-6. 
 
 * Suetonius, Caesar, 42 : Cuncta collegia, praeter antiquitua constituta, 
 distraxit. 
 
 3 Josephus, ArUiquUates, XIV. x. 8 : " Julius Caius, praetor of Rome, 
 to the magistrates, senate and people of the Parians, sendeth greeting. 
 The Jews of Delos, and some other Jews that sojourn there, in the pre- 
 
THE CHURCHES WERE NEVER COLLEGIA LICITA 133 
 
 followed in his uncle's footsteps, and in addition had ordered 
 all religious associations to be placed under the strictest control 
 and surveillance/ The well-known contempt which the first 
 emperor entertained for Oriental religions was doubtless partly 
 responsible for this.* The Jewish synagogues were again specially 
 exempted. All new confraternities had to get a special permit 
 from the senate, if they were in the senatorial provinces, and 
 from the emperor, if they belonged to the imperial ones. The 
 only associations which were perhaps exempted were the collegia 
 tenuiorum, when they were also burial clubs ; but it is doubtful 
 whether there was ever a general concession made till the time 
 of Severus. There existed, however, throughout the empire 
 a multitude of confraternities which had not received the sanc- 
 tion of either senate or emperor, and which were therefore 
 illicit, but which were undisturbed although under police super- 
 vision. They could be suppressed at any time, and it was pro- 
 vided that no very serious punishment accompanied the sup- 
 pression.^ Christianity was never recognized as a rdigio licita 
 
 sence of your ambassadors, signified to us, that, by a decree of yours you 
 forbid them to make use of the customs of their forefathers and their 
 way of sacred worship. Now it does not please me that such decrees 
 should be made against our friends and confederates, whereby they are 
 forbidden to live according to their own customs, or to bring in contribu- 
 tions for common suppers and holy festivals, while they are not forbidden 
 to do so even in Rome itself ; for even Caius Caesar, our imperator and 
 consul, in that decree wherein he forbade the Bacchanal rioters to meet 
 in the city, did yet permit these Jews, and these only, both to bring 
 in their contributions, and to make their common suppers. Accordingly 
 when I forbid other Bacchanal rioters I permit these Jews to gather them- 
 selves together, according to the customs and laws of their forefathers, 
 and to persist therein. It will therefore be good for you, that if you 
 have made any decree against these our friends and confederates, to 
 abrogate the same, by reason of their virtue and kind disposition towards 
 
 USi'i 
 
 * Dio Cassius, Hi. 36 ; Suetonius, AugustuSy 32. * Dio Cassius, liv. 6; 
 
 3 " Collegia si qua fuerint illicita, mandatis at constitutionibus et 
 senatusconsultis dissolvuntur ; sed permittitur eis, cum dissolvuntur, 
 pecunias communes si quas habent dividere pecuniamque inter se partiri : 
 Dig. XLVn, xxiii 3* 
 
134 THE CHUECHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 till the time of Constantine, and could never have received official 
 sanction for its assemblies ; but it was not impossible for the 
 Christian churches to take the place of an illicit confraternity 
 provided they had such an external resemblance to some well 
 recognized confraternities as would permit the police to connive 
 at their existence. It is undoubted that the Christian Church 
 was at first believed by the Romans to belong to the tolerated 
 and protected Judaism. Tertullian meets the charge that 
 Christianity was "hiding something of its presumption under 
 the shadow of an illustrious religion (Judaism), one which has 
 at any rate the authorization of law." ' So long as the Roman 
 Government did not perceive the difference between the Chris- 
 tians and the Jews, the infant Christian churches could remain 
 sheltered under the laws which permitted legalized confraterni- 
 ties ; * but when the difference became manifest, and when Jews 
 themselves began to denounce the Christians, some other shelter 
 was required.^ This could be and no doubt was furnished by 
 the general external resemblance of the Christian societies to 
 the pagan confraternities for religious practices. Hence con- 
 
 * Tertullian, Apology, 2L 
 
 • Dc Rosai, Roma Sottereana, iii. 509 ; BuUetino di Archaeologia Cristiana 
 (1865), pp. 90-94 ; Liebenara, Zur Oeschichtt und Organisation des romiachen 
 Vercinswesen, 268. Holtzmann, Die Pastoralbriefe, 197. The protection 
 was not restricted to those who were Jews by birth ; it extended to pro- 
 selytes {(T€^6ix€vol) ; cf. BuUetino di Archaeologia Cristiana (1865), p. 91. 
 
 3 Authorities differ about the date when the Roman officials first re- 
 cognized the difference. Ramsay {The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 
 266 ff.) differs from most German authorities in thinking it to been have 
 much earlier than the time of Domitian ; I agree with him thoroughly. 
 When we remember the wise political dread of reUgious combinations 
 which the emperors from Augustus downward showed ; their discern- 
 ment that rehgion was the most powerful pohtical motive power in the 
 East ; the presence in every province of men trained to note the beginnings 
 of all movements which might disturb the state ; and when we glance at 
 the objective picture of that old system of ruling provinces which modem 
 India furnishes — none but an arm-chair critic would deny it, British 
 officials in India know of all the small beginnings of religious movements 
 in their districts long before the public know anything about them, if 
 they ever acquire the knowledge^ 
 
CHURCHES, SYNAGOGUES, CONFRATERNITIES 135 
 
 formity witli the usages of a pagan confraternity gave the Chris - 
 tians the best means of escaping the attention of the authorities, 
 alert to notice any attempts to start altogether new associations.' 
 It is evident that the Christian communities had some usages 
 in common with the confraternities, and precisely those which 
 would be the most likely to attract attention. They met to- 
 gether for a common meal (which was one of the things that 
 Pliny noticed) ; * they made a distinction between the meetings 
 for the common meal and those for edification and for busi- 
 ness ; they honoured the dies natalis of a martyr as the con- 
 fraternities celebrated the birthdays of benefactors ; they ex- 
 hibited a reverence for their dead brethren in ways that could 
 be compared with the practices of the confraternities ; ^ above 
 all, after the time of the Emperor Nerva they tried to assimilate 
 themselves to the collegia tenuiorum, which obtained an easier 
 recognition on the part of the authorities, and this came to a head 
 when Bishop Zephyrinus was able to get the Roman Church 
 registered as a burial club.* There was sufficient external 
 resemblance between the confraternities to enable TertuUian 
 to plead that the Church should be recognized as a legally per- 
 mitted association, and to make Pliny suggest that he might 
 proceed against the Christians as members of an illicit collegium.^ 
 All these things enable us to see how the Christian churches 
 during the earliest part of their existence could maintain a 
 
 ' Schmiedel, Encydopccdia Biblical 3111; Holtzmaim, Die Pastor (d- 
 hriefe, 197 f. Schmiedel, however, is not warranted in making the de- 
 ductions he does from the external conformity ; there must have been 
 the same outward conformity between the Christian communities and 
 the Jewish synagogues. 
 
 2 PUny, Epist. 96 (97). 
 
 3 For the burial usages of the confraternities, compare Liebenam, Zur 
 OeschicJiie und Organisation des romischen Vereinswesens (1890), p. 254 ff. ; 
 Schultze, Katacomben (1882), pp. 9-14, 48-63 ; De Rossi, Eoma Sottereana, 
 iii. 501-507, 
 
 * This is commonly inferred from the fact mentioned by Hippolytus, 
 that Zephyrinus " appointed him (CaUxtus) over the cemetery " j JBe- 
 futalion {Philosophumena), ix.; 7.: 
 
 5 Compare above p. 128, n.: 2j 
 
•/ 
 
 136 THE CHUECHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 position of precarious security in face of the imperial policy 
 of not permitting new associations. But we are scarcely war- 
 ranted in drawing conclusions about the inward organization 
 of the primitive Christian communities. What we can infer 
 is, that the Christians of the primitive Gentile churches had the 
 ordinary experience to enable them to make use of all the divine 
 gifts of rule and service in creating for their churches from their 
 midst a ministering service. 
 
 Churches like that of Corinth and Philippi, whatever may have 
 suggested their forms of organization, and whatever bands 
 held them together, had within them persons with the " gifts " 
 which enabled them to offer wise counsels, to assist their neigh- 
 bours, to lead the devotions and to manage the affairs of the 
 community. If it be said, as it is sometimes done, that the 
 churches of Corinth and Rome were not properly organized 
 because we do not hear of bishops or presbyters or deacons, then 
 that means that a Christian community could be addressed as a 
 Christian church, could be called " Christ's Body," could admit 
 catechumens by the sacred door of baptism, could assemble 
 together for public worship, could partake together of the Holy 
 Supper, could exercise Christian discipHne, and all this without 
 office-bearers set apart for the purposes of the ministry in regular 
 and ecclesiastical fashion. It shows, as nothing else can, that 
 the Church comes before the ministry, and that it creates for 
 itself and its own needs its ministering service ; the natural 
 leaders led, the people followed, the organization grew and the 
 new moral and social life had full liberty to develop itself in 
 all manner of Christian service. The two types of the earhest 
 local ministry, the serving and the leading, the avTiXijyf/eig and 
 the Kv^epinjarei^, the Sicucoveh and the eirLa-Koirelv appeared 
 first as forms of doing what service was required of them, and 
 then as permanent offices. 
 
 Hitherto, with one exception, we have been working at those 
 portions of the New Testament whose dates are well ascer- 
 tained. Our material has been drawn chiefly from the earlier 
 
DATES OF DOCUMENTS 187 
 
 Epistles of St. Paul, all of which belong to the years before 
 57 A.D. When we come to the material given in the Epistle of 
 James, 1 Peter, and the Pastoral Epistles, we are at once con- 
 fronted with questions of date and authorship, on which modern 
 scholars hold very varying opinions. 
 
 For our purposes, however, these questions are by no means 
 so important as might at first be supposed. No critic, whose 
 opinions deserve serious consideration, denies the truth of the 
 pictures of the ecclesiastical organization exhibited in the Pas- 
 toral Epistles or in the later chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 While they may refuse to admit that St. Paul or St. Luke was the 
 author and while they may relegate the composition to the last 
 decade of the first or to the second or third decades of the second 
 century, they all admit that the representations of ecclesiastical 
 polity found in these documenta are true for this later period 
 and may be true for a much earlier one. The Church, it is held 
 universally, did pass through the stage of organization shown 
 in these documents. The only question is the date of the stage. 
 No reasonable critic would afi&rm that a special feature of ecclesi- 
 astical organization may not have been in existence long before 
 it is mentioned, or that the date when we first hear about it 
 is the date of its origin, unless there is the express statement 
 that it took its beginning at that time. For example, when it 
 it said that Paul and Barnabas did not see dders set over the 
 churches of Derbe, Lystra and Iconium (Acts xiv. 23), no one 
 denies that the passage is evidence for the existence of elders 
 in these churches in the beginning of the second century. Onl y 
 some critics believe that the statement so conflicts with Stj 
 Paul's own account of his conduct towards his missionaiy 
 churches that it is impossible to accept the idea that the ofl&ce 
 of eldership, which was certainly present when the document 
 was written, dates as far back as the planting of the churches. 
 They say that the writer, not unnaturally, attributes the polity 
 of his own time to the earlier period. Others, who accept the 
 late date of the document, find certain corroborative evidence 
 
138 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 of the existence of dders in these churches long before this date, 
 and have no difficulty in beUeving that the institution of the 
 office may have come from the missionary journey of St. Paul, 
 whatever the date or authorship of the document which relates 
 the circumstance. The same remark appUes to the Pastoral 
 Epistles. If the late date of the documents be accepted, and 
 if it is also believed that the accounts of the organization of the 
 churches given in them indicate a difference of poUty from what 
 appears in the undisputed Epistles of St. Paul, the result is 
 not to discredit the information the documents give us about 
 ecclesiastical organization, but to accept it as evidence for what 
 existed in the first and second decades of the second century. 
 If the late date of composition be maintained, and if it is held 
 that the information given is not inconsistent with what existed 
 in earlier days, then nothing compels us to conclude that the 
 beginnings of the polity described are as late as the accepted 
 date of the documents describing them. In either case the 
 documents are held to describe truly the condition of the ministry 
 of the Church at an earlier or at a later period — the question 
 of time being settled not by the date of the document but by 
 a comparison between the information it gives with what we 
 know of the earlier period. The matter involved does not con- 
 cern a general conception of ecclesiastical organization, but 
 whether a certain stage of development, which did exist some- 
 time, was of an earlier or of a later appearance — a question which, 
 when we consider the utmost limits of time involved, is com- 
 paratively unimportant. 
 
 We need not, therefore, concern ourselves here with the 
 problems which the date and authorship of the Book of Acts 
 and of 1 Peter suggest.* But prevailing critical opinions about 
 
 ' Personally I am not disposed to brush aside the difficulties which the 
 Book of Acts presents ; they relate chiefly to the limited time which the 
 Eusebian chronology (and it appears to me to be the most trustworthy) 
 allows for the events recorded down to the conversion of St. Paul ; but 
 difficulties seem to me to be increased and not lessened by any proposed 
 recoDBtructioiL; So far as our subject of investigation is concerned all 
 
THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 189 
 
 the Pastoral Epistles place the portions which concern our 
 subject so very late that it is necessary either to dissent from 
 them or to relegate the information these documents give to 
 the period which produced the Epistles of Ignatius and the 
 Sources of the Apostolic Canons.^ These Pastoral Epistles were 
 
 " critics " recognize the election of the ■* Seven "• as an historica fact ; 
 and the only remaining question of organization is the statement that 
 " elders " were appointed (not " ordained," for that is not the word) in 
 the churches of the Galatian mission by Paul and Barnabas ; and this 
 it seems to me is rendered highly probable by evidence which is altogether 
 independent of the date and authorship of the Acts of the Apostles. As 
 to the date of the book, I follow Professor Sanday who beUeves the book 
 to have been written about 80 a.d. and that its author was St. Luke. Dr. 
 Hamack on the other hand declares that the date of the book is some time 
 between 79 and 93 a.d. Oeschichte der altchristliche Literaiur his Euse- 
 hius, II. ; Chronologie, i. 246-50. 
 
 ^ The " critical view " of the date of the Pastoral Epistles may perhaps 
 be best taken from the short summary in Hamack's Geschichte der altchrist- 
 liche Literaiur his Eusebius, II., Chronologie, i. 480-6, supplemented from 
 Holtzmann, Die Pastor alhriefe (1880). It is as follows : — The three 
 Epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, go together and are to be treated 
 as a whole ; the same arguments and the same results apply to all. These 
 epistles contain some genuine sajrings of St. Paul — a few verses in 2 
 Timothy scarcely a third of Titus, but not a verse of 1 Timothy 
 — enough to say that the writings are founded on genuine apostoHc letters.: 
 But in the state in which they have come to us they represent an entirely 
 different authorship. The reasons given for this judgment may be classed 
 under three heads : the language is different from St. Paul's, and in par- 
 ticular the epistles contain a very large number of words and phrases 
 quite unlike what St. Paul uses in his authentic works ; warnings are 
 given against erroneous beliefs and especially against Gnostic opinions 
 which were not in existence before the death of St. Paul ; the description 
 of the ecclesiastical organization is entirely different from what we find 
 in the authentic letters of St Paul. When it is sought to determine the 
 date of the epistles two definite points of time present themselves. Poly- 
 carp distinctly quotes 2 Timothy ii. 12 ; and the redaction cannot be 
 later than 110 a.d. On the other hand the kinds of errors which the 
 author denounces and warns against had no existence until the close of 
 the first century. Hence the probable date of the letters must be some- 
 time between 90-110 a.d. But, it is said, portions must be much later; 
 the closing verses, 17-21, of 1 Tim. vi. were evidently added after the real 
 end of the epistle at verse 16. Of these verses 17-19 contain warnings 
 which find a parallel in the admonitions of the Pastor of Hermas and 
 belong to a period later than 100 a,Dj ; while verses 20-21 have no oon« 
 
140 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 extensively used in the Primitive Church as a document giving 
 directions about ecclesiastical organization and discipline. 
 The Muratorian Fragment tells us this.' Like all documents 
 used in this way, they were apt to be interpolated to suit the 
 needs of time and place. Statements about prevailing errors 
 
 nexion with the rest of the epistle, are directed against the " antitheses " 
 of Marcion and cannot be earlier than 130 a.d. Similarly verses 1-13 in 
 1 Tim. iiu and verses 17-20 in 1 Tim. v. 17-20, and verses 7-9 in Titus L, 
 have little connexion with the context and are portions of an ancient book 
 of discipline. They present striking parallels to the Sources of the Apos- 
 tolic Canons and cannot be much earlier than 130 a.d. This is what 
 " criticism " makes of the Pastoral Epistles. It places those portions 
 which concern our subject as late at 130 a.d. and forbids us to use them 
 to describe the organi^tion of the Churches within the first century. The 
 reasons given are briefly these : a quotation from St Luke's gospel is 
 called a scripture and that of itself, it is said, is sufficient to show the late 
 date of the document ; Timothy is represented as the president of a col- 
 lege of elders and in this capacity is the judge and administrator of justice 
 — functions which are much later than even 100 A.D. 
 
 A few remarks may be admitted in the way of briefly indicating why I 
 refuse to accept the " critical " theories about these epistles. While I 
 gratefully acknowledge Dr. Hamack as the greatest living authority on 
 early Church history, I never read what he has to say about the two 
 subjects of GnosticLsm and ecclesiastical organization without longing that 
 he could spend a few months in the mission field where aggressive work 
 is being done among educated pagans whose minds are full of the same 
 curious oriental faiths and their alUed philosophies as were present to the 
 earliest Christian converts in the first and second centuries. I am con- 
 vinced that if this experience were his he would modify much that he has 
 said both about Gnosticism and about ecclesiastical organization. The 
 Oriental mind, tenacious of its own beUefs and at the same time curiously 
 receptive in religious conceptions, strives from the first to weave Christian 
 thoughts into its system of Oriental beliefs and is surprised that the amal- 
 gam thus produced is not accepted as Christian doctrine by the missionary. 
 The very errors denounced by the Pastoral Epistles may be found among 
 Hindu inquirers who never get further than inquiry and a certain measured 
 sympathy with Christian teaching. They are the beginnings of Gnosticism 
 apparent to the missionary long before they have acquired the definite 
 shape of such a system as the Arya Somaj, to take one of the forms which 
 
 ^ " Ad Filemonem una, et ad Titum una, et ad Timotheum duas, pro 
 affecto et dilectione in honore tamen ecclesCae catholice in ordinatione 
 ecclesiastice descepline sanctificatae sunt." 
 
THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 141 
 
 to be shunned were liable to be altered in order to be more 
 sharply descriptive of existing heresies or tendencies to heresy 
 and disciplinary directions might easily have taken a more 
 technical language to suit a later period. But when due allow- 
 ance is made for these natural effects of the primitive use of 
 these documents, there does not seem to be evidence strong 
 
 modem Indian gnosticism has assumed. If the Uving picture were studied 
 fresh insight would be acquired about ancient documents. It would be 
 seen for example, that if Timothy or Titus were acting as deputy for an 
 apostle or missionary it does not follow that he must be president of a 
 college of elders in order to be obliged to Uaten to accusations against 
 '* elders " or to act as the one who rebukes in pubUc and in private. 
 The more I study these pastoral epistles the more evident it becomes to 
 me that they are just what every experienced missionary has to impart 
 to a younger and less experienced colleague when he warns him about 
 the difficulties that he must face and the tasks, often unexpected, he will 
 find confronting him. It is scarcely to be wondered at then that the Pastoral 
 Epistles are always among the earUest portions of the scriptures translated 
 in almost every Christian mission. A study of the Hving picture would 
 also teach students that while the declaration of Hegresippus may be ac- 
 cepted that gnosticism did not trouble the Church till about the time of 
 Trajan (which is the deduction usually drawn from his statements given 
 in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. III. xxxii. 7) that need not prevent our beheving 
 that incipient gnosticism had to be guarded against from the very beginning. 
 At the same time it is very probable that the Pastoral Epistles contain 
 many interpolations in which statements about errors and even directions 
 about discipline have been somewhat altered to suit the requirements of 
 the middle of the second century. That is what would naturally happen 
 to a document which was used, as we know these epistles were used, for a 
 manual of ecclesiastical procedure (the Muratorian Fragment tells us that). 
 The insertion of " scripture " {ypa(f>Tj) might easily have come in in this 
 way. But all this does not prevent me accepting these epistles as the work 
 of St. Paul or of a companion who wrote for him. It may be said that the 
 supposition that these letters come from St. Paul requires us to believe 
 that the apostle was released from his first captivity, and made missionary 
 journeys of which no record has remained; but this is rendered more than 
 likely by the statement of Clement (I. v. 7) that St. Paul visited the 
 furthest parts of the West (to ripfxa t^9 Svo-ew?) — an expression which, 
 notwithstanding all that has been said against the idea, seems more 
 naturally applicable to Spain than to Rome. As for the language — " Tons 
 ceux qui ont 1' experience de la parole en pubHque ne savent-ils pas que 
 le ton n'est plus le meme quand on parle k une assemblee que lorsqu'on 
 s'addresse h, une peraonne en particulier " (Reville, Le8 Originea de VEyia- 
 copcU (1894), p. 497.) 
 
142 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 enough to warrant our refusing to believe that they are what they 
 declare themselves to be — ^letters from St. Paul to two of his 
 most trusted fellow-workers, instructing them how to carry on 
 his missionary work, which he was not able to superintend 
 personally. If this be the case these letters show us what St. 
 Paul was in the habit of doing in the mission fields which be- 
 longed peculiarly to himself. Titus ^ had accompanied the 
 apostle, released from his Roman captivity, to Crete, and had 
 been left there to complete the work which the apostle, pressed 
 for time, could not stay to finish. His duty was to see that 
 " elders " were chosen in every local church. The charge re- 
 calls the account given in the Acts of the Apostles of the mission- 
 ary journey of Paul and Barnabas through the district which 
 included the cities of Derbe, Lystra and Iconium. On that 
 missionary tour the apostles did not see to the appointment 
 of " elders " when their converts were first gathered from Judaism 
 and heathenism. They allowed the believers in the new faith 
 some Uttle time to prove themselves. It was on their return 
 journey, when they were " confirming " their converts, that 
 the elders were appointed. So here Titus was left till the suffi- 
 cient time had elapsed, and then he was to see to the selection 
 of elders in the local churches of Crete. His work was one that 
 could be finished within a comparatively short time, for the 
 apostle expected him to follow to Nicopolis, where St. Paul 
 was to pass the winter. There is no suggestion that his function 
 was anything like a permanent office in the Church. The work 
 given him to do is perfectly famihar to modern missionaries. 
 
 ' Titus had been one of the earliest gentile converts from heathenism 
 — a convert or spiritual son of St. Paul himself (Titus i. 4). The apostle 
 had esteemed him so highly that he had taken him up to Jerusalem 
 when he went there to plead the cause of gentile hberty. Titus went 
 with St Paul to be shown as a specimen of what these gentile converts 
 of his were like (Gal. ii. 3) ; and he had passed the test so well that the 
 leaders of the Church at Jerusalem had not required that he should be 
 circumcised. He had been employed by St. Paul on work involving tact 
 and confidential discretion (2 Cor. xii. 18), and had acquitted himself well. 
 
OFFICE-BEAREHS IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 143 
 
 The other deputy was Timothy.' He had come with the apostle 
 to Ephesus, and circumstances, we know not what, had required 
 that one of the two should remain and " confirm " the Church 
 there. St. Paul had other work to do ; Timothy was selected 
 to remain, and he received two letters advising him how to act; 
 Such is the setting of these Pastoral Epistles as related in the 
 writings themselves. 
 
 In these letters to Titus and to Timothy we find, as we might 
 expect in such documents, much more detailed references to 
 the organization of the churches than in the Epistles addressed 
 to the churches themselves. We find unmistakably an official 
 ministry which appears to consist of two grades; We see evi- 
 
 ^ Timothy was the favourite fellow-worker with the great apostle^ 
 When we piece together his story from the Acts of the Apostles and from 
 St. Paul's epistles, we find something like the following.: When St. Paul 
 left Antioch with Silas on his second visit to the Galatian Churches, feel- 
 ing sadly, no doubt, that Barnabas was no longer with him, either he 
 or his companion had an assurance given in " prophecy '' that St. Paul 
 would find in a brief time a helper who would be to him as another Barnabas 
 (1 Tim. i. 18 ; iv. 14). When St. Paul reached Lystra he suddenly recog- 
 nized in a young man there the fellow-worker who had been divinely 
 promised to him. " And behold,^^ says Luke, " a certain disciple was 
 there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewess who befieved ; but his father 
 was a Greek. Him Paul would have to go forth with him.'J The apostle 
 received him with the kindly Jewish benediction, laying his hands on his 
 head (2 Tim. i. 6) ; and the elders of the Church also gave the young man 
 their benediction before he set out on his new Hfe-work (Acts xvi. 1-4 ; 
 1 Tim. iv. 14). There is a striking parallel between the " call " of Timothy 
 and the earUer '' call " of the great apostle himself — the vision of Ananias 
 and the prophetic intuition of St. Paul ; Ananias' benediction, when he 
 laid his hands on the future head of the Apostle to the Gentiles, and the 
 benediction of Timothy by St. Paul ; the blessing of Saul and Barnabas 
 by the " prophets and teachers " at the head of the Church at Antioch, 
 when they started on their first mission tour, and the blessing of the 
 elders of Lystra when Timothy started on his life work as an apostle or 
 evangelist. From this time he and St. Paul were almost always together ; 
 they were Uke father and son. Timothy's name occurs frequently in 
 the epistles of St. Paul When difficult questions arose in St Paul's 
 mission Cliurches which needed dehcate handHng and when the Apostle 
 could not go himself to settle them Timothy was his favourite deputy 
 (1 Cor. xvi. 10 ; 1 Thess. iii. 2). The apostle saw himself Uving his Ufe 
 over again in the person of his son Timothy. 
 
144 THE CHURCHES CEEATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 dence of a congregational roU on whicli the names of the poor, 
 who are to receive the support of the congregation, are entered. 
 There are also traces of a ministry of women. We find the 
 apostle laying down rules to guide his deputies in the selection 
 of office-bearers and in the removal of ecclesiastical excom- 
 munication. In short, we find a great deal more definite in- 
 formation about the organization and the ministry of the primitive 
 churches than in any other of the New Testament writings. 
 
 If we beheve that the apostle was above all things a missionary ^ 
 and that his deputies were to do the work of missionaries, which 
 seems to be the only view which is consistent with the nature 
 of the function and the description of their work which is given 
 in the New Testament writings, these Pastoral Epistles may be 
 expected to show us the organization of the primitive Gentile 
 churches from the inside, while in the Epistles of St. Paul, written 
 either before or during the Roman captivity, we see the same 
 organization from the outside. They tell us how the apostle 
 personally superintended the building into churches of the 
 communities of behevers his preaching had gathered together. 
 The two sets of letters are complementary. In the earUer 
 letters we see the apostle encouraging every form of spontaneous 
 action, and how he made the infant communities feel that the 
 whole responsibihty lay upon their shoulders. In the later 
 epistles the master-builder shows his deputies how carefully 
 he was accustomed to guide the exercise of that responsibility 
 with scarcely felt touches of the hand. 
 
 The duties of the two deputies varied with the wants of the 
 places in which they were set. Timothy had to do with an older 
 community whose special circumstances demanded special care ; 
 Titus had to deal with comparatively newly-estabhshed congre- 
 gations, and to guide them carefully but unobtrusively to organize 
 themselves. Both had to do the work which the apostle was 
 himself accustomed to do in similar circumstances. It was the 
 most difficult and deUcate work that falls to the lot of a mission- 
 ary — ^to guide into right channels of self-government communities 
 
OFFICE-BEARERS IN T&E PASTORAL EPISTLES 145 
 
 comparatively young in the faith, and to do it in such a way 
 that the community may feel that it is doing the work itself, 
 and will be able to sustain itself when the guiding hand shall 
 be removed. In modern times nothing tests the ability of a 
 missionary for his work hke this very task. 
 
 The apostle gave both Titus and Timothy a master-thought 
 to guide them. The infant Christian communities were to be 
 looked on as Households of God, and as every great household 
 needs servants who superintend, so the Household of God needs 
 men who have the oversight. He that has proved faithful in 
 small things is the most likely to prove faithful in all-important 
 work, and the man who has shown that he can guide and rule 
 his own household well is declared to be the best fitted to super- 
 intend the Household of God. Hence we are told very Httle 
 about the special duties of the 'presbyters or bishops^ or what- 
 ever their usual name was, and find httle mention of quahties 
 fitted for special functions. What the apostle insists on is 
 character, and that kind of character which is shown in family 
 relationships. 
 
 Titus is told that a presbyter or elder must be a man who is 
 above suspicion, who is a faithful husband ^ and whose children 
 are Christians of well regulated lives. He is not to be self- 
 willed, nor soon angry, nor given to wine, nor turbulent, nor 
 given to money ; he is to be a lover of strangers, a lover of what 
 is good, sober-minded, upright, pious and temperate in all things. 
 Besides, he ought to be so well-grounded in the principles of 
 Christian moraUty and religion that he can exhort the brethren 
 and answer the common Jewish and heathen objections to the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 Timothy was placed in temporary charge in a district where 
 the Christian community had existed for a longer period ; and 
 the differences in the advice given all gather round this fact. 
 
 ^ " A faithful husband " appears to be the best translation of /xias 
 yvvaLKo<s avSpa — one who acts on the principles of Christian morality 
 and is not led astray by the licentious usages of the surrounding heathenism.: 
 CM. 10 
 
146 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 Tbe office-bearers selected by the commimity were not to be 
 taken from tbe most recently converted, but from men who had 
 some experience of Christianity, and whose character had stood 
 the test of time.' The office of " oversight " had become sought 
 after, and there was the more need for careful selection.* But 
 as in the letter to Titus what St. Paul insists on is character, 
 as that has displayed itself within the family, for rule in the 
 human household is the best training for management within 
 the Household of God.^ The list of qualifications is practically 
 the same as was given to Titus, with this added, that he who has 
 the oversight ought to be a man respected by the heathen * as 
 well as by his fellow Christians,* 
 
 « 1 Tim. iii. 10 ; 2 Tim. il 2. « 1 Tim. iii, 1| 
 
 S 1 Tim. iii. 5. ♦ 1 Tim. iiL 7* 
 
 5 Hamack, who thinka that the verses in 1 Tim. which relate to the 
 organization of the Church are an interpolation and represent an old book 
 of the Church Order not unlike the Sources of the Apostolic Canons and per- 
 haps derived with these fragments from a common source, points out a 
 number of interesting coincidences : — " Let a woman learn in quietness 
 with all subjection." (1 Tim. ii. 11) : " in order that it (the congregation) 
 may be at rest without disturbance, after it has been £u^t proved in all sub- 
 jection 'i {Apost. Can. ii) ; "I permit not a woman to teach'* (1 Tim. 
 ii. 12) : compare with the whole of Apost. Can. viii., especially " How 
 then can we, concerning women, order them services ? '* " The bishop 
 must therefore be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, 
 tober-minded, orderly, given to hospitaUty, apt to teach, no brawler nor 
 striker, but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money . ; .- . moreover 
 he must have good testimony from them that are without" (1 Tim. iiL 
 2-7) ; " If he (the bishop) has a good report among the heathen, if he is 
 without reproach, if a friend of the poor, if sober-minded, no drunkard, 
 nor adulterer, not covetous nor a slanderer ; .- ; it is good if he is un- 
 married ; if not, then the husband of one wife ; educated . ? ; if un- 
 learned, gentle " {Apost. Can. i.) ; " Deacons, in Uke manner, must be 
 grave, not double tongued, not given to much wine .- ; ; and let these 
 also be first proved, then let them serve as deacons .- ? . let the deacons 
 be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well " 
 (1 Tim. iii. 8, 9, 12) ; " The deacons shall be approved in every service 
 ; ; J husbands of one wife, educating their children, sober-minded .- ; ; 
 not double-tongued ; ; ; not using much wine" (Apost. Can. iv.) ; (of 
 deacons) "Not using much wine, not greedy of lucre" (1 Tim. iii. 8) ; 
 (of widows) " Not greedy of lucre, not using much wine " {Apos. Can. v.) ; 
 *' For they that have served well as deacons gain to themselves » good 
 
OrFICE-BEARERS IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 147 
 
 The qualifications demanded of deacons also practically 
 consist of character tested by behaviour in the household — 
 faithfulness to wife, and evidence of parental control over 
 children and wise dealing with servants,^ It is also interesting 
 to notice a ministry of women. 
 
 Presbyters or dders who rule well are to be honoured, and those 
 who in addition assist in the ministry of the Word are to be 
 doubly honoured, or perhaps to receive a double honorarium 
 from the free-will offerings of the people. Elders who do not 
 rule well are to be looked after ; but the apostle charges his 
 deputy not to accept accusations against them rashly, but to 
 follow the old Jewish rule which required at least two grave 
 witnesses to any accusation affecting character. But if an dder^ 
 or indeed any member of the congregation, did fall into sin, 
 public rebuke was to be given without respect of persons.^ The 
 apostle also insists that his deputy is to be very cautious in 
 admitting to Church Communion those who have lapsed. He 
 is not " to lay hands hastily," ^ according to the usual form in 
 
 standing " (1 Tim. iii. 13) ; " For they who have served well as deacons 
 J .- ; purchase to themselves the pastorate " [A'post. Can. vi.) ; and so on* 
 It appears to me, however, that the interesting series of parallels affords 
 striking evidence that the statements in the Pastoral Epistles are much 
 older than those in the Sources of the Apostolic Canons. In the former 
 it is women who are to be in subjection, and the phrase corresponds to 
 1 Cor. xiv. 34 ; while in the Sources of the Apostolic Canons it is the con- 
 gregation who are to be in subjection to the office-bearers : the leadei-s 
 and the led of the Pauline Epistles have given place to the clergy and the 
 laity of a later period. Then in the Pastoral Epistles the deacons who have 
 served well gain to themselves " a good standing " ; in the later document 
 they are promised clerical projnotion, which is a very different idea and 
 suggests a much later period. Again in the former document the senior 
 office-bearers are to be faithful husbands (husbands of one wife) ; in the 
 latter it is said that it is better that they be not married, which shows 
 either a growth in ascetic sentiment or perhaps difficulties in a fair dis- 
 tribution of the offerings of the congregation and the desire for distributors 
 who have no claims on themselves to influence their judgment, or both 
 of these conceptions. Compare Chronologic, pp. 483, 484, 
 
 ^ 1 Tim. iii. 8-10, 12, 13. ^ i Tim. v. 17-20. 
 
 3 1 Tim. V. 22. Compare Hort, The Christian Ecdesia, p. 176 ff^ 
 
148 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 restoration, " on any man, neither to be a partaker of other 
 men's sins." 
 
 The picture of the relief of the poor of the community is both 
 vivid and homely. It brings before our eyes not merely that 
 far-off primitive Christian Church of Ephesus, but also the 
 present work of a Scottish country kirk-session. When the 
 bread-winner dies careful inquiries are to be made, whether the 
 bereaved widow and orphans have any means of support, or can 
 receive any aid from their relations, who are to be stirred up 
 to do their duty to those who are left helpless. If the children 
 or grandchildren are able to work they are to be commanded 
 to support her who has been left a widow ; but if such help fails, 
 and if the widow is too old to earn her own living and has always 
 borne a good character, then she is to be placed on the poor roll 
 of the congregation and supported by the community. 
 
 According to our view, these Pastoral Epistles are to be re- 
 garded as complementary to the earUer Epistles of St. Paul, 
 in so far as they give us information about the organization of 
 the Gentile Christian communities. The earHer epistles, written 
 to the various churches, reveal the principles of the growth 
 of the organization lying within the communities themselves ; 
 while the Pastoral Epistles, written to guide the men who were 
 to be the apostle's deputies, and had to be instructed in his 
 methods, show how he watched over the communities his preach- 
 ing had gathered together. The apostle acted like a wise father, 
 who encourages every appearance of independent and responsible 
 action, but at the same time carefully guides it into the proper 
 channels. From one point of view it can be truly said that the 
 churches of St. Paul's mission were thoroughly independent 
 and acted on their own responsibilities ; from another the 
 apostle or his deputies watched over and guided this activity. 
 There was control, but it was the control of the missionary, 
 and partook largely of parental monition and guidance. 
 
 If we combine what is given us in the earlier Epistles of St. 
 Paul with what we find in the Pastoral Epistles, we can discern 
 
ORGANISATION IN THE PAULINE CHURCHES 149 
 
 the principles of organization within the PauKne communities. 
 According to the ideas of the apostle, a Church of God was 
 thoroughly organized when it found within its membership a 
 variety of persons endowed with various spiritual gifts pro- 
 ducing activities helpful to the whole community. That was 
 the real basis of the common life, the divine element without 
 which all else was of little moment, and with which everything 
 else was a matter of executive detail. These gifts were divided 
 into two great classes, those which served for the ministry of the 
 Word, and those which were at the foundation of other kinds 
 of ministry. It was from this second class of " gifts " that the 
 ministry of the local churches proceeded. Among them we find 
 two which crystallise into ecclesiastical office. St. Paul calls 
 them " wise counsels " and " helps " {Kvpepvrjcrei^ and avriXri' 
 >\rei^, 1 Cor. xii. 28) ; we may call them " oversight " and 
 " subordinate service." Whatever may have been the original 
 principle of association, whatever suggestions of social combination 
 earliest presented themselves to the minds of the primitive Chris- 
 tians in the Gentile Christian communities, whatever the human 
 bands that bound them together, these two classes of officials 
 were sure to emerge — the one fitted to guide and lead the brethren 
 and the other to render subordinate service. 
 
 Some time must have elapsed before active services crystallised 
 into offices, but it need not have been a long period.^ Things 
 move fast in young communities organizing themselves for the 
 first time, and the spiritual gift of discernment which belonged 
 to the whole community was an instrument of organization 
 lying ready to hand. This gift of " discernment," when ap- 
 plied to teaching, implied that those who were really believed 
 to be the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit were to be heard with 
 reverence, and that the hearers ought to fashion their lives 
 according to what was taught. The same gift, when applied 
 to the discernment of abilities for rule and service, implied the 
 
 ' Compare the evidences of growth in organization collected by Gayford^ 
 Hastings' Bible Dictionary, art. Church, i. 434. 
 
150 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 power to select and bestow office upon men so gifted, and the 
 duty of tlie community to obey its chosen leaders in all prao- 
 tical matters. 
 
 In young communities full of a fresh and active enthusiasm, 
 feeling that the possession of " gifts " of rule and help was the 
 fulfilment of the promise of the Master to be present with them, 
 and that the " gift " of discernment enabled them to select 
 their leaders with something of divine authority, activities 
 helpful to the community would speedily become offices. There 
 is no reason to prevent us from believing that Stephanas and 
 the others whom the Corinthian Church are ordered to reverence 
 were office-bearers in the full sense of the word.' Hamack 
 and many others are disposed to deny this. They argue that 
 there is no trace of office-bearers properly so-called in St. Paul's 
 writings composed before his Roman captivity, although they 
 naturally admit there must have been ministries from the very 
 first, and that the ministries took shape under the two concep- 
 tions of " oversight " and " subordinate service." It may be 
 so, but the arguments do not convince me.^ If the Trpoicrrd- 
 jULcvoi of the Epistles to the Thessalonians and to the Romans 
 were not office-bearers they did the work of office-bearers. To 
 assert that a period of fifty years must have elapsed before the 
 irpo'CarTaixevoi of the earlier epistles could become the official 
 Trpea-fiurepoi of the Pastoral Epistles (which is practically 
 
 * Compare Schmiedel, Encyd Btbl., art Ministry, 3111 (d)^ 
 
 * Expositor (1887, Jan. -June), 328-31. The arguments put shortly 
 are: — St Paul addresses his advice about discipline, etc., to the whole 
 community and not to special individuals who are in the position of office- 
 bearers ; all the members of the Christian community are exhorted to 
 do what is enjoined upon the leaders (1 Thess. v^ 14) ; the word efyyov 
 (verse 12) shows that an office is not thought of ; while in Ronu xii. 6-8 
 presidency stands between " UberaUty '- and " showing mercy,"- and is 
 described as a " gift '' 1 The same arguments, it appears to me, would 
 exclude the presence of office-bearers in the Didache and in the Epistle 
 of CkmerU; for there the exhortations to exercise discipline are ad- 
 dressed to the whole community. The fact that the congregational 
 Vieeting is the supreme judge does not exclude the fact of office-bearers^ 
 Compare below pp^ 171 ff.j for the Didache and 176 n^ for 1 CUm&nti 
 
OEGANISATION IN THE PAULINE CHURCHES 151 
 
 Loening's contention), or that the development required eighty 
 years (which Harnack requires), seems to me to be quite un- 
 warrantable. As has been said before, things move fast in 
 young communities and, so far as the development in organiza- 
 tion goes, there is no reason whatever why the state of matters 
 described in the Pastoral Epistles should not have arrived at 
 a comparatively early date. 
 
 It is quite in accordance with what has been said, that in all 
 the New Testament writings, and indeed in all the earlier books 
 of discipline, the work done is always thought more of than 
 the persons selected to do it, and office-bearers are honoured 
 for their work's sake rather than for their rank. The one thought 
 running through all the earlier documents is that the power 
 to render special service to the community — for rule and leader- 
 ship according to primitive modes of thought are always founded 
 on " service " and never on " lordship " — depends on the pos- 
 session of " gifts " engrafted by the Spirit on individual character, 
 and the occasion of these particular services is their recognition 
 by the community, who appoint the brethren to serve it in ruling 
 it. One of the chief services which belonged to those who were 
 placed at the head of the Christian communities was to set an 
 example to those under their charge, and what the leaders did 
 all the brethren in their several places were expected to do.; 
 Hence in the New Testament writings, as well as in the earlier 
 canons, the quaUties which were to determine the selection of 
 men to be leaders were those qualities of stable Christian char- 
 acter which all Christians ought to possess. The function of 
 the missionary or his deputy, as we can see from the Pastoral 
 Epistles, was to advise the community in their selection of those 
 who were to be over them, and to inculcate such principles 
 of selection as would abide permanently in their minds, and thus 
 secure a succession of worthy office-bearers when the first mis- 
 sionaries of the Gospel were no longer present to advise ; or 
 to use the words of St. Clement of Rome : " Our apostles knew 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over 
 
152 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 the name (dignity) of the overseer's office. For this cause, there- 
 fore, having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the 
 aforesaid persons (i.e. their first converts) and afterwards gave 
 a further injunction that if they should fall asleep, other approved 
 men should succeed to their administration " ' — a description 
 of what takes place now on every mission field of the whole 
 Christian Church. 
 
 The earlier Epistles of St. Paul show us, as has been said, 
 that the services rendered to the local churches by those whom 
 the brethren are commanded to obey for their works' sake were 
 of two kinds, which we have called " oversight " and " sub- 
 ordinate service." I think that we may presume that these 
 were office-bearers, if not from the beginning, at all events from 
 a very early period ; but we can at least say that these two 
 different kinds of service were rendered by the leaders to the 
 led. Later writings, both within and without the New Testa- 
 ment Canon, make it plain that these services were rendered 
 by two classes of officials who bore official names, which still exist 
 within the Christian Church. We read of pastors, overseers, elders 
 and deacons (TTot/xet/e?, eiria-KoiroLfirpear^vTepoi, StOKOvoi).^ The 
 references to the office-bearers of the local churches are always 
 in the plural, and the government must have been collegiate. 
 Whatever the special origin and primitive meanings of the first 
 three names, they appear to have denoted the same office, and 
 the service they gave was what the foremen or the Trpoiarrd/uievoL 
 of the Epistles to the Thessalonians and to the Romans rendered 
 to their respective communities. The terms " pastors " (Troi— 
 
 » dement, 1 Epistj xliv., 1 ; cL xliL 4 ; cf. Sanday's The Conception 
 of Priesthood (1898), pp. 70-2. The sentence in Gement (1 Epist. xlii. 4) 
 is : — " So preaching everywhere in town and in country, they appointed 
 their first-fruits (ras a7rapxa.<s avrwv) when they had proved them by 
 the Spirit, to be overseers and deacons unto them that should believe.'' 
 
 ' Compare Lightfoot, Philippians (1881), 6th ed. pp. 95-9.; Loofs, 
 Theologische Studien und Kritiken (1890), 628-42; Schmiedel, Encyc. 
 Bibl. pp. 3135-9 ; Loening, Die Oemeindeverfasaung dea Urchristenihuma 
 (1889), pp. 68-63. Compare note on 'Presbyters! and 'Bishops! at 
 the end of the ohapterj 
 
THE NAMES OF OFFICE-BEARERS 153 
 
 /uLcve^) and " overseers " {eTrio-Koiroi) describe tlie kind of work 
 done, and " elder " (ir pea- Pure po^) was tlie title of the office. 
 This name naturally suggests a Jewish origin ; for among Jewish 
 people we find " elders " from the earliest to the latest times. 
 The principles of social organization which were current among 
 the Jews no doubt insensibly moulded the earliest ecclesiastical 
 organization in Palestine ; and when we find " elders " in charge 
 of the community in Jerusalem, ready to receive the contri- 
 butions for the relief of those who were suffering from the famine 
 which overtook them in the reign of Claudius,^ it is impos- 
 sible 1k) doubt that the name came from their Jewish surround- 
 ings. At the same time it must always be remembered that 
 Christian " elders " had functions entirely different from the 
 Jewish, that the vitality of the infant Christian Communities 
 made them work out for themselves that organization which 
 they found to be most suitable, and that in this case nothing 
 but the name was borrowed.* The respect which St. Paul 
 always inculcated toward the mother Church in Jerusalem and 
 the reception among the primitive Christian congregations of 
 converts from Jewish synagogues, can easily account for the 
 presence of the name within Gentile Christian churches. This 
 does not mean that every Christian congregation had presbyters 
 designedly copied from the Jewish synagogue. The largest 
 number probably copied their neighbours when they came to 
 make use of the word in a technical fashion. The constant 
 intercommunication between Christian communities which 
 was such a feature of primitive Christianity that the keen- 
 sighted Lucian recognized it as their special possession,^ promoted 
 
 » Acts XL 30. 
 
 ' It ought to be remembered that the organization which prevailed 
 among the Judaising Christians, who refused all fraternal intercourse with 
 the Gentile beUevers, was on the strict Jewish Unes and was quite dif- 
 ferent from the Christian. Epiphanius tells us {Heresies, xxx. 18) that 
 their congregations were presided over by ar^hons and an archisynagogos 
 like the Jewish synagogues of the Dispersion ; Compare pp. 130-131,' 
 
 * Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 12, 41i 
 
154 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 the gradual assimilation of constitution even when the begin- 
 nings were of different origins. But it is not necessary to suppose 
 that the GentUe Christian communities took the word from 
 Judaism. The term was common enough to denote rulers in 
 the Graeco-Roman civilization ; ^ and the frequent and familiar 
 use of the word to denote a ruling body in the ordinary social 
 life around them, if it did not altogether suggest the use, must 
 have at least facilitated it and ensured its spread. Besides, 
 we must remember that the word " elder," in the ??nse of ruler, 
 is one of the commonest expressions among all nations. The 
 English have their aldermen and the Romans had their senators, 
 as Dr. Lightfoot has reminded us.^ We may add to this the well- 
 known fact that .in young Christian communities recently won 
 from paganism the word dder is appHed naturally to those 
 who have been earliest brought to believe in Christ, and that the 
 first office-bearers, or those to whom obedience is due, are usually 
 taken from the first converts, like Stephanas in the Corinthian 
 Church. 
 
 All this shows us that during the last decades of the first 
 century each Christian congregation had for its office-bearers 
 ft body of deacons and a body of elders — whether separated 
 into two colleges or forming one must remain unknown — and 
 that the elders took the " oversight " while the deacons per- 
 formed the " subordinate services." These constituted the 
 
 » Deissmann, Bible Studies, Eng. Trans, pp. 154 fif.; and 233 £f. Deiss- 
 mann shows that the term 'jrpe(rl3vT€po<s was common for the rulers of a 
 a corporation in Asia Minor, and it must have been famiUar to the in- 
 habitants of those towns which furnished the Christian communities among 
 which St. Paul saw elders chosen on his return mission journey through 
 Derbe, Iconium and Lystra (Acts xiv. 23). One of the most interesting 
 series of facts which Deissmann has unearthed is that the term " elder '' 
 was a religious official name in Egypt, and that the affairs of the whole 
 Egyptian priesthood in the times of the Ptolemies were conducted by an 
 assembly whose members (twenty-five in number) were called 7rp€or/3vre/)ot. 
 Milton had very old authority for his saying that " new presbyter is but 
 old priest writ large.** 
 
 * Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (1881), 6th ed. p. 96. 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PEESBYTERS 165 
 
 local ministry of eacli Cliristian churcli or congregation — for 
 these terms were then equivalent. These men watched over 
 the lives and behaviour of the members of the community ; 
 they looked after the poor, the infirm, and the strangers ; and 
 in the absence of members of the prophetic ministry they pre- 
 sided over the public worship, especially over the Holy Supper.* 
 
 Before the close of the first century the labours of apostles 
 (and under this name a large number of wandering missionaries 
 must be included) had given birth to thousands of these local 
 churches. They were all strictly independent self-governing 
 communities — tiny islands in the sea of surrounding paganism — 
 each ruled by its session or senate of elders. There is no trace 
 of one man, one pastor, at the head of any community. The 
 ruling body was a senate without a president, a kirk-session 
 without a moderator ; and if its members did not themselves 
 possess the " prophetic gift," their authority, however defined, 
 had continually to bend before that of the " prophets " and 
 " teachers," to whom they had to give place in exhortation 
 and even in presiding at the Lord's Table. The organization 
 of the Primitive Christian Church in the last decades of the first 
 century without one president in the community, and with the 
 anomalous prophetic ministry, has no resemblance to any modern 
 ecclesiastical organization, and yet contains within it the roots 
 of all whether congregational, presbyterian (conciliar) or epis- 
 copal. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that while each Christian community 
 
 * While everything goes to show that in primitive times the function 
 of teaching was not confined to the office-bearers or rulers it is difficult 
 to believe that leadership and teaching were not frequently associated. 
 The " prophetic "- gift was so highly prized that it was only natural that 
 men possessing it in combination with the " gift "- of oversight should be 
 selected. The use of the phrase *' to shepherd " in connexion with the 
 leaders of the Christian community as in 1 Peter v. 2 {iroLfxavaTe rb iv 
 vixLv TToifxviov TOv ©eov) appears to include more than simple oversight, 
 and the word " admonish," applied to the TrpotcrTa/xcvot in Thessalonica, 
 seems to point to something more than mere leadership in the very 
 early timeSj 
 
156 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIB MINISTRY 
 
 was a little self-govemed republic, the visible unity of the cor- 
 porate Church of Christ was never forgotten. Although each 
 local church was an independent society, although it was not 
 connected with other Christian communities by any organization 
 of a poUtical kind, it was nevertheless conscious that it be- 
 longed to a world-wide federation of equally independent churches. 
 Its self-containedness did not produce isolation. On the con- 
 trary, every local church felt itself to be a real part of the uni- 
 versal and visible Church of God to which many hundreds of 
 similar societies belonged. " All the churches of Christ," said 
 Tertullian, " although they are so many and so great, comprise 
 but one primitive Church . . . and are all proved to be one in 
 unbroken unity by the communicatio pads, et appeUcUio frater* 
 nitatis et corUesseratio hospitalitcUis.^^ ' They kept the conception 
 .of this unity aUve in their hearts by the thought that all shared 
 the same sacraments, were taught the same divine mysteries, 
 obeyed the same commandments of God, and shared the same 
 hope of the same kingdom. They made this corporate unity 
 apparent by mutual help in all Christian social work, and by 
 boundless and brotherly hospitality to all fellow-Christians. 
 The picture of this corporate unity was always before their eyes 
 in the fraternal intercourse of church with church by official 
 letters and messengers, and was made vivid by the swift succes- 
 sion of wandering " apostles," " prophets " and " teachers," 
 who, belonging to no one community, were the ministers of the 
 whole Church of Christ — the binding-stones which made it 
 visibly cohere. 
 
 « De Praescrijjt, 2Q|| 
 
PBESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 167 
 
 NOTE ON •* PRESBYTERS" AND " BISHOPS « 
 
 The view taken about presbyters or elders at the close of the 
 preceding chapter was for a long time undisputed by all serious 
 students of the conditions of the primitive Church. It may 
 be found stated at length in the late Dr. Lightfoot's Note on 
 " The synonymes * bishop ' and ' presbyter,' '' in his Com- 
 mentary on the Epistle to the PhUippians.^ It has been disputed 
 by such distinguished scholars as Harnack, Sohm and Weiz- 
 sacker, and their divergence from the opinion which was previ- 
 ously held with great unanimity arose after and in consequence 
 of the publication of the late Dr. Hatch's Bampton Lectures 
 in 1881. 
 
 The theory about early ecclesiastical organization which 
 embodies this change of view as to the relation between the 
 " presbyters " and " deacons," will be discussed in an Appendix. 
 The matter which concerns us here is whether " presbyters " 
 were church officials, chosen and appointed as such, in the Church 
 of the first century, and identical with " bishops," or whether 
 Harnack is right when he says that " We meet with chosen or 
 appointed presbyters for the first time in the second century. 
 The oldest witnesses for them are the Epistle of James, the Acts 
 of the Apostles, the Pastoral Epistles, the Original Document 
 of the so-called Apostolic Ordinances, and the Shepherd of 
 Hermas" * 
 
 Harnack's opinion, if I do not mistake him, is, when put 
 briefly, as follows. He believes that in the last decades of the 
 first century there was at the head of each Christian congre- 
 gation what may be called a three-fold organization — a pro- 
 
 ' Pp. 95-9 of the 6th ed. (1881). 
 
 ^ Expositor for 1887, Jan. -June, p. .334. In a footnote Harnack says, 
 " It seems to me very improbable that the Acts of the Apostles was written 
 during the first century." 
 
158 PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 
 
 phetic, a patriarchal and an administrative one. The patri- 
 archal rule was based upon the natural deference of the younger 
 to the older members of the community, and the circle of elders, 
 in all emergencies which aSected the congregation, could come 
 forward as their guides ; these elders watched over the conduct 
 and the evangehcal character of the members, and admonished, 
 punished and exhorted the congregation. The elders were the 
 natural heads of the community, the aged members who were 
 revered on account of age and character, but were not elected 
 or appointed officials. The real officials, who formed the ad- 
 ministration, were the bishops and the deacons — men who pos- 
 sessed the " gifts " of government and of pubhc service. They 
 were appointed primarily to preside at pubHc worship. Origin- 
 ally there was no distinction between the bishops and the deacons 
 save what came from age and experience, but their work naturally 
 fell into two divisions, in which the oversight belonged to the 
 bishops and the subordinate services were performed by the 
 deacons. The bishops, in consequence of their position as the 
 officials appointed to conduct pubUc worship, became naturally 
 the custodians and administrators of the property of the congre- 
 gation, the distributors of the gifts of the faithful, the recognized 
 guardians of the poor, the sick, the infirm and strangers, and 
 the representatives of the society to people outside. 
 
 Hamack, therefore, holds that presbyters and bishops were 
 distinct from the first. He believes, besides, that while a circle 
 of elders, in the sense of " honoured " old men, existed from 
 the most primitive times, there were no elected or chosen elders 
 forming a college of office-bearers till the second century ; but 
 he thinks that the bishops were usually selected from the circle 
 of honoured old men, were sometimes called " elders," and were 
 invariably classed among them. In reaching this conclusion 
 he rejects as unhistorical the statement in Acts xiv. 23, which 
 tells us that the apostles, Paul and Barnabas, saw to the ap- 
 pointment of elders in the churches, which they had formed in 
 Derbe, Lystra and Iconium ; he believes that the " elders " 
 
PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 159 
 
 of Acts XX. 17 were bishops ; he concludes that the " elders " 
 of 1 Peter v. 1 ff. were not office-bearers ; he rejects, as an inter- 
 polation, the verses in Titus i. 7-9,' which practically assert 
 the identity of bishops and presbyters ; and he finds a complete 
 justification of his views in the statements about presbyters 
 and bishops in the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. 
 
 Let us accept, for the sake of argument, the critical conclu- 
 sion of Harnack about the dates of documents * and the inter- 
 polations which may have come into texts, and then see what 
 emerges from an examination of the authorities in which presby- 
 ters and bishops are mentioned. 
 
 The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians is the best starting 
 point, for there is practical unanimity among scholars of all 
 schools that this document belongs to about the middle of the 
 last decade of the first century. The letter was sent from the 
 Roman Church to remonstrate with the Corinthian Christians 
 
 ' Compare Otto Ritschl in the Theologische Literatur-Zeitung for 1885, 
 No. 25. 
 
 * It is important to bear in mind the dates which Harnack assigns 
 to the various documents he deals with. The following are taken from 
 his Chronologie der aUchristlichen LitercUur bis Eusebiua (1897) : — 1 Peter 
 was probably written, he thinks, some time between the years 83 and 
 93 A.D., but it may have been written one or two decades earHer, which 
 gives at the extreme limits of time 63-93 a.d. (pp. 454, 718); 1 Clement 
 he dates about 93-95 but perhaps as late as 97 a.d. (pp. 255, 718). The dates 
 he gives for the writings which he says are the first witnesses for pres- 
 byters are :— The Epistle of James about 120-140 a.D; (pp.- 491, 719) ; 
 the Pastoral Epistles, or at least those verses in them which are in question 
 about 130 A.D. (p. 483) ; the original document of the so-called Apostohc 
 Ordinances, about 140-180. Harnack classes the Acts of the Apostles 
 among this set of documents in the Expositor (1887, Jan. -June), p. 334, 
 and says that the book belongs to the second century; But in his Chron- 
 ologie which was published ten years later, he says that the Acts of the 
 Apostles was written some time between 80-93 a. d. (pp. 250, 718). There 
 may not be much difference between the year 93 a.d, and the second cen- 
 tury ; but the change of date lifts the Acts of the Apostles out from the 
 other writings named along with it in the Expositor, and places it as early 
 as the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians and perhaps as early as the 
 Epistle of Petera 
 
160 THE CHURCHES CREATING THEIR MINISTRY 
 
 about the dismissal of the leaders of the Church there from 
 their office. We find three names given to these men — 
 tjyovjmevoij eTr/or/coxoi, Trpecr/^uTepoi.^ Hamack's contention is 
 that irpecrfivrepoi invariably denote the members of the circle 
 of revered old men in the community, and that when the term 
 is used to denote office-bearers,* they are so called because they 
 were always members of that circle. On the other hand, Light- 
 foot,^ in the past, and Loening, Loofs and Schmiedel in the pre- 
 sent, declare that Trpecr^urepog is the technical name for the 
 office, while eTr/o-Tro/co? describes what was done (having 
 cTTia-KOTn] or oversight), or at all events that irpecr^uTepo^ and 
 eirla-KOTTOi are synonymous terms for the same officials. 
 
 One thing to begin with is significant. Three men were 
 sent from Rome to Corinth with the letter, Valerius Bito, Clau- 
 dius Ephebus and Fortunatus, " men that have walked among 
 us," says the writer, " from youth to old age unblameably." 
 They belonged, therefore, to that class whom Harnack supposes 
 to have been generally called " presbyters," and if his theory 
 were correct we should expect them to be so designated in an 
 official letter, but they are not. 
 
 In the Church in Corinth some men had been thrust from 
 office, and the office is always referred to as ewicrKoirri.^ This 
 is what is said : " For it will be no light sin for us, if we have 
 thrust out of the oversight (hrta-KOTrrj) those who have offered 
 the gifts (i.e. the prayers of the congregation) unblameably 
 
 ' riyovfi€vo^ and irporqyovfievo^, L L 3 ; xxL 6. ciruncorroi, L xliL 4, 6. 
 irp€<r/3vT€po^, L L 3 ; iii. 3 ; xii. 6 ; xliv. 5 ; xlvil 6 ; Iv, 4; liv, 2; IviL h 
 
 a I. xliv. 5 ; xlvii. 6 ; liv. 2 ; IviL 1. 
 
 s Lightfoot, Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (1881), 6th ed. 
 p. 95 ff. ; Loening, Die Oemeindeverfassung des Urchristenthums (1889), 
 p. 58 ff. ; Loofs, Studien und Kritiken (1890), pp. 628 ff. ; Schmiedel, 
 Encyclopaedia Biblica (1902) p. 3134 ff. If we apply the well-recognized 
 critical principle that the statement that there were "elders" in Derbe, 
 Lystra and the neighbourhood when the book which describes them was 
 written, this change of date gives ua " elected '- elders before the close of 
 the first century. 
 
 4 I, xliv, 1, 4j 
 
PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 161 
 
 and holily. Blessed are those presbyters who have gone before, 
 seeing that their departure was fruitful and ripe, for they have 
 no fear lest any one should remove them from their appointed 
 place. For we see that ye have displaced certain persons 
 though they were living honourably, from the ministration 
 (XeiTovpyia) which they had kept blamelessly." * Every- 
 thing impUes that the men who had been thrust out from their 
 eTTia-KOTrri were called presbyters. This inference is strengthened 
 by what follows : " It is shameful . . . that it should be re- 
 ported that the very steadfast and ancient Church of the Corin- 
 thians, for the sake of one or two persons, maketh sedition 
 against its presbyters." ' " Only let the flock of Christ be at 
 peace with its duly appointed presbyters." ^ " Ye therefore 
 that laid the foundation of the sedition, submit yourselves 
 unto the presbyters." * The only sentence in the epistle which 
 lends itself to the theory of Hamack is : *' Let us reverence our 
 rulers {Trpor]yov/uLevoi)^ let us honour our elders ('irpecj-^vTepoi)^ 
 let us instruct our young men in the lesson of the fear of God ; 
 let us guide our women toward that which is good " ; * where 
 * elders ' evidently mean old men. Schmiedel's remark on the 
 rhetorical effect of substituting " elders " (Trpea-lBuTepot) for 
 " old men " {Trpear^uTai) is a sound explanation of the use 
 of the words.* 
 
 * I. xUv. 4-6. « L xlvii. 6. S L liv.. 2. 4 Ivii. 1; 5 xxi. 6. 
 
 ^ " In iii. 3 allusion is made to the deposition of certain Church leaders, 
 but in dependence on Isaiah iii. 5, where of old age it is said : " the child 
 will press against the old man," Clement can very well have preserved 
 this meaning in his words *' the young are stirred up against the elder,'' 
 as he has also retained the other general antithesis from isaiaL ; " the 
 base again the honourable." Yet the selection of the word " elders '' 
 (7rp€cr/8vT€/3ot) instead of " old men " {Trpea-fSvTai) points to the fact, 
 only too well known to the readers, that it was against official presbyters 
 that the rising was. " Elders " [Trpear/^vTepoL) in this case has a double 
 meaning which rhetorically is very effective ; and so also young men. 
 For since according to xlvii. 6 only one or two persons had given occasion 
 to the offence, it is possible that these were young persons, but at the same 
 time also that they stood in the position of laymen towards the presbyters 
 in w far as these were official persons." Encyclopaedia Biblica, p. 3136.; 
 CM. 11 
 
1(32 PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 
 
 It appears to me that the Epistle of ClemerUy on which Har- 
 nack 80 firmly relies to establish his conclusion that " elders " 
 had no official position until the second century, fails him utterly, 
 and that his own earher position is much more in accordance 
 with the facts of the case. In his edition of the Epistles of 
 Clement, pubUshed in 1875, Hamack said, commenting on the 
 words episcopi et diaconi (xlii. 5) : " Luce clarius est, duo in 
 clero ordines tum temporis (i.e. in the time of the apostles) 
 fuisse, episcopos ( = presbyteros) et diaconos." ' This seems 
 still to hold good. 
 
 When we turn to 1 Peter (v. 1, 2) we find there that, even if 
 we discard the disputed reading " exercising the oversight " 
 (eiria-Koirovvre^), the elders are told to " shepherd the flock 
 of God which is among you." There is no word in the whole 
 round of primitive ecclesiastical phraseology which is more 
 frequently used to express the relation of office-bearers than 
 " to shepherd " {iroi/jLaipeiv) ; and the difference between 
 " shepherds " and " flock " is much greater than between the 
 more aged and the younger members of the society.* 
 
 In Acts XX. 17, St. Paul summoned the presbyters (tov9 
 irpecr/BvTepovg) of the Church of Ephesus to meet him at Miletus ; 
 he charged them to " shepherd the Church of God " ; he called 
 the Church a " flock '* (ttoi/jlviov) ; and he said that the 
 Holy Spirit had made them overseers (eTria-KOTrovs) in this 
 
 ' Patrum apostd. opera, L p. 132 n. (p. 68, n. 4, in ed of 1876). 
 
 * Loofs says that he is so convinced that the presbyters of 1 Peter v. 1 
 are office-bearers, that if the argument needed it (which it does not) he 
 would rather believe with Mosheim and others that the vccorcpot were 
 deacons ; Studien und Kritiken (1890), p. 638. Schmiedel, who takes 
 the same view, asserts that the fact that the presbyters have to be warned 
 against " discontent with their office, greed and ambition " points against 
 the early date of the epistle {Encyclopaedia Biblica, p. 3134) ; he would not 
 have said this had he known much about Churches in the mission field ; 
 the pregnant remark of Denney {UasttJiga' Dici'onary of the Bible, iii. 82 b), 
 that tendencies to antinomianism seem inseparable from every revival 
 of rehgion, religion transcending even while it guarantees morality, ought 
 to be kept more in mind than it is by students of early Church history. 
 
PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 163 
 
 flock; Whatever be the date or authorship of the book the 
 fact remains that the author did believe that the presbyters 
 (not some of them) were the " overseers " and the " shepherds " 
 of the Church in Ephesus. They were the office-bearers there 
 and were called both presbyters and overseers or bishops. 
 
 These statements carry us a long way. They prove to us 
 that before the close of the first century bodies of presbyters 
 existed as ruling colleges in Christian congregations over a great 
 part of the Roman Empire. The Epistle of Clement proves 
 this for the Roman Church. The First Epistle of Peter proves 
 it for Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.' The 
 Apocalypse confirms the proof for Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, 
 Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.* The Acts of the 
 Apostles adds its confirmation for Ephesus and Jerusalem.^ 
 The writings all imply that the colleges of presbyters at the head 
 of congregations were no new institution. They had evidently 
 existed for a long time. It will be observed that the places 
 include the sphere of the mission- journey of Paul and Barnabas. 
 They seem to me to confirm what the Acts of the Apostles tell 
 us of the institution of presbyters by the apostles.'* All this has 
 been reached on the dates of the writings as given by advanced 
 critics. 
 
 The proofs for the identity of the offices of elders and bishops 
 in the Church of the first century have often been collected. 
 They may be arranged thus : (1) Acts xx, 17 ; St. Paul sent for 
 the elders of Ephesus, and in his address to them said that " the 
 Holy Spirit had made them bishops ; (2) in 1 Peter v, 1, 2, 
 elders are told to act as pastors and as bishops {irpecr- 
 ^vrepoL . . . iroiimavaTe . . . eTria-KoirovvTeg) ; (3) in 1 Clement 
 it is made clear that at Rome presbyters or elders and bishops 
 are the same officials ; (4) in 1 Timothy a description of bishops 
 is given (iii. 1-7), then follows what is required of deacons (iii. 
 
 ^ 1 Peter i. 1. ^ Rev. iv. 4, 10 ; v. 6, 6, 8, etc.- 
 
 3 Acts XX. 17, 28 (Ephesus) ; xi. 30 ; xv; 4, 6, 22 ; xvL: 4 ; xxij 18 ; 
 (Jerusalem). 4 Acta xiv^ 23^ 
 
164 PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 
 
 8-13) ; in v. 17-19 the former ministers are alluded to as pres- 
 byters ; (6) in Titus i. 5-7 we find that " thou shouldest set 
 in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in 
 every city ... for the bishop must be." ; (6) in the Peshito 
 Syriac Version of the New Testament cTr/cr/coTro? is usually 
 translated by kashisho — elder or presbyter ; (7) the opinion of 
 the ancient Church, founding on these passages, and voiced by 
 Jerome, unhesitatingly declared that in the apostoUc age elders 
 and bishops were the same ; and this idea may almost be said 
 to have prevailed throughout the Middle Ages down to the Council 
 of Trent.' 
 
 The word episcopus had a long and varied history before it 
 was used in connexion with the Christian Church. Hatch has 
 
 * Compare Lightfoot, Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians 
 (1881), 6th ed. 95-9 ; Loofs, Stwlien und Kritiken (1890), 639-41 ; Light- 
 foot gives quotations from Jerome, but omits some of his strongest sayings ; 
 it may be useful to quote at greater length from his Commentary on Titiia, 
 L 7 : — Idem est ergo presbyter, qui episcopus ; et antequam diaboli 
 instinctu studia in reUgione fierent, et diceretur in populis : ego sum 
 Pauli, ego Apollo, ego autem Cephae, communi presbyterorum consilio 
 ecclesiae gubemabantur. Poetquam vero unusquisque eos, quos bap- 
 tizaverat, suos putabat esse, non Christi ; in toto orbe decretum est, ut 
 unus de presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris, ad quem omnis 
 ecclesiae cura pertineret, et schismatum semina tollerentur. Putat 
 aliquis non scripturarum, sed nostram esse sententiam, episcopum et pres- 
 byterum unum esse, et aliud aetatis, aliud esse nomen officii ; relegat 
 apostoli ad Philippensee verba, dicentis (then follow the passages quoted 
 above in the text) . . ; Haeo propterea, ut ostenderemus, apud veteres 
 eosdem fuisse presbyteroe, quoe et episcopos ; paulatim vero ut dissen- 
 sionum plantaria evellerentur, ad unum omnem soUicitudinem esse de- 
 latam. Sicut ergo presbyteri sciunt, se ex ecclesiae consuetudine ei, qui 
 sibi praepositus fuerit, esse subjectos ; ita episcopi noverint se magis 
 consuetudine, quam dispositionis dominicae veritate, presbyteris esse 
 majores, et in commune debere ecclesiam regere." Gieseler in his Com- 
 pendium of Ecdeaiastical History, L pp. 88-90, n. 1, collects a large number 
 of authorities to show that this opinion of Jerome was held throughout 
 the Mediaeval Church until the time of the Council of Trent He con- 
 cludes by saying " Since the Tridentine Council, the inatitvtio divina of 
 episcopacy and its original difference from the presbyterate became thf» 
 general doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, which the English Episco- 
 palians also followed in this particular, while the other Protestant Churches 
 returned to the most ancient doctrine and regtdation on the subject.'' 
 
PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 165 
 
 tried in a very interesting but not quite conclusive manner to 
 show that episcopi were officers of administration and finance ; * 
 Lightfoot has shown that the Attic bishop was the commissioner 
 appointed to inspect a newly acquired province, and that the 
 word was used in a similar way outside the sphere of Athenian 
 influence. In the Septuagint episcopus means an official set 
 to oversee work, a military officer, a commissioner to carry out 
 the orders of the king.* But while all these parallels are inter- 
 esting much may be said for the more commonplace idea that the 
 word episcopus means simply one who has an episcopey one who 
 has oversight or superintendence. If so the word is not, during 
 the first century, the technical term for an office-bearer ; it is 
 rather the word which describes what the office-bearer, i.e. the 
 elder, does. The elder was the episcopuSy overseer or superin- 
 tendent, while the deacon rendered jthe subordinate services. 
 The office connected itself therefore with the Kv^epv^crciSy while 
 deacon was related to the dvTiXrjy^eig of 1 Cor. xii. 28.' The 
 use of the words in the earliest Christian literature seems to bear 
 out this idea.* This leads to the conclusion in the end of the 
 preceding chapter that elder is the name for the office, while 
 bishop is the title describing what the elder has to do. It can 
 claim the support of Professor Sanday of Oxford and of Professor 
 
 * BampUm Lectures (1881), pp; 36-46; 
 
 * Commentary on the Epistle to the PhilippianSy pp.; 96, 96^ 
 
 3 Compare for example the suggestive phrase in Hermas : lirKTKvrrrta-Ot 
 aXA.'^\ov9 Kox dvTtXaftj8av€o-^€ aXXrjkiiiv (Fw. iii. 9). 
 
 4 The word €7ria-K07ro<; is used of Christ in 1 Peter ii. 26 and of God 
 in 1 Clem, lix. 3. The word iiria-KcyTrr] is used of the providence of God 
 in Luke xix. 44 and in 1 Pet. ii. 12. In 1 Clement iina-KOTTri, in the sense 
 of exercising oversight, is a much more prominent thought than liri(TKOTro<i. 
 The author speaks of ovajxa €7rtcr/co7r^9, Xetrovpyia eTrio-KOTri}?, Swpa 
 iTna-Kornj's not cTrtcKOTrajv ; Hermas of cTrwTKOTrot i s s cTncrKOTrrja'avTi^ 
 dyvws; Loofs has collected a number of similar phrases from later 
 authorities in Stvdien und Kritiken (1890), p. 629, showing that there 
 are traces of this way of regarding iTTLa-Koiros as late as the end of the 
 second century. Then in Titus i. 7 the article is prefixed {rbv iiria-KOTrov) 
 to denote that a type is spoken of : cf. Lightfoot, Commentary on the 
 Epistle to the PhUippians, p. 97. n. 1. 
 
166 PRESBYTERS AND BISHOPS 
 
 Loofs of Halle.' Dr. Loofs asserts that in his opinion the idea 
 that hrla-KOTrog is the name of an office, and not the term de- 
 scribing the work done by the official, is the irpwrov y\r€vSo^ of 
 many of the modem attempts to investigate and describe primi- 
 tive ecclesiastical organization; 
 
 ' After declaring that he does not regard iirLo-KOTro^ any more than 
 TToifirpr or Yjyovfxcvo^ as a technical term denoting an office, Loofs goes 
 on to say : — " Mir scheint in der vorschnellen Annahme, iTrCcrKoiros sei 
 friihe Amtsname, Titel gewesen, ein irpwrov if/€vBo<s vieler neuerer 
 Konstructionen zn liegen ; die altere Anschauung halte ich durchaus 
 nicht fiir veraltet ; cTrwrKOTro? ist eine Funktionsbezeichnung und bis 
 ins endende zweite Jahrhundert hinein gehen die Spuren da von, dass man 
 ein BewuBstsein da von hat, dass (ttlo-kotto^ weniger Amtsname als Amts- 
 beschreibung ist" Studien und Kritiken (1890), p. 628,- Compare 
 Professor Sanday, The Conception of Priesthood, pp. 61-<i2j 
 
The Churches of the Second and Third Cen- 
 turies — Changing their Ministry 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 DURING the first century we can see tlie local clmrclies 
 creating their ministry. The same independence marks 
 their action in the second century. They can be seen changing 
 the ministry they have inherited. The beginnings of the change 
 date from the early decades of the second century ; by the end 
 of the century it was almost complete. The change was two- 
 fold, and concerned both the prophetic and the local ministry. 
 Stated in the briefest manner it may be described thus : the 
 " prophetic " ministry passed away, its functions being appro- 
 priated by the permanent office-bearers of the local churches ; 
 and every local church came to supplement its organization by 
 placing one man at the head of the community, making him the 
 president of the college of elders. The one part of the change 
 which came about in the second century, that which gave the 
 senate of the congregation its president, was simple, natural 
 and salutary ; it came about gradually and at different times 
 in the various portions of the Empire ; it was effected peace- 
 fully, and we hear of no disturbances in consequence.' The 
 other change, which meant the overthrow of the " prophetic " 
 ministry of the apostolic and immediately subsequent period, 
 was a revolution, provoked a widespread revolt and rent the 
 Church in twain. 
 
 ' Ritschl's idea that the dissensions in the Church in Rome witnessed 
 to in the Pastor of Hermas arose from the attempt to force on this change 
 finds httle acceptance. Compare Ritschl, Die Entstehung der cUtkcUho- 
 lutchen Kirche (1857), pp. 403, 535. 
 
170 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 To understand the change in the ministry of the local churches 
 it is to be kept in mind that at the close of the first century 
 every local church had at its head a college or senate or session 
 of rulers, who were called by the technical name of elders, and 
 were also known by names which indicated the kind of work 
 they had to do — ^pastors, overseers (hria-Koiroi). This was 
 the ministry of oversight. To each congregation there was also 
 attached a body of men who rendered " subordinate service," 
 and who were called deacons — but whether they formed part 
 of the college of elders, or were formed into a separate college 
 of their own, it is not easy to say. The change made consisted 
 in placing at the head of this college of rulers one man, who 
 was commonly called either the pastor or the bishop, the latter 
 name being the more usual, and apparently the technical desig- 
 nation. The ministry of each congregation or local church 
 instead of being, as it had been, two-fold — of elders and deacons 
 — ^became three-fold — of pastor or bishop, elders and deacons. 
 This was the introduction of what is called the three-fold min- 
 istry. It is conmionly called the beginning of episcopacy ; but 
 that idea is based on the erroneous conception that a three-fold 
 ministry and episcopacy are identical* 
 
 In order to show what the change was and what it meant, 
 three relics of the oldest Christian literature may be taken, 
 the Didache or the Teaching of the Tiodve A'postLes, certain frag- 
 ments which are sources of the Apostolic CanonSy and the Letters 
 of Ignatius of Antioch. Authorities differ about the dates of 
 these documents, but it may be taken as well ascertained that 
 they all belonged to the years between 100 and 180 a.d.^ 
 
 In the first mentioned we find the Christian society ruled 
 by a college of office-bearers who are called " overseers and 
 
 ' The Presbyterian or Conciliar system of Church government is as much 
 a three-fold ministry as episcopacy. 
 
 * My own opinion inclines to the following dates: The Epistles of 
 Iffnatius, about 116 a.d. ; the Didache, not earUer than 135 a.d. ; the 
 Sources of the Apostolic Canons, between 140-180 A.D. Compare note on 
 next page. 
 
 1 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES 171 
 
 deacons " ; in the second we see one bishop or pastor (the terms 
 are synonymous in the document), a session of elders and a 
 body of deacons, but the elders rule over the bishop as they rule 
 the congregation, and the bishop is not their president ; in 
 the third we have the three-fold ministry of bishop, elders and 
 deacons constituting a governing body' at the head of the con- 
 gregation or local church. 
 The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles ' is a short 
 
 * In the Ignatian Epistles the bishop, elders and deacons are named 
 together twelve times : Magn. ii., vi., xiii. ; TraU. vii. ; Philad. pref., iv., 
 vii. ; Smyrn. viii., xii. ; Polyc. vi., ; TraU. ii. ; Philad. x. ; and, in the 
 first ten at least, the three classes of ofl&ce-bearers form an inseparable 
 miity. 
 
 * The manuscript of the Didache was discovered in 1873 in the library 
 of the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in the Phanar or Greek quarter 
 of Constantinople by Philotheus Bryennios, Patriarch of Nicomedia. It 
 was pubhshed by him in 1883. It is now known by numerous editions. 
 Of these by far the best comes from the pen of Professor Hamack of BerUn, 
 and it is to that edition that the references in the notes here are made. 
 It is difficult to say what country gave birth to this manual. The external 
 evidence is all in favour of Egypt ; and Hamack and Lightfoot conclude 
 that it came from that land. The only evidence worth mentioning which 
 seems to invalidate this conclusion is the sentence in the eucharistio 
 prayer : — '* Just as this broken bread was scattered over the hills and having 
 been gathered together became one, so let Thy Church be gathered to- 
 gether from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom " — words which cannot 
 refer to Egypt but which might appropriately describe the com of the 
 Lebanon or the regions beyond the Jordan. But there is no reason why 
 the eucharistic prayer might not come from Palestine and be received 
 into the Churches of Egypt. The external evidence proves the use and 
 the knowledge of the manual in Egypt, and the internal^ with the exception 
 of the sentence quoted, confirms the idea. A few Anglican scholars 
 have done their best to minimise the value of the book and its evidence. 
 A good example of this depreciation is to be found in Bishop Gore's 
 The Ministry of the Christian Church (1893), 3rd ed., App. L. p. 410. It 
 is very difficult to determine the date. The Didache quotes the EpisUe 
 of Barnabas and is quoted by Clement of Alexandria, and the date assigned 
 is practically determined by the date fixed for the Epistle of Barnabas, 
 The probable date of this epistle depends on whether the events referred 
 to in the sixteenth section describe the condition of things in the time of 
 Domitian or of Hadrian. Personally I am incHned to think that the re- 
 ferences in the Epistle of Barnabas are to the later period. If this be the 
 case it is scarcely possible to place the Didache earUer than 136 A.D., i.e. 
 
172 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 Christian manual, of composite character, containing rules for 
 the conduct of individual men and women, and regulations 
 for the guidance of smaU Christian communities, hundreds of 
 which must have been scattered over the wide face of the Roman 
 Empire in the second century. The sixteen paragraphs of this 
 little manual are weU-arranged when compared with most 
 manuals of the same kind. The first six contain simple direc- 
 tions for living the Christian Hfe, based upon the Beatitudes 
 of our Lord and the Ten Commandments. They seem to have 
 formed the instruction administered to catechumens before 
 baptism. Then follow directions about baptism, fasting and 
 prayer and the Eucharist. Three sections are devoted to 
 injunctions which concern the " prophetic ministry." Then 
 follow instructions about the Lord's Day services, and the 
 selection of office-bearers. The whole concludes with a warning 
 about the last days. 
 
 Tertullian has said : " We Christians are one body knit 
 together by a common religious profession, by a unity of dis- 
 cipline and by the bond of a common hope." ' This little 
 manual reads like a commentary on the saying. Every way- 
 faring stranger seeking food and lodging was to be received 
 and fed if he came with a profession of the Christian faith. 
 The letter of commendation which was in use among the Jews 
 and to which St. Paul refers, was not required to ensure a hos- 
 
 later than the Ignatian letters. The majority of scholars place it very 
 much earlier. The commonest date is about 100 a.d. — Wordsworth, 
 Hitchcock and Brown, Spence, Bonwetsch, Massebieau ; a few place it 
 earUer — Funk and Loening, between 80 and 100 a.d.. Zahn dates it 
 80-120 and more exactly about 110 a.d. ; Bryennios, its first editor, 
 gives 120-130, and Hamack 130-160 a.d. as the probable date. Hilgen- 
 f eld, who finds traces of Montanism in the writing, places it later than 160. 
 For our purposes an exact determination of date is unnecessary ; all that 
 we have to deal with is that the Didache describes the condition of a 
 Christian organization some time between the Epistles of S. Paul and 
 the third century. 
 
 ' Apdogy 39 ; elsewhere {De Praescrip. 20) he speaks of the conieS' 
 aeratio hosvitalikUis which linked all Christians together. 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES 173 
 
 pitable reception ' for one night at least. It was better to be 
 imposed upon sometimes than to miss the chance of entertain- 
 ing a brother Christian. But this hospitality was not to be 
 without discrimination. " Let every one coming in the name 
 of the Lord be received, but afterwards ye shall test him and 
 know the true from the false ; for ye shall have insight. If he 
 Cometh as a traveller, help him as much as you can ; but he shall 
 not remain with you unless for two or three days if it be neces- 
 sary. If he will take up his abode with you and is an artizan, 
 let him work and so eat ; but if he has no trade provide employ- 
 ment for him, that no idler live with you as a Christian. But 
 if he will not act according to this he is a Christ-trafficker; 
 beware of such." ^ The brotherly love of these early Christians 
 was a real and practical thing which no experience of imposition 
 seems to have damped. Their simple rules are witness to the 
 fact that they were sometimes imposed upon, and Lucian's 
 account of the impostor Peregrinus, shows how a heathen could 
 see that their charity was often abused.^ 
 
 One does not naturally expect to find an elaborate ecclesi- 
 astical organization among these simple folk, and there are no 
 traces of it. The Didache reveals a state of matters not unhke 
 what we see in the Epistles of St. Paul. The control in all 
 things evidently rested with the community met in congrega- 
 tional meeting. It is to the community as a whole that all the 
 directions are addressed. It receives, tests, finds work for or 
 sends away the travelling strangers who ask assistance or hospi- 
 tality. It discharges all these duties of Christian benevolence 
 which we find elsewhere laid upon the president.* It is the 
 community, in congregational meeting, which tests and receives 
 or rejects the members of the " prophetic ministry " when 
 
 ^ Compare 2 Cor. iii. 1. These commendatory letters became the rule 
 at a later period in the Christian Church. Compare Smith's Dictionary 
 of Christian Antiquities, I. 407. 
 
 * Chapter xii. 3 Peregrinus Proteus, 13. 
 
 * In Justin Martyr's Apology it is the president (TrpoetrTo)?) who snocourB 
 strangers and travellers : Apologt/, i. 67. 
 
174 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 they appear. The injunctions about baptism, fasting, prayers, 
 are all given to the whole community,' and not to the office- 
 bearers ; and yet office-bearers did exist among them whom 
 the community are required to elect and to honour. 
 
 The manual bears evidence to the value of the " prophetic 
 ministry." Its members are to be honoured in a very special 
 fashion. If a prophet is present he is to preside at the Lord's 
 Table, and his prayers are to follow his heart's promptings ; * 
 if no prophet was present, one of the office-bearers presided ; 
 but he had to use a fixed form of prayer. The duty of obeying 
 the members of the " prophetic ministry " who speak the Word 
 of the Lord is laid down in the most solemn manner. Prophets 
 and teachers who happen to be residing within the community 
 are to be supported by the members ; the first fruits are to be 
 set aside for them ; and in this respect they are like the high 
 priests of the Old Testament.^ 
 
 The figures of these prophets, true and false, which are some- 
 what shadowy in the New Testament, take definite shape in 
 this ancient church directory. We see the stir in the com- 
 munity when the prophet arrives. The women hasten to set 
 apart the first baking of bread, the first cup of the newly opened 
 wine-skin or jar of oil, the first yard or two of the newly spun 
 cloth * for the use of these men, gifted with magnetic speech, 
 
 ' "Now concerning baptism, thus baptize ye: having first uttered 
 all these things (i.e. the instructions given in cc. i.-vi.), baptize into the 
 name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost in hving (running) 
 water. But if thou hast not living, baptize in other water : and if thou 
 canst not in cold then in warm. But if thou hast neither, pour water 
 thrice upon the head unto the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy 
 Ghost. But before the baptism let the baptizer and the baptized 
 fast and whatever others can ; but the baptized thou shalt command to 
 fast for one or two days before," c. vii. 
 
 * " But permit the prophets to give thanks as much as they will," x. 7. 
 3 *' Every first fruit . . . thou shalt take and give to the prophets ; 
 
 for they are your high-priests," xiii. 3. 
 
 * " Every first fruit then of the produce of the wine-press and of the 
 threshing-floor, of oxen and of sheep, thou shalt take and give to the 
 prophets. ... If thou bakcst a baking of bread, take the first of it and 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES 176 
 
 who have come to edify the little society and instruct them in 
 the ways of the Lord. 
 
 Not that every one who comes among them saying that he 
 is a prophet is to be received as such. If he asks for money, 
 if he does not practise more than he preaches, if he has not the 
 ways of the Lord — then he is a false prophet and is to be sent 
 away.' For the Christian communities felt that they had the 
 presence of their Lord with them according to His promise, 
 and had the gift, however rudely it might be shown and exer- 
 cised, of testing even " prophets " and " apostles." When the 
 members of this prophetic ministry were received they were 
 the only persons permitted to abide within the community 
 without earning their living by artisan or other labour. Their 
 labour was the instruction and edification of the members of the 
 society. "* 
 
 Although the community was honoured with the presence 
 of these gifted men, and although the congregational meeting was, 
 as in the Churches of Corinth and Thessalonica, the centre and 
 seat of rule, the brethren were directed to elect office-bearers. 
 The context gives the reason. " But on the Lord's Day do ye 
 assemble and break bread and give thanks, after confessing 
 your transgressions, in order that your sacrifice may be pure.- 
 But every one that hath controversy with his friend, let him not 
 come together with you until they be reconciled. . . . There- 
 fore appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the 
 Lord, men meek and not avaricious, upright and proved, for 
 they too render you the service of the prophets and teachers." ^ 
 The office-bearers are needed to act as judges in quarrels within 
 
 give according to the commandment. In like manner when thou openest 
 a jar of wine or oil, take the first of it and give to the prophets ; and of 
 money and clothing and every possession take the first, as may seem good 
 unto thee, and give according to the commandment," xiii. 3-7. 
 
 ' xi. 
 
 * " But every true prophet who will settle among you is worthy of his 
 support. Likewise a true teacher, he also is worthy, like the ivorkmaHf 
 of his support " ; xiii. 1, 2. 3 xiv. 1-2 ; xv. 1, 2. 
 
176 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 the community, and to act as the " wise men " whom St. Paul 
 asked the Corinthians to appoint.' They are also, whether in 
 turn or otherwise we do not know, to preside at the Holy Supper 
 and to edify the community, for they are to serve as " prophets 
 and teachers." * There is no division of labour indicated be- 
 tween the bishops (presbyters) and the deacons ; and the same 
 qualities of meekness, uprightness, proved Christian character 
 and the absence of avarice are demanded of both. 
 
 What went on in the smaller took place in the larger Christian 
 communities ; the outlines of the picture sketched for us in 
 the Didache appear also in the Epistle of Clement ^ and in the 
 quaint Pastor of Hermas. At the head of the community, 
 as regular office-bearers, were a number of men presbyter-bishops 
 
 « 1 Cor. vi. 6. 
 
 • " They render you the service of the prophets and teachers. There- 
 fore neglect them not ; for they are your honoured ones along with the 
 prophets and the teachers " : xv. 1, 2. This passage is rightly regarded 
 by Hamack, and in this Sanday follows him, as of the utmost importance 
 to enable us to trace the development of the Christian ministry in the 
 primitive Church. It must be referred to later. It is sufficient to say 
 here that we see the change taking place whereby the ministry of the local 
 Church secured the place at an earlier period possessed by the prophetic 
 ministry. Compare Hamack*s edition of the Didache in Texte und Unier- 
 suchungen, H. i. 58 note ; ii. 140 ff. ; Sanday, Expositor (1887), Jan.- 
 June, p. 14 ff. The word ti/x^ was specially used to denote the respect 
 due to spiritual guides (compare Hamack's note for references) ; it is a 
 question whether the " honoured ones " are also those who " receive an 
 honorarium " (for the Greek word has the double reference) ; the prophets 
 and teachers received the firstfruits in preference to the poor. Did 
 the bishops and deacons who are placed among the honoured spiritual 
 guides partake of these first fruits also ? The Didache does not answer 
 the question. 
 
 s In the EpisUe of Clement we find that the congregation is the supreme 
 authority ; the letter is addressed to the whole Church : — " To the Church 
 which sojoumeth in Corinth " (preface) ; the evil-doers are urged to do 
 " what is ordered by the people " (hv. 2). The office-bearers are a number 
 of presbyter-bishops and deacons (compare above pp. 169 ff.). The epistle 
 says httle or nothing about a " prophetic ministry " but that is not to be 
 wondered at as it was written for a definite purpose which had nothing to 
 do with the question. In Hermas we have the same organization and 
 the distinct traces of prophets and their ministry. 
 
THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 177 
 
 with deacons as their assistants, but the congregation is seen to 
 be the supreme judge in the last resort. The people rule 
 and form a httle democracy; they choose their office-bearers 
 who lead their devotions and act as arbiters in all dis- 
 putes. They are a self-governing community. They can even 
 reject the services of men who assert that they are members 
 of the prophetic ministry. They can do this in God's name. 
 They are a theocracy as well as a democracy. The " gifts " 
 of the Spirit are present in their midst and are manifest in the 
 power of judging. 
 
 Our second document is what Harnack calls the Original 
 Sources of the Apostolic Canons.^ These sources are but frag- 
 ments, preserved because they have been incorporated in a 
 much later law-book of the Christian Church. We do not know 
 from what land they came nor how wide or narrow was the sphere 
 of their authority. They show us, however, what a small 
 Christian community was in the last decades of the second 
 century, and they describe the way in which it was created out 
 of a number of Christian families. We can see the birth and 
 growth of a Church with its complete organization. In many 
 respects the process described can be seen now in any mission 
 field, especially among peoples of ancient civilization. Perhaps 
 
 ^ A summary of the critical history of the Apostolic Canons (to be 
 distinguished from the Apostolic Constitutions) will be found in Hamack's 
 edition of the Didache {Texte und Untersuchungen, H. ii. p. 193-209) 
 followed by Hamack's critical reconstruction based on the discovery of 
 the Didache (pp. 209-25), and lastly the full text of the canons (pp. 225-37), 
 tables and summary (pp. 237-41). According to generally accepted 
 critical opinions the compiler of the Canons used four sources, the Epistle 
 of Barnabas, the Didache (or more probably an abridgement of the Didache), 
 and two fragments from an old ecclesiastical law-book. It is with these 
 fragments that we have now to do, or rather with the first of them. Har- 
 nack dates it at some time between 140 and 180 a.d. These fragments, 
 with commentary and excursus, have been published by Harnack in the 
 Texte und Untersuchungen, II. v. Professor Sanday appears to agree 
 with Professor Harnack about these fragments : Expositor (1887), Jan.- 
 June, pp. 20, 21, 106. Hamack's edition of the Sources has been trans- 
 lated into EngUsh by L. A. Wheatley under the title Sources of the Apostolic 
 ^anms (1895). 
 
 CM. 12 
 
178 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 the most interesting thing about it is that every body of Christians 
 however small is ordered to form itself into a congregation, 
 and the implied thought that the Christian life must be Uved 
 within an orderly Christian society before the full benefits which 
 accompany it can be enjoyed. 
 
 The document takes us back to a time when a few Christian 
 families found themselves the only believers in the midst of a 
 surrounding paganism. Few or many, they are commanded 
 to organize themselves as a church^ If the families number 
 less than twelve, or rather if they include fewer than twelve 
 persons entitled to vote in the election, it is supposed that they 
 need aid in the first important step in the organization, which 
 is the selection of some one to be their pastor or bishop — the 
 names are synonjinous in the document.* In this case they are 
 to apply to a neighbouring Christian community which has been 
 established for some time, and ask them to appoint three men 
 to assist them to select their pastor,^ Along with these three, 
 
 ' " If there are few men, and not twelve persona who are competent to 
 vote at the election of a bishop, the neighbouring Churches should be 
 written to, where any of them is a settled one, in order that three selected 
 men may come thonce and examine carefully if he is worthy." Source* 
 of the Apostolic Canons, pp. 7, 8. (Here and elsewhere I quote from the 
 English translation of Hamack's edition in the Texte und Untersuckungen, 
 
 n. V.) 
 
 * The word iirCa-KOTro^ occurs in i. 4, 22 ; ii. 15, 19 ; and voi/xrjv in 
 u. 18. 
 
 3 The phrase is ckXcktoi rpiU avBp€s. Various parallels may be found 
 to the employment of three chosen men to conduct together work 
 requiring tact and experience. The most obvious is the mission of the 
 three men Claudius Ephebus, Valerius Bito and Fortunatus to Corinth 
 from Rome (1 Clem. bdii. 1). Hamack finds in the three men selected 
 to assist the small congregation in the selection of a bishop the anticipa- 
 tion of the much later rule that the consecration of a bishop required 
 the presence and co-operation of the three neighbouring bishops. He finds 
 a middle point in the fact evidenced by the letter of Comehus of Rome 
 to Fabius of Antioch (Euseb. Hist. Ecd. VI., xliii. 8, 9) that by the middle 
 of the third century it was the custom that bishops were consecrated by 
 three neighbouring bishops {Sources of the Apostolic Canons (1895), pp. 
 36 ff.). This afterwards became the law and is found in canons of many 
 
THE SOURCES OF THE APOSTOLIC CANONS 179 
 
 presumably experienced Christians, but not necessarily office- 
 bearers, they are to select some one (whether from their own 
 number or from the outside is not said) to be their bishop. A 
 list of qualifications is given them to direct their choice, from 
 which it appears that character and Christian experience are 
 the things really needful for the office.' A pastor or bishop 
 is to be one whose character stands so high that no one may 
 be expected to bring any charge of misconduct against him. 
 He is not to be given to drinking, nor to covetousness nor to 
 foul Hving. He must not be a respecter of persons. It is 
 better that he should be unmarried, but if he has a wife he must 
 be a faithful husband. It is advisable that he should be an 
 educated man and able to expound the Scriptures, but that 
 is not indispensable. If he is unlearned he must at least be 
 gentle and full of love towards all persons. He has to repre- 
 sent the community to the outside world, and must therefore 
 be a man whom the heathen respect. He is to be the leader 
 in public worship, and the elders are to support him, seated on 
 his right hand and on his left. He must be a valiant fighter 
 against sin, and the elders are to aid him in this duty also. 
 He is, under the control of the elders, to administer the 
 property of the Church, which in these early days consisted 
 of the gifts brought by the faithful to the meeting for thanks- 
 councils (the Council of Aries in its twentieth canon being the first). 
 Hence comes the saying " All Christendom becomes presbyterian on a 
 consecration day." It is evident from the continual repetition of the 
 law that the Churches found it somewhat difficult to enforce their regula- 
 tion. 
 
 * The qualifications are divided into two classes those indispensable 
 and those desirable. " That is if he has a good report among the heathen, 
 if he is faultless, if a friend of the poor, if honourable — no drunkard no 
 adulterer, not covetous nor a slanderer, nor partial or such Uke" (i. 10-15). 
 These are the necessary quaUfications. Then follow the desirable : " It 
 is good if he is unmarried ; if not then a man of one wife ; educated, in 
 a position to expound the scriptures ; but if he is unlearned, then he must 
 be gentle and filled vdth love to all, so that a bishop should never be as 
 one accused of anything by the multitude " (i. 10-23) ; Sources of the 
 Apostolic Canons, pp. 8-10. 
 
180 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 giving. They were Landed over to Lim, and distributed 
 under the watchful supervision of the elders. 
 
 Besides the pastor the congregation is required to appoint 
 at least two elders or presbyters.^ They are to be men advanced 
 in years and presumably unmarried (the meaning of the phrase 
 is somewhat doubtful).* They must not be respecters of persons. 
 They are to be ready to assist the pastor at all times in the 
 conduct of pubhc worship and in dealing with sinners. They 
 are the rulers in the strict sense of the word. They are re- 
 sponsible for summoning the people to public worship, and it is 
 their place to preserve order during Divine Service. The women 
 who visit the sick are to report to them and not to the bishop. 
 They are to see that the bishop distributes in a proper manner 
 the offerings of the faithful. They have charge of the discipline 
 of the congregation including the pastor.^ 
 
 Every church must have at least three deacons, who are to 
 be the ministers of the people in their private and home life. 
 They are to report on any unseemly conduct which may call 
 
 I H Henoe the presbyters must be ab-eady advanced in life, abstaining 
 becomingly from communication with women, willingly sharing with the 
 brotherhood, not having regard to the person, companions in consecration 
 with the bishop {crvfiixvcrras rov ciricKOTrov), and fighting on his side, 
 collecting the congregation together, kindly disposed towards the pastor. 
 The elders on the right should look after the bishops at the altar, in 
 order that they may distribute the gifts and themselves receive the 
 neoeMaxy contributions (ottws Ti/xiycroxn koX ivTLfirjOQxTLVj ci? o av Bey). 
 The elders on the left shall look after the congregation in order that it 
 may be at rest and without disturbance, after that it has been first 
 proved in all submission. But if one who is admonished should answer 
 rudely ; those at the altar should unite and condemn such an one to the 
 punishment deserved by a general resolution, so that the others may be 
 in awe, in order that they (the elders) look not at the person of any one, 
 and that it may not spread as a cancer and be taken up by every one " (ii.). 
 
 * The phrase is rpoino rivl aTr€\ofx.€vov<: Trj<; Trpo? ywatxas (TwcXeucrcojs. 
 
 s The relation of the elders to the bishops is expressed by the word 
 TrpovoiJo-ovTat ; this has been tmnslated in the English version " shall 
 assist," which cannot be right, for the same word is used to express the 
 relation of the elders to the people, and it is evident that the power of 
 disoipline ii meant (ii. 19, 23). 
 
THE SOURCES OF THE APOSTOLIC CANONS 181 
 
 for discipline at the hands of the elders. They are to be men 
 well esteemed in the congregation, faithful husbands, with well- 
 behaved families.' It is their duty to move among the people, 
 " and carefully give heed to those who walk disorderly, warning 
 one, exhorting another, threatening a third, but leaving scoffers 
 entirely to themselves." They were to be men of generous 
 disposition, for part of their duty was to insist that the 
 wealthier members of the Brotherhood, as the congregation is 
 called, " open their hands " to support the poor and for other 
 ecclesiastical needs, and example is better than precept. In 
 short their duties, as laid down in these ancient canons, are 
 almost identical with those of the deacons in presbyterian 
 churches now, both in what they do and in what they are to 
 refrain from doing. 
 
 Every church was also to have a ministry of women. Three 
 were to be appointed. They are called widows, and a curious 
 division of duties is enjoined.* One of them is to act as a combina- 
 tion of nurse and Bible- woman. She is to assist the sick women 
 of the congregation. To this end she " must be ready for the 
 service, discreet and not avaricious, nor given to much love of 
 
 ' -• They shall be approved in every service, with a good testimony 
 from the congregation, husbands of one wife, educating their children, 
 honourable, gentle, quiet, not murmuring, not double-tongued, not quickly 
 angry, not looking on the person of the rich, also not oppressing the poor, 
 also not given to much wine, intelligent, encouraging well to secret works, 
 while they compel those among the brethren who have much to open 
 their hands, also themselves generous, communicative, honoured with all 
 honour and esteem and fear by the congregation, carefully giving heed 
 to those who walk disorderly, warning the one, exhorting the other, 
 threatening a third, but leaving the scoffers completely to themselves '' 
 (iv.). Sources of the Apostolic Canons, pp. 17-19. 
 
 * " Three widows shall be appointed, two to persevere in prayer for all 
 those who are in temptation, and for the reception of revelations where 
 such are necessary ; but one to assist the women visited with sickness. 
 She must be ready for service, discreet, communicating what is necessary 
 to the elders, not avaricious, not given to much love of wine, bo that she 
 may b© sober and capable of performing the night services and other 
 loving services if she will ; for these are the chief good treasures of the 
 Lord " (v,)< Sovrcea of the Apostolic Canons, pp.: 19-21i 
 
182 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 wine, so that slie may be sober and capable of performing the 
 night services and other loving ministry if she will." The duty 
 of the other two was to " persevere in prayer for all who are 
 in temptation ** ; and they were also to pray for the reception 
 of revelations where these were necessary. They took the place 
 in the congregation of the old prophetic ministry, and were 
 among the number of the New Testament prophetesses. 
 
 There was another official. The congregation is told to 
 appoint a Reader. He is to be an experienced Christian. His 
 duty is to read the Scriptures during Divine Service, and it is 
 required that he should have a good voice and a clear deUvery. 
 He is told to come early to the church on the Lord's Day. He 
 is to be able to expound the Scripture that he has read. He is 
 to remember that " he fills the place of an evangelist." The 
 Reader in these ancient times did what the pastor or bishop 
 was expected to do in later times. There was the more need 
 for the office when we remember that the bishop might be an 
 unlearned man, and by unlearned was frequently meant one 
 who did not know the alphabet. 
 
 Such is a picture of a small Christian Church in the last decades 
 of the second century. It may be taken as the type of hundreds. 
 It is independent and self-governing, but it is not isolated. It 
 is a brotherhood {aSeXcportj^), consisting of brethren organized 
 under office-bearers chosen by themselves, but it has relations 
 with, and a knowledge of, a wider brotherhood of which it is 
 a minute part. When need comes it can appeal for and get help 
 in the selection of its pastor. Its ministry need not be learned ; 
 Christian character, saintly behaviour, the power to exhort 
 and teach which comes from deep Christian experience, are more 
 highly valued than ability to read. The Brotherhood has the 
 Wise Men whom St. Paul desired to see in the Corinthian Church 
 in its elders or presbyters who share the responsibilities of the 
 pastor's work, and in this respect are his assistants, but whose 
 superintendence and rule extends over the pastor himself in 
 other respects. We see the deacons going out and in among 
 
THE SOURCES OF THE APOSTOLIC CANONS 188 
 
 the members of the society, encouraging, warning, rebuking, 
 if need be, and endeavouring to excite to Christian liberality 
 by precept and example. We descry through the mists of seven- 
 teen hundred years the homely and simple ministry of women ; 
 on the one hand an active motherly woman, able to nurse her 
 sick sisters, strong enough to endure, as women only can, long 
 periods of night-watching, giving wholesome motherly advice 
 to the women and girls of the community ; and on the other 
 two solitary women, in the weakness and loneliness of their sex 
 and of their widowhood, powerful to wrestle with God in prayer, 
 and to assist with their supplications the whole congregation 
 and the strong men who are tempted and tried in the daily battle 
 of life. The strong supporting the weak ; and the weak, power- 
 ful in prayer, helping the strong ; the picture is one which only 
 a Christian community could show, and there it often appeared. 
 Early Christian literature abounds in references to the prayers 
 of the widows of the congregation. They are expected to bear 
 the whole burden of the brethren upon their hearts, and to entreat 
 the Lord in prayer. The prayers of believers are the sacrifice 
 of primitive Christianity, and because the widows abound in 
 prayer they are the altar of sacrifice.^ 
 
 These ancient fragments of old ecclesiastical canons are, 
 however, specially interesting, because they represent the 
 transition stage between the organization of the churches, shown 
 in the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians or in the Didaohe, and 
 the three-fold ministry of the third century. They do this in 
 
 ' Compare Polycarp, Epis'le to the Philippians, 4; fai the Canons of 
 Hippolytus (ix. 59) widows are to be highly honoured because of their 
 copiosas orationes ei infirmorum cur am. In Apostolic ConstUvtionSy iii. 
 12, 13, it is said : " For it becomes widows when they see that one of their 
 fellow widows is clothed by any one or receives money or meat or drink 
 or shoes, at the sight of the refreshment of their sister to say : Thou art 
 blessed God, who hast refreshed my fellow widow. Bless Lord, and 
 glorify him that has bestowed these things upon her, and let his good work 
 ascend in truth unto Thee and remember him for good in the day of his 
 ▼isitfttion.'i' Compare Apost. Constit. iii. 6, 7i 
 
184 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 two ways. The prophetic ministry has departed, but its mem- 
 ories linger in the prayers of the widows for revelations and in 
 the exhortation to the Reader that he holds the place of an 
 evangelist. For our immediate purpose, however, it is most 
 interesting to have in the fragments an organization lying 
 between that of a church or congregation, ruled by a college 
 of presbyter-bishops as in the Didache^ and one where the bishop 
 or pastor is the president of a compact circle of elders and deacons, 
 and where these office-bearers have their fixed places under 
 their head. In these fragments the bishop or pastor has neither 
 the power nor the position he afterwards came to occupy almost 
 universally in the third century. 
 
 But there is this advance on the older organization. There Is 
 now one man who has a distinct position which he occupies by 
 himself. He is the recognized leader of the congregation or 
 church in several definite ways. He represents the congregation 
 to those outside, else why should it be a necessary qualification 
 for office that he is respected by the heathen ? He leads the 
 congregational worship in the meeting for thanksgiving at any 
 rate, and if he is learned and can expound the Scriptures, pro- 
 bably at the meeting for edification also. The gifts of the 
 congregation are given into his hands for distribution, and he 
 is the almoner. He stands alone and separate from the other 
 office-bearers in all this. In these respects also he stands forth 
 as the representative of the unity of the congregation or church. 
 
 On the other hand, he has not yet been placed in the position 
 which the bishop or pastor afterwards held. In the Apostolic 
 Constitutions it is the bishop who calls the congregation together 
 for worship ; here that duty belongs to the elders, who also watch 
 over the behaviour of the people while in Church.' In later 
 ecclesiastical manuals the deacons and deaconesses report to 
 the bishop ; there they, or at least the deaconesses, report to 
 
 « Apodolie Constitutions, ii. 67 ; ot Sources of the Apostolic Canons, 
 iL 15 : the same word <rwa9po{^€iv being used in both as the technical 
 term to summon to Chnrohi 
 
THE SOURCES OF THE APOSTOLIC CANON'S 185 
 
 the elders, who have the responsibilities for the sick and infirm 
 of the congregation, which in later days belonged to the bishop.' 
 All these things show that the discipUne of the congregation 
 is in the hands of the elders exclusively, and that the bishop 
 is not the president of their court. If any doubt remained on 
 this head it must vanish when we consider the unique regula- 
 tion that the bishop himself is under the supervision of the 
 elders in one of the most important of his functions.* When he 
 acts as almoner they are to see that he acts rightly, and, what 
 is of the highest importance for understanding the situation, 
 the word used to express the control of the elders over the 
 bishop is the same word {TrpovoelcrOaCjy which describes their 
 power of disciphne over the congregation. The bishop has 
 emerged from the circle of presbyters, but he is not their presi- 
 dent ; and while he is the leader of the congregation in many 
 respects he is, in one respect at least, like the members of the 
 congregation, amenable to the discipline of the elders. 
 
 Probably had we other relics of ecclesiastical manuals be- 
 longing to this transition period we should find other instances 
 of organizations on the road towards the three-fold ministry, 
 
 ' Apostolic Constitvlions, iii. 19 orders the deacons and deaconesses: 
 " Tell your Bishop of all those that are in afifliction ; for you ought to 
 be Uke his soul and senses." Sources of the Apostolic Canons^ v. 8, 9, directs 
 the Widows to " communicate what is necessary to the presbyters or 
 elders." In the Canons of Hippolytus, c. 5, the deacons are ordered to 
 report to the bishop. Of. Riedel, Die Kirchenrechtsqudlen des Patriarchaia 
 Alexandrien (1900), p. 203. 
 
 * Apostolic Constitutions, ii. 25, 35, make it plain that the bishop was 
 accountable to no one but God in his duty as almoner. The bishop is 
 thus addressed : " Let him use those tenths and first fruits, which are 
 given according to the command of God, as a man of God ; as also let 
 him dispense in a right manner the free-will offerings which are brought 
 on account of the poor, to the orphans ; ; ; as having that God for th© 
 examiner of his accounts Who has committed the disposition to him'* 
 (ii. 25). And in the thirty-fifth section the people are enjoined : " Thou 
 shalt not call the bishop to account nor watch his administration, how 
 he does it, when or to whom, or where, or whether he does it well or ill 
 or indifferently ; for he has One Who will oall him to aocounti the Lord 
 God,'.i 
 
186 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 but travelling by different paths. We know tbat tbe three- 
 fold ministry grew more rapidly in some places than in others, 
 and the organization probably passed through several transition 
 stages, of which this is one, before it attained to maturity. 
 
 Our third group of writings consists of the famous Letters of 
 Ignatius of Antioch — a series of documents which have provoked 
 an immense amount of criticism which cannot be said to be 
 ended. Without entering into the controversy we may accept 
 the results of the scholarly criticism of the late Dr. Lightfoot in 
 this country, and of Dr. Zahn in Germany, according to which 
 the Seven Epistles in the shorter recension are genuine documents. 
 These letters came from the head of the Christian community 
 in Antioch in Syria. Ignatius had been seized in an outburst 
 of persecution and was being dragged across Asia Minor, a 
 prisoner in charge of a band of Roman soldiers. He wrote to 
 the Christians of Ephesus that he was on his way from Syria, 
 in bonds for the sake of the common Name and hope, and was 
 expecting to succeed in fighting with wild beasts at Rome, 
 that by so succeeding he might have power to become a disciple.* 
 The journey was an apprenticeship in suffering ; for the ten 
 soldiers, who guarded him, treated him as ten leopards might 
 have done, and only waxed worse when they were kindly en- 
 treated.* The churches of Asia Minor had sent him comforting 
 messages by special delegates. The letters are his answers.' 
 
 * To the Ephesians, 1; • To the Romana, 6.- 
 
 s The letters of Ignatius were generally known during the later Middle 
 Ages in the form of seventeen epistles, of which fifteen were believed to come 
 from the pen of Ignatius while two (one from the Virgin and another 
 from a Mary of Cassobola) were addressed to Ignatius. Renascence 
 criticism disposed of the claims of four of these letters. There remained 
 thirteen, twelve from the pen of Ignatius and one (from Mary of Cassobola) 
 addressed to him. This collection is now known as the Long Recension, 
 and it was this collection which was the subject of fierce controversy in 
 the end of the sixteenth and during the seventeenth century. At the 
 basis of these attacks made on the genuineness of these letters lay two 
 facts : that Eusebius knew of seven letters only and that these thirteen 
 contained passages evidently unknown to Eusebius or to any of the ancients. 
 
THIU EFIJSTLES OF IGNATIUS 187 
 
 They exhale the fragrance of a saintly and impassioned 
 Christian life. They dwell on the need that the sin-sick children 
 
 The learned Englishman, Ussher, afterwards archbishop of Armagh and 
 primate of all Ireland, observed that the quotations made from Ignatius 
 by some EngUsh writers from the thirteenth century onwards corresponded 
 with those found in Eusebius, Theodoret, etc., and concluded that there 
 must exist in England a manuscript which would represent the Ignatius 
 known to the ancients. After a prolonged search two such manuscripts 
 were brought to hght, both of them in Latin. They contained seven let- 
 ters but in a form shorter than the generally received letters. Ussher 
 accepted six of these shorter letters as the genuine epistles of Ignatius 
 (he refused to accept the letter to Polycarp). His book was published 
 in 1644. Soon afterwards (1646) Isaac Voss pubUshed six letters from a 
 Greek MS. — his MS. did not give the Epistle to the Romans ; and in 
 1689 the full Greek text of the seven letters was published by Ruinart. 
 It was generally admitted that, if any genuine letters of Ignatius had de- 
 scended to the present time, they were these seven in the shorter form ; 
 but many critics still refuse to admit the genuineness of any of the letters. 
 
 The controversy was raised again in 1845 by the publication of Cureton's 
 AncierU Syriac Version of the Epistles of S. Ignatius to S. Polycarp, the 
 Ephesians and the Romans. The author had found two Syriac MSS. 
 in the Ubrary of the British Museum containing the three epistles mentioned 
 in his title and in a still shorter form than those published by Ussher. 
 He maintained that these three short letters were the genuine remains 
 of Ignatius. He defended his position in a second work, Vindiciae Igna- 
 tianae (1846), and in his most complete treatise. Carpus Ignatianum (1849). 
 His views at once attracted attention and were very largely adopted, 
 though many distinguished scholars still defended the seven letters, while 
 others refused to accept even Cureton's three in the brief form. This con- 
 troversy was almost ended by Zahn, who, in his Ignatius von Antioch (1873), 
 showed very successfully that Cureton's three Syriac letters were epitomes 
 of the three in what were called the Short Recension^ This opinion was 
 supported by the late Dr. Lightfoot's elaborate work. Apostolic Fathers, part 
 II.-, S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp (1885). The result of these two works has 
 been that in Grermany, France and England the seven letters, in the shorter 
 form pubhshed by Ruinart in 1689, are generally accepted as the genuine 
 remains of Ignatius. Many critics still refuse to accept the letters in any 
 form as genuine, but their criticism is mainly of the subjective and un- 
 convincing kind. The only writer whose book deserves serious con- 
 sideration and who dissents from the conclusions of Zahn and Lightfoot 
 is Bruston, who, in his Ignace d'Antioche (1897), refuses to admit the 
 genumeness of the Epistle to the Romans and combines his critical opinions 
 with the theory that Ignatius was not the Bishop of Antioch but a deacon 
 in the Church there. 
 
 Many scholars are of the opinion that the letters of Ignatius were known 
 
188 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 of men liave for the One great Physician of souls. ' The Christian 
 preacher of the second century Hves in them still, embalmed 
 there and treasured up for a life beyond life. We find in them 
 bursts of poetic fancy : the Lord was a Star which shone forth 
 in the heaven above all stars ; and its light was unutterable ; 
 and its strangeness caused astonishment ; and all the rest of 
 the constellations, with the sun and the moon, formed them- 
 selves into a chorus about the star ; but the Star itself far out- 
 shone them all.* They abound in simple but striking metaphors, 
 such as the lyre and its strings, the athlete and his training ; 
 the chorus with its keynote ; the wheat ground in the hand- 
 mill.^ We find quaint emblems : " Ye are stones of a temple, 
 which were prepared beforehand for a building of God, being 
 hoisted up to the heights through the engine of Jesus Christ, 
 which is the Cross, and using for a rope the Holy Spirit ; while 
 your faith is your windlass, and love is the way that leadeth 
 up to God." ♦ They show deep knowledge of the human heart : 
 " No man professing faith sinneth, and no man possessing love 
 hateth " ' — a sentence which might have come from Thomas 
 a Kempis. Sometimes the words seem insensibly to take the 
 form of a prophetic chant, and have a rhythmic cadence all 
 
 to Luoian and that he used hie knowledge in writing hifl story Dc Morte 
 Peregrini. They think that the imprisonment of Peregrinns, the visits 
 paid to him by delegates from the Churches of Asia Minor, and the letters 
 written by him to the Churches which were received with reverence, were 
 all incidents suggested by the letters of Ignatius. The idea seems to me 
 somewhat far-fetched ; the points which Lucian seizes and makes use of 
 may easily have been suggested by a general observation of usages com- 
 mon to early Christianity and need not be attached to any particular 
 person however famous ; but compare Lightfoot, 3, IgncUivs, 8, Polycarp, 
 L pp. 331 ft. 
 
 » To the Ephesians, 7. 
 
 « Ibid. 19. 
 
 3 To ihe EpJieaians, 4 ; To the Philaddphiam, 1 ; To Polycarp, Ij 2 j 
 To the Romans, 4. 
 
 4 To the Ephesianti 9. 
 • Ibid, 14. 
 
THE EPISTLES OP IGNATIUS 189 
 
 their own.* Throughout there is that taste of Oriental ex- 
 travagance which makes them so natural.* 
 
 The letters breathe the storm and strain of a time of perse- 
 cution. The rallying cry which rolls from the first to the last 
 is union ! Keep imited ! Close the ranks ! Intimate union 
 with Christ ; that is the main thing, and that which comes 
 first. This is how he puts it. " For being counted worthy to 
 bear a most godly name, in these bonds, which I carry about, 
 I sing the praise of the churches ; and I pray that there may be 
 in them union of the flesh and of the Spirit which are Jesus 
 Christ's, our never-failing life — an union of faith and of love 
 which is preferred before all things, and — ^what is more than 
 all — an union with Jesus and with the Father, in whom, if we 
 patiently endure all the despite of the prince of this world and 
 escape therefrom, we shall attain unto God." ^ 
 
 Varying pictures of the Christian Churches rise in his imagina- 
 tion. Now they are ships driven and tossed in the storm of 
 persecution ; there must be a strong man at the helm and 
 discipline in the crew ; they need a favouring wind and a shelter- 
 ing haven.* Or they are so many households of God : the 
 office-bearers are the upper servants set there by the Master 
 to rule, and the other members obey the Master Himself when 
 they are submissive to those whom He has set over them.^ 
 
 * Compare especially the EpisUe to the Philaddphians, 7 :— 
 
 XcoptS TOV iTTLCTKOTTOV fXTjSkv TrOL€LT€' 
 
 Ttjv crdpKa vfxiov w<s vaov ©eov r-qp^rv 
 
 T^v IvoMTiv ctyaTTaTe* 
 
 Tovs ixtpicrix.ov's <f>evy€T€' 
 
 Mi/xT7Tal ytv€o-^€ 'Irja-ov XptOTOv, 
 
 *Qs Kol dvTos TOV IlaTpos avTOv. 
 Ignatius had evidently visited Philadelphia and had addressed the brethren 
 there, and in his address he had felt the prophetic afflatus, had interrupted 
 himself with a loud cry, and these sentences were part of what he had 
 said. They are an example of the prophetic utterances. 
 
 * As where he says : — " These men ye ought to shun as wild beasts 
 for they are mad dogs, biting by stealth," To the EphesianSf 7. 
 
 3 To the Magnesiana, 1. 
 
 4 To Pdycarp, 2. s To the Ephesiansi 6. 
 
190 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTUBY 
 
 Or tiiey are disciple oompanies, cherishing an imitation of 
 Christ, not in the solitary fashion of Thomas a Kempis, but in 
 companionship. The pastor represents Jesus, the elders are 
 His apostles,' and the deacons and the faithful those who fol- 
 lowed Him in Galilee — and all, pastor and elders and people, 
 look for the footprints the Master has left, and try to set their 
 steps where He trod. Perhaps this picture of a disciple company 
 is his favourite one. It has been a thought tenderiy cherished 
 through the centuries, and has often been set forth with a certain 
 quaint realism. Columba and twelve companions came from 
 Ireland to lona. Columbanus with twelve companions appeared 
 among the Franks and the Burgundians to preach the Gospel. 
 Bernard and twelve companions left Citeaux to found his new 
 dwelling at Clairvaux. In each case the chronicler lovingly 
 adds : " a disciple company." 
 
 We miss the main thought in Ignatius if we neglect to see that 
 the unity which is his passion is primarily and fundamentally 
 something spiritual and mystical. The Person of Christ is the 
 centre round which the Church crystallizes. By His death 
 on the Cross and by His Resurrection our Lord has elevated 
 a standard round which His troops of beUevers can rally 
 and form a disciplined army.' This sacred mystical attraction 
 is the inward essence and source of that union which he has 
 always in view. So strong is it that all behevers may be said 
 to have one mind, a godly concord and one spirit of perseverance.^ 
 The unity which he insists upon is first of all a union with Christ 
 Jesus, and then, and arising from that, a common rehgious 
 
 ' To the Magnesians, 6 ; To the TraUians, 2, 3 ; To the Smyrnaeans, 8. 
 
 ■ To the Smymaeans, 1 : — " Truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakea 
 under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch . . . that He might set up 
 a standard unto all ages through His resurrection, for His saints, whether 
 among Jews or among Gentiles, in one body of His Church." 
 
 3 To the MagnesiaTu, 7, 16 : — " But let there be one prayer in common,- 
 one supplication, one mind (vovs), one hope, in love and in joy unblamable 
 which is in Jesus Christ. . . . Fare ye well in godly concord, and possess 
 ye a stedfast spirit which is in Jesus Christ" 
 
THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS 191 
 
 belief and a common affection diffused throughout all believers 
 who ought to live in a harmony of love. The unity Ignatius 
 yearns after is first of all a unity of faith and love.' 
 
 But this unseen mystical unity ought to make itself manifest 
 according to the ordinances of Jesus and of His apostles. It 
 can make itself seen in the best way in the attachment of be- 
 lievers to the visible local church which is the assembly of be- 
 lievers for prayer, exhortation, and for the celebration of the 
 Holy Supper and for baptism.. Those who are truly the Lord's, 
 and who share in the invisible mystical union, cannot fail to 
 assemble together with one heart and mind, nor to unite in one 
 common prayer. Ignatius addresses himself more than once 
 to men who seem to think that the Christian hfe can be Uved 
 apart from the Christian visible fellowship ; * and he declares 
 that apart from the office-bearers there is not even the name 
 of a Church.^ Christians ought to manifest this inward unity 
 which they have in an external unity, which can best show 
 itself in the manifestation of mutual respect for each other, 
 in reverencing each other and in loving one another in Jesus 
 Christ.* 
 
 This submission which is due by all believers to each other 
 is specially due to those who have been placed at the head 
 of the Christian communities, and who are there to be examples 
 to their flocks.' Submission to one another and to the office- 
 
 ' " Run in harmony with the mind of God " {Ephesians, 3) ; "In your 
 concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung ; do ye, each and all of 
 you, form yourselves into a chorus, that being harmonious in concord 
 and taking the key-note of God ye may in union sing with one voice 
 through Jesus Christ to our Father " {Ephesians, 4) ; cf. To the Magne- 
 sians, L 
 
 * To the Ephesians, 5, 13, 20 ; To the MagnesianSy 7. 
 
 3 To the Trallians, 3. 
 
 4 " Therefore do ye all study conformity to God, and pay reverence 
 one to another " {Magnesians, 6). " Attempt not to think anything right 
 for yourselves apart from others " {Magnesians, 7). "Be obedient to 
 the bishop and to one another " {Magnesians, 13). 
 
 5 ** 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 
 
192 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 bearers — a submission founded on love — ^is the outward mani- 
 festation of the inward mystical union which all true believers 
 have with Christ, who is the true centre of the union. For 
 Ignatius never loses sight of the mystical union fed by faith 
 and love.' 
 
 The real centre of this unity is God and Christ Who is God ; 
 the real oversight lies with Him, In his fervent Oriental way 
 which expresses abstract thoughts in defective, though pic- 
 turesque, material and external representations, Ignatius sees 
 this Divine and invisible unity manifest in the bishop (or in 
 whatever may be the visible centre of the ecclesiastical rule).* 
 For it must not be forgotten in attempting to interpret the 
 thoughts of Ignatius that he belonged to what has been called 
 the " enthusiastic " age of the Church, and that he shared in 
 an exalted degree in the spirit of his times. He claimed to be 
 a prophet and to possess the prophetic gift. " I am in bonds," 
 he says, " and can comprehend heavenly things and the arrays 
 of angels and the musterings of principalities, things visible 
 and invisible." ^ He describes how, when he was preaching 
 at Philadelphia, the prophetic afflatus suddenly possessed 
 him, and he felt compelled to cry out " with a loud voice, with 
 God*8 own voice, Give ye heed to the bishop and the session 
 and the deacons." His hearers thought that this had been a 
 studied reference to persons accused of causing division in the 
 Church, but Ignatius assured them that was not so. The 
 Divine afflatus had possession of him, and it made him cry out : 
 
 you M an example and a lesson of incorruptibility" {Magnesiana^ 6). 
 The office bearers in this sentence are called 'irpoKa6rifi€voL^ which may 
 be compared with the TrpoLardfxivoL of the Epistle to the Romans and 
 to the Thessalonians. 
 
 ' He calls a church to irokvevraKTOv t^9 Kara ©tov aya.Trrj<i {Mag- 
 neaiansy 1). 
 
 * " Give place to him (the bishop) as to one prudent in God ; yet not 
 to him, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, even to the Bishop of all. . . . 
 For a man doth not so much deceive this bishop who is seen, as cheat 
 the other Who is invisible " {Magnestans, 3). 
 
 » To the TrcUliana, 6. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS 193 
 
 " Do nothing without the bishop ; keep your flesh as a temple 
 of God ; cherish union ; shun divisions ; be imitators of Jesus 
 Christ, as He Himself also was of His Father." ' With the 
 prophetic eye he saw the invisible and mystical unity which 
 lay hidden within the actual visible Christian community, and 
 every httle local church was a symbol of what existed in the 
 Heavenly Places where God was the centre and source of unity. 
 It is from this mystical standpoint that we must view the im- 
 passioned exhortations to obey the office-bearers,^ remembering 
 also that obedience to the rulers in the Church is only the super- 
 lative of the submission of love which all Christians owe to one 
 another. 
 
 When due allowance is made for the exaltation of the writer, 
 and for the Oriental extravagance of language natural to a 
 Syrian, the exhortations of Ignatius do not differ so widely 
 from the calm injunctions issued in the measured language of 
 Rome to the church of Corinth which we find in the Epistle of 
 Clement : " Let us mark the soldiers that are enlisted under 
 our rulers, how exactly, how readily, how submissively, they 
 execute the orders given them. All are not prefects, nor com- 
 
 ' To the PhiladdphianSy 7. 
 
 * " The bishops established in the furthest parts of the world are in 
 the counsels of Jesus Christ " {Ephesians, 3). " Every one whom the 
 Master of the House sendeth to govern His own household we ought to 
 receive, as Him that sent him. Clearly therefore we ought to regard the 
 bishop as the Lord Himself" {Ephesians, 6). Those who "obey the 
 bishop as Jesus Christ " Uve a Ufe after Christ " {Trallians, 2). " It is 
 good to know God and the bishop ; he that honoureth the bishop is 
 honoured of God ; he that doeth anything without the knowledge of the 
 bishop serveth the devil " {Smyrneans, 9). To obey the bishop is to obey 
 " not him, but the Father of Jesus Christ, even the Bishop of all," while 
 to practise hypocrisy towards the bishop is *' not to deceive the visible 
 one, so much as to cheat the One who is invisible " {Magnesians, 3). " As 
 many as are of God and of Jesus Christ, are with the bishop " {Phila- 
 ddphianSy 3). Compare Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, S. Ignatiiis, S. 
 Polycarp, i. 375 f. ; Commeiiiary on the Epistle to the Philippians (18S1), 
 6th ed. pp. 236, 237), for a complete list of passages. Almost equally 
 strong language about obedience to elders or presbyters and deacons will 
 be found on the same pages. 
 
 CM. * 13 
 
194 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 manders of thousands, nor of hundreds, nor of fifties, and so 
 forth ; but each man in his own rank executeth the orders given 
 by the prince and the government." ' 
 
 It is also to be remembered that Ignatius is writing to churches 
 in Asia Minor, exposed to the temptations to division caused 
 by the presence of men teaching the separative doctrines of a 
 Judaising Christianity and of Doketism. The epistles them- 
 selves afford abundant evidence that these sources of division 
 existed and had proved strong temptations in the communities 
 to which he was writing.* His passionate anxiety was that each 
 local church should present an unbroken front and manifest 
 a complete unity. The simple means which he believed would 
 effect this was that all Christians should rally round the ofl&ce- 
 bearers who were at the head of the little Christian societies. 
 Most, though not all, of the churches he addressed had the 
 three-fold ministry in some form or other, and he enforced 
 obedience to that form of ecclesiastical rule. " There is no 
 indication that he is upholding the episcopal against any other 
 form of Church government, as for instance the presbjrteral 
 (i.e. the government by a college of presbyters without a presi- 
 dent). The alternative which he contemplates is lawless iso- 
 lation and self-will. No definite theory is propounded as to 
 the principle on which the episcopate claims allegiance. It 
 is as the recognized authority of the churches which the writer 
 addresses, that he maintains it. Almost simultaneously with 
 Ignatius, Polycarp addresses the Philippian Church, which 
 appears not yet to have had a bishop, requiring its submission 
 
 * Clement, 1 Epistle xxxvii. 
 
 * " But I have learned that certain persons passed through you from 
 yonder, bringing evil doctrine " {Ephesians, 9) ; '* It is better to keep 
 silence and to be, than to talk and be not " {Ephesians, 15). " It is mon- 
 strous to talk of Jesus Christ and to practise Judaism. ... I would have 
 you be on guard betimes, that ye fall not into the snares of vain doctrines '• 
 (Magnesians, 10-11) ; compare the Epistle to the Trallians, 6-11, where 
 the brethren are warned against Doketism ; the Epistle to the Pldladel- 
 phians, 6, where the warning is against Judaism ; and the Epistle to the 
 Smymeanat 6-7, where the error is Doketism. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS 195 
 
 * to the presbyters and deacons.' ' If Ignatius liad been writing 
 to this church, he would doubtless have done the same. As 
 it is, he is deahng with communities where episcopacy (the three- 
 fold ministry) had been already matured, and therefore he 
 demands obedience to their bishop." ^ He makes no attempt 
 certainly when writing to the Roman Church, which was still 
 under the government of a college of presbyter-bishops without 
 a president, to insist that the three-fold ministry is an essential 
 thing to the well-being of a Christian community.^ What is 
 more, he evidently regards union with the college of elders 
 as the same thing as union with the bishop ; for he invites the 
 malcontents at Philadelphia, who had repented, to return *' to 
 the unity of God and of the council of the bishop." * 
 
 We can scarcely look for a calm statement about the organiza- 
 tion of the Christian churches in letters of this kind. They 
 were the impassioned outpourings of a man on his way to death ; 
 full of fears, not for himself, but for the brethren he was leaving 
 behind in a persecuting world. It is pathetic to see the fiery, 
 impassioned words of the martyr used as missiles by some reck- 
 less preacher of episcopal supremacy, or subjected to the scalpel 
 of a cold-blooded critic, neither of whom seem to recognize 
 the Oriental extravagance of language which makes them so 
 natural. Yet the letters do give us a good deal of information 
 about our subject. 
 
 Ignatius insists that the unity of the society has for its centre 
 and source of strength the supremacy of the pastor, who is 
 always called the bishop. His writings are a proof that the 
 three-fold ministry in some form or other did exist, early in the 
 second century, in some parts of the Church though not in others. 
 
 ^ Compare Reville, Les Origines de VEpiscopai (1894), p. 497 f. 
 Lightfoot, S. Ignatius, 8. Polycarp, i. 382. 
 
 3 The three-fold ministry developed much more slowly in Rome than 
 in Asia Minor. Compare Lightfoot. Commentary on the Epistle to the 
 Philippians (1881), 6th ed. p. 217 ff. ; Reville, Les Origines de VEpiscopat 
 (1894), p. 420 fE. 
 
 ♦ Epistle to the PhiladelphianSt 8. 
 
196 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTTJEY 
 
 But they are not to be taken as proof that the Ignatian ixm- 
 ception of what the three-fold ministry ought to be existed 
 in any part of the Church whatever.' 
 
 According to the conception of Ignatius, every Christian 
 community ought to have at its head a bishop, a presbyterium 
 or session of elders, and a body of deacons. These constitute 
 its office-bearers to whom, jointly and severally, obedience is 
 due. Ignatius regards these three elements as going together 
 to form one whole. He mentions the three classes of officials 
 together twelve times in his seven epistles, and in ten out of the 
 twelve they form an inseparable unity — presumably they do so 
 also in the remaining two, but that is not evident from the 
 passages themselves.' There is not a trace of sacerdotalism 
 in the sense that the Christian ministry is a special priesthood 
 iset apart to offer a special sacrifice ; there is a great deal about 
 the sacredness of order, but not a word about the sanctity of 
 orders. Ignatius only once refers to priests and high priests, 
 and he does so in the thoroughly evangelical fashion of con- 
 trasting the imperfect Old Testament priesthood with the 
 perfect priesthood of the Redeemer.^ The bishop is not an 
 autocrat. There is a " council of the bishop," which includes 
 
 ' In some form or other or in some stage of its growth. Lightfoot has 
 drawn a distinction between chief over the presbyters and chief of the 
 presbyters, and the second phrase, he says, suits very well the beginning 
 of the Epistle of Poly carp: — *' Poly carp and the presbyters that are with 
 him." Then there is the form given in the Sources of the Apostolic Canonsi 
 cf. above pp. 183 f. 
 
 « To the Magnesians, 2, 6, 13 ; To the Trattians, 7 ; To tf^e Philadel- 
 phians, preface, 4, 7 ; To the Smyrnaeans^ 8, 12 ; To Pdycarp, 6 ; To 
 the TrMians, 2; To the Philadel phians, 10. Compare R^ville, Les 
 Origines de VEpiscopat (1894), p. 496 : — L'exaltation du pouvoir Episcopal 
 qui se donne Ubre cours k travers les Epitres d'Ignace fait trop sou vent 
 perdre de vue aux commenteurs cette intime association de I'autorit^ 
 presbyt^raie et de I'autorit^ Episcopate, qu'un examen plus attentif degage 
 tr^ clairement." 
 
 3 To the Philaddphians, 8, 9. Compare Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 
 8. Ignatius, S. Polycarp (1885), i. 381. 382 ; ii. 274, 276. Zahn, Ignatii 
 et Polyearpi Epistvlae (1876), p. 79. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS 197 
 
 the bishop himself/ The people are told to obey all the office- 
 bearers, bishops, elders and deacons.* The ruling body is a 
 court in which the bishop sits as chairman surrounded by his 
 council or session of elders ; and the one is helpless without the 
 other, for if the bishop is the lyre the elders are the chords, and 
 both are needed to produce melody.^ There is no apostoUc 
 succession in any form whatsoever ; even in the poetic conception 
 of the disciple company it is the elders who represent the apostles.* 
 Lastly, there is no trace of diocesan rule. We undoubtedly 
 find the phrase top eirla-Koirov ^uplag ; but as Lightfoot 
 and Zahn, to say nothing of others, have pointed out, it must 
 be translated " the bishop from Syria." A bishop of Syria 
 would have been an anachronism in the fourth century, and is 
 
 ' To the Philadelphians, 8. Compare Lightfoot, S, Ignatiiia, i. 380 ; ii. 
 269. 
 
 ^ Obey the bishop : — Ephesians, 6 ; TraHians, 2 ; Smyrnaeans, 8, 9 ; 
 Magnesians, 3, 4 ; Poly carp, 4, 6 ; Philaddphians, 7. Obey the elders : — 
 Ephesians, 2, 20; Magnesians, 2, 7; Trallians, 13. Obey he deacons: 
 Polycarp, 6, ; Magnesians, 6 ; Trallians, 3 ; Philadelphians, 7 ; Smyr- 
 naeans, 8. 
 
 3 To the Ephesians, 4. 
 
 4 " It is worthy of notice that though the form of government in these 
 Asian Churches is in some sense monarchical, yet it is very far from being 
 autocratic. We have aheady seen that in one passage the writer in the 
 term * council of the bishop ' includes the bishop himself as well as his 
 presbyters. This expression tells its own tale. Elsewhere submission is 
 required to the presbyters as well as to the bishop. Nay sometimes the 
 writer enjoins obedience to the deacons as well as to the bishop and to the 
 presbyters. The ' presbytery ' is a ' worthy spiritual coronal ' (d^toTrXo/cov 
 TTvtvfjiaTLKov (TTCffidvov) rouud the bishop {Magn. 13). It is the duty 
 of every one, but especially of the presbyters * to refresh the bishop unto 
 the honour of the Father and of Jesus Christ and of the apostles ' {TraU, 
 12). They stand in the same relation to him * as the chords to the lyre * 
 {Ephes. 4). If obedience is due to the bishop as to the grace of God, it 
 is due to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ {Magn. 2). If the 
 bishop ocupies the place of God or of Jesus Christ, the presbyters are as 
 the Apostles, as the council of God {Magn. 6 ; Trail. 2, 3 ; Smyr. 8). 
 This last comparison alone would show how widely the idea of the episco- 
 pate differed from the later conception, when it had been formulated in 
 the doctrine of the Apostolic succession. The presbyters, not the bishops, 
 are here the successors of the apostles." Lightfoot, S» IgnatiuSt i. pp. 
 382, 383. 
 
198 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 mucli more so in the second.' It is unquestionable that the 
 bishop is made the centre of everything in the Church or con- 
 gregation. " It is not permitted without the bishop either to 
 baptize or to hold a love feast," * and the love feast must include 
 the Holy Supper. It is even declared that when men and women 
 marry they should unite themselves with the consent of the 
 bishop, that the marriage should be after the Lord and not after 
 concupiscence.^ But this only means that in such a solenm 
 action as matrimony the blessing of the Church should be joined 
 to the civil contract. 
 
 But if there be no sacerdotalism, no apostolic succession, 
 no one-man rule, and no diocese ; if every Christian conmiunity 
 is to be organized under a leader, who is called a bishop and some- 
 times a pastor, who presides over a court of elders,* and has 
 under him a body of deacons ; further, if, as the Sources of 
 the Apostolic Canons inform us, every small Christian com- 
 munity, even when consisting of fewer than twelve families, 
 is to have its bishop, its elders and its deacons ; if nothing 
 is to be done without the consent of the pastor or bishop, neither 
 sacrament nor love-feast, nor anything congregational — then 
 while the resemblance to modem episcopacy, with its diocesan 
 system, is but small, there is a very great amount of resemblance 
 to that form of ecclesiastical organization which re-emerged 
 at the Reformation and which is commonly called the presby- 
 terian, though it might be more appropriately named the con- 
 ciliar system of Church government. 
 
 A more minute examination of the letters reveals some details 
 
 « Lightfoot, 8. Ignatius, i. 383 ; ii. 201, 202 ; Zahn, Ignaiii Epistulae, 
 p. 59 n. ; and his Ignatius von Antioch, p. 308. 
 
 » To the SmymaeanStS. 
 
 S To Pdycarp, 5. 
 
 4 The '7rpc(r/3vT€piov or court of elders, i.e. kirk-session^ {g mentioned 
 frequently by Ignatius : — To the Ephesians, 2, 4, 20 ; To the Magnesians, 
 2, 13 ; To the Trallians, 2, 7, 13 ; To the PhUadelphians, 4, 7 ; To the 
 Smyrnaeans, 8, 12. It is called the " council of God " in the Epistle to the 
 TraUianSf 3 (crvvcSptov ^«ov). 
 
THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS 199 
 
 of the organization of tlie churches which were familiar to Ig- 
 natius. 
 
 For one thing, it seems clear that whatever the authority 
 of the bishop may have been, it did not extend beyond his own 
 church or congregation. The corporate unity of the Churches of 
 Christ was still a sentiment, strongly felt no doubt, but not yet 
 expressed in any kind of polity. Ignatius did not write as a 
 bishop of the Catholic Church ; he says expressly that he was 
 no apostle.' He wrote as a confessor of Christ to brethren 
 who might soon be required to confess Christ in the same way 
 of threatened martyrdom. Nor does Polycarp claim to write 
 as a superior to the Philippians. He wrote because he had been 
 asked for advice.^ The various churches were still independent 
 units in fraternal intercourse with each other, but without any 
 signs of inter-congregational jurisdiction. 
 
 The EpisUe to Polycarp show what Ignatius beheved to be the 
 duties of a bishop within his own community. He was the 
 administrator of the finances of the Church ; to him the widows 
 and the poor of the congregation had to look for their support, and 
 the funds to buy the manumission of slaves were in his hands ; ' 
 he had the moral oversight of the whole congregation, and was 
 therefore the president of the court of discipline ; * he had the 
 right to call, and presumably to preside over, the congregational 
 meetings ; ^ he had the sole regulation of the sacraments of 
 
 * " I did not think myself competent for this (vsriting more sharply), 
 that being a convict 1 should order you as though I were an apostle" 
 {To the TraUians, 3). Throughout the letters there are constant references 
 to his impending martyrdom. 
 
 * Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, 3. 
 
 3 To Polycarp, 4. 4 To Polycarp, 3, 6. 
 
 5 To Polycarp, 4 ; Ignatius evidently thought that Polycarp did not 
 hold congregational meetings often enough : — " Let the meetings be held 
 more frequently." It is interesting to notice that all the duties which 
 Ignatius supposes to belong to the bishops in the Church at Smyrna are 
 supposed by Polycarp to belong to the elders in the Church at Philippic 
 with the exception of presiding at pubUc worship, which is not mentioned | 
 Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians, 6-12 
 
200 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 Baptism and of the Holy Supper and of everytliing congrega- 
 tional.' But large as were the bishop's powers, he had to exer- 
 cise them under serious limitations. There is not a hint that 
 the bishop can by himself, or even in conjunction with his 
 session or elders, excommunicate an offender. The power which 
 Ignatius urges Polycarp to use is only that of moral suasion.* 
 It is more than probable that the final power in all cases of 
 discipline lay with the congregational meeting, as was the case 
 in Corinth in the time of St. Paul. It is the congregation who 
 are warned against false teachers and evil-minded persons, and 
 they are directed to act in certain ways with regard to them.^ 
 The passages, however, do not warrant us in drawing any dis- 
 tinct conclusion. On the other hand, it is clear that the con- 
 gregational meetings had powers. It was they who appointed 
 delegates and messengers. The Christians at Smyrna are asked 
 directly to send a delegate into Syria, whereas the bishop is 
 only asked to convene a meeting of the congregation in order 
 that the messenger may be appointed ; and elsewhere it is 
 made plain that this power belonged to the whole Church, 
 who could order on a mission their bishops as well as their elders 
 or their deacons.* 
 
 Readers who know something about the work of Church 
 extension at home and on the mission field, may wonder how 
 it was possible in these early centuries that the smallest bodies 
 of Christians could have had, and were commanded to have, 
 such a complete ecclesiastical organization as these Epistles 
 of Ignatius and the Sources of the Apostolic Canons require, 
 
 * To the Smymaeans, 8, for the bishop's duties with regard to the enchar- 
 ist, baptism, and the love-feasts ; To Polycarp, 6, with regard to marriage. 
 Yet the advice to meet more frequently for the eucharistio service is given 
 to the Ephesian community {EphesianSt 13). 
 
 * To Polycarp, 2, 3, 5. 
 
 ^ To the Ephesiana,!; To the Magnesians, 11 ; To the PhUaddphiana, 
 6 ; To the Smyrnaeans, 4, 
 
 * To the Smyrnaeana, 11 ; To Polycarp, 7 ; To the PhUaddphiana, 10; 
 To the Ephesians, 1, 2 ; To the Magnesians, 2, 6 ; To the TraUians, t 
 
THE SUPPORT OF THE MINISTRY 201 
 
 and how they could be at the same time so independent and 
 self-supporting. A large part of the problem of ecclesiastical 
 extension in our own days, at home and on the mission field, 
 has to do with money. Churches and other buildings have to 
 be erected, and a salaried ministry has to be supported. But 
 it must be remembered that in those early days the ministry was 
 not paid as we understand payment, and that money for build- 
 ings was not needed. Church buildings did not exist until the 
 second century was drawing to a close, and then only in large 
 and populous centres. The only property which the Church 
 had besides its copies of the Scriptures, its congregational re- 
 cords and perhaps a place of burial, were the offerings, mostly 
 in kind, which the faithful presented during the meeting for 
 thanksgiving, and which were almost immediately distributed. 
 Justin Martjrr gives the earhest description in his Apology, 
 " On the day called Sunday, all who Hve in town or country 
 gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles 
 or of the prophets are read as long as time permits ; then when 
 the reader has ceased the president verbally instructs, and 
 exhorts us to the imitation of these good things. Then we 
 all stand together and pray, and, when prayer is ended, bread 
 and wine are brought and the president offers prayers and 
 thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, 
 saying Amen. Then there is a distribution to each of that over 
 which thanks has been given, and a portion is sent by the deacons 
 to those who are absent. Then they who are well to do and are 
 wilHng, give what each thinks fit ; and it is collected and de- 
 posited with the president, who succours orphans and widows 
 and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, 
 those who are in bondage and the strangers sojourning among 
 us — in a word all who are in need.*'* 
 
 The gifts so bestowed and distributed were the property 
 of the early Church — all that it had. Both Justin and Ter- 
 tuUian insist on the fact that these offerings were of free-will, 
 * Justin, Apology, i. 67 
 
202 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 contrasting them, it is probable, with the monthly compulsory 
 payments made by the members of confraternities ; but this did 
 not hinder indications being given about these offerings. We 
 find a continuous series of recommendations that the first fruits 
 of all the necessaries of Hfe ought to be given. All the oldest 
 ecclesiastical manuals, from the Didache downwards, contain 
 injunctions to the people about these first fruits. In the Didache 
 these offerings went to support the prophets, and failing them 
 the poor of the community ; and the Pastoral Epistles * mention 
 a church roll of members who ought to share because of their 
 poverty. In the quotation just made from Justin Martyr these 
 first fruits are distributed among the widows, orphans, poor 
 strangers and so on ; Tertullian describes a similar mode of 
 distribution ; so do the Canons of Hippolytus, which expressly 
 prohibit any claim on the part of the ministry to share.* In the 
 ancient Sources of the Apostolic Canons the elders superintend 
 the bishop, while he makes the distribution,^ but in Justin and 
 in the Canons of Hijypolytus the full control of this distribution 
 lies with the president or bishop. It is probable that the mem- 
 bers of the ministry from the beginning had some share in these 
 offerings, but not in the way of stipend, and only if they could 
 be classed among the poor. The ancient Sources of the Apostolic 
 Canons teach us that the pastor may share if need be, but not 
 by way of stipend. Dr. Hatch has only summed up what the 
 history of the whole period teaches when he says : " The funds 
 of the primitive communities consisted entirely of voluntary 
 offerings. Of these offerings those office-bearers whose circum- 
 stances required it were entitled to a share. They received 
 
 ' Didache, xiii. 1 ; 1 Tim. v. 9. The Pastoral Epistles perhaps teach 
 OS that the ministry have a share ; of. 1 Tim. v. 17, 18 ; 2 Tim. i. 4-7, but 
 the serenth verse of the latter passage suggests that the share is not by 
 way of stipend. 
 
 « Tertulhan, Apology, 39. Canons of Hippdytua, Canon xxidi. (Riedel) 
 Kirchenrechtsqudlen des Pairiarchais Alexandrien, p. 221. 
 
 3 Texte und Untersuchungent H. v. 13-15, or Sources of the Apostolic 
 Oinons, p. ^3. 
 
THE SUPPORT OF THE MINISTRY 203 
 
 such a share only on account of their poverty. They were, 
 so far, in the position of the widows and orphans and helpless 
 poor." ' 
 
 The idea that when men are once set apart for the function 
 of office-bearers in the Christian Church it becomes the duty 
 of the Church to provide them with the necessaries of hfe does 
 not belong to the times of primitive Christianity. The office- 
 bearers of the early Church were clergy in virtue of their call, 
 election, and setting apart by special prayer for sacred office ; 
 but they worked at trades, carried on mercantile pursuits, and 
 were not separate from the laity in their every-day hfe. We 
 find bishops who were shepherds, weavers, lawyers, shipbuilders,' 
 and so on, and the elders and deacons were almost invariably 
 men who were not supported by the churches to which they 
 belonged. An interesting series of inscriptions was found 
 on the gravestones of the cemetery of the little town of Corycus, 
 in Cilicia Tracheia, records of the Christian community there. 
 They can scarcely be older than the fifth, and not later than the 
 sixth century. One of them marks the burial place of a master 
 potter and another that of a goldsmith, both of whom were 
 elders or presbyters of the Chm-ch there.^ The power of the 
 laity in the early Church did not depend simply on the fact 
 that they chose the office-bearers and had some indefinite in- 
 fluence over councils, as some modern writers put it,* but on the 
 
 * The Organization of the Early Churches (1881), p. 147. 
 
 * A shepherd, Socrates, Eccles. Hist. i. 12 ; a weaver, Sozomen, Ecdes. 
 Hist. vii. 28 ; a shipbuilder, S. Gregorii Magni Epistolae, xiii. 26 ; a 
 lawyer, S. Gregorii Magni, Ejnstolae, x. 10. Compare Cyprian De Lapsis 6. 
 Basil, Epistolae, 198. Compare Hatch, The Organization of the Early 
 Christian Churches (1881), p. 148, who, besides giving the well-known 
 individual instances quotes regulations from the Theodosian Code and from 
 the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua proving the general practice. The eighty- 
 seventh of the Canons of Basil says that " none of the clergy are to engage 
 in merchandise but that they are to learn a handicraft and live of the labour 
 of their hands." Riedel, Die Kirchenrechtsquellen des Patriarchais Alex- 
 andrien (1900), p. 270. 3 Bull de Corr. HeU. vii. 230 ft. 
 
 * As for example the Rev. R. B. Rackham in Essays on Church Reform 
 (1898), p. 30 fiE. 
 
204 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 fact that in the earliest times none of the office-bearers, and for 
 many centuries few of them, depended upon the Church as 
 a whole to provide them with the necessaries of life. They 
 were clergy, as has been said, in virtue of their selection for 
 office and of their solenm setting apart to perform clerical 
 functions ; but they had daily association with the laity in 
 the workshop, on the farm, in the warehouse, in the law-courts, 
 and in the market-place. They held what must seem to be a 
 very anomalous position to mediaeval and modern episcopalians. 
 When the ancient practice is revived, as it was by the Reformed 
 Church at the Reformation, episcopalians speak disdainfully of 
 lay-elders and lay-deacons, as if an ecclesiastical stipend and not 
 consecration by prayer and the laying on or giving of hands were 
 the true and essential mark of ordination. But the practice had 
 its value in the early centuries and has its importance now. It 
 knit clergy and laity together in a very simple and thorough 
 fashion, and brought men, whose life and callings made them 
 feel as laymen do, within the circle of the hierarchy which ruled, 
 and 80 prevented the hierarchy degenerating into a clerical 
 caste. 
 
 During the last decades of the second and throughout the 
 third century the conception of Ignatius, to him perhaps only 
 a devout dream,* dominated the whole Church, or at least a 
 great part of it. Every Christian community had at its head 
 a single president who is almost always called the bishop. He 
 presided over the session of elders, over the body of deacons, 
 and over the congregation. The whole Christian activity of 
 
 » Compare Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 370-1, 
 where he says that Ignatius is not an historian describing facta but a preacher 
 giving advice ; and adds that he does not find in Ignatius proof that 
 bishops were regarded as ex-officio supreme, that his language is quite 
 consistent with the view that the respect actually paid to the bishop 
 in each community depended on his individual character, and that his 
 reiteration of the principle of the authority of the bishop, which came to 
 him as a revelation, makes it evident that he did not find his ideal in 
 actual existence. Compare also Sanday in the Expositor (1888, July-Dec. )i 
 p. 326. 
 
 i 
 
THE THKEE-FOLD MINISTRY 205 
 
 the community found its centre in him, as it does in presbyterian 
 congregations in the present day. He presided over the public 
 worship in all its parts ; had chief charge of the sick and of the 
 sinful ; he was over the discipline and over the administration 
 of the property of the community whatever that happened to be. 
 This was his position as a matter of fact. On the other hand, 
 his position theoretically was by no means so unique. There 
 is many a trace in the ancient canons, as we shall afterwards 
 see, that the bishop was only primus inter pares in the session 
 of elders, and that he was distinguished from them by two things 
 only — a special seat in the church and the power to ordain 
 elders and deacons. The practice made him the centre of the 
 whole congregational life and the ruler ; the theory recalled 
 the earUer days when every congregation was governed by a 
 council of elders who had no president. We find the theory 
 in such law-books as the Canons of Hippolytus ; ' it was repeated 
 by Jerome ; it never lacked supporters during the Middle Ages, 
 of whom Thomas Aquinas was one ; it re-emerged at the Refor- 
 mation when the Reformed Church revived the ecclesiastical 
 organization of the early centuries ; and the same diilerence 
 between theory and practice exists among the Reformed Churches 
 in the present day. 
 
 The great change in the ministry which we have seen evolving 
 itself in the three documents selected, and which belonged to 
 the second and third centuries, was that the ruling body in every 
 congregation changed from being a session of elders without 
 a president and became a session with a president. The presi- 
 dent, sometimes called the pastor, but usually the bishop, became 
 gradually the centre of all the ecclesiastical life of the local 
 Christian church and the one potent office-bearer. We have 
 now to ask how this came about. In answer one thing only 
 can be asserted with confidence. The change came gradually. 
 It provoked no great opposition. It was everywhere, or almost 
 everywhere, accepted. But when we seek for the causes that 
 * Compare below, p. 248. 
 
206 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 produced the change, or ask what were the paths along which 
 the change manifested itself — then we can only give conjectural 
 answers. 
 
 Probably the main impulse came from the pressure of tempta- 
 tion — intellectual and moral — and persecution, and the feeling 
 that resistance to both would be strengthened by a more 
 thorough unity than could be attained under the leadership 
 of a number of men who had no individual head. One man 
 can take a firmer grip of things. Divided responsibiUty con- 
 tinually means varying counsels. What is the business of many 
 is often the work of none. A divided leadership continually 
 brings with it fickle and impotent action. The need for an 
 undivided front in time of danger was what inspired Ignatius, 
 when, with the eye of a statesman and the fire of a prophet, 
 he pleaded for the union of the congregation under one leader. 
 The circumstances of the times and the voices of those who 
 led in the movement, all suggest that the supreme need of the 
 moment was unity ; and that unity could be best won and 
 maintained by the change which was made. 
 
 The paths along which the change progressed probably dif- 
 fered in various places. It is quite unnecessary to suppose that 
 the process was everywhere the same. It is much more natural 
 that there should have been several at work simultaneously. 
 Differences in racial temperament and in experience in the art 
 of governing ; greater or less exposure to the disruptive in- 
 fluences of strange teaching ; more or less capacity to endure 
 temptations ; difEerences in local environment and in inherited 
 pohtical usages, might easily produce different modes in the 
 evolution of the ecclesiastical organization. Dr. Lightfoot 
 has shown, with his usual careful minuteness, how the three- 
 fold ministry came into being much sooner in some parts of the 
 Empire than others, and that it appeared first in Asia Minor,* 
 which differed in the fact that it was more exposed to the divisive 
 influences of strange teachings, and that the people had been 
 
 ^-Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (1881), 6th ed. p. 206 fE 
 
THE THREE-FOLD MINISTRY 207 
 
 long accustomed to the rule of one man in secular affairs. It 
 well may be imagined that the different social surroundings 
 which belonged to Rome, to the cities of Greece, and to Asia 
 Minor, bred different ecclesiastical conditions, which led to the 
 selection of differing paths in the development of the ecclesi- 
 astical organizations. 
 
 Professor Ramsay has suggested, ingeniously, "one way in 
 which the change may have come. His idea is that any mem- 
 ber of the session of presbyters or elders became an episcopus or 
 overseer when he was given the oversight of any special duty 
 by his brethren. The episcopus who did his work well would 
 naturally continue to do it, and the tendency was for his function 
 to become permanent. One of the most important duties which 
 fell to the college of elders was correspondence with other Chris- 
 tian churches and the reception and entertainment of the delegates 
 who came from other churches to visit them. The elder who 
 had the oversight of, or was the episcopus for this work, naturally 
 became a very important man. He was the representative 
 of his own church to all Christians outside it. He might easily 
 come to represent the unity of the Church to those who also 
 were inside it, more especially as he was the official who would 
 naturally be selected to hold the property of the congregation 
 when it became possessed of a place of burial. Thus he came 
 to stand forth from among the other elders as the episcopus 
 par excellence. Thus gradually one of the presbyters or elders 
 became the episcopus for everything within the community, 
 and the session of elders received its permanent head.^ There 
 is a great deal to be said for this conjecture. For one thing, 
 there is evidence that the appointment of one of the elders to 
 look airer the communications with other churches was actually 
 a custom ; * for another it gives a reasonable explanation of 
 
 * The Church in the Roman Empire (1893), p. 367 flE. 
 
 2 In the Pastor of Hermas, the old lady who represents the Church and 
 who has given Hermas a revelation orders him to make two books and give 
 one to Clement and the other to Grapte, " and Clement will send his to 
 
208 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 those lists of bishops in various churches dating back to times 
 when all the evidence shows that there was no real permanent 
 president in existence. They are the hsts of the men who, 
 being the foreign correspondents, represented the unity of their 
 respective churches to all Christians outside, and were therefore 
 regarded as the most prominent members. 
 
 It is also probable that the celebration of the Holy Supper 
 suggested one permanent president. It is easy to conceive 
 how the meeting for " exhortation " could be conducted by 
 a session of elders, but it is very difficult to imagine a collegiate 
 superintendence of the meeting for " thanksgiving." Did 
 the members of the session of presbyter-bishops or elders take 
 it in turn to preside, or in what way was it done ? We do not 
 know. But we do know that in the second century there was 
 one official who presided at the Lord's Supper, and that he, the 
 TTpoea-Tco^ or president of Justin Martyr,' is clearly the antici- 
 pation of the later bishop. There was evidently some close 
 connexion in thought between the one bishop and the unity 
 of the congregation or church at the Holy Supper. One bishop, 
 one place of celebration (Qva-Lacrrripiov) and one Eucharist 
 are almost equivalent terms in Ignatius. This thought would 
 lead us to imagine that the efiscojnis was the presbyter or 
 elder selected by his brethren to preside at the Eucharist, and 
 that he was bishop while he was so presiding.^ The presbyter 
 
 the foreign countries, for commission has been given him toioao, and Grapte 
 will admonish the widows and the orphans ; but you (Hermas, who was 
 a presbyter) will read the words in this city along with ths elders who pre- 
 side over the Church," Viaiones, u. 4. 
 
 ' Apology, i. 67. 
 
 » Tertullian in his De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 41, speaking of the 
 condition of the Gnostic or Marcionite Churches, says : — ** itaque alius 
 hodie episcopus, eras alius." Sohm {Kirchenrecht, i. 119 n.) takes this as 
 a proof of the condition of things in the most primitive days. He infers 
 that in the earHer times when there were several bishops in each com- 
 munity the one who presided at the Eucharist was the bishop for that day, 
 and gave place to another on another day who thus became the bishop in 
 his torn. It lb doubtful whether we can infer anything about primitive 
 u ages from these references in Tertullian. 
 
THE THREE-FOLD MINISTRY 209 
 
 who had a special gift for this sacred work would naturally be 
 frequently called to undertake it, and the duty might easily 
 become a permanent one. In the Sources of the A'postolic 
 Canons it is the bishop or pastor who presides at the Holy 
 Communion, although he is under the disciplinary authority of 
 the elders. 
 
 It may also be said that the need for one authority in doctrinal 
 matters led to the selection of one man, and to placing on him 
 the responsibility of seeing that the members of the congregation 
 were not tempted away from the true faith by irresponsible 
 teachers, who offered themselves to instruct the community. 
 This conception, as we shall see later, was developed in a special 
 way with reference to the office-bearer by Irenaeus, and some 
 critics see it foreshadowed in the letters of Ignatius. 
 
 No one way needs to be selected as the only path by which the 
 organization advanced, and the college of elders received a 
 president who was the permanent head of the community, and 
 the Hving and personal representative of its unity. They 
 might all have their effect and that simultaneously. 
 
 It must always be remembered that the duty of presiding 
 at the Holy Supper, which is invariably seen to belong to the 
 bishop as soon as he emerges from the college of presbyters or 
 elders, brought with it the control over the gifts of the faithful 
 which were presented after the Eucharistic service, and formed 
 for long the only property of the congregation. If we add to 
 this that the presbyter or elder chosen for this highest portion 
 of the worship was frequently a man possessed of the prophetic 
 gift as Ignatius was, additional reverence and obedience would 
 not fail to be bestowed upon him ; and we can see how the old 
 reverence for the " prophetic ministry " could easily be trans- 
 ferred to the new authority. 
 
 Whatever paths led to the change in the ministry whereby 
 the rule was transferred from a college of elders without a presi- 
 dent to a college with a president, when once the change was 
 made the power of the eptscoptis grew rapidly ; and one source 
 
 CM. 14 
 
210 THE MINISTRY IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 of this increase of authority lay in the fact that he was always 
 the administrator of the property of the local church. 
 
 Without any apostolic sanction, in virtue of the power lying 
 within the community and given to it by the Master, the Church 
 of the second century effected a change in its ministry quite as 
 radical, if not more- so, as that made by the Reformed Church 
 in the sixteenth century, when it swept away mediaeval ex- 
 crescences, restored the bishops to their ancient position of pastors 
 of congregations, and vested the power of oversight in councils 
 of greater and lesser spheres of authority. What was within 
 the power of the Christian people of the second century belongs 
 to it always when providential circumstances seem to demand 
 a change in the organization, for the ministry depends on the 
 Church and not the Church on the ministry. 
 
The Fall of the Prophetic Ministry 
 and the Conservative Revolt 
 
 fii 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PALL OF THE PBOPHETIO MINISTRY AlTD THE <X)NSERVATIVB 
 
 REVOLT 
 
 THE prophetic ministry of the apostolic and immediately 
 sub-apostolic times passed away in the course of the 
 second century, and its overthrow was a much greater alteration 
 of the organization of the churches than the institution of a 
 three-fold ministry, important as that was. The difference 
 may be seen from two extracts. "Every prophet," says the 
 oldest ecclesiastical manual, " who speaketh in the Spirit, ye 
 shall neither try nor judge ; for every sin shall be forgiven, 
 but that sin shall not be forgiven." ' That comes from a time 
 when the prophetic ministry was the great controlling power, 
 " Wretched men," says Irenaeus, " who wish to be false pro- 
 phets . . . holding aloof from the communion of the brethren " ; 
 and the test of being in communion with the brethren is " to 
 obey the elders who are in the Church." * That comes from the 
 end of our period. 
 
 The change between the time when the prophet was not 
 to be judged, but to be obeyed, and when disobedience to his 
 commands was believed to be " an unpardonable sin " ; and 
 the time when the test of a true prophet was obedience to the 
 office-bearers of the local church, whose superior he had once 
 been, amounted to a revolution. It was so, and the overthrow 
 of the supremacy of the prophetic ministry rent the Church in 
 twain. 
 
 ^ Didachtf xi. 7. 
 
 • Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, III. xi. 9 and IV. xxvi 2. 
 
 213 
 
214 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 It was inevitable. The more close and firm tlie organization 
 of the local churches became the less room remained for the 
 exercise of the prophetic ministry, which in the nature of things 
 claimed at once freedom for itself and the power of ruling in 
 some indefinite way over the churches which admitted its exercise 
 among them. A careful examination of the scanty records of 
 the second century reveals that the early prophetic ministry 
 was active within the churches down till the Montanist revolt, 
 and that in the churches which shared in that movement it was 
 continued, and its place within the Church became accentuated. 
 It is also possible to show in what way the office-bearers of the 
 local churches could gradually come to take the place of the 
 prophetic ministry, and how with the great body of Christians 
 this could be done naturally and without any strong feeling 
 that there was a real breach with the past. 
 
 In St. Paul's summary of the gifts which the Spirit bestows, 
 and which when manifested within a community of Christians 
 make it a Church, it can be seen that all these gifts may be 
 divided into two classes — those which enable their possessors 
 to edify the brethren by speaking the word of God, and those 
 which fit them for serving the community in many practical 
 ways. Two of these practical gifts, " pilotings " {Ku^Sepi/ria-ei^) 
 and " aids " (avTAi}\(/€/?) foreshadow in the abstract the con- 
 crete offices of overseer and servant ; and from them the office- 
 bearers of the local churches derive their origin. The task of 
 edifying by speech belonged primarily to the first class of gifted 
 persons, and the work of edifying by wise counsels and all manner 
 of brotherly services belonged to the two branches of the second 
 class out of which the local office-bearers developed. Edification 
 by the Word of God was the most important need of the churches, 
 and if the " gifted " apostles, prophets and teachers failed any 
 community their services had to be supplied somehow. 
 
 The Didache shows us the transition stage, and explains 
 how this need was supplied in an ordinary way when the ex- 
 traordinary means failed. " Appoint, therefore, for yourselves 
 
AND THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLT 215 
 
 bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men that are meek and 
 are not covetous, upright and proved ; for they also render you 
 the service of the prophets and teachers. Therefore neglect them 
 not, for they are your honoured ones, together with the prophets 
 and teachers.^* These words in itaUcs show us at once the point 
 of junction between the prophetic and the local ministry, and 
 indicate how the latter could fulfil the duties of the former. 
 They also reveal the possibihty of the abolition of the prophetic 
 ministry as a permanent part of the organization (to use the 
 word in its widest sense) of the local churches. When the wave 
 of spiritual enthusiasm and illumination which came with the 
 earhest proclamation of the Gospel had somewhat spent itself, 
 there was need to supply through the ordinary office-bearers 
 of the churches that exhortation and instruction which in the 
 earliest times had been left to the inspiration of those gifted 
 with the power of speaking the Word of God. Hence the Didache^ 
 counsels the community to select men for its office-bearers 
 in the knowledge that they may be called upon to supply this 
 need. But when once the local churches began to have their 
 spiritual needs satisfied within their own circle and the bands 
 of association grew stronger, it is easy to imagine that the power 
 
 ' " The peculiar value of the Didache consists in this, that it reveals 
 to us the process in the moment of transition. It brings down the bird 
 as it were upon the wing. The sentence itahcized explains why the per- 
 manent officials of the Christian Churches did not possess at first all the 
 functions which they possessed later. They did not possess them because 
 the more prosaic duties which they themselves discharged were supple- 
 mented by that extraordinary wave of spiritual exaltation which swept 
 over the whole primitive Church. In that age the wish of Moses was 
 well-nigh fulfilled, that ' all the Lord's people were prophets.' The 
 difficulty was not to incite to the attainment of such gifts, but to regulate 
 and control them. One by one they became rarer, and disappeared. 
 The apostolate was the first to go. Prophecy lasted imtil it was finally 
 discredited by Montanism. The class of teachers survived still longer 
 mto the third century ; indeed, it would hardly be wrong to regard the 
 Catechetical School of Alexandria as a systematizing of this office, with 
 learning and philosophy substituted for the primitive enthusiasm.'* 
 Sanday, Expos Uor (1887, Jan. -June), p. 17. 
 
216 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 of the office-bearers grew strong enough to withstand the mem* 
 bers of the prophetic ministry miless the prophets were content 
 to take a secondary place. The very fact that the office-bearers 
 could " render the service of the prophets and teachers " in- 
 evitably tended to place them, the permanent officials of the 
 local churches, permanently in the position of the exhorters, 
 instructors, and leaders of the pubUc worship of the communities. 
 Hence, while we can trace the presence and the power of the 
 prophetic ministry during a great part of the second century, 
 we can also see that complaints against false prophets became 
 more and more common, and that there was a tendency to make 
 the test of true prophecy subordination on the part of the prophets 
 to the control of the permanent office-bearers of the churches.' 
 
 We can see that the transition from the time when the pro- 
 phets were supreme to the days when they were expected, if true 
 prophets, to be subordinate to or at least deferential towards 
 the office-bearers of the community, was the more easily effec- 
 ted when we remember that it is highly probable that some 
 men among those chosen to lead the brethren by their gifts of 
 governing had also the power of exhortation and instruction. 
 This was probably the case from the earliest times. The 
 irpoTcrrafxcvoi of 1 Thessalonians v. 12, not only laboured among 
 the brethren but " admonished " ; and to " admonish " (vov- 
 Oeretv) seems to imply more than mere leading. Whatever 
 be the date of the Pastoral Epistles, it is clear that by the time 
 they were written, the functions of instruction and leadership 
 were conjoined ; and few critics, even among those who dispute 
 the Pauline authorship, will be inclined to place them as late as 
 Hamack does.* Then, as before remarked, those office-bearers 
 
 ' Perhaps the e&rlieet traoe of this is to be found in Qement, 1 Epistle, 
 xlviii. 5 : — " Let a man be faithful, let him be able to expound a deep 
 saying, let him be wise in the discernment of words, let him be strenuous 
 in deeds, let him be pure ; so much the more ought he to be lowly in mind, 
 in proportion as he seemeth to be greater; and he ought to seek the 
 common advantage of all, and not his own." 
 
 If leadership implied instruction in the oarlieit timeB (1 Thessaloniani) 
 
CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE FALL 217 
 
 who stand forth most clearly in these ancient times were almost 
 all men who had the prophetic gift. We have already seen how 
 the divine afflatus descended on Ignatius while he was preaching 
 in Philadelphia, and made him cry forth words which the Spirit 
 put in his mouth. The prophetic gift was to be found among 
 the office-bearers of the local churches before the conflict of 
 jurisdictions arose, and the office-bearers who possessed it had 
 all the divine authority which was supposed to belong to the 
 prophetic order. 
 
 All these circumstances have to be taken into account in 
 attempting to describe the great change in the ministry which 
 the second century witnessed ; and the last-mentioned is useful 
 in enabling us to see how, while the overthrow of the prophetic 
 ministry was sufficient to provoke a disruption of the Church, 
 it could nevertheless be accepted by the great mass of the Chris- 
 tian people. 
 
 We have no specific information in the documents of post- 
 apostohc Christianity to tell us how and by what steps the great 
 revolution was brought about ; but the conditions and needs 
 of the time enable us to put ourselves to some extent in the place 
 of the men who carried out the change. 
 
 Several distinct sets of circumstances require to be kept in 
 mind. 
 
 In the fijst place, the second century was a time of great 
 fermentation in the world of intellectual paganism. In the 
 east of Europe and among the Greek inhabitants of Asia Minor 
 the old religions had lost almost aU their real power. The same 
 may be said of the people of Italy also, and especially of the more 
 cultured classes of Rome. It is something pathetic to learn 
 that the only one of the ancient Greek deities whose cult was 
 stiU practised with something of the old reverence and fervr^n* 
 was Esculapiufl, the god of bodily health, and that he was caller 
 Soter, the Saviour, as if men had despaired of salvation of soul 
 
 the fact that in the Pastoral Epistles leadership involvei instruction does 
 not imply that these epistles are late. 
 
218 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 and could hope for no more than the health of the body. On the 
 other hand, worships strange to Greek or Roman, coming from 
 the far East, with painful initiations and purifications for those 
 who felt the power of sin or the fickleness of imperfection within 
 them, and weird philosophies for the cultured, spread far and 
 wirle, counting their votaries by thousands and permeating all 
 classes of society. 
 
 Among them were systems of cosmical speculation and mystic 
 theosophy, curiously similar to what we find in Hinduism, 
 and possessing that strange power of absorbing and assimilating 
 rehgious ideas foreign to themselves, which is still such a feature 
 of Oriental speculation. Votaries of these theosophies were 
 attracted towards the doctrines of Christianity, caught at the 
 Christian conceptions of redemption and of the Person of Christ, 
 and tried to find room for them among the medley of their 
 fantastic beliefs. They set redemption within the circle of 
 their thoughts about the inherent evil in matter, and the Person 
 of Christ found its place among the doctrines of emanation. 
 Christianity attracted them as it still attracts cultivated Hindus. 
 The Brahma Somaj, the Prathana Somaj, the Arya Somaj, 
 strange attempts to absorb some features of Christianity into 
 Hinduism in the nineteenth century, had their parallels in some 
 of the Gnostic speculations of the earlier centuries. 
 
 Strange as it may seem to us, those weird speculations had 
 an attraction for many cultivated persons who had embraced 
 the Christian faith ; for if the whole phenomenon of Gnosticism 
 was, as it seems most likely to have been, a scheme of thought 
 essentially pagan, trying to assimilate some leading Christian 
 ideas, there were sides to the movement which show us men 
 who were really Christians attempting to make use of these 
 speculations as the metaphysical framework on which to stretch 
 their Christian thoughts and to give them the shape of a rational- 
 ized theology. These metaphysics of " wonderland," where 
 the categories of Aristotle and the ideas of Plato assumed bodily 
 shapes, married and begot a fantastic progeny, filled the in- 
 
MARCIONITE CHURCHES 219 
 
 tellectual atmosphere of the times, and were the air which thinkers 
 breathed. The Church was face to face with the danger of seeing 
 its historical verities dissolve into the shadowy shapes of a meta- 
 physical mythology. For when Gnosticism entered into the 
 Christian societies, and claimed to be a philosophical Chris- 
 tianity, the very life of the Church was threatened.' 
 
 Nor were these the only difficulties of intellectual specu- 
 lation which the Church of the second century had to face. 
 We are apt to think that the apparent contradiction between an 
 Almighty Maker of all things and the miseries of life is the 
 peculiar property of our own age. That is not so. Men felt 
 keenly the contrasts which trouble modern minds. They hved 
 in a civilization as intellectually trained as our own. How 
 could the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
 of Mercies and the God of all Love, inspire the Old Testament, 
 where the Jews were ordered to exterminate their enemies and 
 threaten and practise all kinds of cruelties ? How can creation, 
 groaning and travailing in pain, be the work of that God Who 
 has manifested Himself in Jesus Christ ? Nature is not merciful. 
 It seems hard and pitiless. The mystery of pain broods over 
 it and in it. History is full of battle and pestilence, of turmoil 
 and misery. 
 
 Among men who had ideas Hke these Marcion was a leader. 
 His solution of the problem was that the God of the Old Testa- 
 ment and the Creator of the Universe were very Hke each other 
 and very unlike the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 The Being who had created scorpions and sent venimous creep- 
 ing things into the world was not unhke the God Who had 
 commanded the slaughter of the Amalekites and had inspired 
 the imprecatory Psalms. An old world Count Tolstoy, Marcion 
 said that Christ's Christianity had nothing to do with any part 
 of the Old Testament, nor with much of the New. The New 
 
 ' Compare Hatch, The Organisation of the Early Churches (1881), pp. 91, 
 92. 
 
220 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 Testament had indeed come from Jesus Christ, but it had been 
 sadly corrupted by the votaries of the God who created the 
 Universe. He constructed a Canon of Scripture for himself 
 and for his disciples, and into his Scriptures no portion of the 
 Old Testament was admitted, and from them much of the New 
 was excluded. He went back to the Pauline Epistles, the earhest 
 literary creations of the Christian inspiration, to seek in them 
 the purest records of the teaching of that Saviour, Who, un- 
 heralded, as he thought, by any partial anticipations, had come 
 suddenly to reveal to the world the hitherto absolutely unknown 
 God of Love and Mercy. Marcion was a man of deep and genuine 
 religious character, of an intensely practical nature, and with- 
 out any tendency to speculation. He stood forth in that age 
 of mixed faiths, of eclectic paganism and Gnostic Christianity, 
 as a teacher who had mastered a clear and definite, if narrow, 
 creed. His sincerity, his piety, his energy and his wonderful 
 powers of organization, created not merely bands of devoted 
 followers, but a church which, according to the ideas of those 
 who belonged to it, was a reformation and a purification of the 
 existing Christianity. Within it asceticism was practised in a 
 manner hitherto unknown within Christianity. No married 
 persons could ever rise to be more than catechumens, and mem- 
 bers were required to abstain from all sexual relations ; rigid 
 laws about meats and drinks were laid down and enforced ; 
 martyrdom was to be welcomed, not shunned, and the hatred 
 of the great mass of their fellow-Christians was an additional 
 burden to be endured. Wherever Christianity had spread 
 the followers of Marcion appeared, formed themselves into 
 separate churches, with the same ceremonies of worship, the 
 same ecclesiastical organization, or one very similar, the same, 
 if not greater, strictness of moral living, and an intenser joy in 
 martyrdom. The dogmatic unity of the Church, if it ever had 
 been truly and thoroughly one, was broken. Other bodies of 
 Christians, with separate organizations, appeared standing be- 
 tween the Marcionite and the parent churches, and pagans could 
 
ALLEGORISING EXEGESIS 221 
 
 sneer at a divided Christianity and ask the Christians which 
 God, they who preached His Unity, really worshipped ? ' 
 
 Can we wonder then, that in face of these anxieties the leaders 
 of the Christian churches felt the need for a closer fellowship 
 and a firmer grasp of what they believed to be the verities of 
 the faith ? Irenaeus voiced the clamant need of the Church. 
 His rallying cry is familiar enough. It is one which has arisen 
 always in such crises. It was practically this ; " Back to the 
 Christ of history; back to the fixed verities of the Christian 
 faith." 
 
 But how was it possible to get back to these fixed verities 
 of the Christian faith, and by a path that all could tread ? All 
 the more important writings of the New Testament were already 
 recognized as Scripture in the West, but the prevailing attitude 
 of mind was towards allegorising, and the Epistle of Barnabas 
 shows how unhistorical this mystical interpretation could be- 
 come. If Barnabas could fijid a text and proof for the Cross 
 and for Baptism in Psalm i. 3,* the Gospels might be drawn 
 upon for proofs as satisfactory for the Gnostic metaphysical 
 mythology. TertuUian confesses as much, and naively remarks 
 that he does not risk contradiction in saying that the Scriptures 
 were " even arranged " by the wiU of God in such a manner as 
 to furnish materials for heretics.^ The bent of the philosophy 
 of the day was to dissolve facts into theories, and the Platonists 
 in their expositions of Homer had taught orthodox Christian 
 and Gnostic alike their elusive methods of exegesis. Then, 
 apart from the impossibility of using a sound exegesis which 
 
 ^ Compare especially Origen, Contra Cdsum,y, 59-64. 
 
 * " Again He saith in another prophet/ * The man who doeth these 
 things shall be hke a tree planted by the courses of waters, which shall 
 yield its fruit in due season ; and his leaf shall not fade, and all he doeth 
 shall prosper. . . . Mark how He has described at once both the water 
 and the cross. For these words imply, Blessed are they who, placing 
 their trust in the cross, have gone down into the water ; for, says He, they 
 shall receive their reward in due time : then He declares, I will recom- 
 pense them.* " Ejnstle of Barnabas, xi. 
 
 3 De ProMcri'ptione Haereticorum^ 39 ; cf. 19. 
 
222 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 yielded a common method of interpretation, the question of what 
 was the canon of the New Testament Scripture was one of the 
 matters in dispute between the organized Christian Church 
 and those believers in Christ who were outside its pale. Marcion 
 had a canon of his own, as we have already seen ; the various 
 Gnostics had theirs, not always the same — for what we call the 
 apocryphal Gospels and Acts were received by many. Nor 
 could an appeal be made to any short common creed. There 
 was none as yet common to all Christendom, although what lies 
 at the basis of the Apostles^ Creed was received throughout the 
 Church and had become fixed in a form of words in the West.' 
 Various Gnostics had their creeds differing from each other, 
 and to them they appealed.* Disputes also existed about the 
 true apostolic tradition ; whether Jesus had or had not entrusted 
 His apostles with a secret doctrine in addition to what He 
 openly taught, and whether that " secret teaching " had been 
 communicated to any by the apostles, and if so to whom.^ 
 
 ■ The Apostles* Creed in its earlier form, the old Roman Creed, can be 
 traced as far back as 150 a.d. 
 
 * We can reconstruct the creed of the Gnostic Apelles from Hippolytus 
 {Refutation of all the Heresies, vii, 26) ; " We believe, That Christ de- 
 scended from the Power above, from the Good, and that He is the Son 
 of the Good ; That He was not bom of a Virgin and that when He did 
 appear, He was not devoid of flesh ; That He formed His Body by taking 
 portions of it from the substance of the universe, i.e. hot and cold, moist 
 and dry ; That He received cosmical powers in the Body, and hved for 
 the time He did in the world ; That He was crucified by the Jews and died ; 
 That being raised again after three days He appeared to His disciples ; 
 That he showed them the prints of the nails and (the wound) in His side, 
 being desirous of persuading them that He was no phantom, but was 
 present in the flesh ; That after He had shown them His Flesh He re- 
 stored it to the earth ; That after He had once more loosed the chains 
 of His Body He gave back heat to what is hot, cold to what is cold, moisture 
 to what is moist and dryness to wliat is dry ; That in this condition he 
 departed to the Good Father, leaving the Seed of Life in the world for 
 those who through His disciples should beUeve in Him." Cf. TertuUian, 
 Adveraus Marcion, i. 1 (Marcion's regvla fidei) ; De Praescriptione Haere- 
 ticorum, 42 ; Irenacus, Against Heresies, III. xi. 3. 
 
 ^ The Pistis Sophia, the only complete Gnostic treatise which has 
 decended to us, has a great deal to say about this secret teaching of our 
 
THE SUGGESTION OF IREN^US 228 
 
 Amidst this medley of beKefs and assertions Irenaeus assured 
 the faithful that it was easy tp know what the simple and fixed 
 verities of the Christian faith really were. They are everywhere 
 the same. Ask Christians of the most different classes, whether 
 cultured inhabitants of centres of civilization or nomade Scy- 
 thians roaming over the steppes in waggons and unable to read 
 or to write, and the answer will be everyivhere the same. He 
 describes what the answer will be, and gives a short string of 
 sentences resembling the Apostles^ Creeds The Church, he 
 says, though scattered throughout the world, preserves this 
 creed, " as if it were some precious deposit in an excellent vessel."* 
 Varieties of language do not interfere with the meaning of the 
 truths of the faith ; " the churches which have been planted 
 in Germany do not believe nor hand down anything different, 
 nor do those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt." ^ 
 He declares that the sentences which he gives as containing 
 the simple verities of the Christian belief can be proved to be 
 what he has said, because there are in the Christian Church 
 successive generations of men who go back to the time of the 
 apostles who were the companions of Jesus. His argimient 
 is always : I know a man who knew a man who knew an 
 apostle."* 
 
 There are in the various churches scattered throughout the 
 world successions of men who have been taught generation by 
 
 Lord and how it was given and transmitted and was the teaching which 
 the author of the book accepted. The book has been translated into 
 EngUsh by G. R. S. Mead (1896). Compare Irenaeus, Against Heresies^ 
 III. ii. 1. 
 
 " Against Heresies, I. x. 1 ; cf. III. iv. 2. 
 
 » III. xxiv. 1 ; elsewhere, " The apostles, like a rich man in a bank 
 lodged in the hands (of the Church) most copiously all things pertaining 
 to the truth : so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the 
 water of life " (III. iv. 1). 
 
 3 Against Heresies, I. x. 2. 
 
 ♦ The sentence condenses his argument ; but it is interesting to remem- 
 ber that he uses the words himself : — " I have heard from an aged elder 
 who had heard it from those who had seen the apostles, and from those 
 who had been their disciples " (IV. xxvii. 1). 
 
224 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 generation what the fixed verities of the Christian faith are. 
 In some of these churches the successions go back to the times 
 of the primitive apostles themselves, who taught the first genera- 
 tion of believers. If questionings arise, if speculations trouble, 
 if plain men are bewildered by the gorgeous phantasy of Gnostic 
 theosophy or by the sincere if narrow logic of Marcion, if the 
 canon of New Testament Scripture is doubtful or if the original 
 documents have been tampered with, if the allegorising exe- 
 gesis makes the whole of Scripture of doubtful interpretation, 
 there is a comnm-sense remedy for all these evils and one which 
 has been constantly used. Apply to the men who are in the 
 best position for knowing what the apostles really taught, what 
 words they used, and what meaning they attached to these 
 words. " If there arise a dispute about any ordinary question 
 among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient 
 churches with whom the apostles held constant intercourse, 
 and learn from them what is certain and clear with regard to it 
 it ? " ' This is no new means of arriving at the truth, he urges. 
 It is what is constantly done. There are believers in Christ 
 who cannot read, who cannot make use of any written docu- 
 ments which the apostles have left, but who " have salvation 
 written in their hearts by the Spirit, without paper or ink," 
 and who have received orally the ancient tradition, and have 
 become very wise in doctrine, morals, and tenor of life.* 
 
 Irenaeus proposed to give to this old and much used method 
 of finding out what were the primary and fixed verities of the 
 Christian faith the sanction of an ecclesiastical usage. Here 
 we meet for the first time, outside the Roman Church, the 
 thought of a succession from the apostles in the office-bearers 
 of the local churches ; but it is a very different thing from the 
 " gigantic figment " of an Apostolic Succession which dominates 
 the Anglican and is a law in the Roman Church of the present 
 day. It is meant to be a simple and clear way to find out what 
 the real faith of the Church is in a time of more than usual 
 ' Aaainst Heresies, HI. iv. 1. * Ibid. iv. 2. 
 
IRENAEUS AND TERTULLIAN 226 
 
 perplexity. This is evident from the application Irenaeus 
 makes of his principle, and it is also clear from the manner in 
 which Tertullian, who adopts the principle, illustrates the use 
 to be made of it. *' Run over the apostolic churches, in which 
 the very chairs {cathedrae) of the apostles still guard their places 
 (suis locis praesident), where their own unmutilated (aiUhenticae) 
 writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face 
 of each of them individually. Achaia is near you ; you find 
 Corinth. You are not far from Macedonia ; you have Philippi ; 
 you have the Thessalonians. You are able to cross to Asia ; you 
 find Ephesus. You are close upon Italy : you have Rome." * 
 In all these churches apostles once taught; to all these churches 
 they sent epistles which are to this day read ; their voices 
 are still living there, and their very presence seems still to haunt 
 them. From their days until now, such is the argument, men 
 with the gifts of leadership and of wisdom had been office-bearers 
 in these communities and in others founded, if not by apostles, 
 by " apostolic men " ; * each generation had been carefully 
 trained in the apostolic doctrine by their predecessors, and 
 they were able to judge what the simple verities of the Christian 
 faith were. What Irenaeus proposes is that the office-bearers 
 who are in the succession are to be made the judges of what 
 wholesome Christian teaching is. It is the fact of an uninter- 
 rupted succession of responsible men that is the natural and 
 historical guarantee that the doctrines once transmitted to the 
 fathers have been retained in the memory of the sons. For 
 some generations it is probable that individual men had pre- 
 sided at the head of the Christian communities, and Irenaeus 
 might have simply spoken of a succession of bishops, but he 
 does not ; it is the whole body of elders and bishops that Irenaeus 
 has in view. This can be seen only when all his allusions to 
 the matter are read. They will be found in the footnote.^ 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum, xxxvi. * Ibid. xzxiL 
 3 "When we refer them to that tradition which originates from the 
 apostles and which is preserved by means of the successions of elders in 
 CM. 15 
 
226 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 Tertullian, who is twenty years later than Irenaeus, always 
 speaks of successions of bishops or chief pastors.' In both cases, 
 however, the main thought is that there are in the various 
 local churches actual successions of men who, because these 
 successions go back to the actual times of the apostles, can be 
 
 the Churches," Irenaeus, Against Heresies^ III. ii. 2. "It is therefore 
 within the power of all, in every Church, who may wish to see the truths 
 to contemplate the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the 
 whole world ; and we are in a position to reckon up those who, by the 
 apostles, were instituted bishops in the Churches, and the succession of 
 these men to our own times," III. iii. L Irenaeus then gives the succession 
 of bishops in Rome, and proceeds : " In this order and by this succession, 
 the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles and the preaching of the truth 
 have come down to us," III. iii. 3. " Wherefore it is incumbent to obey 
 the elders who are in the Church — those who, I have shown, possess the 
 succession from the apostles ; those who, together with the succession of 
 the oversight (episcopate) have received the charisma of truth according 
 to the good pleasure of the Father ; but to hold in suspicion others who 
 depart from the primitive succession and assemble themselves together 
 in any place whatsoever," IV. xxvi. 2. " It behoves us to adhere to those, 
 who, as I have already observed, do hold the doctrine of the apostles, 
 and who, together with the order of the prcsbyterate (presbyterii ordine), 
 display sound speech and blameless conduct for the confirmation and 
 correction of others," IV. xxvi. 4. " Such elders does the Church nourish, 
 of whom also the prophet says : * I will give thy rulers in peace, and thy 
 bishops in righteousness,' . . . where therefore the gifts of the Lord have 
 been placed, there it behoves us to learn the truth — from those who pos- 
 sess that succession of the Church which is from the apostles," IV. xxvi. 
 6. " As I have heard from a certain elder, who had heard it from those 
 who had seen the apostles and from those who had been their disciples," 
 rV. xxvii. 1. ** Then every word shall also seem consistent to him, if 
 he for his part read the scriptures diUgently in company with those who 
 are the elders in the Church, among whom is the apostoUc doctrine, as 
 1 have pointed out," IV. xxxii. 1. " Agnitio vera est apostolicorum 
 doctrinae, et antiquus ecclesiae status in universo mundo et character 
 corporis Christi secundum successiones episcoporum quibus iUi earn, quae 
 in unoquoque loco est, ecclesiam tradiderunt : quae jDcrvenit usque ad 
 nos custoditione sine fictione scripturarum tractatio plenissima, neque 
 additamentum neque ablationem recipiens," IV. xxxiii. 8. Eusebius 
 quotes Irenaeus {Ecclesiastical History, V. xx. 4) addressing a friend, 
 Florinus, who had lapsed into Valentinianism, ** These opinions, those 
 elders who pi-eceded us, and who were convei-sant with the apostles did 
 not hand down to thee." 
 
 ' Tertulhan, De Praescriptione Haeraicorum, 32, 36. 
 
THE CHARISMA VERITATIS OF OFFICE-BEAEERS 227 
 
 said to have known men who knew apostles or apostolic men, 
 and who are therefore able to know what the apostles really 
 meant to teach. With both writers the succession they speak 
 of as a guarantee of the correctness of the Church's creed and 
 as a pledge of her dogmatic unity, is an historical succession, 
 and the conception is a matter of fact and not of dogma. 
 
 Yet with both something is added to this purely historical 
 conception of the succession. There is an addition, the thought 
 somewhat indefinitely formulated that these men who are 
 office-bearers in the succession have a charisma veritatis because 
 of their official position.' The thought is not very strongly 
 
 * Against Heresies, IV. xxvi, 2: — "certum veritatis charisma." In 
 IV. xxvi. 6, Irenaeus speaks of the " gifts " of God bestowed upon the 
 Church in the apostles, prophets and teachers, i.e. the old prophetic ministry 
 always beUeved to have been specially charismatic, and then adds, " where 
 therefore the * gifts of the Lord ' have been placed, there it behoves 
 us to learn the truth from those who possess that succession of the Church 
 which is from the apostles " ; and in the preface to Book III. he appUes 
 to the apostles, and presumably to those who are in the succession from 
 them, the words of our Lord in addressing the Seventy, " He that heareth 
 you, heareth Me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me and Him that 
 sent Me " (Luke x. 16 ; cf. Matt. x. 40). At the same time it is veiy 
 doubtful if the thought of an official charisma veritatis is definitely and 
 distinctly before the minds of either Irenaeus or TertuUian in the sense 
 of something which belongs to the ofl&ce-bearers exclusively and as some- 
 thing coming to them from their office. Both writers were too strongly 
 posessed with the idea that the whole Church is the sphere of the Spirit 
 to hmit the action of the Spirit of Truth to the office-bearers, and the 
 idea that a charisma was something which was given to the individual 
 and not to the office was powerfully felt not only in their time but much 
 later. Irenaeus says expressly : " ' For in the Church,' it is said, * God 
 hath placed apostles, prophets and teachers,' and all the other means 
 through which the Spirit works ; of which all those are not partakers 
 who do not join themselves to the Church, but defraud themselves of Ufe 
 through their perverse opinions and infamous behaviour. For where 
 the Church is there is the Spirit of God ; and where the Spirit of God is 
 there is the Church and every kind of grace ; but the Spirit is truth " (III. 
 xxiv. 1). The Spirit of Truth was in the whole Church and not confined 
 to any class in it ; and it is possible to argue that according to Irenaeus 
 the special charisma of those in office was the advantage that their position 
 in the succession gave them of knowing the truth transmitted. Both 
 Irenaeua and Tertullian asserted that members within the Church might 
 
228 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRr 
 
 dwelt on by Irenaeus ; but it is present in one or two passages 
 quoted in the note below, and in the second it is plain that 
 whatever use he makes of it with reference to office-bearers 
 what he has in his mind is the " gift " which in earlier days 
 was exclusively associated with the prophetic ministry/ 
 
 It is evident that this new official task of guaranteeing the 
 true apostolic teaching, which is laid upon the office-bearers 
 in general, and on the pastors or bishops in particular, must 
 have had a very restraining effect upon the prophetic ministry, 
 and on the unlimited freedom of exhortation which character- 
 ized the churches in the first century and in many decades of 
 the second century. The office-bearers who were in the succession 
 
 and did possess the " gift " of true prophecy (Irenaeus, Against Heresies^ 
 I. xiii. 4 ; II. xxxii. 4 ; xxxiii. 3 ; III. xi. 9 ; V. vi. 1), and Tertullian's 
 BO-oalled Montanist period is simply his recoil from where he perceived this 
 theory of an official charisma verikUia was leading him (cf. specially his De 
 Pudicitia). Eyen in Cyprian's days this idea of an official inspiration 
 was not accepted without some misgivings ; and although the bishops at 
 his North African Councils in recording their votes gave their opinion and 
 that of the Holy Spirit, the idea that the inspiration was after all personal 
 is evidenced in the part which dreams and visions play (Epist. Ivii. 6). 
 
 ' This indefinite thought (for with Irenaeus it is indefinite) that in ad- 
 dition to the natural means of knowing the true Christian doctrine which 
 comes from being in the regular succession of office-bearers in places 
 where the apostles themselves taught, there is a charisma verikUis which is 
 official, is the germ of the Romanist doctrine of tradition ; and although 
 the road may be long between the certum verikUis charisma and the utter- 
 ance of Pope Pius IX., " lo sono la tradizione," the milestones may be 
 marked. Some Anglicans make much of the thought that there is a 
 charisma verikUis attached to the succession of office-bearers (they say 
 bishops), and put a great deal more into it than Irenaeus ever intended ; 
 but it is somewhat dangerous for their own theories to do so. It is part 
 of the conception of Irenaeus that the Church which has the surest claim 
 to know what are the veriti^ of the Christian faith is the Church in Rome, 
 and he insists that every other Church ought to agree with the Christian 
 society in the capital city. " It is a matter of necessity," he says, " that 
 every Church should agree with this Church propter potior em principali- 
 kUem" (III. iii. 2), and however the words proj^er principalitatem be 
 translated the idea in the mind of Irenaeus is the simple historical one that 
 the two greatest apostles both taught there and that their teaching had 
 been remembered by means of the succession of office-bearers ; place the 
 dogmatic instead of the historical idea and you have papal infallibility. 
 
CONFORMING TO THE USAGES OF SOCIETY 229 
 
 were now made the judges of what ought to be taught to the 
 people in exhortation and in instruction ; and they were there- 
 fore set in the position of judging all who undertook the function 
 which was the pecuUar work of the prophetic ministry. Be- 
 sides, it was suggested that the peculiar veritatis charisma^ the 
 " gift " which gave them their unique and distinguished position, 
 belonged to the office-bearers of the churches as well as the 
 " gift " of government. The indications are that the suggestion 
 of Irenaeus had been acted on long before he placed it on record. 
 Whenever it came to be the accepted rule in the Church the 
 revolution became an accompUshed fact ; and the men who had 
 been supreme (the prophets), and whom to disobey had been 
 accounted an unpardonable sin, became the servants of the 
 office-bearers whose superiors they once had been; 
 
 The need for some authority to express the dogmatic unity 
 of the Church, and the idea that this authority lay in the office- 
 bearers of the churches, must have placed the prophetic ministry 
 in an inferior position and tended to destroy it altogether. For 
 though the position assigned to the heads of the churches meant 
 practically that they were to be the judges of what the proper 
 instruction was, and did not necessarily mean that they were 
 in every case to take the instruction in their own hands, still 
 that was bound to come out of the idea in the end. The office- 
 bearers, and especially the bishops, would inevitably become 
 the instructors as well as the judges of the instruction that was 
 given. 
 
 Another set of circumstances was -^orlcing for the downfall 
 of the prophetic ministry. The Rescripc of the Emperor Ha- 
 drian to Minucius Fundanus, who was Proconsul of Asia some- 
 time about 124 A.D., was rightly regarded by the Christians 
 as the beginning of an era of comparative toleration,' The 
 
 ' On this Rescript of Hadrian's compare Ramsay, The Church in the 
 Roman Empire (1893), pp. 320 S. ; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers : 8, 
 Ignatius, 8. Polijcarp (1885), i. pp. 460-4 ; Mommsen, Der Religionsfrevd 
 nach romischen Recht in the Histor. Zeitschrift, vol. Lriv. (xxviii.), pt. iii. 
 
230 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 cliaracter of the great Emperor, his curiosity, half cynical half 
 hopeful, about all kinds of religious faiths, made them expect 
 great things from him. Christian literature struck a bolder 
 note. The writings of the apologists began to appear, who 
 demanded on behalf of their brethren to be treated like their 
 fellow-subjects, free to live, so long as they did not transgress 
 against the laws of morality, under the shelter of the wide- 
 spreading pax Romanorum. Christianity found a voice and 
 demanded to be heard, pleading for the toleration which was 
 granted to all other religions. The earliest of these writers 
 was probably Quadratus. Aristides, Justin Martyr, Miltiades, 
 Melito, Tatian, Athenagoras and others followed in succession. 
 From our modem standpoint these documents are but feeble 
 expositions of the Christian faith ; Tertullian alone, with his 
 lofty elevation of sentiment and his stem moral enthusiasm, 
 seems to be an apologist for all time. But if these writings are 
 looked upon, as they ought to be, in the light of pleas for some 
 way of living quietly and peaceably under the imperial rule,' 
 they are very interesting documents. They almost invariably 
 take the same line of argument. Christianity, they say, can 
 have no quarrel with good government ; its morals are purer 
 than those of paganism, and are therefore a better protection 
 to the State ; Christians cannot pray to the Emperor, but they 
 always pray for him ; they are and they mean to be loyal citizens 
 of the great commonwealth to which they belong. It is strange 
 to observe an undertone of admiration for the imperial rule 
 under which they live, and a conviction that all would be well 
 If the emperors could only learn what Christianity really is,* 
 
 L; 389 £f. ; Hamack, Die Chronologie der dUchrisUichen Literaiur (1897), 
 p p. 256, n. 6. These authors all beUeve in the genuineness of the Rescript. 
 Keim and others reject it on very superficial grounds. The Rescript itself 
 is to be found at the end of the First Apology of Justin Martyr. 
 
 * " Grant us the same rights, we ask for nothing more, as those who 
 persecute us," Athenagoras, Plea for tJie Christians, 3. 
 
 « Athenagoras, Plea, etc., 37 ; Tlieophilus, To Autolycus, i. 11 ; Ter- 
 tullian, Afology, 1 ; " If in this case alone you are ashamed or afraid 
 
CONFORMING TO THE USAGES OF SOCIETY 231 
 
 and to notice how they almost invariably distinguish the im- 
 perial ruler from those who persecute them. Tatian seems 
 even to discern that there is a universal humane aim in the 
 imperial rule, that it has proclaimed in some shadowy way the 
 brotherhood of mankind, that there is a measure of resemblance 
 between the empire and Christianity, and that the two ought to 
 be allies and not foes.^ They all look forward to a possible 
 accommodation between the imperial government and the 
 Christian societies. Tertullian indeed pleads that the Christian 
 churches ought to be allowed to enrol themselves as associations 
 for practising a lawful religion. 
 
 But the more thoughtful and politic among the leaders of 
 the Christian societies could not help seeing that if there was 
 to be any accommodation with the empire there must be some 
 change on the part of the Christian societies, and that Christians 
 must to some extent change their habits of life if they were to 
 mingle more freely with their fellow-men who were not Christians. 
 In the earlier times Christianity was held to be a " mode of Ufe," 
 to use the expression of Tatian ; ^ Christians were men and women 
 who had little or nothing to do with this world ; who were not 
 to conform themselves to it in any way, and were not to mingle 
 in its pursuits nor in its pleasures. They were little separate 
 secluded societies, awaiting on the threshold the opening of 
 the new heavens and the new earth. The earhest Christians 
 were content with this, and asked for nothing more. 
 
 The middle of the second century, however, witnessed a change 
 which may be best indicated by sajdng that the Christian 
 faith was attracting to it multitudes of people drawn from all 
 classes and ranks in society — imperial officials, merchants, 
 
 to exercise yonr authority in making public inquiry with the carefulness 
 which becomes justice." 
 
 ' The design of Christianity is to put an end to slavery and to "rescue 
 us from a multiplicity of rulers and from ten thousand tyrants " {Address 
 to the Qreelcs, xxix.) ; " there ought to be one common poUty for all " 
 (xxviii.). ' Tatian^ Address to the Greeks, xlii. 
 
232 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 lawyers, men of culture and leisurci It was gathering round 
 it men from the camp and from the court, men who were in 
 the midst of the bustle of life and who meant to remain there. 
 TertuUian might prove that no soldier could be a Christian, 
 and collections of ecclesiastical canons of a still later date might 
 corroborate him,* but he himself gives evidence that there must 
 have been many Christians in the army.* He speaks of the 
 way in which the Christians mingled with their pagan neigh* 
 hours. " We sojourn with you in the world, abjuring neither 
 forimi, nor shambles, nor bath, nor booth nor workshop, nor 
 inn, nor weekly market, nor any other place of commerce. We 
 sail with you, we fight with you, and till the ground with you ; 
 and in like manner we unite with you in your trafl&ckings." ^ 
 A question of the utmost gravity faced the leaders of the 
 Christian societies. Should all the new classes of converts be 
 permitted to remain in their callings, and — for this was the 
 question involved — should the Church accept the new condition 
 of things, and begin to adapt itself to the forms and conditions 
 of the world around it ? Should it, as far as conscience per- 
 mitted, respect the amenities of life, or should it remain what 
 it had hitherto been — a communion of persons who hoped for 
 nothing from existing society, and who lived altogether apart 
 from it ? Much could be said on both sides. On the one hand, 
 it could be urged that Christianity had a world-wide mission, 
 and that if it could lay hold on the organization of the empire 
 and use it for the extension of the knowledge of its Lord, it 
 was only taking the path which Providence had plainly marked 
 out for its progress. On the other hand, many Christians 
 discerned the temptations which lay in accepting this view 
 of the Church's duty. 
 
 ' De corona mUxtis ; Canons of Hippolytus, can. xiv. (Riedel, Die 
 Kirchenrechtsqudlen des Patriarchais Alexandrien, p. 207). 
 
 * Apology, 5 : — " The letters of Marcus Aurelius, that most grave of Em- 
 perors, in which he bears his testimony that that Germanic drought was 
 removed by the rains obtained through the prayers of the Christians who 
 happened to be fighting under him." 3 Apology, 42. 
 
AND THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLT 233 
 
 In the end tlie leaders of the Christian societies seem to have 
 spontaneously and gradually come to see that it was their duty 
 to bring their followers into what accommodation was possible 
 with the conditions of existing society. It was this feeling 
 that rendered the writings of the apologists possible. The 
 time of enthusiasm had passed away for the great majority of 
 Christians. Unimpassioned conviction took the place of the 
 earlier almost unrestrained passion of faith. One can scarcely 
 fancy Ignatius of Antioch writing in the tone of cool argument 
 which characterises the apologists. 
 
 The change of moral and intellectual atmosphere did not 
 suit the prophetic ministry, which had been the enthusiastic 
 element from the beginning, and had become the element of 
 asceticism. It was unavoidable that it should lose its old place 
 and its ancient power. Pleasant things continued to be said 
 about prophets, provided only they accepted a position under 
 the office-bearers of the local churches. Curious regulations 
 appear in some of the ancient canons, enjoining the people to 
 respect their utterances. In the ancient Syrian collection 
 known as the Testamentum Jesu Christie for example,' those who 
 despise prophecy are debarred from coming to the Holy Supper, 
 but the prophets were no longer the superior ministry in the 
 churches. 
 
 There is also evidence leading us to believe that the prophetic 
 ministry had been deteriorating. From the very beginning 
 men had claimed to be included within its ranks who were not 
 true prophets. Warnings against such persons are to be found 
 within the New Testament writings,^ and they occur, and with 
 increasing strength, in writers of the second century. We have 
 
 * Testamentum Jesu Chrtsti, edited by Rahman (1899), p. 37. Among 
 the proclamations made by the deacon before the Eucharistic service is : 
 8i quis prophetas despicit, semet segregei. The Testament also says : — Si 
 quis autem verba prophetica dicit, mercedem habebit, p. 79. 
 
 ^ Matt. vii. 15 ; xxiv. 11, 24 ; Mark xiii. 22 ; Acts xiii. 6 ; 2 Peter ii. 1 ; 
 1 John iv. 1-3 ; Rev. u. 2. 14, 15, 20. 
 
234 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MDTISTRY 
 
 seen them in tlie Bidache} Justin Martyr cites their presence 
 in the Churcli as a proof that Christianity is the true develop- 
 ment of Judaism, because the Christians have among them 
 false prophets as well as true ones hke the ancient Israel.* Hermas 
 has given expressive pictures of the true and the false prophets.^ 
 All this was a sign of the times, 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 82 ; Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 
 I. xiii. 3 ; IH. xL 9 ; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. V. xviL 1-4 ; Apostolic 
 ConstitiUions, VII. xxxii. ; VIII. ii. ; Didache, xi. 1, 2, 8. 
 
 * Dialogue with Tryp^, Ixxxii. : — "For the prophetical gift remains with 
 us even to the present time. Hence you ought to understand that the 
 gifts formerly among your nation have been transferred to us. And just 
 as there were false prophets contemporaneous with your holy prophets, 
 so there are many false teachers among us, of whom our Lord forewarned 
 us to beware ; so that in no respect are we deficient, since we know that 
 He forekaew all that would happen to us after His resurrection from the 
 dead and ascension to heaven. For He said that we would be put to death 
 and hated for His Name sake ; and that many false prophets and false 
 Christs would appear in His name and deceive many ; and so it has come 
 about. For many have taught, too, and even yet are teaching those 
 things which proceed from the unclean teaching of the devil and wliich are 
 put into their hearts." 
 
 3 Hermas, Pastor, Mandaia, xi : — " He showed me some men sitting on 
 a seat, and one man sitting on a chair. And he says to me, * Do you see 
 the persons sitting on the seat ? ' * I do,* I said. * These,' he says, * are 
 the faithful, and he who sits on the chair is a false prophet, ruining the 
 minds of the servants of God. It is the doubters, not the faithful, he 
 ruins.' ... * How then,* sir,' I say, * will a man know which of them 
 is the prophet, and which is the false prophet 7 ' * I will tell you,* he 
 says, * about both prophets, and then you can test the true and the fabe 
 prophet according to my directions. Test the man who has the Spirit of 
 God by his Ufe. For he who has the Divine Spirit proceeding from above, 
 is meek and peaceable and humble and refrains from all iniquity and the vain 
 desire of this world and contents himself with fewer wants than those of other 
 men, and when asked he makes no reply ; nor does he speak privately, 
 nor when a man wishes the Spirit to speak does the Holy Spirit speak, 
 but it speaks only when God wishes it to speak. When, then, a man having 
 the Divine Spirit comes into an assembly of righteous men who have faith 
 in the Divine Spirit, and this assembly of men offers up prayer to God, 
 then the angel of the prophetic Spirit, who is destined for him, fills the 
 man ; and the man being filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks to the mul- 
 titude as the Lord wishes. Thus then the Spirit of Divinity becomes 
 manifest. Whatever power therefore comes from the Spirit of Divinity 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE EEVOLT 236 
 
 These various influences combined to help forward the re- 
 volution which excluded the prophetic ministry from its earlier 
 position of supremacy and installed the local official ministry 
 in the supreme place of rule. They worked slowly and surely 
 during the second century, and especially during the first half 
 of the period. 
 
 But while this movement was going on, and its effects on the 
 prophetic ministry were gradually manifesting themselves, pro- 
 testing voices were raised. This movement fostered by the official 
 ministry of the local churches was a departure, it seemed to 
 many, from the traditions of the Church which they had in 
 reverence ; and it was accompanied by a relaxation of the stern 
 rule of Christian life imder which the earlier generations had 
 lived and died. The prophetic ministry had always been con- 
 sidered as the direct gift of God to the Church. It was the 
 ministry from above. It had been placed by St. Paul second 
 only to the apostolate. Souls had been won from heathenism 
 through its ministrations. The lives of behevers had been braced 
 by it to endure the hardships and persecutions which their 
 Master had foretold them would fall upon them, and which they 
 had been taught to regard as their blessed lot while this Hfe 
 lasted, They saw that with the neglect of the prophetic ministry 
 
 belongs to the Lord. Hear then,' he says, * in regard to the Spirit which 
 is earthly and empty and foolish and powerless. First the man who seems 
 to have the Spirit exalts himself, and wishes to have the first seat, and is 
 bold and impudent and talkative, and lives in the midst of many luxuries 
 and many other delusions, and takes reward for his prophecy ; and if he 
 does not receive rewards he does not prophesy. Can then the Divine 
 Spirit take rewards and prophesy ? It is not possible that the Spirit 
 of God should do this, but prophets of this character are possessed of an 
 earthly spirit. Then it never approaches an assembly of righteous men 
 but shuns them. And it associates with doubters and the vain, and 
 prophesies to them in a corner and deceives them, speaking to them, ac- 
 cording to their desires, mere empty words. , . . This then is the mode 
 of Ufe of both the prophets. Try by his life and by h's deeds the man 
 who says that he is inspired. But as for you, trust the Spirit which 
 comes from God, and has power ; but the spirit which is empty and earthly 
 trust not at all, for there in no power in it ; it comes from the deviL' J* 
 
236 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 there went hand in hand an attempt at conformity with the 
 world and a relaxation of the more rigid rules of the Christian 
 life. It was by no means the worst kind of Christians who 
 called upon the Church to halt in this rapid approach to the 
 usages of the world, in this relaxation of the severer maxims 
 of the Christian life, in this neglect or undervaluing of the pro- 
 phetic ministry, and in this exaltation of the office-bearers of 
 the local churches. They grew increasingly alarmed and uneasy 
 in the presence of the silent movement above described. It 
 was taking from them some of their most precious possessions. 
 They began to feel that there was no room for them in the 
 Church which had hitherto sheltered them. All this was felt 
 most strongly, as was to be expected, in the regions more remote 
 from the great centres of public life, where the pressure of 
 coming to some terms with the State was lighter. The standard 
 of revolt was raised in the mountainous region of Phrygia — a 
 land not thoroughly incorporated within the Roman adminis- 
 tration. The movement was headed by a presbyter or elder, 
 called Montanus, and became known as Montanism. It was 
 natural that the crisis should emerge in these regions of Asia. 
 No portion of the empire was so peopled by Christians. Chris- 
 tian prophecy had flourished in the neighbouring regions. The 
 daughters of PhiHp had lived in the great city of Hierapolis. 
 The Christian prophets Quadratus and Ammia had belonged 
 to Philadelphia.' Attains of Pergamos had been taught in 
 visions.* Polycarp, the most distinguished Christian of the 
 whole of Asia, was a prophet. Ignatius had exhibited his 
 prophetic gifts in Philadelphia.^ On the other hand, if the 
 country had produced many Christian prophets, its churches 
 had been the earhest to organize themselves under the three- 
 fold ministry. The prophetic and the local ministries confronted 
 each other there as they did nowhere else. 
 This Phrygian movement was the centre and exaggeration 
 
 ' Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, V. xviL 3. * Ibid. V. iii. 2. 
 3 EpisOe to the Philaddphians, 7. 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLT 237 
 
 of a wide-spreading revolt and separation from the great Churcli 
 of the second and third centuries. It has been represented 
 as an attempt at innovation on the old usages and habits of 
 primitive Christianity. This is a mistaken view: At the same time 
 if we confine our attention to the actions and claims of Montanus 
 himself and the circle of Phrygia immediately surrounding him, 
 there was much that was entirely new. Montanus' idea seems to 
 have been that he had been commissioned by God to gather all 
 true Christians into a community, which would be ready by its 
 renunciation of all the claims that social life presented and by an 
 absolute self-surrender to the requirements of the higher Chris- 
 tian Hfe, to meet the Lord Who was about to come and in- 
 augurate His millennial kingdom in the immediate future. He 
 seems to have believed that the Church had reached its final 
 term of existence in the world. He and his fellow prophets 
 therefore represented the last stage of prophecy, and conse- 
 quently possessed an inspiration such as none of their pre- 
 decessors could lay claim to. They in their own persons and 
 with their special prophetic gifts, were the literal fulfilment of the 
 promise given by our Lord in the Gospel of St. John, that the 
 Father and the Son would take up their abode in true believers, 
 and that the Paraclete had come to abide with them.' Hence 
 when they spoke under the influence of the divine afflatus it 
 was not they, but the Spirit, that uttered the words. So entirely 
 were the prophets separated from the Spirit, who made use of 
 their organs of speech, that the oracles were uttered in the first 
 person,^ and the Spirit, speaking through the mouth of a woman, 
 used the masculine forms of speech.^ All this was new; 
 
 * Compare St. JohrCs Gospel, adv. 16-26; xv. 7-15. It ought to be 
 remembered that the most strenuous opponents of the Montanists denied 
 the authenticity and authority of the Gospel of St. John and also of the 
 Apocalypse, 
 
 * Compare the prophetic utterances as collected by Bonwetsch in his 
 Geschichte dea Montanismus, pp. 197 flf., Oracles 1, 3, 4, 6, 12, 18, 21. It 
 ought to be remembered however that this appUes only to some of the 
 utterances. 
 
 3 Compare oracle 11 ; it is from Epiphanius, HeresieSt xlviii. 13. 
 
238 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 On the other hand, if the Phrygian movement be connected,- 
 as it must be, with the strenuous action of Christians in Gaul, 
 North Africa, and indeed throughout most parts of the empire, 
 these novelties were toned down in such a way that very Uttle 
 that was new remained. We may mis-read the Montanist 
 utterances which belong to its earhest period if we interpret 
 them as TertuUian and others did ; ' but there is no misreading 
 the feehngs, thoughts and strivings of that great mass of Chris- 
 tians that welcomed the movement as something which encou- 
 raged them to resist that secularising of the Church which was 
 being pressed forward by the heads of so many of the more 
 powerful Christian communities. 
 
 When Dr. Salmon* says that the bulk of what Tertullian 
 taught as a Montanist he probably would equally have taught 
 if Montanus had never lived, the statement, thoroughly correct, 
 shows that Tertulhan and the conservative Christians he repre- 
 sented saw in the Montanist movement something which was no 
 innovation, but a strong assistance in preserving the old con- 
 dition of the Church with its prophetic ministry, its rules for 
 daily life, its separation from the world, and its expectation 
 of the nearness of the coming of the Lord to found His millennial 
 kingdom. The real question between these conservative 
 Christians and the majority of their brethren was not about the 
 government of the local churches. They all accepted the three- 
 fold ministry, and both parties professed to accept and to honour 
 prophecy. But the advanced party, which in the end triumphed, 
 would subject the prophets to the official ministry ; while the 
 conservatives insisted that prophecy should be free as in the 
 old days, and specially free to interfere with and rebuke the 
 
 ' Hamack, whose view of Montanism is very much hia own, insista 
 strongly upon this. Compare his History of Dogma, ii. 95 n. 2 (Engl. 
 Trans.). On the other hand it must be remembered that the Montanist 
 sayings recorded have all, save those which have come to us from Ter- 
 tullian, been transmitted by their bitter enemies who may have exagger- 
 ated. 
 
 • Dictionary of Christian Biography, iii. 943b. 
 
MONTANIST PROPHECY 289 
 
 
 
 growing desire for conformity with, the world and for coming 
 to terms with the State/ 
 
 A conservative reaction can scarcely avoid exaggerating the 
 phases of Church life or organization for which it contends 
 and perhaps suffers. This was probably true of the reaction 
 in the second and in the beginning of the third centuries ; but 
 the conception that Montanism in the larger sense of the word 
 (i.e. in the sense which includes Tertullian) was an innovation, 
 and that the party in the Church which it attacked were carrying 
 on the old line of Church life and usages, is untenable and in 
 face of all the facts of history. The distinctive features of Mon- 
 tanism : its appreciation of the prophetic ministry, its conception 
 of the Gospel as the new law, its refusal to entrust the office- 
 bearers of the local churches with the restoration of those who 
 had lapsed into grievous sins unless on the recommendation 
 of a prophet speaking in the Spirit, and its views about the 
 near approach of the millennial kingdom of the Lord, were all 
 characteristic of the earlier Christianity. 
 
 The question of prophecy may be taken as an example. 
 
 It is true that a]ier the separation between the Montanists 
 and the " great " Church, Christian theologians vehemently 
 opposed the Montanist theory of the nature of prophecy, and 
 especially protested against the idea that true prophecy was 
 ecstatic. But this was an afterthought for the purpose of dis- 
 crediting the Montanist movement and claims. This can be 
 shown by a comparison of the statements made about the 
 prophecy which existed and was honoured within the Christian 
 Church before the Montanist movement arose and while the 
 earlier stages of the antagonism lasted.^ The nature of the 
 
 ^ Compare Ramsay, The, Church in the Roman Empirey p. 435. 
 
 2 For Montanism compare : — Ritschl, Die Entstehung der altkatholischen 
 Kirche (1857), 2nd ed. pp. 462-554; Bonwetsch, Geschichte des Montanis- 
 mu8 (1881); also article in the Zeitschrift fur kirchliche Wissenschaft und 
 kircMiches Lehen (1884) on Die Prophetic im apostolischen und nachapos- 
 tolischen Zeitalter ; Renan, Les Crises du Catholicisme Naissant, Revue des 
 Deux Mondes (1881), Febr. 16 ; also in his Marc Aurele (1882), pp. 208 ff. ; 
 
240 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 Christian prophecy remains the same down to the time of Ire- 
 naeus, whose descriptions are not different from those of Justin 
 Martyr. Justin declares that prophetic gifts existed in the 
 Church in his time. " For one receives the spirit of under- 
 standing, another of counsel, another of healing, another of 
 strength, another of foreknowledge, another of teaching, and 
 another of the fear of God." ' " The prophetic gifts remain 
 with us even to the present time," * he says. They abide in 
 fulfilment of the Old Testament promise quoted by St. Peter 
 on the day of Pentecost. ^ Irenaeus declares that prophecy 
 existed in the Church in his days. "For some (believers) do 
 certainly cast out devils, so that those who have thus been 
 cleansed from evil spirits do frequently both believe and join 
 the Church. Others have knowledge of things to come ; they 
 see visions and utter prophetic expressions." * He goes on to 
 say that these things come about not by performing incantations, 
 but by praying to the Lord in a pure, sincere and straightforward 
 spirit. TertulUan has given us a vivid picture of what this 
 kind of prophecy was like. He says : * " We have now among 
 us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with sundry 
 gifts of revelation, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic 
 vision amidst the sacred rites on the Lord's Day in the Church. 
 She converses with angels and even with the Lord. She both 
 sees and hears mysterious communications (sacr amenta). Some 
 men's hearts she understands, and to them who are in need 
 
 Voigt, Eine verachoU ne Urkunde des antimontanistischen Kampfes (1891) ; 
 articles on Montanism in the Dictionary of Christian Biography by Salmon, 
 in the Encyclopaedia Britannica by Hamack, and in Herzog'a Real-En- 
 cyclopaedit by Moller ; Hamack's Daa Monchthum, seine Ideale und seine 
 Oeschichie (1886), 3rd ed. ; and his History of Dogma (1896), ii. pp. 94-108 
 of the Engl. TransL The monograph of Bonwetech is the most complete. 
 He has collected in an appendix (p. 197) all the recorded utterances of 
 the Montanists, and an elaborate statement of all our sources of informa- 
 tion appears on pp. 16-65. 
 
 * Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 39. 
 
 « Dialogue with Trypho, 82. 3 Ibid, 39, 82. 
 
 * Irenaeus, Against Heresies, XL xxxiL 4^ & 
 
 * Tertullian, De Anitna. 9. 
 
MONTANIST PROPHECY 241 
 
 she distributes remedies. Whether it be in the reading of the 
 Scriptures, or in the chanting of Psalms, or in the preaching of 
 sermons, or in the offering up of prayers — ^in all these rehgious 
 services matter and opportunity are afforded to her of seeing 
 visions. . . . After the people are dismissed, at the conclusion 
 of the sacred services she is in the regular habit of reporting 
 to us whatever things she may have seen in vision — ^for all her 
 communications are examined with the most scrupulous care 
 that their truth may be probed." 
 
 Besides, the theory of the nature of prophecy ascribed to the 
 Montanists was the theory of the second century. Prophecy 
 was described as ecstatic. It is difficult, perhaps, to under- 
 stand exactly what was meant by the word. This, however, 
 is clear, that it meant that what came from the prophet was 
 something given him, and was not the result of his ordinary 
 powers of intelligence ; also that the prophet could not prophesy 
 at will, but had to wait for the divine afflatus, which might 
 come quite unexpectedly or in answer to prayer. If this be 
 all that is meant by ecstasy it is plain that the Church of the 
 second century beheved that its prophecy was ecstatic. Hermas 
 declares that in true prophecy the spirit " speaks only when Glod 
 wishes it to speak," and that the " man filled with the Spirit of 
 God speaks to the multitude as the Lord wishes." ' The state- 
 ments of Irenaeus about true prophecy are exactly the same; 
 He says that the gift of prophecy comes from the grace of God 
 alone, and " that only those on whom God sends His grace 
 from above possess that divinely-bestowed power of prophesying." 
 Prophets " speak where and when God pleases." * We have seen 
 how the prophetic afflatus came upon Ignatius when preaching 
 to the Philadelphians, and how he cried out, speaking things 
 quite unpremeditated which he felt had been given him to 
 speak. ^ It was afterwards maintained that the Montanist 
 theory of prophecy meant more than this, and the famous 
 
 * Compare p. 234 n. * Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I. xiii. 4. 
 
 3 Epistle to the Philiaddphians, 7. Compare pp. 189 n., 129. 
 
 C.31. 16 
 
242 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 dictum of Montanus is contbiually quoted to mean more and to 
 be repudiated. Montanus lias said : " Behold tlie man is as a 
 lyre, and I sweep over him as a plectrum. The man sleeps, 
 and I wake. Behold it is the Lord who estranges the souls 
 of men from themselves and gives them souls " ; and the meta- 
 phor suggests that man is a merely passive instrument in the 
 hands of God.' 
 
 But even if we are to argue from a metaphor (always a danger- 
 ous kind of reasoning), it should be remembered that the same 
 or similar metaphors were used to describe non-Montanist pro- 
 phecy. Athenagoras speaks of the Spirit of God moving " the 
 mouths of the prophets like musical instruments," and of the 
 Spirit making use of the prophets as " a flute-player breathes 
 into his flute." * The author of the Cohortatio ad Gentes uses 
 the famous metaphor of Montanus and speaks of the '* divine 
 plectrum descending from heaven and using righteous men as 
 an instrument like a harp or lyre," in order to reveal to men 
 things divine and heavenly.' It is impossible to say that Mon- 
 tanist prophecy was a new thing, and that Montanism in exalting 
 the prophetic ministry was not thoroughly conservative in its 
 endeavour.* 
 
 The same result is reached when we consider the Montanist 
 discipline. The whole movement was a protest against that 
 growing conformity with the world which the Church of the 
 second century had felt constrained to attempt, under the leader- 
 ship of the office-bearers of the local churches. Like all con- 
 servative reactions, it exaggerated the characteristics it had 
 arisen to conserve, but that was the only great difference. 
 
 It is probable that the movement in Phrygia had continued 
 
 * Bonwetech, Geschichte des Montanismue, p. 197. 
 
 • Plea for the Christians, 7, 9. 
 
 S Pseudo-Justin, Cohortatio ad OerUes, 8. 
 
 4 It may be said that this second century theory of prophecy abandoned 
 St. Paul'^ great principle that the spirits of the prophets are subject 
 to the prophets, and perhaps that is so. But the point here is that the 
 Church and Montanism had to begin with the same theortf of prophecyj 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLT 243 
 
 for some years before there was any break with tbe " great " 
 Churcli : and after the separation did take place efforts were 
 made to bring the leaders on both sides together again. The 
 Martyrs of Lyons wrote urging peace, and the Roman Church 
 had serious thoughts of interfering on the side of unity.' Such 
 attempts would probably have been unsuccessful. The separa- 
 tion came ; and in Phrgyia at least, the great proportion of the 
 Christian people sided with the party of Montanus. It became 
 the Kataphrygian Church (the Church-according-to-the-Phry- 
 gians), and continued so for long. When the Emperor Con- 
 stantine recognized the Christian religion the Marcionite and 
 Montanist Christians did not share in the peace of the Church. 
 The persecutions against them were rather intensified. The Phry- 
 gian Montanists, however, were not overwhelmed ; but according 
 to Sozomen Montanists disappeared elsewhere.* Penal laws 
 of increasing severity were enacted against them by Christian 
 emperors. Their churches were confiscated ; a rigorous search 
 was made for their religious writings, which were destroyed 
 when discovered ; the ordination of their clergy was made a 
 penal offence ; the power of disposing of their property by will 
 was denied them, and their nearest Catholic relatives were 
 allowed to seize their possessions — and stiU they remained true 
 to their church and to the prophetic ministry. ^ At last in the 
 sixth century the Emperor Justinian resolved to stamp them 
 out, and the historian Procopius tells us that in their despair 
 the Montanists gathered themselves, with their wives and 
 
 ' Eusebius, Ecdes. Hist. V. iii. 4 ; Tertullian, Adversua Praxean, 1 : — 
 " For after the bishop of Rome had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of 
 Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, and, in consequence of the acknowledg- 
 ment, had bestowed his peace on the Churches of Asia and Phrygia (i.e. 
 had declared himself in communion with them), Praxeas, by importun- 
 ately urging false accusations against the prophets themselves and their 
 Churches and insisting on the authority of the bishop's predecessors in 
 the see, compelled him to recall the pacific letter which he had issued, as 
 well as from his purpose of acknowledging the said gifts." 
 
 * Ecdea. HisU ii. 32 ; of. vii. 12. 
 
 3 Imperial edicts of 398 1..D. and 415 a.d. 
 
244 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 children, into their churches, and setting fire to the buildings 
 perished in the flames * rather than submit to the bishops' 
 Church which had urged the persecution through all these 
 centuries, and had forbidden the members to have any com- 
 munion with Montanists, even when confined in a conmion 
 prison for a common faith. All this bitterness and all this blood- 
 shed because some Christians would insist that the prophetic 
 ministry should be kept in the position assigned to it by St. 
 Paul, and should not be subject to the rule of the elders " who 
 are in the Church — those who possess the succession from the 
 apostles." 
 
 The " Great Church," as it then began to be called, separated 
 from her daughters, the Marcionite and the Montanist churches, 
 went forth to her task of subduing the Roman world under 
 the guidance of a three-fold ministry which ruled in every 
 Christian community within the Empire. In its efforts to do 
 its work thoroughly the organization of the great Empire, and 
 especially its religious organization, became, as we shall after- 
 wards see, a study growing in attractiveness and presenting 
 points for imitation by the leaders of the society. 
 
 In this changed organization of the second and third centuries 
 the old prophetic ministry was completely abandoned, and the 
 local or congregational ministry had now no superiors to interfere 
 with them and to supersede them in exhortation, in the dis- 
 pensing of the Holy Supper, and in prescribing how Christians 
 ought to live in the fear of God. The revolt against the changes 
 made had ended in the conservatives, zealous for that ministry 
 which had come down from apostolic days, and which St. Paul 
 had placed at the head of the gifts bestowed by God upon His 
 people, being driven out of the Church, and in their forming 
 separate societies. The ministry which remained is what 
 represented the *' helps " and " pilotings " which God had 
 placed in the Church. It was the spontaneous creation of the 
 individual local churches. The ministry " from above " had 
 ' Procopiufl, HiHoria Arcana^ 11. 
 
THE CANONS OF HIPPOLYTUS 245 
 
 disappeared ; but what remained was not the less divine be- 
 cause it had been the creation of the congregation, for it was 
 based on the possession and the recognition of " gifts " of service 
 and rule which God had bestowed according to His promise 
 upon His worshipping people. 
 
 Pictures of this ministry which ruled in the end of the second 
 and in the earlier part of the third century, have been preserved 
 for us in early ecclesiastical manuals. Perhaps the Canons 
 of Hippolytus may be most fitly selected to furnish them.^ These 
 canons are thoroughly representative. They were the work 
 of a western ecclesiastic, and they form the basis of almost all 
 the later ecclesiastical discipline of the Eastern Church. They 
 are also especially interesting, because they contain the clearest 
 description of Christian public worship which we have between 
 the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians and the much later 
 Apostolic Constitutions. 
 
 The Christian society consisted of believers and their children,- 
 with a fringe of catechumens or candidates for baptism, and those 
 who were still only inquirers into the truths of the Christian 
 faith. The community was sharply divided into clergy and 
 laity,* with a number of persons who stood between the two 
 
 ^ Texte und UntersiLchungen, VI. iv., Die aeUesten Qudlen des orien- 
 tcUischen Kirchenrechis, erstes Buch, Die canones Hippolyti, Dr. Hans 
 Achelis (1891). Riedel, Die Kirchenrecktsquellen des PatriarchcUs Alexan- 
 drien (1900), pp. 193-230 : — Die Canones Hippolyti, Compare Funk, Die 
 Apostolischen Constitviionen (1891), pp. 265-80 ; Wordsworth, The Ministry 
 of Grace (1901), pp. 18-42 ; de Lagarde in Bunsen's Analecta Ante-Nicaena, 
 ii. 37 ; Sohm, Kirchenrecht, i. 287 n. 20. Achelis gives in parallel columns 
 extracts from Ludolf's Ethiopic StattUes, from the Coptic Heptateuch (a 
 new translation made by Steindorf), and from the eighth book of the 
 Apostolic Constitutions, 
 
 * The division of the congregation into clergy and laity and the common 
 mode of making the difference apparent in daily ecclesiastical life were 
 both borrowed from the usages of the civil society round them. The 
 laity were called plebs and the clergy the ordo — the names applied to 
 the commons and the senate of the Italian and provincial towns. As the 
 members of the senate or the ordo had a special bench, called the con- 
 sessusy in the basilica or court-house, so the clergy had special seats in 
 church. " It is the authority of the Church," says Tertullian, " that 
 
246 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 sections, and who were specially honoured for their services or 
 character — the confessors, the widows (honoured for their 
 abundant prayer and for their nursing the sick),' and celibates 
 and virgins. The office-bearers included the pastor (now in- 
 variably called the bishop), elders, deacons, readers, and, per- 
 haps, subdeacons. At the head of all stood the bishop, in 
 whom the whole congregational life centred. He was chosen 
 by the whole congregation, who assembled in church for the 
 purpose. The people were taught to recognize that God was 
 with them while they selected their pastor. When they had 
 made their choice known and had clearly intimated the man 
 whom they had elected, they were enjoined to say, " Oh God, 
 strengthen him whom Thou hast prepared for us." * 
 
 It was the rule, when the bishop was set apart to his office, 
 that the neighbouring bishops should be present ; but this was 
 not essential. The congregation possessed within itself the 
 power and authority to carry out the ordination of their chief 
 office-bearer. When all things were ready, and the whole 
 congregation had assembled in Church, one of the bishops 
 or one of the elders of the congregation, was selected to perform 
 the act of ordination, which consisted in laying his hands on 
 the head of the bishop-elect and praying over him. ^ The 
 beautiful prayer of consecration is given.* God was asked 
 
 makes the difference between the ordo and the plebs — this and the honour 
 consecrated by the special bench of the ordo " (De Exhortatione CastikUUt 
 
 7). 
 
 ' "Viduis propter copiosas orationes, infirmiorum coram et frequens 
 jejunium praecipuus honor tribuatur," Can. ii. 
 
 * " Episcopus eligatur ex omni populo . . . dicat populus : nos eligimus 
 eum. Deinde silentio facto in toto grege post exhomologesin omnes pro 
 eo orent dicentes: O Deus, corrobora huno, quern nobis preparasti," 
 Can. ii. 
 
 3 " Deinde eligatur unus ex episcopis et presbyteris, qui manum capiti 
 ejus imponat, et oret dicens," Can. iL 
 
 ♦ ** Deus, Pater domini nostri Jesus Christi, Pater misericordiarum 
 et Deus totius oonsolatiouis . . . .Respice super N., servum tuum, tri- 
 buens virtutem tuam et spiritum efficacem, quern tribuisti Sanctis apostolis 
 per dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, filium tuum unicum ; illis, qui 
 
BISHOP, ELDERS, DEACONS 247 
 
 to fill the bishop with the Spirit possessed by the apostles who 
 founded the churches everywhere ; to bless him in permitting 
 him to rule a blameless flock ; to make him a pattern in all 
 holy living ; to make him powerful in prayer ; to give him 
 grace to declare the pardon of sins ; and to make him able 
 to break the chains in which the evil spirits held any of his flock. 
 The prayer makes us see what the duties of the bishop were. 
 He led the public devotions of his people ; he presided over 
 the exercise of discipUne ; he had the care of the poor and of 
 the sick ; he was to drive out the evil spirits who troubled the 
 bodies and the souls of members of his flock. The congregation 
 was a Church of Christ because they were endeavouring to 
 hve the life of new obedience to which their Lord had called 
 them, and the man at their head, their representative, was 
 expected to be the saintHest man among them. If he had not 
 learning, the reader was there to read and expound the Scrip- 
 tures ; if he possessed few administrative gifts the elders and the 
 deacons were beside him to aid him ; but a man of prayer and 
 of holy Ufe he mmt be — there could be no substitute for that. 
 
 Nothing is said about the election of elders, and it is im- 
 possible to say whether they were chosen by the people or 
 nominated by the bishop or co-opted by the session. But we 
 have two interesting bits of information which show from what 
 classes of men the elders were often drawn. Martyrs and con- 
 fessors were to be made elders. The martyr was one who, for 
 
 fundaverunt ecclesiam in omni loco ad honorem et gloriam nominis tui 
 sancti. Quia tu cognovisti cor uniuscuj usque, concede illi, ut ipse sine 
 peccato videat populum tuum, ut mereatur pascere gregem tuum magnum 
 sacrum. Effice etiam, ut mores ejus sint superiores omni populo sine ulla 
 declinatione. Effice etiam, ut propter praestantiam illi ab omnibus in- 
 videatur, et accipe orationes ejus et oblationes ejus, quas tibi offeret die 
 noctuque, et sint tibi odor suavis. Tribue etiam illi, O Domine, episco- 
 patum et spiritum clementem et potestatem ad remittenda peccata ; et 
 tribue illi facultatem ad dissolvenda omnia vincula iniquitatis daemonum, 
 et ad sanandos omnes morbos, et contere Satanam sub pedibua ejus 
 velociter, per dominum nostrum Jesus Christum, per quem tibi gloria cum 
 ipso et Spiritu Sancto in saecula saeculorum. Amen." Can. iiL 
 
2i8 THE FALL OF THE PEOPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 the faith'fl sake, had stood before the civil tribunal and had been 
 punished. He became an elder at once ; " his confession was 
 his ordination." If a man had made a confession before the 
 court and had not sufEered, he was to be made an elder by the 
 bishop, and the same was to be done to a Christian slave who 
 had confessed and had suffered. Only, the bishop in these two 
 cases was to omit the petition for the bestowal of the Holy 
 Spirit.' The other case is even more interesting. Those men 
 who possess the " gift " of healing are to be ordained presbyters 
 after careful investigation be made that the " gift " is really 
 possessed and that the cures do really come from God.* The 
 leaders of the churches seem to be anxious to enrol within the 
 regular ministry of the congregation, and to prevent them over- 
 shadowing its authority, all who are possessed of " gifts," or 
 whom Christ has honoured by permitting them to be witnesses 
 for Him. The elder was ordained by the bishop, who used the 
 same prayer of consecration which was employed in the ordina- 
 tion of bishops, substituting only the word presbyteratum for 
 episcopatum^ for according to the theory of the Canons the 
 elder was the equal of the bishop in all things save a special seat 
 
 ' " Quando qiuB dignuB est, qui stet coram tribunal! et afficiatur poena 
 propter Christum, postea autem indulgentia liber dimittitur, talis postea 
 meretur gradum preebyteralem coram Deo, non secundum ordinationem 
 quae fit ab episcopo. Immo, confeesio est ordinatio ejus. Quodsi vero 
 episcopus fit, ordinetur. Si quis confessione emissa tormentis laesus non 
 est, dignuB est preebyteratu ; attamen ordinetur per episcopum. Si talis, 
 cum servua alicujus esset, propter Christum cruciatus pertulit, talis simi- 
 liter est presbyter gregi. Quamquam enim formam presbyteratus non 
 acceperit, tamen spiritum presbyteratus adeptus est ; episcopus igitur 
 omittat orationis partem, quae ad spiritum sanctum pertinet," Can. vi. 
 
 3 "Si quis petitionem porrigit, quae ad ipsius ordinationem pertinet, 
 quod dicit : Nactus sum charisma sanationis, non prius ordinetur, quam 
 clarescat ea res. Imprimis inquirendum est, num sanationes, quae per 
 eum fiunt, revera a Deo deriventur," Can. viii. We see in this an echo 
 of the verse in the Epistle of James : — " Is any one among you sick ? 
 let him call for the elders of the Church ; and let them pray over him, 
 anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord ; and the prayer of faith 
 shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ; and if he have 
 oommitted sins, it shall be forgiven him " (v. 14, 15). 
 
BISHOP, ELDERS, DEACONS 349 
 
 in the clmrcli and tlie riglit to ordain elders and deacons.' The 
 elder was therefore to be filled with the spirit of the apostles; 
 to be an example to the flock ; to be powerful in prayer ; to 
 care for the sick ; to attend to discipline. The elders assisted 
 the bishop in the conduct of pubUc worship ; they placed their 
 hands on the offerings while the bishop prayed the prayer of 
 thanksgiving ; they stood on either side of the catechumens 
 when they were baptized, and they introduced them into the 
 congregation.^ The visitation of the sick, the power to drive 
 out by means of prayer the evil spirit which was believed to 
 produce disease, the care of the young and the exercise of dis- 
 cipHne, were the peculiar duties of the elders, as they appear 
 in these Canons. 
 
 The deacon, on the other hand, is the official who does the 
 subordinate services. He is told to remember that he is the 
 servant of God, the servant of the bishop and the servant of the 
 elders. The deacons visit the congregation, report cases of sick- 
 ness to the bishop and to the elders ; they have special charge 
 over the poor, especially of the " secret poor," widows, orphans 
 and strangers. They undertake the instruction of the cate- 
 chumens and report to the bishop when they are ripe for 
 baptism.^ 
 
 Not much is said about the duties of the " widows " and the 
 " virgins," but they seem to look after the women and the 
 girls as the deacons care for the men. The " widows '* are the 
 sick-nurses of the community, and are to be honoured for these 
 loving services and for their prayers for the whole congregation. 
 
 ' " Si autem ordinatur presbyter, omnia cum eo similiter agantur ao 
 cum episcopo, nisi quod cathedrae non insideat. Etiam eadem oratio 
 super eo oretur tota ut super episcopo, cum sola exceptione nominis 
 episcopatus. Episcopus in omnibus rebus aequiparetur presbytero ex- 
 cepto nomine cathedrae et ordinatione, quia potestas ordinandi ipsi non 
 tribuitur," Can. iv. It should be noted however that a martyr or one 
 who has confessed the Lord and suffered for his confession and who ipso 
 facto becomes an elder does not become a bishop unless by regular or- 
 dination ; and the equaUty in theory is not one of fact. 
 
 * Canon xix. 3 Canons v., xvii. 
 
250 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 The picture of tlie Cliristian community presented in these 
 Canons is that of a single congregation ruled by a pastor or 
 bishop with his session of elders, who, theoretically of the same 
 ecclesiastical rank as himself, are in practice his assistants. 
 The laity are in the position of loving subordination which 
 Ignatius contemplated and urged. The brotherhood of the 
 members of the community is expressively shown in the way 
 in which newly baptized catechumens, introduced formally 
 by the elder, are greeted with the kiss of welcome and received 
 with expressions of joy ; ' in the care for the sick and the poor ; 
 in the provisions for nursing suffering women by the " widows " 
 and the " virgins " ; and in the thought that it is the duty of 
 the widows to pray for the whole congregation. 
 
 The little society is thoroughly self-governing and independ- 
 ent. It contains within itself the power to perform all eccleii- 
 astical acts from the selection and ordination of its bishop * 
 to the expulsion of offenders ; ' but it nevertheless belongs to 
 a wide society or larger brotherhood, and this is expressed in 
 the usual but not essential practice of associating neighbouring 
 bishops with its elders in the ordination of its bishop.* 
 
 The acts of worship are described with greater detail in these 
 Canons than in any earlier Christian document save the First 
 Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. St. Paul has given us 
 more information about the meeting for Exhortation ; these 
 Canons tell us more about the meeting for Thanksgiving — indeed, 
 they present us with the earliest complete description of this 
 crowning act of Christian worship. As in apostolic times, 
 we find two separate meetings for public worship — ^the meeting 
 for Exhortation and the meeting for Thanksgiving — but the 
 latter is no longer associated with a conunon meal. No forms 
 of prayer are given for use at the former, but there is a set form 
 of service prescribed for the latter. Both are held on the Lord's 
 
 I " Jam cum toto populo orant, qui eos oBculentur gaudentee cum ill 
 cum jubilatione," Can. xix. 
 * C^on iL 3 CanoDB i. xi.-xTL ^ Canon ii« 
 
THE MEETING TOR EXHORTATION 251 
 
 Day — the meeting for Exhortation early in the morning, and the 
 Eucharistic service in the afternoon.' 
 
 The exercises at the meeting for Exhortation were prayers, 
 singing of psalms and hymns, reading portions of Scripture and 
 exhortation in sermon and address.* No details are given us 
 about the order of the service save that there was a prayer be- 
 tween the reading of each portion of the Scripture. The early 
 freedom of worship no longer existed. The reading, prayers, 
 and exhortation were all in the hands of the clergy. The people 
 shared in the singing only. It was expected that they should 
 join heartily in this part of the service, for one of the questions 
 put to candidates for baptism was whether they had sung 
 heartily in the service of praise.^ This service was held not only 
 on the Lord's Day, but on every day of the week. It was the 
 daily worship of the great Christian family. The Canons order 
 that the elders, deacons, readers and people are to come to 
 church at cock-crow (quo tempore canit gaUus), and to consecrate 
 the day by a service of prayer, praise, and reading the Word. 
 AH the clergy, save the bishop, are strictly ordered to be present* 
 Only sickness or absence on a journey are to be taken as excuses. 
 The catechumens,'* whose instructions in the faith by the deacons 
 seems to have been given just before the service began, were 
 
 ' It must have been in the afternoon : for although the rule was that 
 the whole service must end before sundown, there was often an Agape or 
 Supper afterwards and it had to be finished before darkness had come. 
 Can. xxxii. 
 
 * " Congregentur quotidie in ecclesia presbyteri et diaconi et anagnostai 
 omnisque populus tempore gallicinii, vacentque orationi, psalmis, et 
 lectioni scripturarum cum orationibus. . . . De Clero autem qui convenire 
 negligunt, neque morbo neque itinere impediti, separentur," Can. xxi. 
 
 " Porro autem tempore, quo canit gallus, instituendae sunt orationes in 
 ecclesiis," Can. xxvii. 
 
 3 Catechumenus baptismo initiandus si ab iis, qui eum adducunt, bono 
 testimonio commendatur, eum illo tempore, quo instruebatur, infirmos 
 visitasse et debiles sustentasse seque ab omni perverso sermone custodisse, 
 Icudes cecinisse, numque oderit vanam gloriam, num contempserit super- 
 biam, sibique elegerit humilitatem," Can. xix. 
 
 ♦ " Quando vero doctor quotidianum pensum docendi terminavit, orent 
 separati a christianis," Can. xvil 
 
2B2 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 required to be present, and had a special place assigned to them. 
 If any members of the congregation were unable to be present 
 at this morning worship they are enjoined to read the Scriptures 
 at home, so that the first thing that the sun sees when it shines 
 into their windows in the morning may be the long roll of Scrip- 
 ture unfolded on their knees.' 
 
 The Eucharistic service is described at much greater length, 
 and the details have to be collected from instructions scattered 
 throughout the Canons.* It had three parts — an introductory 
 service, the actual Holy Supper, and the receiving and dis- 
 tributing the thankofEerings. Most of the details are clearly 
 enough stated, but it is impossible to say with any certainty 
 whether a sermon was part of the introductory service. It was 
 BO in the time of Justin Martjrr,^ and his account is so Uke an 
 outline whose details can be filled in by what is directed in these 
 Canons, that it is improbable that this very important portion 
 of the service had fallen into disuse. It may be, however, 
 that the sermon, which must have been given at the morning 
 service on the Lord's Day,* was considered to suffice, and that 
 
 ' ** Quocunqne die in ecclesia non orant, sumas scripturam, ut legas in 
 ea. Sol conspiciat matutino temporo scripturam super genua tua," 
 Can. xxvii. 1. 
 
 * The canons have been carefully analyzed and the information they 
 convey on the services and organization brought together by Dr. Achelis 
 in his admirable edition. I have made full use of his labour. In one 
 rather important point, however, I fail to follow his arguments. He be- 
 lieves that the bishop alone was entitled to conduct the eucharistic service 
 when it took place on a Sunday, and that the provisions for an elder or a 
 deacon presiding refers only to week-day celebrations. The statements 
 made in the Canons are not distinct and our conclusions are only inferences. 
 The reasons for the delegation seem to me to be the necessary absence 
 of the bishop and the necessary absence of the elders ; and apply equally 
 well to the Sunday as to other celebrations. It was natural that provision 
 should be made where Christian congregations were scattered and far 
 from each other. 
 
 s Justin's order of service is: — Prolonged reading of the scriptures, 
 sermon by the pastor or bishop, prayer, the Bread and Win* brought in. 
 Apology, i. 67. 
 
 4 Compare Ganon ziL 
 
THE EUCHAEISTIC SERVICE 263 
 
 the service described by Justin had been divided into two parts. 
 The Eucharistic service, held in the evening or in the late 
 afternoon,' began by the readers, placed at an elevated desk, 
 reading portions of Scripture one after another, the readers 
 taking turns and relieving each other. This went on for some 
 time while the congregation were gradually assembling.^ • If 
 there was a sermon by the bishop it would be delivered after 
 the reading was over and all had taken their places. A prayer 
 including confession of sins followed. The bishop stood behind 
 a table, called the " Table of the Body and Blood of the Lord," 
 the elders on his right hand and on his left. The elements, 
 bread and wine, which had been furnished by intending com- 
 municants, were then brought in by the deacons,^ and were 
 placed on the Table before the bishop. The elders, deacons 
 and readers were all dressed in white — the colour of festival 
 times.* Then the bishop and the elders placed their hands 
 on the bread and on the cup, and the bishop began the re- 
 sponsive prayers j — 
 
 The bishop . . . The Lord he wUh you aU, 
 The congregation . And with Thy spirit. 
 
 The bishop . . . Lift up your hearts. 
 The congregation . We have, to the Lord. 
 
 The bishop . . . Let us give thanks to the Lord. 
 The congregation . Worthy and righteous.^ 
 
 The bishop then prayed over the elements (no form of prayer 
 being given). ^ The bishop himself distributed. He stood by 
 
 ' The whole service had to be orer before sundown ; and there was 
 frequently a common meal late in the evening. 
 
 3 " Etiam anagnostai habehant f estiva indumenta, et stent in loco lectionis 
 et alter alterum excipiat, donee totus populus congregetur," Can. 
 xxxvii. 
 
 3 Canons iii. xix. 
 
 * " Quotiesounque episcopus mysteriis frui vult, congregentur diaooni 
 et prosby teri apud eum, induti vestiment is albis pulchioribus toto populo 
 potissimum autem splendidis. Bona autem opera omnibus vestimentis 
 praestant," Can. xxxvii. 
 
 5 Canon iii. 
 
 * It ii probable that this prayer was extempore ; no form is prescribed 
 
254 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 the " Table of the Body and Blood of the Lord." The people 
 came one by one to the bishop, who first gave the Bread, saying, 
 " This is the Body of the Lord," and then the Cup, saying, 
 " This is the Blood of the Lord," and the people answered 
 " Amen." ' At the celebration at which the newly baptized 
 communicants partook, the elders who stood beside the bishop 
 had cups of milk and honey in their hands, and the communi- 
 cants partook of these also from the hands of the elders to show 
 that they had become as little children and fed on the food of 
 infants ; ' but whether this ceremony accompanied every 
 celebration of the Holy Supper is uncertain. The deacons 
 who brought in the elements were required to sing a psalm as 
 they entered, and the sound of the singing is compared to the 
 tinkle of the bells on the robes of Aaron. ^ 
 
 After the celebration the faithful, who all remained in the 
 church, came forward to the " Table " and presented their 
 offerings, the firstfruits. These consisted of all kinds of useful 
 things — oil, wine, milk, honey, eatables of all kinds, the fruit of 
 trees and the fruit of the ground (apples and cucumbers being 
 specially mentioned), wool, cloth and money. They were all 
 placed at or on the table.* The bishop prayed the prayer of 
 
 in the Canons, and many forms for other parts of the service are given in 
 the text ; the prayer of consecration was extempore in the time of Justin 
 Martyr {Apology, i. 67 : — " The president offers prayers and thanksgivings 
 according to his ability "). 
 
 ' " Communicat populum stans ad mensam corporis et sanguinis Domini 
 . . . Deinde porrigat iUi3 ©piscopus de corpore Christi dicens : Hoc est 
 corpus Christi ; illi vero dicant : Amen ; et ei, quibus ille caHcem porrigit 
 dicens : Hie est sanguis Christi, dicant : Amen," Can. xix. 
 
 * Canon xix. : — " Et presbyteri portant aHos caUces lactis et mellis ut 
 doceant eos, qui commimicant, iterum eos natos esse ut parvuU, quia 
 parvuli communicant lac et mel." 
 
 3 Canon xxix. : — " Et sint illis psabni pro tintinabulis, quae erant in 
 tunica Aaronis." 
 
 ♦ This offertory or collection in kind, which the records of the early 
 centuries bring vividly before us, can be seen in village churches in India 
 at present. The offerings there include many things not mentioned in 
 the text. Great baskets are deposited in which the people place small 
 paroela of all kind of grain, the produce of their fields, fmitB, cooked food. 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE OFFERINGS 26B 
 
 thanksgiving over the gifts and the givers — a special thanks- 
 giving being said over the oil, probably because it was so much 
 used in ecclesiastical services. The bishop then pronounced 
 the Benediction, and the people respoiided with the Doxology : 
 Glory to Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for ever and ever.' 
 
 This did not end the service, however. The offerings had to 
 be distributed before the going down of the sun. . The poor, the 
 widows and the orphans rose from their places, and came to 
 the bishop, who distributed to them the offerings which had been 
 received, and also the bread and wine which had remained after 
 the Communion.* Portions were no doubt reserved for those 
 in prison, for strangers who might arrive during the week, and 
 for the sick who were unable to come to church.^ The Canons 
 forbid any of these offerings being reserved for the clergy, as 
 was the custom in later times, and those of them who required 
 assistance were reckoned among the poor.* 
 
 It was the custom for one of the wealthier members of the 
 congregation to give a supper on the evening of Sunday to the 
 poor of the congregation. Members who had come from a dis- 
 tance, as Justin Martyr tells us they did, were doubtless included.' 
 
 eggs, flasks of oil and live poultry. I once saw a portion of the offertory 
 running away with the beadle ! It was a lively young sheep, and when 
 the beadle tried to hold it, it pulled him round the corner of the church. 
 Missionaries from Ceylon have assured me that the Christian matrons are 
 accustomed to put aside every tenth handful of the rice or other things 
 to be cooked and thus collect during the week what is given on Sunday. 
 They say that when the people were heathen they did the same in order 
 to present offerings to their priests ; and they carry the practice over into 
 Christianity. It was probably the same in heathen antiquity, and this is 
 no doubt the reason why in the Canons the bishop is called " priest " in 
 connexion with receiving these offerings and not in connexion with his pre- 
 siding at the Holy Supper (Canon xxxvi.). The title " priest " (sacerdos) 
 is given to the bishop alone and that only when he performs the two 
 functions of exorcising the sick (Canon xxiv.), and of receiving and blessing 
 the offerings (Canon xxxvi.) ; both actions done by the heathen pri«3t« 
 with which the early converts from paganism were quite familiar. 
 
 ' Canon iii. * Canon xxxii. 
 
 3 Canon v., of. also Justin, Ayology, i. 65, 67. 
 
 ♦ Compare above, p. 201. 3 Apology, i. fJ7. 
 
256 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 The bishop presided, and the clergy (one deacon at least) were 
 present. The bishop prayed for the host and for the guests, 
 and the prayer of thanksgiving which was said during the Com- 
 munion service was repeated. When it became dark the deacon 
 had the charge of lighting the lamps, but the supper came to 
 an end before it got very dark. The president generally gave 
 the guests a short address, which he delivered sitting, and which 
 was " for their benefit and for his own." The people were told 
 to eat their fill, but not to drink to excess ; not to speak too 
 much ; not to shout ; and above all not to bring disgrace on 
 their host by indulging in mischievous gossip.' 
 
 It is pleasant to learn that occasional suppers were given to 
 the widows of the congregation. The poor bodies, who are 
 elsewhere praised for their fasting,* seemed to have enjoyed a 
 good supper, where they could eat and drink ad satietatem neque 
 vero ad ebrietaterrij and to have been incUned to prolong the feast 
 as much as possible, for they need to be warned thrice over 
 within four short sentences that they are to end their supper 
 by the going down of the sun.^ These suppers are called Agapae 
 by Dr. Achelis. Dr. Riedel, on the other hand, refuses to trans- 
 late the word in this way.* This is to be said, however, in 
 justification of Dr. Achelis' translation that the entertainments 
 
 ' Canons xxxii.-xxxv. * Canons xxxii. ix. 
 
 5 ** Si quia viduia coenam parare vnlt, curet, ut habeant coenam et 
 ut dimittantur, aniequam sol occidat. Si vero sunt multae, caveatur, ne 
 fiat confusio neve impediantur, quominus ante vesperam dimittantur. 
 Unicuique autem eanim sufficiens cibus potusque. Sed abeani arUequam 
 nox advesper ascot, ^' Can. xxxv. 
 
 * Compare Riedel, Die KirchenrechtsqueUen des Pairiarchats Alenandrien 
 (1900), p. 221 n. He thinks that they correspond with feasts which are 
 still the custom among the Christians of the Levant, and quotes Wans- 
 leben : — " Rs ont encore la costume de faire des Agapes ou des repas de 
 charity apr^s les Bat^mes, et lee enterremens, pour tous ceux qui veulent 
 sy trouver ; donnant k un chacun un plat de bouiUie, avec un morceau 
 de viande dedans, et du pain autant qu'il en peut manger ; et ces repas 
 •e font ou dans I'egUse meme ou sur le toit de I'^gHse, qui est, selon la 
 coiitume des Levantins, tou jours plat, et capable de contenir un grand 
 nombre d'hommeft." 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE OFFERINGS 967 
 
 have all a religious significance, that there seems to have been 
 a symbolical breaking of bread at all of them, that one of them, 
 which was a memorial feast in honour of a martyr, was preceded 
 by the celebration of the Holy Supper, and that at aU of them 
 the prayer of thanksgiving which was included in the Eucharistic 
 service was recited.^ The Lord's Day supper, at any rate, has 
 all the appearance of the older Agape, separated from the Holy 
 Supper, and coming after it instead of preceding it. 
 
 It is very interesting to observe that there is nothing in the 
 Canons which implies that the Holy Supper has any special 
 and unique sacrificial conceptions attached to it. Such ideas 
 are markedly absent. The word altar occurs in the Canons ; 
 but in those portions which refer to the act of celebrating the 
 Lord's Supper, the phrase used is " Table of the Body and Blood 
 of the Lord."* The term offering is certainly used of the Bread 
 and the Wine in the Holy Supper, but it is equally employed to 
 denote the firstfruits given to the bishop by the people.^ The 
 term friest is never found in connexion with ordination or 
 with the celebration of the Holy Supper. It occurs in two 
 references only, and is used of the bishop when he is described 
 as receiving the firstfruits and as exorcising the sick ; and 
 since both of these acts were performed by the pagan priest- 
 hood it is easy to conjecture why the word is applied to the 
 bishop in these acts.* 
 
 Reverence in aU the actions of public worship is carefully 
 inculcated. The Church is the house of God and the place of 
 prayer with fear ; women are not to come there in gaudy apparel, 
 
 * These memorial feasts were called Anamneseia ; the custom of cele- 
 brating the birthday of an honoured martyr with a memorial feast was one 
 of the usages of primitive Christianity which gave the early Qiristian 
 societies a superficial resemblance to the pagan collegia ; compare above 
 p. 126. 
 
 ^ AUar occurs in the Canon which tells the clergy to keep the vessels 
 clean, etc. (Canon xxix.) ; menaa is used when the act of oommunicatiDg 
 is described (Canon xix.). 
 
 3 Canons xvii. xxxii. xix. ♦ Canons xxxvi. xxiv. 
 
 CM. 17 
 
258 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 and they are not to laugh nor chatter there. A worthy matron 
 was made an " inspectress,'* to see that the women and girls 
 behaved themselves properly.' The clergy are to see that the 
 communion elements are kept with care from all impurity, 
 and specially that flies do not get into the wine of the sacra- 
 ment. Great care is also to be taken that no drop of the wine 
 nor crumb of bread falls to the ground while the elements are 
 partaken of by the communicants. In short, the Canons contain 
 many a little suggestion, familiar to all missionaries, for the pur- 
 pose of teaching that reverence in worship which is almost always 
 lacking in heathen religious rites. 
 
 These early Christians were men of their generation, however. 
 They believed that the air around them was full of evil spirits 
 bent on their discomfiture, whose malignity had to be guarded 
 against ; * but while the traces of such superstitions appear, 
 one cannot fail to see how the attempt is continually made to 
 wean the Christians from pagan superstitions which they have 
 brought over with them into Christianity. To take only one 
 example, sick persons are prohibited from continuing beyond the 
 hours of prayer in the Church or from sleeping there. ^ When 
 it is remembered that sick folk were taken to the heathen tem- 
 ples in order that the dwelling in a sacred place might cure them, 
 it is easy to see what the meaning of the prohibition is. One 
 can perceive the doors by which pagan ideas might enter into 
 Christian worship, but the sorry mixture of paganism and 
 Christianity which was to follow Cyprian's conceptions of priest- 
 hood and sacrifice were still in the future. 
 
 ' "Mulier libera ne veniat veste variegata . . , neve crines demittat 
 Bolutos, habeat potius capilloe complexos in domo Dei, neve faciat cirros 
 frontalea in capite quando vult participare in mysteriis sacris (Canon xvii.). 
 It is one of the marks of a good woman that if she excels male beings in 
 knowledge she does not let any one see that she does ! 
 
 * The fear of demons appears most strongly in the exorcisms at baptism, 
 in exorcising the bread at the feasts, and in the reason given why no drop 
 of wine or crumb of bread was to be allowed to fall to the ground : the 
 demons might get hold of it. Compare Canons xix. xxix. xxjdv ' 
 
 i Canon xziv. 
 
COMPARISON WITH MODERN ORGANISATION 259 
 
 Such were the ordinary services, and such the organization 
 of a Christian Church in the earlier decades of the third century, 
 before accommodation to imperial points of view and imitation 
 of pagan organization had invaded the Church of Christ. 
 
 Perhaps a brief comparison of this organization of the ministry 
 with modern types may bring it more distinctly before us. It 
 had some relation with all modern types of ecclesiastical organi- 
 zation, and was identical with none. 
 
 The organization had a certain resemblance to modern Con- 
 gregationalism, for the vast majority of communities called 
 churches were simply self-governing and independent congre- 
 gations. The bishop was the pastor of the congregation, and 
 in him, as in a modern congregationalist Church, all the ecclesi- 
 astical life centred. On the other hand, this does not apply 
 to aU these primitive churches ; for the independent unity was 
 the community large or small, and before the close of the second 
 century the larger communities must have included several 
 congregations, and all were served on the collegiate principle 
 by the one bishop and his body of elders and deacons — the one 
 pastor or bishop representing the unity of the community. These 
 primitive independent churches all cherished the essential idea 
 that they belonged to, and were portions of, a common visible 
 Church — ^the Great Church it was called, to distinguish it from 
 the Marcionite and Montanist Churches ; but they had not yet 
 discovered the way to express this idea of a visible catholicity 
 in a definite political organization. We have the beginnings 
 of the pohty in the common though not universal custom that 
 all the neighbouring bishops assisted at the ordination of a 
 bishop. 
 
 The organization had a much greater resemblance to what is 
 commonly called the Presbyterian, and ought properly to be 
 called the Conciliar, system of Church government. The points 
 of agreement are very many. There is common to both the 
 conception of the three-fold ministry of pastor or bishop, elder 
 or presbyter, and deacon, and both have the theoretical equiva- 
 
260 THE FALL OF THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY 
 
 lence of the offices of bishop and elder (save only a special seat 
 in the Church and the right to ordain elders and deacons), while 
 in practice the bishop or pastor is the real head of the whole 
 of the ecclesiastical Hfe. In both there is the idea that the unit 
 of organization is the Christian community of the place, and the 
 conception that the unity can be preserved by a collegiate 
 administration.' Both have the thought that the whole congre- 
 gational activity centres in the bishop or pastor, who is the 
 leader in pubUc worship and who celebrates the sacraments. 
 Both beUeve strongly that each congregation is a portion of 
 the visible Catholic Church, that catholicity can best be re- 
 duced to a poUty by means of representative councils with 
 gradually widening areas of control, and that the ordination of a 
 bishop or pastor is to be performed by the pastors or bishops 
 of the bounds as representatives of the Church Catholic.^ The 
 two great differences are ; that the modern system of organi- 
 zation insists that the bishop or pastor cannot, of his own autho- 
 rity, delegate to a presbyter or to a deacon the right to celebrate 
 
 ' This characteristic has almost faded out of most English-speaking 
 portions of the great Presbyterian Church, but it remains in the Dutch- 
 speaking parts. The traces remaining in Scotland are the almost for- 
 gotten, but still existing, " General Eark-Seesions " of the larger towns. 
 
 * Dr, Sanday has said {Expositor^ Jan.-June, 1887, p, 113) that in the 
 earlier centuries ** every town of any size had its bishop ; and if there 
 were several churches, they were served by the elergy whom the bishop 
 kept about him : they were in fact like our (Church of England) present 
 • chapels of ease,' and the whole position of the bishop was very similar 
 to that of the incumbent of the parish church in one of our smaller towns. 
 The tendency at first, as Ignatius shows, was towards complete centrali- 
 zation : the whole serving of the paroikia was directly in the hands of 
 the bishop. The parish system in the later sense, wfth an extended 
 diocese, and a number of more or less independent clergy circling round 
 the bishop, did not grow up until the 6th-9th centuries, when it took 
 shape mainly in France under the Merovingian and Carolingian kings. 
 In some respects the NonconformiBt communities of our own time furnish 
 a closer parallel to the primitive state of things than an EstabUshed Church 
 can possibly do." This is all true so far as it goes ; but it takes no account 
 of the rtir«e-fold ministry, which is not exhibited in an English parish. 
 The primitive three-fold ministry appears however as soon as the Border 
 is orossed into Scotland or over into Holland. 
 
COMPARISON WITH MODERN ORGANISATION 261 
 
 the sacraments, and that the bishop or pastor of the early 
 centuries had almost imlimited control over the ecclesiastical 
 finances and property of the congregation. This characteristic 
 of primitive Christian organization arose from the fact that at 
 first the sole property was the firstfruits given to the bishop 
 at the close of the Holy Supper and distributed afterwards by 
 him, and it was strengthened when the churches were able to 
 hold buildings and burial places by the Roman laws regulating 
 the property of corporations.' 
 
 The modern episcopal system, apart from the retention of the 
 name " bishop," has fewest points of resemblance to what we 
 find in the ancient ecclesiastical manuals we have been studying ; 
 but the germs of the mediaeval and modern episcopacy are 
 there in the power which the primitive bishop possessed of 
 delegating functions which were peculiarly his, such as baptizing 
 and celebrating the Holy Conmiunion, to his elders and even to 
 his deacons. 
 
 ' Compare Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire^ p. 431. Many 
 illustrations of the legal principles and their effects on the tenure of Church 
 property laid down by Professor Ramsay may be found not only within 
 the Turkish Empire, but in the Tributary Indian States, such as the Nizam's 
 TerritorieB, where the Mohammedan law rules. 
 
Ministry Changing to Priesthood 
 
CHAPTER Vn 
 
 inNISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 DURING the third century, it may be said during the middle 
 third of that century, there are clear traces of a general 
 change insinuating itself into men's minds and finding expression 
 in language, in the way of thinking of the Church and of the 
 relation of the ministry to the Church. This is commonly spoken 
 of as the change of the ministry into a mediating priesthood, 
 standing between the people and God. But this manner of 
 regarding the whole silent movement gives a very inadequate 
 and one-sided representation of the real meaning of the change, 
 and of the conceptions which it embodied. The idea that the 
 ministry is a priesthood was there, but the main thought was 
 much more the fower of the priest than his mediation. The 
 power and the authority of the ministry and especially of the 
 chiefs of the ministry over the Christian people was the central 
 conception. It finds expression in Cyprian's repeated quotation 
 of the Old Testament text ; " And the man that doeth presump- 
 tuously, in not hearkening to the priest that standeth to minister 
 there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that 
 man shall die ; and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. 
 And all the people shall hear and fear, and do no more pre- 
 sumptuously." ' It is this change and what it implies that 
 concerns us now. 
 It may be briefly expressed by saying that the two separate 
 
 ' Deut. xvii. 12, 13 ; Cyprian, Epist. iii. 1 (Ixiv.) ; iv. 4 (Ixi.) ; xliii. 7 
 (xxxix.) ; lix. 4 (liv.) ; Ixvi. 3 (Ixviii.). 
 
 866 
 
266 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 conceptions of local " Church. " and of " Church universal " 
 became more precise, and that precision of thought was given by 
 new ideas about the relation in which the office-bearers stood 
 to the community. The Church was defined by the ministry 
 in a way that it had not been in earlier times. 
 
 So far as the local " church " is concerned the Christian 
 thought, which in earlier times had dwelt upon the picture of 
 saints and brethren Uving together the Christian life, now dwelt 
 upon the controUing power of those who governed. The Church, 
 which was in earher days a " brotherhood of saints," became 
 a community over whom a bishop presided. It was defined, 
 not so much by the manner of life led by its members, as by the 
 government which ruled over them. The train of thought was 
 reversed. It was no longer — people worshipping and some 
 of them leading the common devotions, saints believing and some 
 among them instructing and admonishing ; it became — teachers 
 who imparted and pupils who received, priests who interceded 
 and sinners who were pardoned through the intercession, rulers 
 who conmianded and subjects who were bound to obey. 
 
 The thought of the universal visible Church underwent an 
 analogous transformation. It was no longer the wide brother- 
 hood of all who professed the name of Jesus, and lived the hfe 
 of new obedience demanded from His disciples. It became a 
 federation of local churches, who believed in the same verities, 
 the truth of which was guaranteed by legitimate rulers, and 
 whose members yielded an implicit obedience to the bishop at 
 the head of every local " church." It was the federation of 
 churches which excluded heretics and rebels. 
 
 In the earher days the local Christian communities were 
 companies of men and women who called themselves the brethren 
 and the saints or holy persons, and these words expressed the 
 relations in which they stood to each other and to the world 
 aroimd them. Fellowship as with brothers, and a fellowship 
 united in holiness, were the main thoughts present to the minds 
 of the earhest Christians when the word Church was used to 
 
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF CHURCH 267 
 
 denote either tlie individual community or tlie wide brotherhood 
 of believers. 
 
 The idea in the minds of Christians united together in a local 
 community was that they were called upon to live a new and 
 a holy life. They had marked out for themselves what was 
 meant by this holy life, with its duties to be lovingly fulfilled 
 and sins to be resolutely shunned ; and this chart of the Christian 
 life is to be found in manuals like the Didache with its two ways, 
 all of which treat of the private as well as of the communal 
 life. There was also a feeling throughout the churches that, 
 while for the ordinary and lesser sins to which men are prone, 
 there must be confession, sorrow, and certain external signs of 
 sorrow, and while for others there was to be suspension for 
 longer or shorter time from the Holy Supper, some sins were so 
 very heinous that those who committed them had placed them- 
 selves outside the communion of the brethren so long as Uf e lasted. 
 No limits were placed on the forgiveness of God, but Christians 
 believed that if any of their number fell into sins of more than 
 ordinary gravity, no amount of penitence, however sincere, 
 entitled the Church to permit these fallen brethren to return 
 to the inner fellowship of the Christian brotherhood. Such 
 sinners had to manifest a life-long repentance, and could never 
 hope to be more than catechumens. Tertullian has given a 
 list of these deadliest sins, but it is not hkely that such Hsts were 
 always the same, for there is no trace of any settled rule or 
 theory. Only, each Christian community felt that it must keep 
 itself pure and merit its title of " the saints," ' Ordinarily 
 
 * Compare Tertullian, Against Marcion, iv. 9. The Canons of BasU, 
 though very much later than the period now described, retain ideas which 
 may enable us to conceive the attitude of the early Christian society. 
 They declare that a murderer must be excluded from the society for 
 twenty years ; a homicide for ten years, which are to be spent in the fol- 
 lowing way — two years in mourning, three years admitted to the meeting 
 for exhortation, and five years admitted among the faithful but not al- 
 lowed to come forward and partake of the Holy Communion. For one who 
 has been baptized and has lapsed from the faith, the penitence must be 
 life long, and the penitent is to be allowed to communicate only when he 
 
268 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 those who were guilty of such heinous sins had to remain for 
 life in the condition of catechumens, and could never hope to 
 be re-admitted to the inner circle of believers. If, however, a 
 brother, believed to have the prophetic gift, spoke on behalf of 
 a penitent, and announced that it was the will of God that he 
 should be pardoned, then, and then only, an exception was 
 made/ 
 
 All the Christian communities, although they felt that they 
 belonged to one great Church, were not Unked together by any 
 distinctive pohty, however indefinite. All the churches of 
 Christ, Tertullian tells us, were one great Church, because they 
 gave each other the salutation of peace, because they regarded 
 each other as brethren, and because they practised the inter- 
 change of familiar hospitality.' That was what bound them 
 together, and made them feel and be one ; not any external 
 pohty, however slight. They maintained a close fellowship 
 by means of intercommunication, by the interchange of letters 
 and messengers, and by their hospitaUty towards all Christian 
 travellers who passed their way. This constant intercourse 
 no doubt led to a similarity in the rules for holy Hving and in 
 modes of dealing with backshders ; but there was nothing of 
 
 is on his deathbed. Compare Riedel's KirchenrechtsqueUen des Patriarchata 
 der Alexandrien (1900), pp. 243, 244. The sins named by Tertullian 
 are: — Idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, fornication, false-witness 
 and fraud. 
 
 ' Hermas, Mandaia, iv. 3 ; Visiones, iii. 7 ; Tertullian, De PudicUia, 21. 
 
 * Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereiicorum, 20 : — " They then (the 
 apostles) in like manner founded Churches in every city, from which all 
 the other Churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith 
 and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may 
 become Churches. Indeed it is on this account only that they will be able 
 to account themselves apostolic, as being the ofFspring of apostolic 
 Churches. . . . Therefore the Churches, although they are so many and 
 so great, comprise but the one primitive Church founded by the apostles 
 from which they all spring. In this way all are primitive, and all are 
 apostolic, whilst they are all proved to be one, in unity, by their saluta- 
 tion of peace (communicatio pacis), and title of brotherhood, and bond of 
 hospitaUty (contesseratio hospitalitatis) — rights which no other rule directs 
 than the one tradition of the self -same mystery." 
 
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF CHURCH 269 
 
 a common polity to unite them as the various parts of civil 
 society are united within one state. No doubt the advice of 
 one Church was frequently asked, and acted upon by another 
 in matters of difficulty and in times of trial. We have an example 
 of such a thing in the letter of the Roman Church to the Corin- 
 thian, which goes by the name of the First Epistle of Clement; 
 No doubt such advice was received and attended to in pro- 
 portion as the Church, offering its advice or appealed to for its 
 counsel, had showed itself worthy of deference by its brotherly 
 conduct and by its eminence. No Church in those early centuries 
 showed such generosity to its poorer brethren as the Roman 
 Church ; besides it inhabited the world's capital ; it was be- 
 lieved to inherit the traditions of the two greatest of the apostles 
 — St. Paul and St. Peter. It held the position of the wise and 
 generous elder brother in the brotherhood of churches, but 
 there was no acknowledged ecclesiastical pre-eminences' 
 
 The situation, therefore, may be thus expressed : there were 
 thousands of churches, most of them single congregations, 
 which nevertheless were one Church, not because they had 
 agreed in any formal way to become one, not because there 
 was any poHty linking them together in one great whole, but 
 because they had the unmistakeable feeling that they belonged 
 to one brotherhood.^ 
 
 They lived in the immediate presence of eternity, on the 
 threshold of the blessed and real life which awaited them, when 
 the period of their probation in this world was ended ; and every 
 Christian community had the feeling that it was its business 
 by a strict disciphne to preserve, in the pure Kfe of the members 
 of the little brotherhood, a foreshadowing of the life which awaited 
 them when the Father should call them home to Himself. Mean- 
 while they were in the presence of a hostile and evil world- 
 
 ' Clement, 1 Epiet. v. 4-6 ; Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans, preface ; 
 Eusebius, Hist. Ecdes. U. xxv. 8 ; IV. xxiii. 10 ; V. xxiii., xxiv. ; VII. v. 2 ; 
 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III. i. iii. ; Tertullian, De Praesoript, 24 ; 
 8corpiac€t 15 ; Against Marcion, IV. 6. 
 
270 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 power, which was under the dominion of sin, and which mani- 
 fested itself to them in the persecuting pagan state. That 
 was the first stage. Doctrine could scarcely be said to exist, 
 and doctrinal divisions were therefore almost impossible. No 
 doubt their teachers and leaders occasionally warned them 
 against strange teachings, but these were limited to individuals 
 or to small companies, and hardly impressed the imagination. 
 
 When the Gnostic teachers gathered their followers into 
 companies large enough to attract attention, and above all when 
 Marcion, with his organizing genius, had established Marcionite 
 Christian communities almost everywhere, the situation became 
 changed. The Christians were now divided among themselves. 
 The Christian brotherhood was set over against, not simply the 
 pagan state, but also against false brethren who did not accept 
 the traditions of the apostles nor the common simple verities of 
 the faith. Christianity now implied more than a hfe lived in the 
 presence of God and Christ ; it meant a doctrine to be protected 
 by a creed or a form, more or less fixed, of intellectual beliefs. 
 The possession of a common form of creed in which the simple 
 verities of the faith were stated could not fail to give the " great " 
 Church accepting it something more of an outward polity. 
 The succession of office-bearers in the churches was the guarantee 
 for the correctness of the tradition suggested by Irenaeus, 
 urged by Tertullian, and apparently accepted by all who were 
 neither Gnostics nor Marcionites, nor any of the smaller separate 
 bodies of Christians. Tertullian in the De Praescriftioney as 
 may be seen in the quotation given in the note,^ links the common 
 tradition, its guarantee in the succession of office-bearers, the 
 name of brethren, the salutation of peace, and the bond of hospi- 
 tality all together, and there are, though in a very indefinite 
 kind of way, the beginnings of a polity. 
 
 Still the existence of the creed did not give the churches 
 which accepted it an homogenous external polity in any thing 
 like the modern sense. The creed was the law for the individual 
 » See above, p. 268. 
 
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF CHUECH 271 
 
 local cliurcli, and the local churcli was not joined to the other 
 churches in a definite federation, still less in a corporate union. 
 The old thought of St. Paul ' — fellowship (Koivcovia) — still 
 prevailed. The churches refused to have fellowship with pro- 
 fessing Christians and with communities of professing Christians 
 who did not accept the same verities that they did, and they had 
 fellowship and intercommunion with societies who accepted these 
 verities. The increased powers given to oflBice-bearers, when 
 they were made the guarantee of the orthodox faith, were 
 powers to be exercised within the communities over which they 
 presided, and did not give them any rule outside the local churches 
 they governed, whether these were large or small. Still the fact 
 that it was recognized that all Christians had a common set of 
 convictions, which could be expressed in a more or less definite 
 way in propositions, gave the whole brotherhood of churches 
 something of a polity ; and the thought that in times of doubt 
 or difficulty guidance could be got from what Tertullian called 
 " apostolic " churches, or churches where the original apostles 
 had actually taught,^ gave these churches and their office- 
 bearers a certain pre-eminence which claimed and received the 
 deference of all the rest. 
 
 The separation and secession of the Montanists, in the wider 
 meaning of the term,^ still further altered and made more precise 
 the conception of the Church. It must always be remembered 
 that the Montanists were not driven out, but separated them- 
 selves from the main body of Christians. They claimed to 
 represent the apostolic Church ; and their claim was based quite 
 as much on the persuasion that they had preserved the prophetic 
 ministry in the position within the churches in which it had 
 been placed by the apostles, as on their belief that they were 
 preserving the character of the true church by their strictness 
 
 ' Compare above, p. 24. 
 
 * Compare Tertullian, De Praescriptionet xx.; xxxii. and especially xxxvL 
 s That is the Montanism which included men like Tertullian. Compare 
 above p. 238 j 
 
272 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 of discipline. To the succession of office-bearers, descended 
 from the secondary ministry of apostolic times, they opposed 
 the succession of prophets representing the superior ministry 
 of the apostolic days. The Montanist movement had this result 
 that men who professed to live according to the commandments 
 of Jesus, who adhered to the traditional teaching of the churches, 
 who had the three-fold ministry, were nevertheless found out- 
 side. They had separated on the question of the power of the 
 office-bearers at the head of the local churches ; they had in- 
 sisted that the time-honoured prophetic ministry should retain 
 its old supremacy ; they had especially declared that in the case 
 of heinous sins it belonged to the prophetic ministry, and not 
 to the bishops, to declare whether such sins could receive the 
 churches* pardon.' Their opponents had joined issue with them 
 on these two points. They asserted that a true prophet would 
 submit himself to the " elders who were in the succession," 
 and that, while the Montanist prophets had positively refused 
 to admit of the church's pardon being extended to heinous 
 sinners,* yet these sinners might be pardoned on confession 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Pudicitia, 21 : — " The power of loosing and binding 
 committed to Peter bad nothing to do with the capital sins of believers ; 
 and if the Lord had given him a precept that he must grant pardon to a 
 brother sinning against him even seventy times seven-fold, of course He 
 would have commanded him to * bind ' — that ia to retain — nothing sub- 
 sequently, unless perchance such sins as one may have committed against 
 the Lord and not against a brother. For the forgiveness of sins com- 
 mitted in the case of a man is a prejudgment against the remission of sins 
 against God. What now about the Church — your psychic Church 7 For 
 in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to spiritual men that this 
 power will correspondingly appertain, either to an apostle or else to a 
 prophet. For the Church itself is, properly and principally the Spirit 
 Himself. . . . And accordingly the * Church,' it is true, will forgive sins ; 
 but the Church of the Spirit, by a spiritual man ; not the Church which 
 consists of a number of bishops. For the right and arbitrament is the 
 Lord's, not the servant's ; God's Himself and not the priest's.'* Ter- 
 tullian's argument is that the power was given to Peter because he was 
 inspired of the Father to confess Christ. He was a spiritual man. Ci 
 Dollinger, Hippolytua and CaUistus (Eng. Trans.), pp. 116 f. 
 
 * Tertullian tells xi» (De Pudicitia, 21), that the new prophecy, ipeak- 
 
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF CHURCH 273 
 
 and signs of sincere repentance. Tlie great majority of the 
 members of the churches had followed the office-bearers, and the 
 Montanist movement had failed to arrest the course of the 
 local ministry on the path they had chosen to pursue. It "vras 
 only natural that an unsuccessful revolt would strengthen 
 the position of the ministry which it had conspired against. 
 All these things combined to place the office-bearers in a position 
 of authority they had never before occupied, and to give peculiar 
 powers to the bishops who were the chief office-bearers. The 
 tendency was to think that the churches were summed up in 
 their bishops, and these officials thus acquired a new position with 
 reference to the whole Church. 
 
 The most potent cause producing this change of sentiment 
 with regard to the character of the ministry and its relation to 
 the Church was the attempt to come to some accommodation 
 with the world lying round the Christian communities in order 
 to justify the plea that Christians were entitled to the toleration 
 extended to all other religions. This consideration was always 
 accompanied by the other that the Church wished to keep hold 
 on crowds of adherents, who in the years of peace from perse- 
 cution ^ were flocking to join it, and who could not be retained 
 if the old hard conditions or, perhaps one ought to say, the earlier 
 high standard of Christian life, were insisted upon. These two 
 motives invariably acted together, and are to be found working 
 in such churches as those of Rome and Corinth in the beginning 
 of the third century.^ The first practical consequence of these 
 ideas was to alter the thought and conditions of penitence. In 
 the earlier times, as has been said, when a Christian fell into 
 such grievous sins as idolatry, murder, adultery, fornication 
 and some others, he could never be received again into full 
 
 ing in the name of the Spirit had said " The church has the power to 
 forgive sins ; but I will not do it lest they commit others.'' 
 
 ^ That is in the years between the persecution under Severus and that 
 under Decius. 
 
 * EarUer in the Corinthian Church, if we are to believe Eusebius. Com- 
 pare his Hist. Ecd. IV. xxiii. 6, 
 
 CM. 18 
 
274 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 communion, but had to remain in the position of a catechumen, 
 permitted to wait in the ante-chamber but never admitted 
 within the family abode until death was at hand. Gradually 
 the practice was softened to the extent that, on due manifesta- 
 tion of sorrow, a second trial of the full Christian life was allowed, 
 but a second fall was not to be forgiven/ In all probability 
 this remained the general rule till the third decade of the third 
 century, when Calixtus, the bishop of Rome, introduced a 
 change which met with the fierce opposition of TertuUian and 
 Hippolytus.* He, or rather the Roman Church of which he was 
 the head, entered on a pohcy of relaxation.^ It was asserted that 
 the church, through its office-bearers, was entitled to proclaim 
 God's pardon for any sins, however heinous, due signs of sorrow 
 being accepted by the office-bearers as sufficient.* It was 
 announced by an edict posted up in the church, that pardon 
 would be bestowed on these terms for all sins of the flesh, and 
 that penitents would be restored to Church communion. It 
 appears to be almost certain that this innovation contained 
 
 ' This statement appears to be borne out by what TertuUian says in 
 his tract on Repentance : — " In the vestibule God has stationed repentance 
 the second to open to such as knock ; but now once for all, because now 
 for a second time ; but never more, for the last time it had been in vain " 
 
 (7). 
 
 * Tertullian*s attack is to be found in his work on Modesty {De Pudicitia), 
 and Hippolytus' in his work against Heresies (Philosophumena), ix. 6, 7. 
 It has been commonly said that the bishop of Rome attacked by Ter- 
 tuUian was Zephyrinus ; compare Langen, Geschichte der rom. Kirche, i. 
 217 ff., and DoUinger, Hippdi/tus and CaUistus (1876), Eng. Trans., p. 117 ; 
 but see Hamack, Eerzog's Real-Encyclopaedie, x. 656, and in the Zeit- 
 schrift far Kirchengeschichte (1876-77), p. 582. 
 
 3 There is no doubt that as Dollinger says {Hippolytus and CaUistus 
 (Eng. Trans.), p. 117) the power of a bishop in the beginning of the third 
 century was anything but absolute, being Umited by both the elders and 
 the laity. " No one who knows the life of the Church at that time wiU 
 beUeve that CaUistus introduced a practice previously unknown in Rome 
 against the wiU of his presbytery (session)." 
 
 ♦ CaUxtus openly claimed this power to pardon, because he was the 
 successor of St. Peter, to whom Christ had given power to remit sins 
 (TertuUian, De Pudicitia, 21). 
 
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF CHURCH 275 
 
 two things ; tlie first being the general statement of the power 
 of the Church exercised through its office-bearers to restore 
 all persons to Church communion, no matter how heinous the 
 sin had been into which they had fallen, and the second being 
 the resolution on the part of the Roman Church to make use 
 of this general power in respect to sins of the flesh. Of course 
 there was no attempt to coerce other churches to follow the 
 example of the Roman Church, and many churches did not:' 
 Some North African churches kept to the old practice on to 
 the time of Cyprian,^ but it is undoubted that the Roman example 
 was largely followed. The statements in Hippolytus and Ter- 
 tuUian seem to warrant the conclusion that this relaxation from 
 the older sternness was made because without it large numbers 
 of Christians could not be restrained from going back to 
 heathenism.^ 
 
 There was no doubt a thoroughly evangelical element in this 
 manifesto of the Roman Church.* It was based on the evan- 
 gelical truth that God has commanded to his ministering servants 
 to proclaim that He is not willing that any should perish, that 
 
 ' As late as the beginning of the fourth century the Spanish Church 
 insisted on visiting certain sins with perpetual excommunication, while the 
 council of Ancyra held about the same time in the east set a hmited penalty 
 on the very sins for which the council of Elvira had decreed a perpetual 
 excommunication — so impossible is it to make general statements about 
 ecclesiastical usages in the early centuries. 
 
 * Cyprian, Epistle, Iv. 21 (li.). 
 
 3 Compare TertuUian's phrases in the De Pudicitia : — " A profitable 
 fickleness ; ? i" ; "easier to err with the majority" (1); his statement of 
 sins for which it is proper to provide repentance (7), etc. Compare Hip- 
 polytus on Heresies, ix. 7. Although the account of Hippolytus must be 
 taken with some caution as the statements of a bitter opponent, yet it 
 seems clear that CaUxtus expected to detach many from the churches of 
 his opponents in Rome by this policy of relaxation from the old strict- 
 ness ; and that his poHcy was successful. There must have been four or 
 five different bodies of Christians in Rome at this time, each esteeming 
 itself to be the Church of Christ. 
 
 4 An interesting parallel might be drawn between the evangelical root 
 in the sixteenth-century doctrine of indulgence and the evangeUcal basis 
 of this manifesto. Compare my Luther, p. 62. 
 
276 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 His promises in Christ can be trusted in by the most heinous 
 sinners and backsliders. But in all the circumstances of the 
 times and of the case, it took a very unevangelical shape, and 
 was worked out by Cyprian into the beginnings of the mediaeval 
 doctrine of penance. In the shape it took it inevitably led the 
 people to regard the office-bearers of the Church, and especially 
 the bishops, as if they were in God's place, and it ascribed to the 
 bishops the power of actually pardoning and not simply of pro- 
 claiming the pardon of God.' On the other hand, the Church 
 lost her old idea that she was the company of the saints or the 
 actively holy people ; and the new feeling grew that the Church 
 was the institution within which God had placed the means of 
 acquiring holiness, and that these means were at the disposal 
 of the bishops or the heads of the Christian communities, and 
 could be reached only through them. Hence the office-bearers, 
 and more especially the bishops — ^the men who had already 
 been declared to be the guardians of the essential Christian 
 verities — now came to be regarded also as the keepers or guardians 
 of that peace of God which comes from the pardon of sin. They 
 were the persons to whom it was necessary to go in order 
 to know with certainty the truths of the Christian religion, and 
 only through them could be acquired that saintly character 
 which was desirable, but which was no longer a necessary con- 
 dition of membership within the Christian Church. So the be- 
 ginnings of a wide gidf were dug between the clergy and the 
 laity, and the conception began to grow that the one duty of 
 the laity in the presence of the clergy was that of simple obedi- 
 ence. Add to this the ever-present expectation that the day 
 was approaching when the Church was to enter into an alliance 
 with the hitherto persecuting state and to find a peaceful shelter 
 under its protection ; the growing conviction that the action 
 of all the various Christian Churches ought to be as harmonious 
 
 » The proclamation of Calixtus, as quoted by Tertullian, was : / remit 
 to such as have discharged repentancei the sins of adultery and fomioatioa 
 (De PudicUia, 1) 
 
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF CHURCH 277 
 
 as possible, and that whatever step was taken by one ought 
 to be taken by all ; and the feeling that the Christian Churches 
 ought to be divisions of a well-drilled army marching in step 
 towards the earthly paradise of an alliance with, and therefore 
 of a conquest over, the hitherto persecuting power, and it is 
 possible to have some estimate of the changes which the con- 
 ception of the Church and of the ministry were undergoing 
 in the middle of this third century. At the same time it is easy 
 to make too much of the power exercised by the bishops of the 
 first half of the third century. The bishops of these days were 
 not the great potentates that one is apt to imagine them to be 
 from the language and phrases used by many modern historians.; 
 They, all of them, had to carry their people, and, above all, 
 their elders or presbyters with them, in any change they sug- 
 gested. 
 
 Canons which belong to the early part of the third century^ 
 like the Canons of Hippolytus, may say little about the rights 
 and much about the duties of the laity. They may concern 
 themselves with the layman's duty to pray in private, to come 
 to Church regularly, to ofEer the firstfruits, and may enjoin 
 his wife to be careful to prepare the oblations. They may pro- 
 hibit him from taking any part in public worship or from pre- 
 siding even at an agape. They may appear to leave him no 
 rights in the Church whatsoever save that of choosing his pastor. 
 But we know that long after this few things were done in any 
 local church without their being approved by a council of the 
 whole people and clergy, flehs and ordo ; and that this congre- 
 gational meeting existed and exercised its powers from the days 
 of St. Paul to those of Cyprian. The modem associations 
 connected with the word " bishop " impose upon us, and the 
 misleading phrase " monarchical bishop " adds to our illusions. 
 The fact was that this " monarch " was in the vast majority of 
 cases the pastor of a congregation of a few score of families, 
 that no imperial legislation had as yet compelled the payment 
 of tithes by law, nor had conferred a high social position upoD 
 
278 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 any pastor or bishop who happened to be at the head of the 
 Christian societies in cities which had been the provincial centres 
 of the imperial cult.' When Christianity became the recognized 
 religion of the Roman Empire ; when imperial edicts confirmed 
 ecclesiastical legislation ; when imperial troops were employed 
 to hunt down Marcionite, Montanist or Donatist nonconformists, 
 the state of things became different. But until we get to the 
 middle of the fourth century the Christian pastors were too 
 dependent on their people to be great potentates and irre- 
 sponsible rulers. It was the theory that was changing — that 
 is the important thing to be remembered. 
 
 This new theory of the position and authority of the ofl&ce- 
 bearers in the Christian churches was so novel, and so opposed 
 to the old traditions of primitive Christianity, that an extra- 
 ordinary sanction was needed to support it, and in the nature of 
 things the sanction had to come down from the earliest days. 
 It is here that the idea of an " Apostolic Succession," in the 
 modem Roman and Anglican sense, first makes its appearance. 
 It is a conception which had its origin in the brains of leaders 
 of the Roman Church, and although it was adopted and de- 
 fended by Cyprian, it has never ceased to be associated with 
 Roman claims and to fit most naturally into Roman theories. 
 To understand it one must remember, what is continually for- 
 gotten, that the great men who built up the Western Church 
 were almost all trained Roman lawyers. Tertullian, Cyprian, 
 Augustine, to say nothing of many of the most distinguished 
 Roman bishops, were all men whose early training had been 
 that of a Roman lawyer — a training which moulded and shaped 
 all their thinking, whether theological or ecclesiastical. The 
 framework of Roman law supported their thoughts about Chris- 
 tian organization and about Christian doctrines. They in- 
 stinctively regarded all questions as a great Roman lawyer 
 would. They had the lawyer's craving for regular precedents, 
 for elaborate legal fictions to bridge time and connect the present 
 » Compare below, p. 352 £E. 
 
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 279 
 
 with tlie past. They had the lawyer's idea that the primary 
 duty laid upon them was to enforce obedience to authority, 
 and especially to that authority which expressed itself in external 
 institutions. Apostolic succession, in the dogmatic sense of 
 that ambiguous term, is the legal fiction required by the legal 
 mind to connect the growing conceptions of the authority of 
 the clergy with the earlier days of Christianity. It served the 
 Christian lawyer in much the same way that another curious 
 legal fiction assisted the pagan civiHan. The latter insisted 
 that the government of the Emperors from Augustus to Dio- 
 cletian was the prolongation of the old republican constitution ; 
 the former imagined that the rule of bishops was the prolongation 
 through the generations of the inspired guidance of the original 
 apostles \yho were the planters of the Church. 
 
 A legal fiction has generally some historical basis to start from; 
 The basis of the fiction in civil law was the fact that the emperors, 
 while wielding almost absolute personal authority, did so in 
 accordance with republican forms inasmuch as they were 
 invested by the senate with almost all the ofiices which under 
 the republic had been distributed among a number of persons. 
 The fiction in ecclesiastical government had also its basis of 
 fact. The apostles had founded many of the churches, and their 
 first converts or others suitable had become the first office- 
 bearers. There had been a succession of leaders, the char- 
 acteristics of leadership, as has been explained, undergoing some 
 striking changes in the course of the second century. AU these 
 successions of office-bearers could be traced back to the founda- 
 tion of the churches in which they existed, and therefore to the 
 missionaries, whether apostles or apostoHc men, who had founded 
 them. This was the historical thread on which, in the end, was 
 strung the gigantic figment called apostolic succession — ^a strange 
 compound of minimum of fact and maximum of theory. 
 
 The beginnings of the theory are easily discernible, and have 
 been already explained. Irenaeus seized upon the undoubted 
 fact of successive generations of office-bearers going back to the 
 
280 MINISTRY CHANGINa TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 apostolic founders of certain cliurches in order to find a guarantee 
 for the true Christian doctrine. To make assurance doubly 
 sure, he added a theory to his fact — this, namely, that these 
 office-bearers who were in the succession had a charisma veri- 
 tatis. According to the ideas of the time there was a minimum 
 of fact in the added theory, for many of the pastors of these 
 primitive churches were prophets and had the charisma. This 
 made it easier to suppose that what belonged to some pastors 
 personally was the property of all officially. The result was that 
 Christian leaders had a short and easy method of dealing with 
 Gnostics and others.* Moreover, when the leaders became the 
 guardians of sound teaching they acquired additional magisterial 
 powers within the coromimities over which they presided. But 
 neither Irenaeus, nor Tertullian who adopted and extended 
 his theory, ever claimed that the leaders of the churches who 
 were in the succession stood in the same position to the churches 
 of the end of the second and beginning of the third centuries 
 as that held by the apostles in the middle of the first. If they 
 believed that the apostles were the mediators between Jesus 
 and the Church they were also firmly convinced that the Holy 
 Spirit was imparted to the whole membership, and was not the 
 peculiar possession of the leaders of the communities because 
 they were in the succession from the apostles. The idea ap- 
 peared earliest in the Roman Church. So far as I am aware, 
 the earliest claim of this kind was made by Hippolytus in his 
 struggle with Calixtus in Rome ; and Calixtus, the head of one 
 of the rival factions, was not slow to adopt the same arrogant 
 position. The former made use of the idea of an apostolic 
 succession to strengthen his position when he tried to show that 
 his rival was a heretic ; and the latter used it to warrant him in 
 issuing decrees which relaxed the ancient discipline in the hope 
 of attracting to his own congregation men who felt the rules of 
 Christian living laid down by Hippolytus too hard for their 
 weaJmess. These were the edifying surroundings from amidst 
 ' Compare above, p. 224 ff. 
 
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 281 
 
 which came the first full statement of the claim to apostolic 
 succession.' The theory may be older in the Roman Church 
 than this its first distinct statement.* 
 
 From the time that this doctrine of apostolic succession 
 comes into being in the West on to its full statement by Cyprian, 
 its use is the same. It is appealed to as the ground for the as- 
 sumption of powers of command on the part of the bishops or 
 pastors. It is interesting to notice that while the idea of a 
 succession is to be found in the East, it took an altogether 
 different shape from the formal legal Roman dogma. There 
 is no mention of an apostolic succession of chief pastors in the 
 fiist six books of the Apostolic Constitutions. It does not appear 
 in the definition or description of the Church which is given 
 in the first book.^ Yet the oflfice of bishop or pastor is dwelt 
 upon at length. He is always looked upon as the minister of 
 a congregation, and frequently of a very small congregation,* 
 but that does not prevent the authors heaping up phrases to 
 
 ^ " But none will refute these (heretics), save the Holy Spirit bequeathed 
 unto the Church, which the apostles having in the first instance received, 
 have transmitted to those who rightly beheved. But we, as being their 
 successors, and as 'participators in this grace, high-priesthood, and office 
 of teaching, as well as being reputed guardians of the Church, will not be 
 found deficient in vigilance, or disposed to suppress correct doctrine," 
 RefiUation of all Heresies {Philosophumena), I., proemium. Hippolytus 
 attacks Calixtus in IX. vi. vii. He says of his discipline : — " For he is 
 in the habit of attending the congregation of any one else, who is called a 
 Christian ; should a man commit any transgression, the sin, they say, is 
 not reckoned to him, provided only he hurries off to the school of Calixtus," 
 IX. vii. Calixtus is the bishop of Rome whom TertuUian attacks in his 
 De Pvdicitia, and whose proclamation he quotes : — " / remit, to such as 
 have discharged repentance, the sins of adultery and fornication" (1). 
 
 * Hamack, whose careful chronological investigations have led him to 
 beUeve that the Roman list of bishops or pastors may be trusted from 
 Anicetus (about 165 a.d.) or from Soter (about 166), while no Oriental fist 
 can be trusted before the third century, regards this as an indication that 
 the theory of apostoUc succession in its beginnings at least had become 
 established in Rome at a comparatively early date. Compare Die Chrono- 
 logic der aUchrisUichen lAteratur, pp. 144-230 ; and his History of Dogma, 
 Eng. Trans. (1894-99), ii. 70 n. 
 
 3 Apostolic Constitutions^ L i. ♦ Ibidi II. i 
 
282 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 describe liis importance and the respect which is due to him 
 from his people.' The elders, " the comisellors of the bishop " 
 — ^his Kirk-Session — '* sustain the place " of the apostles of the 
 Lord.* The formal legal Roman mind needed a precedent, 
 in the shape of this legal fiction, for the unwonted domination 
 which the chief pastors were beginning to claim. The Oriental, 
 accustomed to arbitrary government, did not feel that usurpa- 
 tion of power required to be cloaked under legal fictions. Yet 
 in the East we find a trace of a succession. Clement of Alex- 
 andria conceives the number of the apostles continually recruited 
 from age to age by the enrolment of men who have attained 
 to a " gnostical perfection," ^ and who are, therefore, the true 
 
 ' The bishop is told to sustain the character of God among men, " as 
 being set over all men, over priests, kings, nilere, fathers, children, teachers, 
 and in general over all who are subject *' to him ; Apostolic Constitutions, 
 n. xi. ; " It is thy privilege (0 bishop), to govern those under thee, but 
 not to be governed by them *' (H. xiv.) ; the laic is to " honour him, love 
 him, reverence him as his lord, as his master, as the high-priest of God, as 
 a teacher of piety ; for he that heareth him heareth Christ ; and he that 
 rejecteth him rejecteth Christ ** (H. xx.) ; " the bishop, he is the minister 
 of the word, the keeper of knowledge, the mediator between God and you 
 in the several parts of your divine worship ; he is your ruler and governor ; 
 he is your king and potentate ; he is, next after God, your earthly god, 
 who has a right to be honoured by you " (H. xxvL) ; and so on in Oriental 
 luxuriance of phrases. It is not that there was no sense of the con- 
 tinuity of office in the East : — "It is also tliy duty, O, bishop, to have 
 before thine eyes the examples of those who have gone before, and to 
 apply them skilfully to the cases of those who want words of severity or 
 of consolation *' (II. xxii.). 
 
 » " Let also a double portion (of the ftrstfruits) be set apart for the 
 elders, as for such as labour continually in the word and doctrine, upon the 
 account of the apostles .of our Lord, whose place they sustain, as the 
 counsellors of the bishop and the crown of the Church (II. xxviii.). 
 
 s Speaking of those who attain to " gnostical perfection," Clement says 
 {Stromata, VI. xiii.) : — " Luminous already, and Uke the sun shining in 
 the exerciae of beneficence, he speeds by righteous knowledge through the 
 love of God to the sacred abode, like as the apostles. . . . Those then also, 
 who have exercised themselves in the Lord's commandments, and lived 
 perfectly and gnostically according to the Gospel may be now enrolled in 
 the chosen body of the apostles. Such an one is in reality an elder of the 
 Church, and a true deacon of the will of God if he do and teach what is 
 the Lord's ; not as being chosen by men, nor regarded as righteous because 
 
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 283 
 
 teachers of the Church, for the Christian Neo-Platonist of 
 Alexandria was as famiKar with the thought of a succession of 
 inspired teachers,' as the minds of the Roman lawyers who built 
 up the Church in the West were saturated with legal precedents 
 and the need for the visible continuity of government even 
 though a legal fiction had to be invented to show it. The great 
 Alexandrian conceives the continuity of the Church to exist in 
 the succession of Christian generations, and to be made evident by 
 the appearance among them from time to time of saintly men of 
 apostohc character who are known to God, and whose supreme 
 importance in preserving the true character of Christianity 
 will be revealed in the future. This he deems to be a much 
 better guarantee than a succession of office-bearers, chosen and 
 ordained by fallible men. 
 
 Although the conception that the heads of the Christian 
 churches were the successors of the apostles, in the sense that 
 they possessed the gifts and the powers of the original apostles 
 (now thought of as Twelve only), was really the creation of the 
 Roman Church, it is intimately connected with Cyprian of 
 Carthage,^ who gave it definiteness as a dogmatic idea. This 
 
 a presbyter, but enrolled in the eldership because righteous. And although 
 here upon earth he be not honoured with the chief seat, he will sit down 
 on the four-and-twenty thrones, judging the people, as St. John says in 
 the Apocalypse. For in truth the covenant of salvation, reaching down 
 to us from the foundation of the world, through different generations and 
 times, is one, though conceived as different in respect of gifts." 
 
 ^ The Neo-Platonists believed that the true philosophy was preserved 
 to the world through a succession of divinely inspired teachers. 
 
 2 The best edition of Cyprian's works is that of J. Hartel (1868-71) in 
 the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecdesiasticorum Latinorumy where the let- 
 ters are to be found in the second volume. The numbering of the letters 
 in this edition is the same as in the Oxford edition of 1682 ; Migne's 
 edition has a different numbering. In our quotations Migne's numbering 
 is given in brackets. A very suggestive account of Cyprian's work in 
 constructing the pohty of the Church is given by Albrecht Ritschl in his 
 Die Entstehung der altkatJioUschen Kirche, 2nd ed. (1857), pp. 555-73. 
 Otto Ritschl, his son, has written Cyprian von Karthago und die VerfaS' 
 sung der Kirche (1885) — a careful and elaborate work. Other monographs 
 on Cyprian are : — Rettberg, Thascius Caecilius CyprianuSt Bischof von 
 
284 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 great ecclesiastical statesman, like Gregory I., has left behind 
 him a collection of letters which reveal the working of his mind, 
 
 Carthago, dargesteUt nach aeinen Leben und Wirken (1831). Fechtnip 
 (Roman Catholic), Der Heilige Cyprian; sein Leben und seine Lehre (1878). 
 Pearson's Annales Cyprianici are valuable ; they are pubUshed in Fell's 
 (Oxford) edition of Cyprian's works (1682), and have been republished 
 in Pearson's Minor Theological Works (1884). The latest book on Cyprian 
 is from the pen of Dr. Benson, the late archbishop of Canterbury, who 
 was the author of the article on Cyprian in the Dictionary of Christian 
 Biography. The book is entitled Cyprian, his Life, his Times, his Work 
 (1897). From one point of view it is impossible to praise this book too 
 highly ; but it has very grave defects. It displays fine scholarship, un- 
 wearied research, and an historical imagination which enables the author 
 to reconstruct the secular society of the times when Cyprian lived. The 
 framing is excellent ; but the portrait framed is scarcely so good. The 
 author exhibits to us a pious, suave, courteous, far-seeing ecclesiastical 
 statesman, whose letters and speeches were seasoned with a sarcastic 
 humour ; but the real Cyprian had other characteristics which are either 
 hidden out of sight or relegated to an obscure background. We see nothing 
 whatever of the prophet whom the Spirit inspired in dreams and visions 
 when moments of difficulty in life or in ecclesiastical policy arose, and 
 whose dread of demons changed spiritual sacraments into magical rites ; 
 little of the canonist who measured the deep promptings of the heart's 
 repentance by stereotyped expressions, and paved the way for the degrada- 
 tion of sorrow into the mechanism of penance ; little of the fiery Roman 
 African who launched envenomed phrases at ecclesiastical opponents ; 
 and nothing of the ruthless Roman lawyer who condemned a Christian 
 martyr, who had survived the tortures which had covered her poor body 
 with blood, to eternal perdition (for this he thought he could do as a suc- 
 cessor of the apostles), when she crossed the path of his ecclesiastical 
 policy. Then a curious colour blindness or perhaps an amiable propensity 
 to see all things ecclesiastical through the coloured glass of the modem 
 institutions of the communion over which he so worthily presided, pre- 
 vents the author from seeing the ecclesiastical situation which existed in 
 the middle of the third century. Dr. Benson had evidently great difficulty 
 in stating an opponent's argument fairly, and seldom succeeds in doing 
 so. He had no acquaintance with the organization of any branch of the 
 Protestant Church save his own, and yet makes continual allusion to other 
 organizations. We have such phrases as " Presbyterian Teutonism " 
 (this is applied to the greatest living authority in early Church history^ 
 Dr. Hamack of Berlin) ; " heavy pages," " laborious pages " (phrases 
 which mean that an opinion Dr. Benson does not Hke is supported by a 
 plentiful supply of quotations from Cyprian's writings), " Calvinism " (used 
 at random, for Calvinists agree with Cyprian and Augustine on the matter 
 discussed) ; and many others of the same kind. They are useful to warn 
 the unwary reader of the bias in the book. 
 
CYPKIAN OF CARTHAGE 285 
 
 and enable us to see how liis thoughts took sharper outline in a 
 controversy which he had to maintain with his own office- 
 bearers in Carthage, and how he aimed at and partly succeeded 
 in giving the Christian Church a polity which enabled it to be one 
 in practical activity as it was one in devotional conception. 
 
 Thascius Cyprianus was the most eminent of the many dis- 
 tinguished converts whom Christianity was drawing from the 
 learned and wealthy classes during the second third of the 
 third century, during that long period of " peace " which pre- 
 ceded the outbreak of the Decian persecution in 250 a.d. He 
 was a Roman whose ancestors had settled in Africa. Such men 
 were called Roman Africans. They belonged to a race which 
 had given the capital some of its most distinguished lawyers, 
 and which furnished to the Church such men as Tertullian, 
 Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Lactantius and Augustine. By 
 training and profession he was a fleader, and therefore of the 
 highest social standing.^ His wealth was great; his house, 
 with its " gilded ceilings " and " mosaics of costly marble,'* * 
 and his gardens, Were famous in the city of palaces. He became 
 a Christian in middle life, drawn by the persuasion of the in- 
 
 * " Far from any shade of unreality resting on them, the teachers of 
 oratory were courted leaders in society. The publicity in life, the majesty 
 of national audiences, the famiUarity of the cultivated classes with the 
 teaching of the schools, required the orator to be not only perfect in the 
 graces of Ufe, but to be versed in ethical science ; to be armed with soUd 
 arguments as well as to be facile of invention ; not less convincing than 
 attractive ; in short to be a wit and a student, a poUtician and an eclectic 
 philosopher. At the age of nearly thirty Gcero was still placing himself 
 under the tuition of the Rhodian Molon. Augustine's fourth book on 
 Christian doctrine shews us that five centuries and a changed reUgion did 
 not abate the value placed on technical perfection. No statesman's 
 name had for generations commanded such reverence as was paid in 
 Cyprian's times to the hfe and memory of Timesitheus the Rhetorician, 
 whose daughter the young African Emperor had espoused, and whose 
 honour and universal cultivation had for a brief interval restored purity 
 to the Court, dignity to the senate, and discipline to the camps of Rome " ; 
 Benson, Cyprian, his Life, his Times, his Work, pp. 2, 3. 
 
 * Cyprian, Ad Donatum, 15 : — " Auro distincta aquearia et pretiosi 
 marmoriis onutis vestita domicilia." 
 
286 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 tellect as well as by the pleadings of the heart. We may see 
 the path he trod towards conversion in his Treatise to Donatus 
 and in the Book of Testimonies he wrote for a friend. After a 
 brief space of time he probably became a deacon ; he was 
 certainly an elder when Donatus, the Bishop of Carthage, died. 
 The Christians at Carthage resolved that the most distinguished 
 Christian in the city, although two years had scarcely passed 
 since his baptism, should be their bishop. His reluctance only 
 increased their ardour. " A crowded brotherhood besieged 
 the doors of his house, and throughout all the avenues of access 
 an anxious love was circulating." ' Cyprian yielded and was 
 ordained, the bishop, the Papa, the spiritual Father of the 
 Christian community in Carthage. We must forget many of 
 the associations which the word " bishop " inevitably brings 
 with it to understand his position. He was simply the chief 
 pastor of the Christian congregation at Carthage and of its 
 outlying mission districts. He had no diocese and never exer- 
 cised diocesan rule. He had no cathedral, not even a church. 
 His congregation met in the audience hall of a wealthy Car- 
 thaginian burgher.* It was the man who made the position he 
 occupied one of such commanding importance as it soon attained 
 
 * Pontius, Life and Passion of Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr, 6. 
 
 * Benson, Cyprian, his Life, his Times, his Work, p. 41 and note. 
 
 * It may be useful to give the principal dates known proximately about 
 Cyprian. He was baptized probably in the spring of 246 a.d. ; became a 
 member of the Session of Carthage in 247 a.d. ; and was consecrated 
 bishop some time after June in 248 a.d. It is not quite certain that he 
 was a deacon ; the evidence lies in the phrase used by his biographer 
 Pontius, who was a deacon : — " Erat sane illi etiam de nobis contubemium 
 viri justi et laudabiHs memoriae CaeciUani " {Life, 4) ; and in the sen- 
 tence in sect. 3 : — "quis enim non omnes honoris gradus crederet taH mente 
 credente." The outbreak of the Decian persecution being imminent, 
 Cyprian retired from Carthage to his unknown hiding-place in January 
 250 A.D. ; the persecution began in April of the same year. It raged 
 fiercely until November, and was then relaxed ; but it was not considered 
 safe for Cyprian to return. He came back to Carthage in 251 a.d., some 
 time after Easter. Then followed a series of councils at Carthage where 
 
THE DECIAN PEKSEOUTION 287 
 
 Eighteen months of quiet rule were vouchsafed him; During 
 this period he had conciliated the few who had been opposed 
 to the choice of so recently baptized a Christian for the important 
 place of chief pastor. They became, says Pontius, his biographer, 
 " his closest and most intimate friends." ' 
 
 Decius was one of those stern upright emperors who believed 
 that Christianity was a source of menace to the empire, and 
 that it had to be stamped out. His edict against it was published 
 early in the year 250 a.d. It had been expected by the heathen 
 population of Carthage, and threats against the wealthy and well- 
 known head of the Christian community were freely uttered 
 by the mob. Cj^rian, thinking less of his own safety than of 
 the welfare of his people, believed it to be his duty to go into 
 retirement, and a large part of his correspondence deals with the 
 management of his congregation from his place of safety. We 
 find three distinct questions of ecclesiastical organization raised 
 and in the end settled — ^the right of men supposed to be specially 
 possessed by the Spirit to interfere in the discipline of the local 
 
 the African bishops met under the presidency of Cyprian; — the first in 
 April 251 A.D. ; the second in May 252 a.d., the third in September 253 
 A.D., the fourth in the autumn of 254 a.d., the fifth in 255, and the sixth 
 and seventh in 256 ; in 257 Cyprian was banished to Curubis ; he returned 
 to Carthage in 258 and was martyred there in September 268. 
 
 ' It is commonly said and has been repeated by Dr. Benson that the 
 five presbyters who were at variance with Cyprian in the question of the 
 influence of confessors and martyrs on the discipline of the Church were 
 among those persons who dishked his elevation to the episcopate and that 
 they continued to bear a grudge against him. This idea seems to me to 
 have no basis in fact. Dr. Benson adduces as his only proof the sentence : 
 " retaining that ancient venom against my episcopate, that is against your 
 suffrage and God's judgment, they renew their old attack upon me'* 
 {Ep. xHii. 1 [xxxix.]) ; but the " ancient venom " and " old attack '' it is 
 clear from section three and other epistles, was their first siding with 
 the confessors against Cyprian's judgment not to accept the certificates 
 of the confessors ; while the word *' suffrage" means here as elsewhere 
 that Cyprian held that all his acts as bishop were to be justified by the 
 fact that he had been vaUdly called to office. There is no trace of any 
 difficulties between Cyprian and his presbyters until the dispute about 
 what was due to the Irishes of the martyrs and the confessors in the matter 
 of the lapsed. 
 
288 MINISTRY CHANGUNG TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 church, the seat of the one supreme authority in the local church, 
 and the best means of giving a practical expression to the unity 
 of the whole Church of Christ. The occasion which demanded 
 solution of all three questions was the fact that many Christians 
 had lapsed and were asking to be restored to the communion 
 of the Church at Carthage. The ecclesiastical questions are 
 flo connected with the course of events that these last must be 
 briefly noted. 
 
 The persecution resolved upon by the Emperor Decius was 
 begun in swift ruthless Roman fashion. It attacked the Christian 
 Church everywhere simultaneously — ^in Rome, Egypt, Syria, 
 Armenia, Spain, and North Africa. It aimed at breaking up 
 the Christian communities by destroying their leaders and then 
 coercing their followers. Cyprian speaks of bishops proscribed, 
 imprisoned, banished, and slain.' Persecution had been almost 
 [ unknown in Africa for thirty-eight years, during which time of 
 '* peace " the Christian communities had been growing rapidly 
 in numbers and in influence ; the results of its renewal seemed 
 at first sight to be disastrous to the Christian faith. Multitudes 
 relapsed into heathenism.* The larger half of the Christian 
 community in Carthage and at least one presbyter had been 
 unable to face the terrible risks in which the profession of Chris- 
 tianity had involved them. They relapsed. They appeared 
 before the imperial commissioners, five of whom, called The 
 Commissioners of the Sacrifices, were appointed to act along 
 with the magistrates of the district. They made a declaration 
 that they worshipped the gods and in the presence of the com- 
 missioners they took part in the pagan worship, either joining 
 in a sacrifice, tasting the wine and eating of the sacrificial victim 
 (the saorifi<iati) or throwing incense on the altar of the emperor 
 (the thurificaii). This done they received a certificate (libeUus), 
 certifying that they had done so. This was registered, and then 
 a copy was posted up in the market place or forum. Some 
 found a way of appearing to comply and yet of escaping from 
 « Cyprian, Epist. Ixvi 7 (Ixviii.). * Cyprian, De Lapsis, 8. 
 
THE LAPSED 289 
 
 actual participation in tlie pagan rites. They bribed officials 
 to give them certificates declaring that they had taken part in 
 sacrifices which they had not done (the lihdlatici).^ Thus poor 
 Etecusa,* a Roman Christian, while she sadly and fearfully was 
 cHmbing the ascent to the Capitol, where she had to make her 
 declaration and take part in the sacrifices, found an official 
 near the small temple to the Three Fates, who sold her a certificate 
 and she went home again without sacrificing. Many sought 
 safety in flight, hoping to find freedom from persecutions in 
 cities where they were unknown. 
 
 ' Two of these UhtUi were actually discovered in 1893 and 1894, brought 
 from Egypt among bundles of papyri dug out of Egyptian sands. They 
 show us how thorough this persecution of Decius was, how systematically 
 arranged, how minute in its searching out Christians — Uttle villages being 
 included and the women peasants as well as the men interrogated. The 
 first runs : — " To the Commissioners of sacrifices of the village of Alex- 
 ander's Island from AureUus Diogenes (son of) Satabus. About 72. 
 Scar on right eyebrow. I was both constant in ever sacrificing to the 
 gods and now in your presence according to the commands I sacrificed and 
 drank and tasted of the victims, and I beseech you to attach your signature. 
 May you ever prosper. I Aurehus Diogenes have presented this." (Then 
 follow the signatures of the magistrate and witness. " I AureUus . . . 
 saw him sacrificing. I My8(thes, son of) . . . non have signed. (First) 
 year of the Emperor Caesar Gains Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius, Pius 
 FeUx Augustus. 2nd day of Ephiphi." The second, in every way similar, 
 bears the name of Aurehus Syrus, his brother Pasbeius, and Demetria 
 and Serapias their wives. They were unable to write and the scribe 
 Isidorus appended his name. The signatures of the magistrates have been 
 torn ofiE. 
 
 * Etecusa belonged to a Carthaginian family which had suffered much. 
 Her grandmother Celerina had been martyred in an earUer persecution ; 
 BO had her uncles, the son and son-in-law of Celerina, both in the army. 
 Her brother Celerinus was a noted confessor, who had come forth aUve 
 out of the severest tortures without denying his faith. Her sister Candida 
 had faltered and had sacrificed. We see the confessor ^ the sacrificata and 
 the lihdlaticay in one family. The two sisters were overwhelmed with 
 remorse and endeavoured to make atonement for their fall by waiting 
 on the arrivals of travellers at Rome and at Portus, and when they found 
 any Christian refugees from Carthage they took them home, hid them, 
 and tended them. They had no less than sixty-five of these refugees 
 in their house at Rome. Compare Cyprian, Epistles, xxi. (xx.), and xxri. 
 3 (xxxiii.). 
 
 CM 19 
 
290 MINISTRY CHANGINa TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 Those Christians who were of sterner stuff were imprisoned, 
 awaiting torture and probably death. The torture was repeated 
 over and over again. Even if it produced recantation a second 
 torture was applied. If the confessor stood firm it might be 
 applied time after time until the sufferer expired under it. 
 Such men and women were called confessors before they had 
 suffered, and martyrs after they had been done to death, or 
 had suffered tortures without expiring. The martyrs and con- 
 fessors were carefully tended while they were in prison by their 
 fellow-Christians ; and many of the lapsed, repenting of their 
 weakness, thronged the prisons in Carthage and lavished all 
 manner of attentions on the heroic confessors. These lapsed 
 Christians, especially those of them who had purchased exemp- 
 tion from suffering by means of false certificates, were anxious 
 to be reconciled with the Church, and besought the good offices 
 of the confessors and martyrs to intercede on their behalf with 
 the office-bearers, and beg them to restore them again to com- 
 munion. The result was that many of the confessors, from the 
 prison where they lay, gave letters (which were also called 
 libeUi) to the elders of the Church, the bishop being absent in 
 hiding, asking that the bearers might be restored to the Church 
 which they had abandoned in a moment of weakness. This 
 Decian persecution differed from all preceding ones to this 
 extent, that it had fallen on the whole Church of Christ, and 
 was not confined to any one portion. J The question of what was 
 to be done in the case of lapsed members who wished to returr 
 CO the faith they had abjured was one which was forced upon 
 the whole Church everywhere and at the same time.' It was 
 a question of discipline which had to be inevitably faced by 
 every church. 
 
 So far as our information goes, the leaders of the Roman 
 
 Church were the first to see the importance and the urgency 
 
 of the question. The Bishop Fabian had been one of the first 
 
 martyrs ; to meet and appoint a successor would have been to 
 
 Cyprian, EpisUe, xix. 2 (xiii.). 
 
THE LAPSED 291 
 
 offer new victims to the persecuting government. Tlie elders 
 of the church took the burden of leadership on their own shoul- 
 ders ; they saw the universal situation and the need for an 
 immediate understanding with sister churches about what it was 
 possible to do at once. They put aside matters that could wait 
 until their church had again its lawful head ; but the one matter 
 which pressed for an immediate decision was what ought to 
 be done in the case of lapsed Christians who earnestly desired 
 reconciliation with the Church, and who were on the 'point of 
 death. They accordingly wrote to the elders in Carthage, 
 advising them to follow a definite rule with regard to the lapsed 
 who were repentant — that if any were taken with sickness, and 
 repented of what they had done and desired communion, it should 
 be granted to them. In the same letter these Roman elders 
 speak not obscurely of Cyprian as the hireUng shepherd who 
 deserts his sheep when peril draws near. They in Rome and 
 the elders in Carthage are both deprived of their chief ; perse- 
 cution makes all work difficult, but it must be done. This 
 letter reached Cyprian, who treated it in a very lofty way, 
 and sent it back to the writers with a few grimly sarcastic re- 
 marks ; but it had a marked effect on him nevertheless.' It 
 altered his attitude towards his own elders. Before he had read 
 it he had sent a letter to his elders and deacons, in which he had 
 said : " I beg you by your faith and your religion to discharge 
 
 ' Hamack and Ritschl think that Crumentius carried this letter to the 
 office-bearers in Carthage for whom it was certainly intended, and that 
 they manifested their loyalty to Cyprian by making Crumentius take it 
 on to their bishop. Benson asserts that the elders in Carthage never saw 
 the letter ; that it was put into Cyprian's hands and that he sent it back 
 to Rome without permitting it to reach its destination. Benson may be 
 right. Cyprian suppressed a more important letter on a more important 
 occasion and he might have suppressed this one also. The archbishop 
 justifies the one suppression by calling Cyprian a " benevolent despot " ; 
 and the other by praising his sense of humour ! Otto Ritschl, Cyprian 
 von Karihago (1885), p. 9 ; Benson, Cyprian, his Life, his Times, his Work 
 (1897), p. 149. It does not matter which view is the correct one ; the 
 important thing is the effect of the letter on the mind of Cyprian, not its 
 effect on the elders of Carthage. 
 
292 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 both your own office and mine, that there be nothing wanting 
 either to discipline or diligence." ' He left the whole work 
 unreservedly in their hands — all his work as well as theirs. 
 The two words used, disciplina and diligeyUia, are employed 
 by Cyprian to denote the two great divisions of a bishop's work 
 — the term disciplina including everything which belonged 
 to the office of judging and punishing, and diligerUia including 
 all that belonged to his work as the head of the religious ad- 
 ministration of the congregation, the care of the poor and such 
 matters. In a letter following, however, he distinctly limited 
 the work of his elders and deacons to the diligentia or to the 
 religious administration.* " I exhort and command you, that 
 those of you whose presence there is least suspicious and least 
 perilous, should in my stead discharge my duty in respect of 
 doing those things which are required for the religious adminis- 
 tration." ^ In the same letter he refuses to answer a question 
 sent him by four presbyters, which evidently concerned mat- 
 ters of discipline on the ground that in such matters he did 
 nothing on his own private opinion without the advice of his 
 elders, deacons, and people.* From this time onwards Cyprian 
 shows himself more and more irritated with his elders. He 
 wrote to the martyrs and the confessors complaining that some 
 of his elders had admitted some of the lapsed to communion ; ^ 
 he wrote to his elders and deacons complaining that some of the 
 elders, " remembering neither the Gospel nor their own place, and, 
 moreover, considering neither the Lord's future judgment nor 
 the bishop now placed over them, claim to themselves entire 
 
 ' Cyprian, Epist. v. 1 (iv.) ; compare Epist. xx. 1 (xiv.). 
 
 ' Dr. Benson rather vehemently declares that there is no change of 
 attitude in Cyprian's two letters. He gives an abstract of Ritschl's 
 arguments and says that his " abstract will be as just as he can make 
 it"; and yet he omits entirely the strongest argument Ritschl has 
 adduced ! Compare Benson, Cyprian, etc. pp. 148-50 ; Otto Ritschl, 
 Cyprian von Karthago, pp. 9-13, 216, 217. 
 
 3 Cyprian's Epiat. xiv. 2 (v.). 
 
 ♦ Epist. xiv. 4 (v.). 5 Epist. xv. 1 (x.). 
 
THE LAPSED 293 
 
 authority (a tHng wluch was never done in anyrnse nnder 
 our predecessors) with discredit and contempt of the bishop.'' 
 Their fault was that the elders blamed had communicated with 
 some of the lapsed, and offered and given them the eucharist, 
 " disregarding the honour which the blessed martyrs, with the 
 confessors, maintain for me, despising the law of the Lord, and 
 that observance which the same martyrs and confessors order 
 to be maintained." ' He wrote to the people complaining of 
 the action of the elders in almost the same terms, and promised 
 that when he could return a meeting of bishops would be con- 
 vened and that in the presence of the confessors, and with their 
 opinion, the letters and wishes of the " blessed martyrs " with 
 reference to the lapsed would be carefully considered.' 
 
 We do not know whether Cyprian got any answer to these 
 letters ; but the probability is that he received none, and that 
 people and clergy felt sore that the bishop would neither return 
 and act himself nor allow his elders to do anything in the pressing 
 
 question of the lapsed. He wrote again to the elders and deacons 
 
 and for the first time suggested some immediate action. If any 
 of the lapsed had a certificate from one of the martyrs and 
 
 were in sore sickness they were to be allowed to communicate.^ 
 
 This letter brought an answer, which assured him that the 
 elders and deacons had hitherto done their best to follow his 
 instructions, and to restrain the people and especially the lapsed ; 
 and Cyprian reiterates the command that if any of the penitent 
 lapsed had a certificate from one of the martyrs, and were at 
 the point of death, they were to be received back into the 
 communion of the Church.* 
 
 Then comes a curious letter.' Cyprian, whose last dealings 
 with Rome had been to send back the letter of advice which 
 the Roman elders had addressed to their brethren at Carthage, 
 now wrote to these Roman elders ; justified to them his actions 
 in Carthage ; complained bitterly of the way in which the 
 
 » Epist. xvi. 1^ 3 (ix.). « Epist. xvii. 2, 3 (xi.). 
 
 5 Epist. xviii. (xii.). ♦ Epist. xix. 1, 2 (xiii.). 5 Epist. xx. (xiv.)« 
 
294 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 Hhdlatici had pestered the martyrs for certificates ; bemoaned 
 the weakness of some of his clergy in admitting some of the 
 lapsed to commmiion ; and declared that he had followed the 
 advice given in the letter from Rome which he had treated so 
 scornfully when it reached him. His letter, however, contains 
 one interesting fact. Cyprian says distinctly that although 
 some of his presbyters had acted rashly in communicating 
 with the lapsed, they had refrained as soon as he had remon- 
 strated with them.' Rome, however, had not forgotten his 
 earlier action, and he had to write four times ere he got an 
 answer. When it came it was practically a repetition of what 
 had been written to the elders of Carthage, at least so far as 
 immediate action was concerned : If the lapsed are in severe" 
 sickness and are penitent, admit them to communion, whether 
 .they have certificates from martyrs or not; But as regards 
 the larger, statesmanlike policy, which belonged to the immediate 
 future, the Roman elders adopted the proposals laid before 
 them by Cjrprian, and by intercourse and correspondence they 
 obtained the adhesion of many bishops in Sicily and in some 
 parts of Italy.* Cyprian himself had meanwhile gained the 
 adoption of his policy by a large number of bishops in Africa, 
 with whom he had been in correspondence.^ 
 
 Having thus secured the support of the Roman elders and 
 
 I of so many bishops throughout the West for his conception 
 
 \ of arriving at a common mode of dealing with the lapsed, Cyprian 
 
 at once took measures to subdue all resistance in Carthage. 
 
 ■ He superseded his elders by a commission of five, three bishops 
 
 I and two elders, to whom he entrusted not merely the discipline, 
 
 but also the relief of the deserving poor. They were to be his 
 
 vicars. It was this action that produced the subsequent schism 
 
 in the Church at Carthage,* a result scarcely to be wondered at. 
 
 Why such an arbitrary step should have been taken it is difficult 
 
 ' ETpist. XX. 2 (xiv.). « Ejyist. xxx. 6, 8 (xxx.) ; xliii. 3 (xxxix.). 
 3 Efist. XXV. (xix.) ; xxvi. (xvii.). 
 ♦ Epist. xl. 1 (xxxvii.) ; xlii. (xxxviii.). 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF MARTYRS 296 
 
 to say. Cyprian himself testifies that his clergy were at one with 
 him ; they had with his approval excommunicated Gains of 
 Didda, a presbyter who had insisted on communicating with the 
 lapsed. However it is to be accounted for it remains a witness 
 to what Cyprian believed to be the power of the chief pastor ; 
 and it also seems to imply that at this juncture Cyprian stood 
 very much alone, separated in sympathy both from his clergy 
 and his people. 
 
 Such was the situation in Carthage immediately before 
 Cyprian was able to return, and to hold the successive councils 
 of African bishops which exhibited his ecclesiastical statesman- 
 ship. Through the whole course of these events one question* 
 thrusts itself into prominence — ^the possibiUty of the restoration 
 to Church communion of Christians who had lapsed during 
 the persecution, and who penitently begged to be allowed to 
 return. Cyprian had one opinion on this matter and some of his 
 elders had another. 
 
 If the earlier usages of the Church be kept in mind, there 
 was much to be said on both sides. Idolatry had always been 
 considered one of the worst sins into which the baptized Christian 
 could fall. It was one of those heinous sins against God which, 
 it was believed, the Church could never pardon. No limits 
 were set to the mercy of God ; He might pardon and in the end 
 receive ; but the Church could only accept such repentant 
 sinners as catechumens, who could never again approach the 
 Lord's Table. On the other hand, it had been held that such 
 sins could be pardoned in the Church if a revelation was received 
 from God authorizing the restoration in any particular case. 
 So long as the prophetic ministry lasted, it was believed that a 
 prophet might receive such a revelation.' The opinion which 
 silently spread through the Church that deadly sins might 
 receive forgiveness once but not on a second lapse, can be traced 
 back to a prophetic utterance.* It was also believed that, besides 
 the prophets, the martyrs were the very men to whom it was 
 ' Tertullian, De PvdicUia, 21. * Hermas, Pastor, Mandata, iv. 
 
296 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 likely that God would vouclisafe such a revelation of His mind 
 and will.' They too had the right to speak the word of pardon 
 which the office-bearers of the Church dared not do. To speak 
 such pardons, then, was the prerogative of prophets and martyrs ;* 
 and it was theirs because the Spirit of God dwelt in them in 
 larger measure than in any other Christians, whether office- 
 bearers or not. Martyrs had used this prerogative of theirs 
 in the past. The martyrs of Lyons had pronounced the pardon 
 of the penitent lapsed around them ; ^ and we can see from 
 Tertullian,* how common a practice it was for men who, by reason 
 of some great ^in, were " outside the peace of the Church," 
 to supplicate the martyrs to procure this peace for them. Hence 
 the elders of Carthage might well plead that they were acting 
 according to the ancient traditions of the Church when they 
 wete induced to give communion to those who came with the 
 letters of the martyrs in their hands. 
 
 On the other hand, Cyprian felt that the Decian persecution 
 was a crisis which might make or mar the Church of God. The 
 long rest from persecution had made conversion a comparatively 
 easy thing, and the persecution, with the wholesale defections 
 
 * The Holy Spirit had entered the prison along with them, Tertullian 
 declared {Ad Martyrds, 1). It was the constant belief that the Lord had 
 taken up His abode in His martyr, speaking in him and suffering with him ; 
 compare the collection of evidence in Sohm, Kirchenrecht, i. 32 n. 9. 
 
 * Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. V. xviii. 7. 
 
 3 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. V. ii. 6, 6 :—" They loosed aU, they bound 
 none. . . . They did not arrogate any superiority over the lapsed ; but 
 in those things wherein they themselves abounded, in this they supplied 
 those that were deficient, exercising the compassion of mothers, and pour- 
 ing forth prayers to the Father on their account" Of. Eusebius, Hist. 
 Eccles. xlii. 6. 
 
 * Tertullian, Ad Martt/ras, 1 : — " You know that some not able to find 
 this peace in the Church, have been used to seek it from the imprisoned 
 martyrs." In his tract De Pvdicitia ho denounces the practice in the 
 case of those who had been guilty of sins of the flesh (22). The martyr, 
 he says, is no sooner in prison than sinners beset and gain access to him ; 
 " instantly prayers echo round him ; instantly pools of tears of all the 
 polluted surround him ; nor are any more diligent in purchasing entrance 
 into prison than those who have lost the Church." 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF MARTYRS 297 
 
 it had produced, had shown how bad these easy conversions 
 had been for the stability of the Church. To make restoration 
 an easy matter might do more harm to Christianity than the 
 persecution itself. He was unwearied in urging, in his earliest 
 letters, that lapsing into idolatry was a heinous sin against God, j 
 which must be bitterly repented in protracted sorrow. Hasty 
 restoration was a profanity in his sight, and the demand for it 
 did not seem to him to be a sign of the depth of sorrow that 
 should exist. He knew that the churches had relaxed their 
 former rigid attitude with regard to sins specially heinous ; he 
 had no word of disapproval for the practice ; he believed that 
 the churches had authority to forgive even the sin of idolatry — 
 at least he must have come to believe that they had ; ' but with 
 that strong view of authority which was his characteristic and 
 with his ideas of orderly Church procedure, he was determined 
 that the whole question of the lapsed ought to be gone into 
 with the greatest deliberation. The dominant idea in his 
 earliest epistles is that after the persecution had ceased the 
 bishop, elders, deacons, confessors and people ought to meet 
 together, and the question of the lapsed, their repentance 
 and their pardon be deliberately dealt with.' The scene sug- 
 gested by his words is what we know was the mode of dis- 
 cipline in the Roman Church after Calixtus' proclamation that 
 the office-bearers at Rome were prepared to grant pardon for 
 sins of the flesh on due signs of sorrow. Tertullian's description 
 of the scene, although a caricature by a bitter opponent, conveys 
 a not unfair impression of what must have frequently taken 
 place. ^ Cyprian's later declaration that he meant to ask the 
 
 ' In hi^ Testimonies (iii. 28), Cyprian says distinctly that " remission 
 cannot be granted in the Church to him who has sinned against God " ; 
 but he does not say whether this " sin against God " is idolatry or not. 
 
 2 Epistles, xi. 8 (vii.) ; xiv. 4 (v.) ; xv. 1 (x.) ; xvi. 4 (ix.). 
 
 3 De Pudicitia, 13 : — " You introduce into the Church the penitent 
 adulterer for the purpose of melting the brotherhood by his supplications. 
 You lead him into the midst clad in sackcloth, covered with ashes, a com- 
 pound of disgrace and horror. He prostrates himself before the widows. 
 
298 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 assistance of other bishops in the determination of so grave a 
 matter is not incompatible with his earlier promises.^ 
 
 Suddenly he was brought face to face with a question of 
 authority. To the grave Roman lawyer who had become a 
 Christian bishop, the question of authority was the question of 
 questions. Another authority suddenly confronted him within 
 his own congregation. He could afford to be sarcastic in a 
 dignified manner when the elders of the Church of Rome com- 
 pared bim to a hireling shepherd and then proceeded to give 
 advice to his own office-bearers. That was from without ; 
 but this was from within ; and had moreover some sanction 
 from ancient usage. He felt bound to resist, and he did with 
 all his powers. 
 
 Thus this struggle successfully maintained by Cyprian against 
 the right of the martyrs or confessors to pronounce pardon of 
 one who had lapsed, may be looked upon as the last stage of 
 the long contest waged by the office-bearers of the local churches 
 against the ancient supremacy of the prophetic ministry. His 
 success established the complete supremacy of the local office- 
 bearers ; it was never again questioned. Carthage had there- 
 fore a peculiar place in the development of the idea of the centre 
 of authority in the Church of Christ in addition to the prominence 
 given to it by the genius of its bishop. The martyrs and con- 
 fessors do not seem to have contested the supremacy of the 
 bishop or office-bearers anywhere else. At Rome,* at Alexandria 
 and at Corinth, they all supported the ordinary ecclesiastical 
 
 before the elders, suing for the tears of all ; he seizes the edges of theh 
 garments, he clasps their knees, he kisses the prints of their feet. Mean- 
 while you harangue the people and excite their pity for the sad lot of the 
 penitent. Good pastor, blessed father that you are, you describe the 
 coming back of your goat in recounting the parable of the lost sheep. 
 And in case your ewe lamb may take another leap out of the fold — as if 
 that were not lawful for the future which was not really lawful in the past 
 — you fill all the rest of the flock with apprehension at the very moment 
 of granting indulgence." 
 
 ' EfisUe, xvii. 3 (iL). 
 
 • Pyprian, EpisUe^ xxxi. 6, 7 (xxv.). 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 299 
 
 authorities.* In Carthage alone the confessors and martyrs 
 strove to exert their power against that of the bishop, and found 
 some of the office-bearers ready, at first at least, to accept their 
 decisions as the commands of God. 
 
 Felicissimus could say : " God speaks through His martyrs 
 as He spoke in the old days through His prophets, and where 
 God speaks there is His Church " ; and the lapsed could send 
 letters to Cyprian written in the name of the Church, because 
 they were written by martyrs ; while Cyprian could reply : 
 " God speaks through the bishop as he formerly spoke through 
 His apostles, and the Church is founded on the bishops, and 
 every act of the Church is controlled by these same rulers." ^ 
 Thus the two authorities faced each other in Carthage — at first 
 within the one community — then, when the tension became 
 too strong, in two separate congregations, in one of which 
 Felicissimus and the five elders represented the old idea of 
 authoritative divine utterance in the midst of the congrega- 
 tion ; while in the other Cyprian insisted on the new thought, 
 first proclaimed by Hippolytus and Calixtus in their mutual 
 quarrels, that the bishops speak the divine decisions as the 
 apostles had done.^ 
 
 Cyprian took this position from the first: — ^No one can be 
 
 " Compare the account given by Eusebius of the way in which Dionysius 
 of Corinth persuaded his people to admit the lapsed there to communion 
 {Hist. Eccles. VI. xUi. 5, 6) ; — "But these same martyrs, who are now 
 sitting with Christ and are the sharers of His kingdom, and the partners 
 in His judgment, and who are now judging with Him, received those of 
 the brethren that fell away and had been convicted of sacrificing, and 
 when they saw their conversion and repentance, and having proved them 
 as sincere, they received them and assembled with them. They also com- 
 municated with them in prayer and at their feasts. What then, brethren, 
 do ye advise concerning these ? What should we do ? Let us join in our 
 sentiments with them, and let us observe their judgment and their charity ; 
 and let us kindly receive those who were treated with such compassion 
 by them. Or should we rather pronounce their judgment unjust, and set 
 ourselves up as judges of their opinions, and thus grieve the spirit of mild- 
 ness, and overturn established order ? " 
 
 * Compare the whole of Epistle xxxiii. (xxvi.). 
 
 3 Otto Ritschl seems to think that Cyprian, if he did not during the coiil8t> 
 
300 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 received back into the communion of the Church until penance 
 has been performed, confession made, and the hands of the 
 bishop and clergy are laid upon their heads. This cannot be 
 done in the absence of the bishop, and therefore there can be 
 no restitution of the lapsed until the " peace " comes and the 
 bishop is able to return. But he was too great a man to be a 
 doctrinaire theorist. When he found the strength of the martyrs' 
 position in Carthage, when his humanity was touched with the 
 thought of really penitent lapsed dying without the reconciliation 
 they longed for, he permitted his elders to commimicate with 
 those invalids who had martyrs' certificates, although he could 
 not be present himself to receive them formally,' and by nomina- 
 
 o£ the Decian persecution alter his conception of what the Church was, 
 held it in a more rudimentary form before the persecution arose, and that 
 it took shape during his experiences while the persecution lasted. He is 
 therefore of opinion that he sees these more rudimentary ideas in the letter 
 Ixiii. (Ixii.), which he accordingly places at the head of the list. The 
 argument from the expressions in the letter does not appear to be very 
 conclusive. Cyprian is there speaking of the cup in the Holy Supper. 
 He says that the water in the mixed chaUce represents the baptized people 
 and the wine is the symbol of Christ ; and that when the cup is given the 
 Church becomes united with Christ. He calls the Church which is thus 
 united to Christ in communicating " the people estabhshed in the Church 
 faithfully and firmly persevering in what they have believed." He is not 
 speaking about what makes a Church, but about how the people who are in 
 the Church are united to Christ in partaking of the cup in the communion. 
 It is true that Cyprian tells us that the Church is in eptscopo ei clero et in 
 omnibus stantibus constittUa ; but this definition does not prevent him 
 asserting in the previous sentence that the Church is founded on the 
 bishops {Epist. xxxiii. 1 (xxvi.). Cyprian held from the beginning that 
 the bishop is the keystone of the arch ; without him nothing remains but a 
 heap of ruins. At the same time, his theory grew more and more distinct 
 as he had to accept consequences which followed from his premises in the 
 discussions which the controversies about the lapsed evoked. Compare 
 Ritschl, Cyprian, etc. pp. 86 f. and 241 ; Benson, Cyprian, pp. 39, 186 f. 
 
 ' Epistle^ xviii. (xii.); xx. 3 (xiv.) ; Ivii. 1 (Uii.). Cyprian, like his 
 master, Tertullian, evidently thought that it ought to "suffice to the 
 martyr to have purged his own sins ; it is part of ingratitude or of pride 
 to lavish upon others what one has obtained at a high price. Who has 
 redeemed another's death by his own, but the Son of God alone ? " He 
 also knew that beneath the noble constancy which endured tortures there 
 was a nervous excitement on the part of some at least which was leading 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 801 
 
 ting a distinguished martyr to be one of his commission of five, 
 he managed to show the people that the whole strength of the 
 martyrs was not on the side opposed to him.' Never from 
 beginning to end did he acknowledge an authority in the local 
 church superior or even equal to that of the bishop. He went 
 the length of superseding his elders, the ancient counsellors of 
 the bishop, when he thought that the influence of the martyrs 
 over them was Hkely to weaken his. He was the despot, gener- 
 ally a benevolent despot, of the local church. His position might 
 be due to his people, but he never imagined that his authority 
 came from them ; it came from God directly. That was his idea ' 
 from first to last. The old theory that the bishop did not differ 
 from the elders save in having a special seat of honour in the 
 Church and in having the power to ordai^, was not his. He was a 
 Roman lawyer, and the analogies of imperial government were 
 always before him. The governors of the imperial provinces, large 
 or small, were nominated by the emperor and were responsible 
 to him alone. It was their duty to govern for the benefit of the 
 people over whom they were set, to take counsel with them 
 and their leaders on the affairs of the province, but they were 
 responsible to the emperor alone from whom their authority 
 came. The Church had begun to copy the imperial organization 
 in many things, as we shall see hereafter, and the analogy of the 
 imperial government was never absent from the thoughts of 
 the leaders during the second half of the third century. The 
 bishops were the dispensatores Dei et Christie as the governors 
 were the deputies of the emperor. They were in God's place, 
 set there by His authority, and responsible to Him alone. If 
 their authority was recognized then they might take their people 
 and their subordinate office-bearers into their confidence and 
 
 tliem to practise unnatural tests of continence — tests which should never 
 have been used, which might prove dangerous and which in some cases 
 did prove dangerous in the end. Compare EpisUes, xi. 1 (vii.) ; xiii. 5 
 (vi.) ; De Unitate Ecdesiae, 20. 
 
 ' Epistles^ xl. (xxxiv.) ; xli. (xxxvii.) ; xliii. (xxxviii.). 
 
302 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 into their counsels, but if it was in any way questioned, then 
 they were alone with God against all gainsayers.' 
 
 According to Cyprian's idea, the bishop entered upon the 
 rights and duties of his office through ordination, which was the 
 indispensable gate to all office in the Church.* His selection 
 was commonly the act of the people, but neighbouring bishops 
 might select him and present him to his people, whose assent 
 must always be obtained before installation.^ Whatever the 
 mode of selection and of consecration, Cyprian saw in these acts 
 the hand of God. It was God and God alone who made bishops, 
 
 ' Epistles f iii. (bdv.) ; Ixviii. (Ixvi.). 
 
 « Epist. Ixix. 3 (Ixxv.) : — " Habere namque aut tenere ecclesiam nullo 
 modo potest qui ordinatus in ecclesia non est." 
 
 3 Cyprian describes the appointment of a bishop thrice — the one being 
 his own, the others that of a bishop in Spain and of Cornelius of Rome. 
 Of his own he says : — "When a bishop is appointed into the place of one 
 deceased, when he is chosen in time of peace by the suffrage of an entire 
 people, when he is protected by God in persecution, faithfully linked with 
 his colleagues, approved to his people by now four years' experience in 
 his episcopate ; observant of discipUne in time of peace ; in time of per- 
 secution, proscribed with the name of his episcopate applied and attached 
 to him ; so often asked for in the circus, * for the Uons * in the amphitheatre ; 
 honoured with the testimony of the divine condescension," Epist. lix. 6 
 (liv.). ** You must diUgently observe and keep the practice delivered 
 from divine tradition and apostohc observance, which is also maintained 
 among us and almost throughout the provinces ; that for the proper cele- 
 bration of ordinations all the bishops of the same province should assemble 
 with that congregation for which a prelate is ordained ; and the bishop 
 should be chosen in the presence of the people, who have most fully known 
 the life of each one and have looked into the doings of each one as respects 
 his habitual conduct. And this also, we see, was done by you in the 
 ordination of our colleague Sabinus ; so that by the suffrage of the whole 
 brotherhood, and by the sentence of the bishops who had assembled in 
 their presence, and who had written letters to you concerning him, the 
 episcopate was conferred upon him," Epist. Ixvii. 6 (Ixvii.). " ComeUus 
 was made bishop by the judgment of God and of His Christ, by the testi- 
 mony of almost all the clergy, by the suffrage of the people who were 
 there present, and by the assembly of ancient priests and good men," 
 Epist. Iv. 8 (li.) ; see also lix. 5 (Uv.) ; Ixvii. 4 (Ixvii.). Compare Hatch, 
 art. Ordination in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities ^ p. 1518b. The 
 mode of appointing the bishop or pastor in the third century as described 
 in Cjrprian's letters was essentially the same as the mode of appointing 
 the pastor or bishop in Presbyterian Churches at the present time. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 808 
 
 wMle it was tlie bishops who made the subordinate office-bearers.' 
 His reason for his strong and reiterated assertions that bishops 
 were made by God appears to have been that the appointment 
 of a bishop, who is, " for the time, judge in Christ's stead," is 
 such an important thing, that God who cares even for sparrows, 
 must control the selection of bishops.^ 
 
 Once appointed, the bishop possessed the " sublime power 
 of governing the Church," and was responsible to God alone 
 for his deeds. 3 He was the autocrat within his own Church, 
 and every act and office culminated in his person, just as the 
 emperor absorbed in one man all the legal powers which under 
 the earlier republican government had been distributed among 
 several officials. 
 
 The bishop had entire charge of the discipline of the congre- 
 gation. It was his care to see that the brethren kept the divine 
 precepts. It was his duty to instruct the people about what the 
 discipline of the Church required, and to promote their growth 
 in hoHness.* To this end God might vouchsafe to grant him 
 visions which he was bound to communicate to his people for 
 their edification.^ In all this the elders and deacons might assist, 
 but always under the control of the bishop.^ To him and to him 
 alone belonged the right of " binding and loosing " — a right 
 which had been given, he maintained, to St. Peter, and then 
 to the other apostles, and which now belonged to the bishops 
 who were for each generation what the apostles had been for 
 
 ' Epist. iii. 3 (Ixiv.) ; xlviii. 4 (xliv.) ; Iv. 8 (K.) ; lix. 4, 5 (liv.) ; Ixvi. 
 1, 9 (Ixviii.). 
 
 • " * Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and one of them does 
 not fall to the ground without the will of your Father.' When He says 
 that not even the least things are done without God's will, does anyone 
 think that the highest and greatest things are done in God's Church without 
 God's knowledge or permission, and that priests — that is, His stewards 
 — are not ordained by His decree ? '* JSpisf. Hx. 5 (liv.) ; Ixvi. 1 (Ixviii.). 
 
 3 Epist. lix. 2 (liv.) ; Iv. (U.). 
 
 ♦ Epist. iv. 2 (Ixi.) ; xiv. 2 (v.) ; cf. xv. 2 (x.) ; xvi. 3 (ix.). 
 
 * Epist. xi. 3-7 (vii.). 
 
 * Epist, XV. 1 (x.) ; xvii. 2 (xi). ; xviii. (xii.) ; xix» (xiii.), etc. 
 
304 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 the first.' No restoration of sinners was possible until the bishop 
 had heard their confessions, until he had approved of their signs 
 of sorrow, or until he, along with the presbyters and deacons, 
 had placed his hands on their head in token of forgiveness.' 
 He could institute new laws of discipline, but always in accord- 
 ance with the Scriptural rules, and more suitably after consulta- 
 tion with other bishops.^ To him belonged the power to pre- 
 scribe the signs of sorrow, and to say what were sufficient in the 
 way of prayers and of good works such as almsgiving.* 
 
 He was also the head of the whole religious administration 
 {diligentia). He was the almoner of the poor and the paymaster 
 of the subordinate clergy.' For Cyprian seems to have been the 
 first to make payments to the clergy, a first charge on the tenths 
 and free-will offerings of the congregation.* He could give 
 or withhold the monthly payments ; and this of itself, when the 
 elders and deacons were dependent on the Church for their liveli- 
 hood, sufficed to make the bishop an autocrat over the clergy. 
 
 The bishop was, therefore, according to Cyprian, the overseer 
 of the brotherhood, the provost of the people, the pastor of the 
 flock and the governor of the Church, and all these terms ex- 
 pressed the relations in which he, as supreme ruler, stood towards 
 
 ' Epist. ham, 7 (budL). 
 
 * Epist. xvi. 2 (ix.) ; xviii. (liii.) ; xx. 3 (xiv.) ; Ivii. 1 (liii.). 
 
 3 Epist, XX. 3 (xiv.) : — disponere singula vel reformare. Cf. Ixiii. 10, 11 
 (bdi.) : — '* ab evangelicis autem praeceptis omnino recedendum esse . . . 
 cum ergo neque ipse apostolus neque angelus de caelo adnuntiare possit 
 aliter aut docere praeterquam quod semel Christus docuit et apostoli 
 ejus adnuntiaverunt." 
 
 * Epist. xvi. 2 (ix.) : — " They who truly repenting might satisfy God 
 : . . with their prayers and toorJfcs." Epist. Iv. 22 (li.) mentions alms- 
 giving and fasting. De Opere et Eleemosynis, 1 : — " ut sordes post- 
 modum quascumque contrahimus eleemosynis aUuamus." 
 
 3 Epist. vii. (xxxv.); xiv. 2 (v.); Ixii. (lix.) ; xli. 2 (xxxvii) : — " ut 
 cum eocleaia matre remanerent et siipendia ejus episcopo dispensante 
 perciperent " ; xxxiv. 4 (xxvii. 3) : — " interea se a divxsione mensuma 
 tantum corUinearU non quasi a ministerio ecclesiastico privati esse videan- 
 tur." 
 
 ^ Compare Achelis, Die Catumes Hippolyti {Texte und Untersuchunffeni 
 VL iv. 193 n-). 
 
BISHOPS REPRESENT CHRIST 805 
 
 them. But he was more. He was also the representative of 
 Christ and the priest of God.* 
 
 According to Cy^nan the bishop was the representative 
 (antistes) of Christ in the commmiity over which he ruled, and 
 therefore he had the authority over that single congregation 
 or church which our Lord possessed over the universal Church, 
 He was the lord or viceroy over that portion of God's heritage. 
 But Christ had this position of authority over His people because 
 He represented His people in the presence of God ; because He 
 was their High Priest ; because He had offered for them His own 
 Body and Blood. The bishop, therefore, as the representative 
 of Christ, is the priest of God,^ who in the Eucharist offers to 
 God the " Lord's Passion," and " truly discharges the office of 
 Christ " when he imitates that which Christ did. " He offers 
 a true and perfect sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, 
 when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ 
 
 ' Eykt. Ixvi. 6 (Ixviii.) ; ** Ecce jam sex annis nee fratemitas habuerit 
 episcopum, nee pleba jyraepositum, nee grex pastorem, nee ecclesia guber- 
 ncUorem, nee Christum arUistitem, nee Deus sacerdotem.** Praepositus 
 generally signified a military commander in the later times of the Republic ; 
 it was afterwards used of a magistrate ; the military association of com- 
 mand was probably in Cyprian's mind. It is the word from which comes 
 the French prevot and the Scotch provost. In early mediaeval Latin it 
 means the chief magistrate of a town — burg-graf, comes urbis. 
 
 * Cyprian's views about the bishop as priest of God and about the 
 sacrifice in the Eucharist are most clearly expressed in Epistle Ixiii. (Ixii.). 
 He says that in the Eucharist the bishop does " that which Jesus Christ, 
 our Lord and God, the founder and teacher of this sacrifice did and taught " 
 (1) ; he calls the Holy Supper the sacrament of the sacrifice of the Lord ; 
 (4), and " the sacrifice of God the Father and of Christ " (9) ; he says that 
 in the Eucharist we ought to " do in remembrance of the Lord the same 
 thing which the Lord also did" (10); "that priest truly discharges the 
 office of Christ, who imitates what Christ did, and he offers a true and 
 full sacrifice in the Church of God the Father when he proceeds to offer 
 it according to what he sees Christ Himself offered " (14) ; " the Lord's 
 passion is the sacrifice which we offer " (17). The Eucharist is the dominica 
 hostia {De UnikUe EcclesiaCy 17). Cyprian's ideas about Christian priests 
 and sacrifices, occupjdng as they do the borderland between the purer 
 and more primitive ideas and the conceptions of the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies which were corrupted by so many pagan associations, deserve a 
 much more elaborate treatment than can be given here. 
 
 CM. 20 
 
306 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 Himself to have offered." The bishop brings the people into 
 actual communion with Christ in the Eucharist, and they are 
 united to Him in drinking the wine which is His Blood ; whilst 
 to God the Father is again presented the ofEering once made 
 to Him by Christ. The bishop was also the representative of 
 Christ because he received those who were introduced into the 
 Church by baptism.' He was believed to bestow the Holy 
 Spirit upon them in baptism and in the laying-on-of-hands. 
 " They who are baptized in the Church," says Cyprian, " are 
 brought to the praepositi of the Church, and by our prayers and 
 by the imposition of hands obtain the Holy Spirit." * Thus 
 the Church is built up around him. He creates it in baptism ; 
 he brings the members into continual contact with their Lord 
 in the Eucharist, now become a sacrifice in which the communi- 
 cants, as in pagan rites, were united to the deity by partaking 
 of the flesh of the victim and drinking the wine of the libation. 
 So that, to quote Cyprian : " they are the Church who are a 
 people united to the priest and the flock which adheres to their 
 pastor . ; . the bishop is in the Church, and the Church is in the 
 bishop." ^ Above all, the bishop is the representative of Christ 
 because he is the judge to whom belongs the power of punishing 
 or remitting sins. This idea is continually before Cyprian. 
 " They only who are set over the Church . . . can remit sins." * 
 He quotes again and again Deut. xvii. 12 : " The man that doeth 
 presumptuously in not hearkening unto the priest that standeth 
 to minister there before the Lord thy God, or to the judge, 
 that man shall die." ' He discourses on the sin of Israel in 
 
 ' Tertullian tells us that it was the bishop who baptized mhiaDe Bap- 
 tismo, 17 : — " The summus sacerdos, who is the bishop, has the right of 
 giving it (baptism) ; and in the next place, the elders and deacons, yet 
 not without the bishop's authority on account of the honour of the Church." 
 This is also Cyprian's idea ; compare Epistles, Ixxiii. 7 (Ixxii.) ; Lxxv. 7 
 (Ixxiv.). 
 
 a Epist. Ixxiii. 9 (Ixxii.). 3 Epist. Ixvi. 8 (Ixviii.). 
 
 ♦ Epist. Ixxiii. 7 (Ixxii.). 
 
 s Epist. iii. 1 (Ixiv.) ; iv. 4 (bd.) ; xliii. 7 (xxxix.) ; lix, 4 (liv.) ; kvi. 3 
 (brii.). 
 
PRIEST AND SACRIFICE 807 
 
 refusing obedience to the Priest Samuel.' It is the authority 
 of the priest that he has always in view. 
 
 But while the thought of implicit obedience to the bishop 
 is foremost in his mind, the sacerdotal conception was not 
 absent. He conceived that the bishops were a special priest- 
 hood and had a special sacrifice to offer. This was a new thought 
 in the Church of Christ. It was really introduced by Cyprian, 
 and it requires a Httle explanation. 
 
 In Christianity we find from the beginning the thoughts of 
 priest and of sacrifice. The two conceptions always go together, 
 and whatever meaning is attached to the one determines that 
 of the other. The idea of a sacrifice offered in the Christian 
 congregation was continually present, and from the beginning 
 it was intimately connected with the Eucharist. But the 
 thoughts suggested by the words were always evangelical. It 
 was believed that all Christians were priests before God, and 
 that all had to do the priestly work of sacrificing. The sacrifices 
 of the Church, the bloodless sacrifices predicted by the prophet 
 Malachi,^ were the prayers, the praises, and the worship of the 
 believers. The Holy Supper, which was the supreme part of 
 the Christian worship, was a sacrifice because it was an act of 
 worship, and because it combined, as no other act did, the 
 prayers of all the worshippers and the gifts or oblations of 
 bread and wine which were given by the worshippers and were 
 used partly in the Holy Supper and partly to distribute among 
 the poor. The idea of the priesthood of all believers was firmly 
 rooted in the thoughts of the early Christians, even although 
 the constant use of the Old Testament naturally led them 
 from a very early period to draw some comparisons between 
 the leaders of their pubhc devotions and the priests and Levites 
 of the Jewish Church.^ When they began to explain to them- 
 selves and to others what the sacraments of baptism and the 
 
 ' Eyist. iii. 1 (Ixiv.), where the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram 
 is also quoted to point the same moral. 
 * Malachi i. 11 ; iii. 3, 4. 3 Clement, 1 E^p. xL 6; DidachCy xiii, S. 
 
308 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 Holy Supper were, it was almost inevitable that thoughts con- 
 nected with those portions of pagan worship most nearly related 
 to sacraments should come into their minds. Hence the pagan 
 mysteries formed the outline of the picture which presented 
 itself to their imaginations when they tried to describe what the 
 sacraments meant.' This inevitable habit could not fail to 
 bring many superstitious conceptions round the sacraments, 
 and many such did connect themselves with them. Notwith- 
 standing this, the evangelical thought that the sacrifices of the 
 New Covenant are the worship of the people, and that the priest- 
 hood is the whole worshipping congregation was always the 
 ruling idea. The sacrifice in the Holy Supper was a sacrifice of 
 prayer and thanksgiving, and the sacrificial act was the prayers 
 and the thanksgivings of the worshippers. Apologists ^ defended 
 the lack of material sacrifices in the Christian rehgion, and 
 Justin Martyr could say that " prayers and giving of thanks 
 
 X This is seen earlier than Tertullian but it appears most clearly in 
 his writings. In De Baplismo, 5 he says : — " Weil, but nations who are 
 strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers ascribe to their idols 
 the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy ; but they cheat them- 
 selves with waters which are widowed. For washing is the channel 
 through which they are initiated into some sacred rites of some notorious 
 Isis or Mithras ; the gods themselves they likewise honour by washings. 
 Moreover by carrying water around, and sprinkling it, they everywhere 
 ceremonially purify country-houses, habitations, temples and whole cities. 
 They are certainly baptized at the ApoUinarian and at the Eleusinian 
 games ; and thoy presume that regeneration and the remission of penalties 
 due for their perjuries is the effect of that. Among the ancients, whoever 
 had defiled himself with murder, was accustomed to go in search of puri- 
 fying waters.'* In the De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 40, he says : — 
 " The devil ... by the mystic rites of his idols vies even with the essential 
 things of the sacrament of God. He, too, baptizes some, even his own 
 believers and faitliful followers ; he promises the putting away (exposi- 
 tionem) of sins by a laver ; and if I do not forget, Mithras there sets his 
 marks on the foreheads of his soldiers, celebrates the oblation of bread, 
 introduces an image of the resurrection, and under the sword wreathes the 
 crown. What shall we say to insisting on the chief priest being the husband 
 of one wife ; and he (the devil) has virgins who live under the profession 
 of chastity." 
 
 * Compare Athenagoras, Apology {Plea), 13 ; Minucius Felix, Apology, 
 
PRIEST AND SACRIFICE 309 
 
 {eucharistia), when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect 
 and well-pleasing sacrifices to God." ' 
 
 But if the whole people were the priests, and if the main 
 thought in priesthood was authority and supremacy in judging 
 in all matters of rule and discipline, then the people, the congre- 
 gation, were the rulers in the last resort. But this primitive 
 conception did not suit the ideas which Cyprian, the Roman 
 lawyer, had about the special onmipotence of the bishop, the 
 representative of Christ in Heaven, as the local governor was 
 of the Emperor in Rome. His thought was that the bishop 
 was the priest, and that the people were not priests but those 
 whom the priest introduced into the presence of God. The 
 whole conception of Christian thought began to change, and the 
 change dates from Cyprian and his influence. 
 
 The changes made by Cyprian in the early Christian ideas 
 of sacrifice and priest can be best seen by comparing his language 
 with that of Tertullian, his " master " in theology. In Ter- 
 tuUian we have the old ideas that the prayers of the Christian, 
 public and private, are his sacrifices, and that all Christians 
 are priests because they can offer sacrifices of prayer and thanks- 
 giving well-pleasing to God. He calls the Holy Supper a sacrifice 
 — ^which it is, a sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving — but he 
 never thinks of it as a sacrifice of a distinct and special kind 
 to be carefully discriminated from the prayers of the people. 
 On the other hand, Cyprian is very careful to distinguish between 
 prayer and the Holy Supper in the sense that he never calls 
 the one a sacrifice, while he invariably gives that name to the 
 other. He never thinks of all the worshippers sacrificing ; 
 on the contrary, he is careful to distinguish between what the 
 people and what the priests do in the sacrament — the people 
 offer oblations, but the priest offers a sacrifice. There is, accord- 
 ing to his idea, a specific sacrifice offered by a specific (not 
 simply a ministering) priesthood in the Holy Supper, The 
 
 ' Justin, Dialogue^, 117 j compare Apology , i. 13, 65-7 ; Dialogue, 28, 
 29, 116-8. 
 
310 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 sacrifice wliich is offered, is, as we have seen, the " Passion of 
 the Lord, the Blood of Christ," the " Divine Victim." He was 
 the first to suggest, for his language goes no further than sug- 
 gestion, that the Holy Supper is a repetition of the agony and 
 death of our Lord on the Cross — a thought never present to the 
 mind of an earher generation. The ministry has become, in 
 his eyes, or is becoming, a mediating priesthood with power to 
 offer for the people the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 
 
 His thought of priesthood also leads him to extemaUze, if 
 the expression may be allowed, the whole thought of sorrow 
 and repentance. In early times if Christians fell into sin, they 
 were required to confess their sins publicly and to exhibit mani- 
 fest signs of sorrow. These signs were not always stereotyped : — 
 prayers accompanied by tears and groanings, fasting and giving 
 the food thus saved to the poor, setting free a slave or slaves, 
 abundant almsgiving. The penitents were required to perform 
 some open act of self-denial to show that their sorrow was a 
 real thing. Of course the tendency was to connect these signs 
 of sorrow directly with the pardon which followed, and even 
 TertuUian was accustomed to speak of such signs of sorrow 
 as something well-pleasing to God, in the sense that God accepted 
 them as meritorious and forgave on their account. Cyprian 
 was the first to lay hold on this familiar practice of penitence, 
 and use it as a means to estabhsh the power of the bishop. His 
 thought seems to have been that some special " good works " 
 were needed to secure the pardon of God for sins committed after 
 baptism,^ and that the good works must commend themselves 
 to the bishop, who was the " priest of God " and the " repre- 
 
 ' In his De Opere et EleemosyniSt Cyprian declares that sins will come 
 after baptism and that God has provided a remedy for us "so that by 
 almsgiving we may wash away whatever foulness we subsequently con- 
 tract " (1) ; " The remedies for propitiating God are given in the words 
 of God Himself. ... He shows that our prayers and fastings are of less 
 avail unless they are aided by almsgiving " (5) ; he quotes the case of the 
 raising of Tabitha to show how " effectual were the merits of mercy " (6). 
 The same ideas occur in the De Lapsia, and are to be found throughout the 
 EpisUes, 
 
A SUCCESSION OF APOSTLES 811 
 
 sentative of our Lord " — for with Cyprian priest and bishop are 
 synonymous terms. 
 
 Thus the earlier idea of a Christian ministry was changed 
 into the conception of a mediating priesthood. Behind the 
 change of thought was the new conception of the authority of 
 the clergy over the laity and of the bishop over all. In respect 
 of their historical origin the ideas of the omnipotence of the 
 bishop, of a succession from the apostles, and of a special and 
 mediating priesthood, all hang together, and what made for 
 the one made for the others. No sooner had they found entrance 
 into the Christian Church than they were followed by a large 
 influx of other allied ideas taken over from the paganism which 
 lay around them. 
 
 This thought of apostolic succession which is to be found in 
 Cyprian was very different from what is seen both in Irenaeus 
 and in Tertullian. It was not a succession from the apostles 
 but a succession of apostles. The historical matter-of-fact 
 succession disappeared, and the conception became a creation of 
 dogmatic imagination. The thought of succession from the 
 apostles, in a line of office-bearers creating a vital connexion 
 between the generations as they passed, was scarcely in Cyprian's 
 mind. Unless memory fails me, Cyprian only once alludes to 
 it : " All chief rulers who by vicarious ordination succeed to the 
 apostles." ^ For Cyprian's thought is that the bishops do 
 
 ' Epist. Ixvi. 4 (Ixviii.). Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocia uses a 
 similar phrase : — " Therefore the power of remitting sins was given to the 
 apostles, and to the Churches which, they, sent by Christ, estabHshed, 
 and to the bishops who succeeded them by vicarious ordination," Epist. 
 Ixxv. 16(lxxiv.). And Clarus of Mascula, in delivering his opinion at the 
 seventh council meeting at Carthage under the presidency of Cyprian, 
 declared that bishops " have succeeded them (the apostles), governing the 
 Lord's Church with the same powers," SenterUiae episcoporum, 79. 
 
 Hatch remarks that it is not necessary to take this phrase, nor the term 
 successio nor the corresponding Greek which occurs in Eusebius, htaZo-^rji 
 in any other sense than the ordinary one, viz. to express the fact that one 
 officer was appointed in another's place, as governor succeeded governor 
 in the Roman provinces. {The Organization of the Early Christian Church 
 [1881], p. 105 and note.) Dr. Benson (p. 183)inhi3resum6of theDe Unitatt 
 
312 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 really represent, not the apostles, but Christ. As the apostles 
 were the representatives of Christ to the first generation and re- 
 ceived from Him power to forgive sins, so each succeeding 
 generation possesses representatives of Christ, who have the same 
 power to forgive sins. Hence the thought on which he lays 
 so much stress, that bishops are directly appointed by God 
 and not by man ; the want of any deeper idea of ordination 
 than a mere installation or orderiy appointment to office ; the 
 belief that the gifts which bishops possess of government and 
 power to forgive sins are more personal than official — all combine 
 to make his conception that bishops are apostles endued with the 
 very same powers that the twelve possessed directly from Jesus, 
 something very different from what is commonly meant by 
 apostolic succession in modem Christendom. He founds the 
 divine appointment of bishops on the argument that since God 
 cares even for sparrows much more must He directly control 
 a matter of such importance as the appointments of bishops ! ' 
 He holds that bishops who are guilty of any heinous sin are 
 ipso facto bishops no longer, and that their congregations ought 
 to separate themselves from them and acknowledge neither 
 their office nor their authority.* The bishops in North Africa 
 
 (§ 10) makee Cyprian say that the essential characteristic of the episcopal 
 prerogative is that it is a given, that is a transmitted power. Cyprian 
 undoubtedly held that it was a power given ; but to say that given means 
 transmitted is a very palpable case of begging the question. A comparison 
 of passages plainly shows that Cyprian beUeved that the power was given 
 directly and not by transmission ; of course Cyprian presupposes regular 
 ordination {ordinationis lex), but he also presupposes the plebis suffragium, 
 which may be a means of transmission as secure as the imposition of 
 hands. TTie power with Cyprian is always a direct gift. 
 
 * This statement is not a mere pious reflection ; it is repeated twice, 
 with all solemnity, when vindicating the bishop's power to forgive sins 
 and to condemn, and when insisting on the dignity of the episcopal office ; 
 compare Epistles lix. 6 (Uv.) ; Ixvi. 1 (Lxviii.). 
 
 * Compare the letters about the Spanish bishops Basilides and Martial 
 {Epistle Ixvii. (Ixvii.) ; and about Fortunatianus, bishop of Assurae in 
 Africa, who had lapsed as a sacrificatus {Epistle Ixv. (Ixiii.). Cyprian says : 
 " A people obedient to God's precepts, and fearing God, ought to separate 
 themselves fnmi a sinful praepositus, and not to associate themselves with 
 
THE CHURCH AND COUNCILS 318 
 
 arrived at their decisions in the case of the lapsed "by the 
 suggestion of the Holy Spirit and the admonition of the Lord, 
 conveyed by many and manifest visions " — ^an inspiration which 
 was personal and not official.* All these things give a certain 
 uniqueness to Cyprian's theory of apostolic succession which 
 is often forgotten. But whatever his theory was, his con- 
 viction remained, that the bishop was the autocrat over his 
 congregation, and that where he was, there was the Church. 
 
 The real statesmanship of Cyprian was shown, not so much 
 in his conception, theoretical and practical, of the episcopal 
 office, as in his making use of the opportunity of the widespread 
 crisis provoked by the question of the lapsed to sketch a poUty 
 which would give the thought of one universal Church of Christ 
 a visible and tangible shape. His idea was not a new one. The 
 conceptions of statesmen seldom are novelties. Councils had 
 been held on ecclesiastical matters before Cyprian's days. They 
 were first held in Asia Minor in the times of the early Montanist 
 movement, and had become somewhat common in Greece as 
 early as the days of TertulUan.* They were called to dehberate 
 and settle not only the deeper questions of faith, but the ecclesi- 
 astical usages to be observed by the churches represented. 
 The habit of holding these deliberative assemblies which did in 
 some measure represent the churches of a district or province 
 was widespread, and enabled churches lying within convenient 
 distance from each other to become a confederation, having the 
 same ecclesiastical usages and rules of Christian life. 
 
 What Cy3)rian did was to seize upon what he believed to be 
 
 the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest^ especially since they themselvea have 
 the power either of choosing vxyrthy 'priests or of rejecting unworthy oneSy* 
 Ixvii. 3. 
 
 ' Epistle Ivii. 6 (liii.). Cyprian frequently had visions and believed 
 them to be communications by the Holy Spirit ; compare Epistles Ixvi, 10 
 (Ixviii.) ; xi. 3, 4 (vii.) ; he was a prophet in the old sense of the word. 
 He also recognized the prophetic gift in others as well as bishops ; compare 
 Epistle xvi. 4 (ix.) ; xxxix. 1 (xxxiii.), but only in those subordinate to the 
 bishop. 
 
 « Eusebius, Hist. Ecdes. V. xvi. 10 ; Tertullian, On Fasting, IS. 
 
314 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 the principles underlying this practice and formulate them in 
 such a way as to make visible and tangible the unity of the 
 Catholic Church which was universally held to exist. The 
 thought of the visible unity of the Church of Christ was as old as 
 Christianity. St. Paul had dwelt on it in his epistles to the 
 Ephesians and to the Colossians. Cj^rian repeated it in his 
 famous passage, fehcitously rendered by Dr. Benson : " There 
 is one Church which outspreads itself into a multitude (of 
 churches), wider and wider in ever increasing fruitfulness, just 
 as the sun has many rays but only one light, and a tree many 
 branches yet only one heart, based in the clinging root ; and, 
 while many rills flow from one fountain-head, although a multi- 
 pHcity of waters is seen streaming away in diverse directions 
 from the bounty of its abundant overflow, yet unity is preserved 
 in the head-spring." ' That was the old old thought. Cyprian's 
 statesmanship was seen in the method he formulated for making 
 this ideal unity something which could take visible shape in a 
 poHty which would produce an harmonious activity throughout 
 all the parts. His practical thought was, that as each bishop 
 sums up in himself the church over which he presides, the whole 
 Church of Christ practically exists in the whole of the bishops, 
 and the harmonious action of the whole Church can be expressed 
 through the conmion action and agreement of all the bishops. 
 This did not mean to him that every bishop was to think in the 
 same way, or to pursue the same poUcy, or that there might 
 not be very grave differences on very important, almost funda- 
 mental, matters ; but it did mean that if they differed they were 
 to agree to differ, and perhaps this last thought was the most 
 important one practically. It is easy to be in accord when there 
 are no differences to separate. Cyprian's thought was that there 
 could be and ought to be agreement amidst differences. He 
 preserved intact the independence of every bishop. The man 
 who stood forth as the eloquent spokesman of the imity of the 
 one Church of Christ was the champion of the independence 
 < Pypriaiit De UnikUe Ecdeaiae^ 5 ; compare Bensoiit Cyprian, p. 182. 
 
INDEPENDENCE OF BISHOPS 315 
 
 of the most insignificant bishop whose congregation might be 
 the church of a hamlet. He was as magnanimous in his own 
 conduct as in his thought. In the two great controversies in 
 which he was engaged he showed himself able to subordinate 
 his own feeUngs and cherished opinions to the wishes of others. 
 The African bishops did not adopt Cyprian's scheme for receiving 
 back the repentant lapsed ; they were much more lenient than 
 he woiild have been if his opinion had prevailed.* He felt 
 strongly and spoke warmly on the question of the baptism of 
 heretics, and carried his African colleagues with him ; but when 
 the majority of the Church was plainly against him he respected 
 the decision, however he might dislike it. The case of Therapius 
 shows how far he was prepared to go in respecting the independ- 
 ence of a colleague.* He insisted again and again that one bishop 
 cannot judge another, and that no one can judge a bishop but 
 God, so strongly does he vindicate the independence of bishops 
 and by implication of the churches over which they rule.^ The 
 unanimity which he pleaded for among bishops was not one to be 
 produced by force but by brotherly persuasion, it being always 
 understood that Holy Scripture and the apostolic tradition 
 were their guides.* 
 
 If we may judge from some scattered allusions it is possible 
 to see how Cyprian conceived that his scheme might work so 
 as to produce a harmony not merely of bishops but of the whole 
 Christian community throughout the world. If anything 
 
 ^ Compare Benson, Cyprian, pp. 156, 157. 
 
 2 Epistle Ixiv. 1 (Iviii.); Therapius had admitted to communion a pres- 
 byter who had lapsed on much more lenient terms than the council of 
 African bishops had agreed upon. 
 
 3 Sententiae Episcoporum, preface : — *' Every bishop has his own right 
 of judgment according to the allowance of his liberty and power, and can 
 be no more judged by another than he himself can judge another. But 
 let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only 
 one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of his 
 Church and of judging us in our conduct there." Compare Epistles Iv. 2, 
 4 (h.) ; Ux. 14, 17 (hv.) ; Ixxiii. 26 (Ixxii.) ; Ivii. 6 (Uii.) ; Ixxu. 3 (Ixxi.) ; 
 Ixix. 17 (Ixxv.;. 
 
 *> EvisUe Iv. 6 (li.) ; Lxxiv. 10 (Ixxiii.). 
 
316 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 requiring deliberation arose, tlie first care of the bishop was to 
 consult his elders and deacons, the deacons being the " eyes and 
 ears of the bishop," to let him know what the people thought. 
 If there was any doubt about the opinion of the people then the 
 question might be referred to a congregational meeting * and 
 deliberated upon by bishop, elders, deacons and people.* Cyprian 
 always shows the strongest desire to carry the people along with 
 him.^ It is not certain whether their opinions were taken in 
 any formal way at the councils held under the presidency of 
 Cyprian at Carthage, but the Christian people of Carthage were 
 always present at the councils.* These meetings can hardly be 
 called " representative," as Dr. Benson calls them. An autocrat 
 may do his best to consult the people and to carry them along 
 with him. Yet he can scarcely be called their representative. 
 In fact Cyprian's conception of the bishop as the direct repre- 
 sentative, not of his congregation, but of Christ, endued with 
 powers coming directly from God and in no sense from the 
 Christian people, was precisely the reason why his conception 
 of a polity to embody the whole Church has never proved a 
 workable theory ; and soon after Cyprian's time it fell before 
 another and very different conception with which Cyprian had 
 no sympathy, and yet to which his own led when his thought of 
 the autocracy of the bishop was apphed to a wider field. We 
 can see how his theory failed himself at his sorest need. He 
 
 » EpisOe xiv 4 (v.). • EpisUe xv. 1 (x.). 
 
 s Albrecht Ritechl thinks that Cyprian, like many another autocrat, 
 destroyed the aristocracy of the elders and deacons by persuading the 
 people that the monarch's interests and theire were identical ; Entstehung 
 der aUkaiholischen Kirche (1857), p. 658. 
 
 4 Dr. Benson calls Cyprian's councils " representative " assemblies, and 
 is of opinion that they included " a not silent laity " ; compare Cyprian, 
 pp. 191 430 flf. The presence of the laity at the councils which discussed 
 the question of the lapsed is shown in Epistles xvi. 4 (ix.) ; xvii. 1 (xi.) ; 
 xix. 2 (xiii); xxx. 5 (xxx.); xxxi. 6 (xxv.); xliii. 7 (xxxix.); Iv. 6 (11.); 
 lix. 16(liv.); Ixiv. 1 (Iviii.). On the other hand the most natural con- 
 struction of the following passages gives the idea that none but bishops 
 deliberated and voted :— xliv. (xL) ; xlv. 2, 4 (xli.) ; lix. 13 (liv.) ; Ixiv. 1 
 (IviiL): Ixx. 1 (Ixix.) ; Ixvii 1 ; IxxiiL 1 (Ixxii.) ; Ixxii. 1 (IxxL). 
 
ROME AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 317 
 
 desired to carry his oflfice-bearers with him. His first idea was 
 to consult with the office-bearers, as was evidently the custom. 
 When he began to doubt whether they would support him he 
 turned to the laity. When he began to doubt whether the laity 
 did not support the presbyters rather than himself, he not 
 obscurely threatened them with the decisions of the neighbouring 
 bishops ; ' and in the end the consultation was not with his elders 
 and deacons, and not with his people, but with the neighbouring 
 bishops, in what was called the first council of Carthage, where 
 the people of Carthage were undoubtedly present, though prob- 
 ably only as overawed assistants. 
 
 Another conception of how the universal and visible Church 
 could make its ideal universality apparent to the eyes of men 
 had been introduced before Cyprian's days ; it confronted himself 
 during the second great controversy which he had to wage, 
 and it triumphed in the West after his death. More than one 
 bishop of Rome had put forward the idea that the unity of the 
 Christian Church could only be made truly visible when all the 
 Christian churches grouped themselves round the bishop who 
 sat, it was said, in the chair of St. Peter, and whose congregation 
 had its abode in the capital of the civilized world.^ They justified 
 this claim ecclesiastically by quoting our Lord's words to St. 
 Peter, recorded in Matt, xvi., but its practical strength lay in 
 the fact that they presided over the church in the city of Rome. 
 So strong was Cyprian's influence in the centuries after his death 
 that Roman CathoHc canonists felt the need of quoting him as 
 the supporter of their claims for the primacy of the Roman See, 
 and accordingly they have interpolated his De Unitate Ecdesiae 
 
 ^ EpisUes XV. 1 (x.) ; xliii. 7 (xxxix.). 
 
 * Victor did so in the days of the Easter controversy and was denounced 
 for so doing by Irenaeus (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. V. xxiii., xxiv.) ; CaUxtus 
 evidently made the same claims and was attacked with bitter sarcasm by 
 TertulUan in his De PudicUia ; Stephen did so in the controversy about 
 the baptism by heretics, and the assumption of the bishop of Rome to 
 force his opinion on the rest of the Church is no doubt alluded to by the 
 phrases Episcopus episcoporum and tyrannico terrort found in the preface 
 to the opinions of the African bishops. 
 
318 MINISTRY CHANGING TO PRIESTHOOD 
 
 in a maimer almost beyond belief.' Cjrprian was the determined 
 opponent of tbis theory of a primacy in Rome, and constituted 
 himself, as has been said, the champion of the ecclesiastical 
 parity of all bishops, however insignificant their positions might 
 be, nor would he allow any distinction to be drawn between 
 churches founded by actual apostles and those which had come 
 into being in later t'mes.* He did concede a certain pre-eminence 
 to Rome, partly on ecclesiastical grounds, and partly because 
 of the greatness of the city.^ But he held that all bishops 
 had equal ecclesiastical rights, and that the unity of the Church 
 found expression in a united episcopate and not in the primacy 
 of an episcopus episcoporum. 
 
 At the same time it was almost inevitable that Cyprian's idea 
 that the local church was constituted in the local bishop to such 
 an extent that without obedience to him men could not belong 
 to the Church at all, should lead to the conception that a united 
 episcopate could only be truly united if all the bishops owed 
 obedience to one bishop of bishops. A one-man theory of the 
 local church could hardly fail to suggest or to support a one-man 
 
 ' The extraordinary history of the interpolations is told by Dr. Benson 
 on pp. 200-21 in his Cyprian, his Life, his Times, his Work ; and in Hartel» 
 S. Tfiasci Caecili Cypriani Opera Omnia, pp. lii. ff. 
 
 * Compare Epistle Ixxi. 3, where the reference to novellis d posteris 
 indicates that Stephen had claimed a primacy over ecclesias novellas et 
 posteras. Dr. Benson has given a very full analysis of the passages in 
 which Cj^prian refers to the Roman See ; compare his Cyprian, pp. 193-99. 
 It is worth noticing that FirmiUan of Cesarea in Cappadocia concedes less 
 to Rome than Cyprian does. He scoffs at Stephen's claim to hold the 
 Successio Petri (Epistle Ixxv. 17 (Ixxi v.) ; but then he holds that the power 
 lo forgive sins was given to churches as well as to bishops, which is not 
 Cyprian's position (Ixxv. 16 [Ixxiv.]) ; " Therefore the power of remitting 
 sins was given to the apostles, and to the churches which they, sent by 
 Christ, established and to bishops who succeeded them by vicarious or- 
 dination." Otto Ritschl has carefully analysed Cyprian's letters in the 
 dispute with Stephen of Rome in wliich a good deal of strong language 
 was exchanged between the two bishops ; compare Cyprian von Karthago, 
 pp. 110^1. 
 
 3 Epistle lii. 2 (xlviii.) : — ^pro magnitudine sua debeat Carthaginem Roma 
 praecedere. 
 
ROME AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 319 
 
 tbeory of the Church universal. The theory that the bishop 
 owed his power, not to the influence of the Spirit of God worldng 
 in and through the Christian community, but to something 
 either given by God directly or transmitted in such a way as 
 to be independent of the spiritual Hfe of the membership and 
 above it, could scarcely fail to suggest a transmission of unique 
 prerogatives to the bishop who was supposed to occupy the 
 chair of St. Peter. Men who insist on an episcopal gift of grace, 
 *' specific, exclusive, efficient," coming from a source higher than 
 the Holy Spirit working in and through the membership of the 
 Church, may protest against the thought that their theories 
 lead to the conception of a " bishop of bishops," but the unsparing 
 logic of history sweeps their protests aside. 
 
The Roman State Religion and its Effects on 
 the Organization of the Church 
 
 O.M. « 21 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 THE Decian persecution, instead of stamping out Christi- 
 anity, strengthened it. When it was over the Christian 
 churches, pruned of their weaker members, felt stronger than 
 ever, and pressed forward more earnestly in the path of organi- 
 zation and consolidation. The grouping of churches round 
 definite centres became more conspicuous, the gradations of 
 rank among bishops began to assume a more distinct form, a 
 large number of bishops began to be more than simple pastors 
 of congregations, and the lower classes of office-bearers were 
 multiplied. The " great " Church, in short, assumed more than 
 before the appearance of an organized whole. 
 "~ The apostle Paul had taught his mission churches the secret 
 of mutual support which might come from building up groups 
 of churches arranged according to the provinces of the Roman 
 Empire ; and two churches, in the two chief centres of the 
 Empire, Rome and Alexandria, early manifested a genius for 
 attracting within their respective spheres of influence the weaker 
 churches around them. Both were eminently fitted to be the 
 protectors and guides of their fellow Christian communities. 
 They both occupied commanding positions ; they were wealthy 
 and could assist poorer churches ; and they were generally models 
 of Christian generosity to their weaker brethren. The early 
 pre-eminence of Alexandria and of Rome can be accounted for 
 in the most natural ways. When the local church came to be 
 
824 SYNODS AND GROUPS OF CHUECHES 
 
 almost identified with tlie personality of its chief pastor, the pre- 
 eminence of the church was merged in the wide influence — almost 
 rule — of its bishop. Perhaps the chief pastor of the Church 
 in Alexandria was the first to stand forth as the undoubted 
 leader of the great majority of Christians and of all the confeder- 
 ated churches of the vast and wealthy province of Egypt and the 
 surrounding lands. In the fourth century and in the beginning 
 of the fifth Athanasius and his successors wielded a personal 
 power and were called Popes, long before the bishop of Rome 
 had attained equal influence in the West. But if the growth 
 of the influence of Rome was slower everything combined to 
 make it surer, more lasting, and of much wider extent. The 
 Church in Rome belonged to the capital of the civilized world. 
 The Roman Empire, down to the time of Diocletian, was, in 
 legal fiction at any rate, the rule of a town-council over the 
 world, and this naturally suggested the commanding influence 
 of a single kirk-session over all the other churches. This sug- 
 gestion, never wholly realized, loomed before the Roman Church 
 from a very early time ; but its partial realization was much 
 later than our period. What presents itself from the middle of 
 the third century onwards to the time of Constantine is the 
 increasing tendency in the churches to form groups more or less 
 compact round central churches occupying commanding posi- 
 tions in the Empire, and the churches of Rome and Alexandria 
 are distinguished examples of such great centres of groups of 
 churches. 
 
 The instrument in effecting this grouping was the council 
 or synod. Nothing could be more natural than that the leaders 
 of Christian churches should meet to talk over the affairs of the 
 communities under their charge, and the earliest known instance 
 of this was the journey of Polycarp to visit Anicetus at Rome 
 m 154 A.D.' This, however, could scarcely be called the be- 
 ginning of councils. They, i.e., the councils, are frequently 
 traced back to the meeting at Jerusalem, when the apostles, 
 « Euaebiufl, Hist. Eccles. V. xxiv. 16. 
 
THE EARLIEST SYNODS 825 
 
 the elders, and the whole Church assembled to consider the 
 question of receiving into " fellowship " the uncircumcised 
 Gentile converts of Paul and Barnabas. But since, so far as we 
 know, more than one hundred years elapsed without the example 
 of the Church in Jerusalem being imitated, it can scarcely be 
 urged that this meeting was regarded as the precedent which was 
 followed. Most histoiians see the real beginnings of the councils 
 in meetings " of the faithful," held frequently and in many 
 places in Asia Minor, when the difficulties created by the Mon- 
 tanist movement (160-180 a.d.) demanded consultation; and 
 the anticipations of councils may be found in that frequent 
 intercourse by means of letters and special messengers which 
 was such a marked feature of the early life of the Christian 
 communities. 
 
 It is not easy to know what these earliest councils were Hke 
 or who formed their members. They were most probably 
 informal meetings of the pastors, elders, deacons and people, 
 and it is likely that all present were permitted to take part in 
 the conference and have a voice in its decisions. The prevailing 
 troubles were talked over and the best way of meeting them. 
 Whatever resolutions were come to had no legal force, but 
 they naturally led to common action within the communities 
 represented. Eusebius gives a graphic account of these earliest 
 gatherings. An elder who had strong views on the Montanist 
 movement found himself in Ancyra where Montanist sympathizers 
 abounded, and where some active partisans had exerted consider- 
 able influence on the people. He and a fellow-elder had conferences 
 with the people in the church, which lasted for days. The 
 whole question was debated with earnestness in presence of the 
 people, who were intensely interested in the matter. At length, 
 after long discussions, the Montanist champions were driven away 
 and their sympathizers silenced. The elders of Ancyra begged 
 the visitor to write down his arguments for their use in case 
 the question should be brought up again. It is added that the 
 faithful in many places had frequent conferences which doubtless 
 
826 THE EARLIEST SYNODS 
 
 resembled those at Ancyra.' The technical words used, " brother- 
 hood," " faithful," imply that all Christians, lay and clerical, 
 took part in the discussion and settlement of the matter discussed. 
 Such were these earliest synods. 
 
 We next hear of them in the Easter controversy (about 190 
 A.D.). Eusebius, writing more than a hundred years later, 
 calls them " Synods and Conferences of bishops," but when he 
 quotes contemporary evidence, such as that of Irenaeus, the 
 technical terms used mean that the opinion of the whole Chris- 
 tian " brotherhood " was expressed. Letters were written in the 
 name of the tt a poiKiai and of the brethren of Gaul;* and 
 " brethren " or the " brotherhood " is the word which even in 
 Cyprian denoted the laity,^ while irapoiKia in these early 
 days " was neither a parish nor a diocese, but the community 
 of Christians living within a city or a district, regarded in re- 
 lation to the non-Christian population which surrounded it." * 
 
 Tertulhan, writing about 210 a.d., speaks as if it were a 
 common practice to hold councils regularly throughout Greece, 
 and praises the double advantage that accrued from such meet- 
 ings — the handling of the deeper questions of Christian life for 
 the common benefit and the bringing vividly before the minds 
 of the people the fact of the universality of Christianity.' After- 
 wards synods were held in Africa, the earliest recorded being 
 about 220 a.d./ and gradually they spread over the Christian 
 world. 
 
 * Compare Eusebius, Hist. Ecdes. V. xvi. 4, 10 ; xix. 2. ' 
 
 * Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. V. xxiii. 2 ; xix. 2. 
 
 3 Cyprian, Epistles, xvL 2 (ix.) ; xviii. 1, 2 (xii.) ; xx. 2 (xiv.) ; xlvi. 2 
 (xUii.). 
 
 * Hatch, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (1881), p. 190. 
 5 Tertullian, De Jejunio, 13 : — " Aguntur praeterea per Graecias ilia 
 
 certis in locis concilia ex universis ecclesiis per quae et altiora quaeque in 
 commune tractantur, et ipsa repraesentatio tolius nominis christiani magna 
 veneratione celebratur." 
 
 * The synod at wliich Agrippinua presided and which declared that 
 baptism administered by heretics was void; compare Cyprian, Epistles^ 
 Ixxi. 4 (Ixx.) ; Ixxiii. 3 (Ixxii.). 
 
SOHM'S THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF SYNODS 327 
 
 These synods or councils were tlie means whereby the grouping 
 of local churches, great and small, around great centres, was 
 effected. They formed such a very important part of the organi- 
 zation of the Church in the third and fourth centuries that it 
 is important to understand what they were and what they 
 became. Dr. Rudolf Sohm,' whose life-work has been the study 
 of ecclesiastical law and whose acquaintance with its manifesta- 
 tions in the early centuries is excelled by none, has collected 
 and pieced together all the information that can be gathered 
 from the allusions of earliest Christian literature to this subject, 
 and has worked out something like the following theory of the 
 origin and primitive meaning of the synod. Briefly stated, it 
 is that a synod, in the second and third centuries, was, to begin 
 with, a means whereby a congregation or local church received 
 in any time of perplexity or anxiety the aid of the Church uni- 
 versal represented by esteemed Christians not belonging to the 
 congregation. He combines, and rightly combines, the accounts 
 of such synods as are mentioned above with the accounts trans- 
 mitted about the way in which the pastors or bishops were 
 chosen and appointed to their congregations or local churches, 
 for it is plain that one of the uses of a synod in the third century 
 was seen in the choice and appointment of the bishop over his 
 flock. 
 
 So far as ecclesiastical regulations go, the need which a small 
 and weak congregation had for assistance from without was first 
 recognized when it was made a regulation that a Christian com- 
 munity of less than twelve families, which was required to 
 organize itself under a bishop, was to seek the help of the nearest 
 "well-established" churches. The weak congregation was 
 ordered to ask for the assistance of three selected men, and 
 with them, as assessors, the choice and appointment of the 
 bishop was to be made. These three men associated with 
 the congregation formed a synod of the earliest and simplest 
 
 » Sohm; Kirchenrecht, i. 247-343. 
 
328 THE ORIGIN OF SYNODS 
 
 tjpe; The regulation dates from the middle of the second 
 century.' 
 
 When this central thought has once been grasped illustrations 
 are abundant. In the conference at Jerusalem about the 
 admission of uncircumcised converts into the Christian Church, 
 a conference in which delegates from Antioch sought the advice 
 of a " well-established " Church, the congregational meeting 
 of the Jerusalem Church appointed delegates to carry down its 
 advice to the congregation or local church at Antioch and to 
 assist the brethren there in coming to a proper decision upon so 
 important a matter. The real synod was held at Antioch,* 
 and its members were the delegates from Jerusalem and the 
 community at Antioch. At the close of the first century dis- 
 turbances arose in the Church at Corinth, and the Roman 
 Church, a well-established Church, which may or may not have 
 been appealed to, sent a letter of advice and along with it three 
 men selected because of their age, repute and experience.^ 
 These, with the congregation at Corinth, formed a synod at 
 Corinth of the primitive type, and no doubt helped the com- 
 munity there out of their difficulties. So with the early synods 
 in Asia Minor. In the perplexity caused by the Montanist 
 movement the congregation at Ancyra sought the aid of Zoticus 
 Otrenus and others ; they, together with the members of the 
 congregation at Ancyra, formed the council there and doubtless 
 aided in the other councils which they wrote about to Avircius 
 Marcellus. Judas and Silas, the deputies from Jerusalem to 
 Antioch, were prophets ; ^ the Roman deputies who went to 
 Corinth, Claudius Ephebus, Valerius Bito and Fortunatus, do 
 not seem to have been office-bearers ; Zoticus Otrenus and his 
 fellows were elders. There is no mention of bishops with regard 
 to any of these earliest councils, but it is easily conceivable 
 
 ' Texte und UrUeraiichungen, U. v. 7. 8 ; found in English in The 
 Sources of the Apostolic Canons (1895), p. 8. 
 
 « Acta XV. 27, 30-34. 3 Gement, 1 Epistle, Ixv. 1. 
 
 4 Eusebius, Hist. Ecdes. V. xvi. 3 Acts xv. 32. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF SYNODS 329 
 
 that when " well-established " churches were asked to send 
 delegates, " select men," to advise and assist, no men could be 
 more suitable than were the bishops of the churches appealed 
 to, and that bishops always formed a portion, if not the whole, 
 of the advising deputies or assessors. The point to be observed 
 however is that in the earhest councils or synods, whether as- 
 sembled for the purpose of the appointment of a pastor or bishop 
 or for the purpose of giving counsel in times of trouble or anxiety, 
 the main part of the synod is the congregational meeting of the 
 church to which the delegates come. It is also pre-supposed 
 in the earliest times that " well-established " congregations 
 did not need the assistance of a synod in the appointment of 
 their chief pastor, and that everything from selection to ordina- 
 tion could be done within the congregation. 
 
 When the third century was reached it soon became the custom, 
 though we do not find any ecclesiastical regulation on the sub- 
 ject until much later,' that the choice and ordination of the 
 chief pastor was performed through a synod in all local churches, 
 whether " well-established " or not, and that the neighbouring 
 bishops were called in to be assessors to assist the congregational 
 meeting. The desire to make the unity of the whole Church 
 visibly manifest doubtless inspired the demand that a synod, 
 i.e., at least three bishops or pastors from the neighbouring 
 churches should assist at the selection of the chief pastor in a 
 vacant congregation and confirm the choice of the people by 
 their ordination. Still through the whole of the third century 
 the primitive idea prevailed that the congregational meeting 
 
 ' The earliest appearance of this usage as a fixed ecclesiastical law is 
 to be found in the twentieth canon of the council of Aries (314 a.d.) : — 
 " De his qui usurpant sibi, quod soli debeant episcopos ordinare, placuit 
 ut nullus hoc sibi praesumat nisi assumptis secum aliis septem episcopis. 
 Si tamen non potuerit septem, infra tres non audeat ordinare." Tbis 
 twentieth canon of Aries reappeared in the fourth canon of Nicea (326 
 A.D.), then almost continually (Council of Laodicea, canon 13 ; Council of 
 Antioch, canon 19 ; Council of Toledo [4th] canon 19) until the r^ulation 
 became incorporated in canon law. It appears in the Apostolic Con- 
 atitutions^ iii. 20. 
 
530 THE ORIGIN OF SYNODS 
 
 was an integral part of the synod. In the case of a vacant 
 pastorate the new pastor was chosen both by the neighbouring 
 bishops and by the Christian people with the elders at their 
 head, and, even when the selection came to be mainly in the 
 hands of the assembled bishops, the assent of the people was 
 always necessary. The ordination, which, in the course of the 
 third century, was placed exclusively in the hands of the as- 
 sembled bishops, was the sign of the visible unity of the Church, 
 extending far beyond the bounds of the local church, and made 
 the ordained pastor not only the minister of the Church over 
 which he was ordained, but also a minister of the Church uni- 
 versal./ 
 
 ' It is impossible to avoid seeing how the mode of appointment and 
 ordination of the chief pastor now practised in the great Presbyterian 
 Church in its many branches corresponds both in essentials and even in 
 some unessentials with the mode in use in the third century as that is 
 described in the letters of Cjrprian and in the canons of Hippolytus. It 
 is to be premised that the bishop of the third century was in ninety-nine 
 cases out of a hundred the chief pastor of a single congregation and in 
 the hundredth was at the head of a collegiate Church such as we see in 
 the Dutch and in some German branches of the Presbyterian Church ; and 
 that bishop and pastor are interchangeable terms (Cyprian, EpisL Ixvi. 
 6 ; compare also Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. VII. rxviii. 1, where certain bishops 
 are called " pastors of the communities in Pontus " ). We have the following 
 picture common to both. When the office of chief pastor becomes vacant 
 there is a natural anxiety among the people and especially among the elders 
 to secure a good successor. They correspond with neighbouring ministers 
 (Cyprian, Epist. Ixvii. 5 ; Iv. 8) and receive testimonies in favour of one 
 or of another. When they are ready for an appointment, the ministers 
 of the bounds (the bishops of the province) meet formally in the presence 
 of the elders and of the people of the church (the brotherhood, Cyprian 
 calls them, Ixvii. 5) ; an examination is made of the state of feeling in the 
 congregation, of the unanimity of choice (" the suflFrago of the whole 
 brotherhood," Cyprian, Ixvii. 6 ; hx. 6), and objections are called for, 
 if there be any, against the life or doctrine of the person nominated (Cyprian, 
 Ixvii. 5) ; then follows the solemn ordination in presence of the assembled 
 congregation. He who has been chosen kneels before the president or 
 moderator who places his hands on his head ; all the ministers present 
 join with the president in laying their hands on the head of the bishop 
 or pastor-elect ; the president prays over him the prayer of consecration 
 in which God, Who gave the Holy Spirit in the early times to His apostles, 
 prophets, pastors and teachers, is asked to bestow the same Spirit on the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF SYNODS 331 
 
 Synods assembled for other purposes than the selection and 
 ordination of chief pastors exhibit the same fact that the con- 
 gregational meeting was an integral part of the synod. Thus 
 in Carthage, Cyprian insisted that the neighbouring bishops 
 were to be asked to assist at the determination of what was 
 to be done in the case of the lapsed, because it was a matter 
 which concerned " not a few, nor of one church," or it could 
 have been decided in the congregational meeting, " nor of one 
 province, but of the whole world." * It had to be settled by 
 the presence of the African bishops at Carthage and by corre- 
 spondence with Rome. But in any case the presence of the 
 congregation of Carthage was presupposed, and the African 
 bishops were an addition for the time being to the ordinary 
 meeting of the elders and the brotherhood.* 
 
 The same thought is seen working at Rome. The Roman 
 elders (there being no bishop) dealing with the same question 
 of the lapsed, called to their aid some of the bishops who were 
 near them and within reach, and some whom, placed afar off, 
 the heat of persecution had driven from their congregations.' 
 When the conduct of Novatian was causing great anxiety, 
 Cornelius, the bishop, called together his elders and invited five 
 bishops to assist them in their deliberations. When they had 
 settled what was to be done they called together a great meeting 
 of the congregation, and there the decisive resolution was brought 
 torward and accepted.* So with other Roman synods on the 
 
 pastor-elect, who is named in the prayer {Directory for the Ordination of 
 Ministers, sec. 8 ; Canons of Hippolytus, iii. 11-19). In both cases the 
 presence of the ministers of the bounds (bishops of the province) impHes 
 that the act done within the individual congregation is an act of the 
 Catholic Church and that the chief pastor in the local church is also a 
 minister of the universal Church of Christ. 
 
 ' Cyprian, Epistle xix. 2 (xiii.). 
 
 ^ Compare the phrases — " secundum arhitrium vestrum d omnium 
 nostrum commune consilium" Epist. xliii. 7 (xxxix.) ; " Cum episcopis, 
 presbyteris, diaconis, confessoribus pariter ac stantibus laiciSy** Epist, Iv. 
 6 (li.) ; and so on in many passages. But compare above, p. 316 n. 
 
 s CJyprian, EpisUe xxx. 8 (xxx.). ♦ Cyprian, Epistle xlix^ 2 ^xlv.). 
 
332 THE ORIGIN OF SYNODS 
 
 same questions ; the elders, deacons and the congregation at 
 Rome were always present, and the whole meeting was one of the 
 Roman congregation with several (once sixty) bishops added to 
 assist them in their deliberations.' The same conception of the 
 synod existed in the East. The celebrated synod held at Bostra 
 in Arabia (244 a.d.) at which a large number of bishops were 
 present, and where Origen held a distinguished place is a case 
 in point. The question was the orthodoxy of the pastor of 
 Bostra, Beryllus by name. The discussions, in the course of 
 which Beryllus renounced his errors, took place eiri rrj'S 
 irapoLKia's,^ from which we may conclude that the synod in- 
 cluded the congregational meeting, for paroichia always means 
 in early ecclesiastical usage the brotherhood or congregation, 
 and not parish or diocese in the modem sense of these terms. 
 Indications of the same usage are to be found in the account 
 of the celebrated synods held at Antioch about Paul of Samosata, 
 the pastor of the church there. A great number of bishops, 
 elders and deacons were present, and took part in the discussions 
 which must have included the congregational meeting, as the 
 bishop was deposed, and Domnus was ordained in his place 
 at the last Synod. Here we have the interesting fact that the 
 chief discussion was between Malchion, one of the elders of the 
 Church at Antioch, and his bishop, and that the assembled 
 bishops who came from a distance took the side of the elder 
 against his pastor. The whole aspect of the matter presents 
 the appearance of a congregational meeting enlarged by the 
 presence of a number of bishops from without ; the theological 
 differences between the pastor and the elder, which had no doubt 
 been frequently discussed before a smaller audience, were brought 
 before the assembled bishops and congregation. Malchion, 
 who led the charge against his pastor, signed the decisions of the 
 synod along with others.^ 
 
 ' Eusebius, Hisi. Ecctea. VI. xliii. 2. * Ibid. VI. xxxili. 3. 
 
 3 The Synods held about Paul of Samosata are described in Eusebioa 
 ^Eist. Eccles. VH. xxviL-xxx.). The case is a curious one. Complaints 
 
THE OEIGIN OF SYNODS 833 
 
 Dr. Sohm completes his theory by these additional suggestions. 
 He holds that the power of a synod was always proportional 
 to the power of the local meeting it incorporated. If the bishops 
 came to the assistance of the body of elders in a church, their 
 decision had only the force of a regulation issued by a session 
 of elders. It had to be submitted to the congregational meeting 
 before it became authoritative. If, on the other hand, the meet- 
 ing of bishops incorporated a congregational meeting, then its 
 decisions were authoritative at once, for the final decision always 
 lay with the congregational meeting.' He also beUevesthat any 
 synod, even if only the minimum of three bishops was present 
 with the congregation, was believed to represent and ideally 
 was the whole Catholic Church of Christ,^ taking into its embrace 
 the congregation or local church which required aid, and that in 
 
 against his orthodoxy, and many other things, seem to have been brought 
 forward by members of his congregation, or at least by a section of them 
 headed by Malchion, one of the elders and the head of a high school in 
 Antioch. It was an instance of an orthodox elder and a portion of the 
 congregation accusing their pastor of heresy. These men called to their 
 aid a number of bishops. These bishops assembled at Antioch, apparently 
 in Paul's church, and Paul presided at the meetings. At the first ayaod 
 no conclusion was come to ; so at the second ; at the third, Paul was 
 deposed and Domnus was ordained in his place (probably in 268 a.d.). At 
 this third synod the chief discussion was between Paul and his elder, 
 Malchion ; their speeches were taken down in shorthand, and copies were 
 in existence in the sixth century. The result of the decision of the synod 
 was a division in the congregation at Antioch, the larger portion evidently 
 siding with their pastor Paul, who retained possession of the Church build- 
 ings and of all the property. It is more than Ukely that poHtical feeling 
 lay behind this prosecution. The Romans, under the Emperor Aurehan, 
 wished to gain posession of Antioch, which then belonged to Queen Zenobia. 
 There was a Roman party in Antioch ; and Paul was a resolute partizan 
 of Zenobia. Six years later, when the queen was conquered by AureUan^ 
 and Antioch came within the Roman Empire, the Church property was 
 taken from Paul and given to the portion of the congregation which had 
 opposed him. As all Christians were still outlaws in the eyes of Roman 
 law, it is scarcely probable that this decision followed from the supposed 
 heresy of Paul. It is more easy to beUeve that it was meant to be a punish- 
 ment dealt to the anti-Roman faction. Compare Hamack, History of 
 Dogma, Eng. Trans., iii. 38 f. 
 
 » Cyprian, Epistle xlix. 2 (xlv). * TertuUian, De Jejunio, 18. 
 
334 THE SYNOD AND THE CONGREGATIONAL MEETING 
 
 consequence its decisions were believed to express the utterances 
 of the Spirit of God promised to the Church of Christ. 
 
 We may accept or reject Dr. Sohm's interesting theory. It 
 appears to me to be too ideal to be an exact representation of 
 all the facts of the case. But it seems to be made plain from 
 the evidence he marshals, that there was a close connexion 
 between the congregational meeting and the synods which 
 played such an important part in the federation of the churches 
 in the third and following centuries. The congregational 
 meeting was the primitive type of the later synod. These congre- 
 gational meetings had taken an important place in the churches 
 from the beginning.' We have seen how they formed the centre 
 and source of authority in the apostolic period ; how they had 
 the supreme power in their hands in the churches to which 
 Ignatius sent his letters, and how even Cyprian deferred to them.' 
 They were the authority in the churches in their primitive 
 democratic stage. 
 
 If left to itself the democra tic genius of Christianity might 
 have evolved an organization which, starting from the unit 
 of the congregational meeting, and rising through a series of 
 83mods with widening areas of jurisdiction, might have culminated 
 in a really representative oecumenical council or synod which 
 would have given a visible imity of organization to the whole 
 Christian Church, and at the same time would have preserved 
 its primitive democratic organization. 
 
 Cyprian's unscriptural and non-primitive conception of the 
 pastor or bishop as an autocrat, claiming a personal obedience 
 so entire that any act of disobedience was to be punished by 
 spiritual death or expulsion from the Church, contradicted the 
 democratic ideal which the congregational meeting embodied. 
 His principle that the bishop was an autocrat deriving his power 
 from God directly by a species of divine right which owed nothing 
 to the power of the Spirit working in and through the Christian 
 people, might be based on a misapplication of Old Testament 
 ^ Compare above, p. 54 ff. ^ Compare above, p. 200 £. 
 
TWO IDEAS OF ORGANIZATION 335 
 
 texts and on an intrusion of the Old Testament priesthood into 
 the New Testament Church, but in reality it was the introduction 
 into the Christian Church of the Roman ideas of authority and 
 imperial rule. These early centuries were times of imperial 
 government, and democratic rule, save within limited areas 
 and subject to autocratic checks, was a thing unknown. It 
 is true that the Roman method of government admitted a great 
 deal of local self-government of various kinds, but these popular 
 assemblies had strictly limited spheres of action and had no 
 control over the imperial officers who practically ruled the 
 provinces in the name of the emperor or of the senate.' Cyprian's 
 conception of the autocracy of the bishop accorded so well with 
 the atmosphere of imperialist rule in which the Church of the 
 third century lived that it could scarcely avoid being largely 
 adopted. In spite of Cyprian's own Hmitation of the autocratic 
 idea to the office of bishop it suggested another form of organiza- 
 tion beginning with the bishop, rising through metropolitans, 
 etc., to an episcopus episcoporum, who in that age could be 
 none other than the bishop of the Church in the capital of the 
 empire. No sooner had Cyprian's conception of the autocracy 
 of the bishop of the local church been accepted than the path 
 was clearly marked for an ascending scale of autocrats up to the 
 bishop of Rome, and the appellation of Pontifex Maximus 
 sarcastically employed by Tertullian became the legitimate 
 title of the head of the Church in the capital city. 
 
 Thus there were two ideals of organization within the Christian 
 churches. On the one hand, an autocratic organization which 
 starting with the bishop as the autocrat of the individual Christian 
 community ascended through metropolitans to the Pope ; and, 
 on the other, that which, starting from the congregational 
 
 ' Marquardt, Roemische Staatstverwcdtung, i. pp. 603-16, gives the de- 
 tails known about the provincial assembUes under the Imperial Govern- 
 ment ; their powers (507-9) ; the provinces where they existed (509-16) 
 and the powers of the imperial officials (517 £f.). A good deal of informa- 
 tion on the subject is also to be found in Mommsen, The Provinces of the 
 Roman Empire, 
 
336 SYNODS AND METROPOLITANS 
 
 meeting, ascended through provincial councils of varying import- 
 ance to an oecumenical council of the whole Church. These two 
 ideals, mutually antagonistic as they were, subsisted side by 
 side within the Christian Church in the end of the third and con- 
 tinued to do so in the succeeding six or seven centuries. Neither 
 was powerful enough to overcome the other. The imperialist 
 conception proved the stronger in the West, as was natural, and 
 the other was the more powerful in the East, but neither in the 
 East nor in the West was the one able to vanquish the other. 
 
 In the end of the third century and onwards councils or synods 
 became a regular part of the organization of the whole Church, 
 and they became more and more meetings of bishops only, at 
 which presbyters and deacons with the people of the church of the 
 town where the council met were present but almost entirely 
 as spectators. It was natural that these councils should meet 
 in the provincial capitals, for the roads and the imperial postal 
 system by which travellers could journey all converged towards 
 those towns which were the seats of the Roman provincial ad- 
 ministration. Conferences require chairmen, and various usages 
 obtained with reference to the natural chairman. Frequently 
 the oldest bishop was made the president of the assembly, 
 and this continued to be the practice for a long time in many 
 parts of the empire. But gradually it became the custom to 
 place in the chair the head of the Christian community of the 
 town in which the council met. The bishops of these towns 
 then began to be called metropolitans, but the title was for a long 
 time merely one of courtesy only, and did not carry with it any 
 ecclesiastical rank with specific authority attached to it. In 
 the fourth century these metropolitans were entrusted with the 
 right to call the provincial councils and even with some super- 
 intendence over the election and ordination of the bishops of the 
 province. Of course the man made the office, and metropoHtans 
 who had great personal gifts and force of character insensibly 
 gave their churches and their successors an influence which lasted. 
 In this growth of the metropohtan organization we can detect 
 
CHANGES IN ORGANIZATION 33^7 
 
 a disposition to be guided by tbe civil organization of the empire.' 
 
 The second third of the third century also witnessed changes 
 in the organization of the individual local churches. The 
 tendency was for the bishop to become more than the pastor 
 of a single congregation. It worked both in country districts 
 and in towns. Perhaps one of the chief causes of this was that 
 it had become the custom to require from the chief pastors the 
 devotion of their whole time to their ecclesiastical duties, and 
 this implied that the Church had to provide the means of UveH- 
 hood at least for the bishops. 
 
 We have already seen that whenever a small group of Chris- 
 tians found themselves together, even when they were fewer 
 than twelve families, they were ordered to constitute themselves 
 into a Christian Church with an organization of bishop, elders, 
 deacons, reader and " widows." ^ The smallest Christian 
 community was in this way an independent church. But this 
 was possible only so long as the bishop did not depend for his 
 living on a stipend coming from the congregation. A paid 
 pastorate altered matters. The alteration took two forms, 
 both of which can be seen working among churches in the mission 
 field. 
 
 A very common modem form is to appoint one man the pastor 
 of several village churches among which he itinerates, while one 
 or more elders and deacons are stationed in the little Christian 
 village communities to watch over the spiritual interests of the 
 people. Inscriptions seem to prove that this form existed in 
 the uplands of Batanea among the small and scattered villages 
 there, and it probably existed in other places.^ 
 
 When a small group of villagers had been won to Christianity 
 through the evangehzing work of a congregation in the neigh- 
 
 ' Compare Hatch, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches 
 (1881), pp. 169, 170; also articles on Meiropolitant Primaie, and Patri- 
 archate in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. 
 
 * Texte und Untersuchungen, TL v. pp. 7-24 ; The Sources of the Apostolic 
 Canons, pp. 7-27. 
 
 s Hatohf Organization of the Early Christian Churches, 194 
 
 0.1L 22 
 
338 CHANGES IN ORGANIZATION 
 
 bouring town, there was often a great unwilKngness to sever 
 the connexion between them and the mother Church. We learn 
 from Justin Martyr ' that the Christians came in from the 
 country to attend the services of the town congregation. It 
 was always held that a bishop could delegate his special function 
 pertaining to pubUc worship to his elders or even to his deacons. 
 This principle could easily be applied to the outlying mission 
 districts of a congregation, and the httle mission congregations 
 became flids or daughters of the town congregation, and were 
 served by the subordinate office-bearers of the mother Church. 
 Thus the bishop became the pastor in several congregations 
 and multiplied himself through his elders who became his dele- 
 gates in the pastoral office. In doing this the Church followed 
 civil procedure, for rural authorities under Roman rule were 
 frequently placed under the nearest municipaUty. But we have 
 abundant evidence that for many a century multitudes of the 
 small rural congregations remained independent churches, under 
 bishops who were often enough uneducated peasants.^ 
 
 The same principle worked in towns also, and perhaps more 
 strongly there. The bishop was held to be the head of the 
 Christian community in one place, whatever its size might be. 
 He was the pastor ; he baptized ; he presided at the Holy Supper ; 
 he admitted catechumens to the full communion of the brother- 
 hood. By the middle of the third century the work, in most 
 large towns, was more than one man could overtake. Take the 
 case of Rome. We have no record of the number of the Christian 
 community, but we know that at the close of the Decian perse- 
 cution, i.e., a httle after the middle of the third century, the 
 number of widows, sick and poor cared for by the Church was 
 more than fifteen hundred, and that the bishop had to assist 
 him forty-six elders, fourteen deacons and sub-deacons, with 
 ninety-two men in what are called minor orders — acolytes, 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Apology, i. 67 : — " On the day called Sunday, all who 
 live in the cities or in the country gather together to one place." 
 « Eusebius, Hist Ecdea. VI. xliii. 8. 
 
CHANGES IN ORaANIZATION 339 
 
 exorcists, readers, and door-keepers.' At the close of the cen- 
 tury and during the Diocletian persecution there were over 
 forty Christian basilicas, or separate Christian congregations 
 in Rome itself.* In Alexandria the number of Christians could 
 not have been much fewer. It is evident that one man could not 
 fulfil the pastoral duties for such a multitude. At first the idea 
 of the unity of the pastorate was strictly preserved. For ex- 
 ample, it was for long the custom in Rome that the bishop 
 consecrated the communion elements in one church, and that 
 the consecrated elements were carried to the other congregations 
 whether they met in churches or in private houses, to be dis- 
 tributed to the communicants by the elders there in charge.^ 
 The bishop was the one pastor in every congregation ; the 
 elders and the deacons belonged to the whole local Christian 
 community ; they served all the congregations and were not 
 attached to any one ; the organization was collegiate as we see 
 it existing at present in the Dutch Presbyterian Church; All 
 communities, however, were not so conservative as that of 
 Rome. In Alexandria, for example, while the Christians who 
 lived in the outlying suburbs were at first reckoned to be members 
 of the bishop's congregation and had no separate constitution 
 for the churches in which they met, this was found to be incon- 
 venient. Special presbyters were set over the outlying congre- 
 gations, and thus something hke a parish system under the 
 bishop was begun. But the original pastoral status of the bishop 
 was always preserved by one portion of the pastoral duties 
 being invariably retained in his hands — the admission of the 
 catechumens to the full communion of the Church. This is still 
 
 ' Compare the letter of Cornelius, bishop of Rome, to Fabius, bishop of 
 Aatioch, in Eusebius, Hist. Ecdes. VI. xHii. 11. 
 
 2 Optatus of Milevis, De Schismate Donatistarum, ii. 4 (Vienna ed. [1893], 
 p. 39). 
 
 3 This custom existed in the time of Innocent the First (450 a.d.) and 
 is described by him in a letter he wrote to Decentius, bishop of Eugubium 
 in Umbria ; compare the fifth section. The custom preserved the con- 
 junction of ideas strongly insisted upon by Cyprian between the ono 
 sacrament and the one bishop. 
 
540 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 retained in the modem episcopal system, and the fact that the 
 bishops alone are entitled to receive the young communicants 
 at confirmation — for confirmation is simply the reception of 
 young communicants — remains to witness to the original simple 
 pastoral functions of the primitive bishops. 
 
 The middle of the third century also was the time when the 
 ministry became much more complicated so far as its subor- 
 dinate officials were concerned. Sub-deacons, exorcists, readers, 
 acolytes, doorkeepers, and even grave-diggers, were added to 
 that body of men who were called the clergy. 
 
 Before the close of the third century the associated churches, 
 grouped now around recognized centres, had developed a some- 
 what elaborate organization both in their relations to each 
 other and in the arrangement of the ministry within the indi- 
 vidual local churches. Ecclesiastical archaeologists are dis- 
 posed to recognize the influence of the political organization 
 of the Roman Empire in much of this elaboration.' This is a 
 perfectly natural explanation and there is abundant evidence to 
 confirm it. Yet it may be that there was something more specific 
 on which the leaders of the Christian churches had their eyes 
 fixed. If it should ever become possible for the associated 
 churches to come to terms with the empire, as was done in 
 the fourth century, there was an organization which the Christian 
 Church would necessarily displace. This was the great pro- 
 vincial organization for providing for the due exercise of the 
 official religion of the empire. No account of the Church and 
 its ministry during the early centuries can avoid some reference 
 to that great Pagan State Church (if the term may be used), 
 as it existed towards the close of the third century when the 
 associated Christian churches were rapidly approaching the 
 
 ' This has been done with great erudition and much original investi- 
 gation by the late Dr. Hatch. The results of his work are to be found in 
 his Bampton Lectures, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches 
 (1881), and in many of his articles in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities 
 on Orders. Ordination, Primate, Patriarchate, 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 341 
 
 attainment of their end, and were about to give their r^igion 
 to the Roman Empire. 
 
 The subject is a difiOicult one. Information has to be sought 
 for in inscriptions on tombs, on public buildings, on coins and 
 in fast fading frescoes on the walls of houses in Pompeii. It 
 is full of details which are only partially known, and yet enough 
 has been preserved to enable us to learn something about it as 
 a whole.' 
 
 It is the universal testimony of historians that religion had 
 lost most of its power during the later years of the Republic. 
 The temples were in ruins and the practices of religion were 
 
 ' Among the more important books and articles on the subject of the 
 imperial cult the following may be named. They all discuss the subject 
 as a whole or describe some important parts. G. Boisaier, Iji Religion 
 JRomaine cTAuguste aux ArUonins (1878), 2 vols.; Otto Hirschfeld, Zur 
 Oeschichte des romischen KaisercuUus in the Sitzungsberichte d. k. pr.Akademie 
 d. Wissensch., Berlin (1888), pp. 833 ff. ; also his / Sacerdozi municijxdi 
 nelV Africa in the Annali ddV Institvio di correspondenza archaeologica for 
 1866, pp. 22-77 ; V. Dury, Formation d'une Religion officidle dans V Empire 
 Romaine in the Comptes rendus of the Academic des sciences morales et 
 politiques, vol. xiv. (1880), pp. 328 ff. ; E. Desjardins, Le CuUe des Divi ei 
 le Cidte de Rome et d'Auguste in the Revue de Philologie, vol. iii. (1879). 
 pp. 33 ff. R. Mowat, La Domus divina et les Divi in the Bull, epigr. de la 
 QauLe, vol. v. (1885), pp. 221 ff., 308 ff., and vi. (1886), pp. 31 If., 137 £f.^ 
 272 flf. ; P. Giraud, Les Assemblies provinciales souls V Empire Romaine 
 (1890) ; Lebegue, V Inscription de Vara Narbonensis in the Revue Archeo- 
 logique (1892), vol. xliii. new series, pp. 76-86, 176-84 ; M. ICraschenin- 
 nikoff, in the Philologus (1894), vol. liii. (new series, vol. vii.), pp. 147 flf. ; 
 E. Beurlier, Le Culte Imperiale, son histoire et son organisation depuis 
 Auguste jusqu'a Justinien (1891) (by far the most complete treatise on the 
 subject). Handbuch der roemischen Alterthiimer by Mommsen and Mar- 
 ^uardt ; Roemische StaaisverwaUung by Marquardt, 2nd ed. i. 197 f. : iii. 
 71 ff., 463 ff. ; Roemisches Staatsrecht by Mommsen, ii. 752 fiF. ; G. Wis- 
 sowa. Religion und Kvltus der Roemer (1902), pp. 71 ff., 82 f., 284 ff., 488 ff. 
 (this gives the most succinct account) ; Beaudouin, Le CuUe des Empereurs 
 (1891). A very full account of the literature on the subject will be found 
 in Roscher's Lexikon, ii. 901 ff. by Drexler. I have quoted only the books 
 known to me personally. A number of references to the cult of the em- 
 perors will be found in Ramsay's The Church in the Rom^n Empire {lS93)t 
 pp. 133, 191, 250, 275, 249, 304, 323 n., 324, 333, 336 n., 354, 373, 396, 398, 
 465 f., and in Man's Pompeii, its Life and Art (1899), pp. 14, 61, 89 f., 98^ 
 100, 103 f., 106 i. Ill f., 122 ff., 264 ff. 
 
342 THE KOMAN STATE EELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 generally neglected. Wlien the wars wliicli followed the death 
 of Julius Caesar had given the young Octavius the heritage 
 of his mighty uncle, and that master of statecraft set himself 
 to the task of restoring an empire exhausted by long years of 
 civil war, he recognized that a people without a religious faith 
 is in a state of hopeless decadence. One of his earUest tasks 
 was to attempt to revive the ancient religious rites of the Roman 
 people, and contemporary records tell what patience and wealth 
 he lavished on the work. His political needs mingled largely 
 in this successful attempt to revive the religious instincts of his 
 subjects. He felt the need for some common sentiment to 
 bind together the provinces and peoples of his unwieldy Empire. 
 A state which acknowledged no limits of race and of nationality 
 required something more than the will of the emperor and the 
 dread of his legions to unite it into a harmonious whole. He saw 
 that rehgion might be the moral cement he sought, but the 
 religion needed to be as universal as the empire. To select one 
 of the myriad cults which a manifold paganism presented would 
 have availed him nothing. He turned instinctively to that 
 outburst of popular devotion which had proclaimed his uncle 
 a god in his Ufetime, and which, after his death, had demanded 
 that the mighty Julius should be proclaimed as a god with 
 temples reared in his honour, sacrifices offered, and a special 
 priesthood instituted to the new divinity.' Out of this popular 
 deification of Juhus Caesar there came, fostered by the guiding 
 hand of Octavius, now called Augustus, a universal worship 
 of the Emperor of Rome which took a three-fold shape. In 
 almost every part of the empire, Rome alone excepted, the 
 Emperor Augustus was worshipped as a god during his life- 
 
 ' Julius Caesar was added to the gods of Rome by a decree of the senate 
 and people in 42 B.C. : — Genio Deivi luh, parentis patriae, quern senatus 
 populusque Romanus in deonim numerum rettulit ; cf. Mommsen, Stoats- 
 recht, ii. 733. His temple or aedes Divi Jvlii in Foro was consecrated in 
 29 B.C., and a special flamen was appointed for the service of the new 
 divinity. But JuUus Caesar was never reckoned as the first of the Divi 
 Imperatores ; they began with Augustus. 
 
ON THE OEGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 343 
 
 time; there was the institution of the Divi, where the dead 
 emperors and some near relations of the imperial house, wives, 
 fathers, uncles and brothers were, by solemn decree of the senate, 
 elevated to the rank of gods of the state and were voted temples, 
 priests, and sacrifices ; lastly there was the worship of Rome 
 and AugustuSy and Augustus in this instance was not so much 
 the name of a particular man as the title of the supreme ruler 
 —a title which itself impHed that the prince was something 
 more than man.' 
 
 The worship of the emperor during his lifetime was never part 
 of the state religion of the Roman Empire, but it was a cult 
 largely practised. Private persons, societies, even communities 
 without sanction from the government built temples, consecrated 
 chapels and instituted priesthoods in honour of Augustus while 
 he was alive.* This was not always done openly ; it was some 
 time veiled by affecting to recognize the living emperor as 
 embodied in one of the ancient gods. Thus the ministri Mer- 
 curii Maiae in Pompeii became first the ministri Augusti Mer- 
 curii Maiae, and then simply the ministri Augusti, and Livia 
 was honoured as Ceres, Vesta and Rhea. But this worship 
 of the living rulers was never part of the state religion. 
 
 The state religion was, to begin with, the worship of the Divus 
 Julius along with that of Jupiter Oftimus Maximus, ApoUo, 
 Vesta and Mars Ultor, in Rome ; the worship of Rome and 
 Divus Julius for Roman citizens in the provinces, and the worship 
 of Rom^e and Augustus for provincials. 
 
 The beginning of this new state religion for the provinces 
 
 ' " Imperator cum Augusti nomen accepit, tanquam praesenti 6t cor- 
 poral! Deo, fidelis est praestanda devotio." 
 
 Mommsen says that the word augustus, like the Greek orc^ao-ros, had 
 always a religious colouring (worshipful) ; that it implied power so great 
 as to be revered ; that the title was not shared by any one during the life- 
 time of the Emperor ; that Tiberius refused at first to accept it ; and that 
 it was at last imposed upon him by a special decree of the senate {Staata- 
 recht, ii. 812). 
 
 ' " Cultores Augusti, qui per omnes domos in modum oollegionim habe- 
 bantur," Tacitus, Annals, i. 73. 
 
344 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 was perhaps the decree of Augustus of date 29 B.C., when, in 
 reply to memorials from the conmaunities of Bithynia and of 
 Asia, he issued an order that the provincials were to worship 
 Rome and Augustus, and the Roman inhabitants of these pro- 
 vinces Rome and the Divus Julius,^ The new cult of Rome and 
 Augustus in Spain dates from 26 B.C. ; this worship became 
 the state religion in Roman Gaul from 12 B.C., and it was organ- 
 ized in Roman Africa on the same lines as in Gaul. Thus for 
 the earlier portion of the reign of the first emperor the state 
 religion in the provinces for all but Roman citizens was the 
 worship of Rome and Augustus.^ 
 
 It is a question whether this worship of Rom^e and Augustus 
 did not remain the permanent legal form which the imperial 
 cult took in the provinces. Authorities differ and the evidence 
 is not clear enough to admit of a decided answer.^ Upon the 
 whole the balance of evidence seems to be that even during the 
 lifetime of the first emperor the official religion became the 
 
 ' Compare Dio Ccusitta, IL 20; Taoitos, AnnalSt iv. 37; SnetoniuB, 
 Augustus, 62. 
 
 * Roma was never a goddess for the Roman people. The beginnings of 
 the deification of the city of Rome came from the East and were originally 
 symbolic of the trust placed in the Roman State by cities and provinces 
 in the East which had entered into treaties with the great western power 
 and had experienced its protection. The earliest instance known is that 
 of Smyrna, which in 195 B.C. built a temple to Roma the protecting deity 
 of the city ; the cult spread rapidly ; even in Athens there was a temple 
 to Dea Roma. In the East it was also the custom to associate as a divinity 
 along with the city great Roman generals whose successes in arms had 
 benefited the towns which created them objects of worship. Augustus 
 had such precedents for Rome and Augustus as the earlier ^me and 
 Flaminius. (Plutarch, Flaminus, 16.) 
 
 3 Beaudouin {Le Ctdte des Empereura) insists that from first to last the 
 official religion, recognized in legal documents as the State religion in the 
 provinces, was not tibat of the Divi Imperatores but alwajrs that of Rom^ 
 and Augustus. This is scarcely probable ; still before coming to an ac- 
 curate conclusion the inscriptions found in every province would need to 
 be gone over and analysed province by province ; this has been done so 
 far a« I know for two provinces only — that of Narbonne by M. Beaudouin 
 himself and that of Africa by Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 346 
 
 worship of Augustus simply (Rome being left out) and Augustus^ 
 being taken to mean, not the person of the emperor but the 
 symbol of the deification of the Roman state personified in 
 its ruler. After the death of the first emperor a new develop- 
 ment took place. Augustus, who during his lifetime had nevei 
 allowed himself to be called Divus, but only Filius Divi Julii, 
 was by solemn decree of the senate on September, 17, 14 a.d. 
 (he had died at Nola on the 19th of August preceding) awarded 
 divine honours, and took rank among the superior gods of Rome.* 
 He was the first of a long line of Divi ImperatoreSy and the state 
 religion assumed the form it continued to maintain in strict 
 legal conception till the time of Diocletian and practically till 
 the conversion of Constantine and the changes which followed 
 that important event. 
 
 So far as Rome itself was concerned these Divi Imperatores, 
 i.e., the series of emperors who were consecrated after death ' 
 by decree of the senate, along with the Genius ^ of the reigning 
 
 ' Suetonius says distinctly: — " Templa quamvis sciret etiam proconsulibus 
 deoemi solere ; in nulla tamen provincia nisi communi suo Romaeque 
 nomine recepit " {Atigustus, 52). Yet the evidence from inscriptions 
 would leave us to infer that the cult of Augustus was instituted in many 
 provinces without any mention of Roma. 
 
 ■ "D.XV. (Kal. Oct.) nefastus prior ludi in circo feriae ex senatus- 
 consulto quod eo die divo August© honores caelestes a senatu decroti ; 
 Sex. Appuleio, Sex. Pompeio cos." 
 
 3 Some emperors were never consecrated Divi ; of the eleven emperors 
 from Augustus to Nerva only four — Augustus, Gaudius, Vespasian and 
 Titus — ^were deified, but after Nerva the consecration of the emperor after 
 death became the rule which had very few exceptions. On the other 
 hand as the years passed the consecration of members of the imperial 
 family, which was common in the early years of the empire, almost ceased. 
 Livia was made Augusta on the death of her husband Augustus and Diva 
 after her own death. Neither Caligula nor Nero was deified, but Drusilla, 
 the sister of Caligula, and Claudia and Poppea the daughter and wife of 
 Nero became Divae. The daughter of Titus, the father, sister, wife of 
 Trajan, the wife and mother-in-law of Hadrian and the wives of Antoninus 
 Pius and Marcus Aurelius were consecrated. 
 
 ♦ To worship the genius of the emperor was not to worship the living 
 man ; the genius of a man was his spiritual and divine part ; the genius 
 of anything was its ideal reality which lasted while the external form 
 
346 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS ErFEGTS 
 
 emperor, took their place among the greater gods of Rome, 
 equal if not superior to them. They formed a compact group 
 of new divinities. Their names appeared in the official oath. 
 In repubhcan days officials had been sworn in by a solemn oath 
 to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and to the Penates of Rome ; 
 tha oath was now changed (to take an example from the time 
 of Domitian) to Per Jovem et divom Augustum et divom Claudium 
 et divom Vespasianum Augustum et divom Titum Augustum et 
 genium imperatoris caesaris Domitiani Augusti deosque Penates. 
 Their names appeared among those of the deities to whom the 
 great sin-offering made by the Arval Brethren was offered. 
 At the installation of Nero the Arvales offered to Jupiter Optimus 
 Maximus, to Juno, to Minerva, to Felicitas and *' genio ipsius 
 (Nero), Divo Augusto, Divae Augustae (Livia), Divo Claudio." 
 
 In the provinces, where the gods of the people were not the 
 Roman deities, these Divi Imperatores were the gods of the state 
 and, along with the Genius of the reigning emperor, were the 
 divinities which were everywhere worshipped. In the eastern 
 provinces, where the people had been habituated to the worship 
 of the reigning sovereign, the cult of the Divi seems to have 
 been inextricably mixed with the worship of the reigning em- 
 peror ; but in the west the two seem to have been clearly dis- 
 tinguishable, and the worship of the Divi was looked upon as 
 the state religion (as it was legally everywhere), and it was left 
 to private persons and to cities to worship the emperor while 
 yet living. 
 
 Christianity has so impregnated European thought that most 
 modem historians, until within recent years, were inclined to 
 regard all this worship of the rulers of the Roman Empire as 
 merely a form of slavish adulation. We forget that when 
 polytheism is the religious atmosphere in which thought lives, 
 there is no such gulf between man and God as Christianity has 
 
 changed. When the Republic became a monarchy the genius of the em- 
 peror naturally took the place of the genius of the Roman people 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 347 
 
 made us know. If this worsliip of tlie Divi Imperatores be tested 
 by any standard that can be applied to a polytheistic religion, 
 it will be found to be as real a religion " i any one of the multi* 
 tudinous cults that paganism has fvoduced. The household 
 shrines of Pompeii attest how deeply it entered into the private 
 life of the Italian people. There gathered round it the worship 
 of the old heroes of the fatherland, the all-pervading ancestor- 
 worship, the feelings of awe, reverence and thanksgiving which 
 came from the contemplation of a mighty and for the most part 
 beneficent power. 
 
 It had long been the custom in the East to worship the head 
 of the state, and this worship had been adopted by the Greeks 
 as soon as they became an Asiatic power. Long before Augustus 
 laid the foundation of his new state religion it had been fore- 
 shadowed in Greece and in Asia Minor.' The worship of the 
 genius of Rome personified in the Divi Imperatores and in the 
 Genius of the reigning emperor, took root almost at once and 
 spread amazingly. The worship of the personal reigning 
 sovereign needed to be restrained rather than encouraged.: 
 Everywhere we find that the desire of the people to adopt the 
 new cult went in advance of the attempts to spread and sustain 
 it. All over the empire from centre to remote circumference 
 this imperial cult was received with enthusiasm. It did not 
 displace the ordinary rehgions in which the peoples had seen 
 brought up. There was no need for that in polytheism. It 
 was added to the religions with which they were familiar, and 
 this everywhere. Thus it became the one universal religion 
 
 ' Otto Hirschfeld, founding on this, declares that the Imperial cult was 
 neither a development of Roman customs and institutions nor an original 
 creation in the new worid of imperialism ; it was appropriated entirely 
 from the oriental Greeks, This it seems to me is only partially true. The 
 worship of the ancient kings, Picus, Faunus, etc., was thoroughly Roman ; 
 and there was but a step between it and the worship of the Divi Impera- 
 tores, The worship of ancestors was thoroughly Roman ; and it was a 
 stepping stone to the worship of the deceased pater patriae. In India at 
 present many a government official whose rule has been beneficial in a 
 remarkable degree is worshipped as a god. 
 
348 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 for the whole empire and took its place as the ruling cult, the 
 religion of the great Roman state. Subjects were free to practise 
 any religion which wa- national ; but no one, without being 
 liable to charge of treason, might neglect to pay religious homage 
 to the Genius of the emperor and to the Divi Imperatores. 
 
 Only Jews and Christians refused to bend before the new 
 divinities. It was this imperial state religion which confronted 
 Christian confessors everywhere ; refusal to sacrifice to the 
 emperor (either the living ruler in the East, or the Divi and the 
 Genius in the West) was the supreme test to which Christians 
 were subjected, and which produced martyrdoms ; Pergamos, 
 the centre of the imperial cult for its district, is called in the 
 Apocalypse the place " where Satan's throne is." 
 
 This imperial cult required priests to preside over the worship 
 rendered to the imperial divinities. Its great officials were 
 curiously interwoven with many of the ancient priestly colleges 
 at Rome. It gave rise to special colleges of sacred men who 
 belonged exclusively to the new cult, and it had priests of its 
 own all over the empire. The priests of the imperial cult in 
 Rome would demand a special description applying only to 
 themselves, but for our immediate purpose the organization in 
 the capital may be neglected. What concerns our present enquiry 
 is the position and rank of the priests of the cult in the provinces. 
 It should also be remembered that the organization of this special 
 priesthood differed somewhat in the East from what it was in 
 the West ; and this difference may be very generally described 
 by saying that in the West the worship of the Divi Imperaiores 
 was such a new thing that it required a new priesthood, while 
 in the East the new imperial cult seems to have been largely 
 engrafted upon the worship of the local divinities, which neces- 
 sarily implied a great variety of organization which space does 
 not permit us to describe. 
 
 These explanations premised, it may be said that a network 
 of imperial priesthoods was spread over the whole Roman Empire 
 throughout all its provinces and in all its chief municipalities, 
 
ON THE OEGANIZATION OF THE CHUECH 849 
 
 and that amidst the myriad cults which the paganism of the 
 times produced, there was this one great pagan state religion 
 in which all shared and to which aU gave honour, and whose 
 priesthood stood conspicuously forward as the guardians of the 
 worship of the imperial divinities. 
 
 This priesthood was of two kinds — the priests who were the 
 representatives of the state religion for a whole province, and 
 the priests who were at the head of the religious administration 
 for the municipalities. The priests of the imperial cult for the 
 provinces were great personages. They were directly responsible 
 to the emperor alone who, as Pontifex Maximus, was the supreme 
 religious as well as the supreme civil head of the empire. It is 
 difficult to say whether they occupied an hierarchical position 
 of authority over the priests at the head of the imperial cult 
 in the municipalities during the first two and a half centuries. 
 The probability seems to be that they may have done so in the 
 West from the beginning, but not in the East. From the last 
 quarter of the third century, however, when a great reorganiza- 
 tion was introduced, the priests who superintended the imperial 
 worship in every province were made the overseers of all the 
 priests of the cult within the province, and not only so, but they 
 had the oversight of the priests of every pagan cult whatsoever 
 who were within the province. There was thus from the be- 
 ginning a pagan hierarchy with its Pontifex Maximus in Rome, 
 its metropolitans at the head of every province, and the municipal 
 flamens at the head of the organization in the municipalities ; 
 and from the last quarter of the third century these pagan 
 metropolitans had the strict supervision everywhere of the 
 whole religious administration within their provinces. 
 
 These pagan priests of the imperial cult who presided over 
 the provinces were functionaries of very high rank. They were 
 chosen from among the wealthiest and most illustrious of the 
 provincials, and were men who for the most part had held high 
 office in the civil sphere. Great privileges were accorded to 
 them. They presided over the provincial assemblies which the 
 
350 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 imperial government had created in every province. They had 
 the right of audience of the emperors when they went to Rome on 
 the business of the province. They wore a distinctive dress — a 
 robe with a band of purple ; they were preceded by lictors ; they 
 had special seats at all public spectacles. They claimed to rank 
 next in precedence to the civil head of the province, who directly 
 represented the emperor. 
 
 The cult in the municipalities was more varied, but the priest 
 at its head had a very honourable position. He was a man 
 who had usually filled the highest municipal offices, and he was 
 ex officio a member of the municipal council. Everywhere in 
 province and in municipality the office carried with it high civil 
 rank and rights of precedence. 
 
 This was the religion and these were the priests that the 
 Christian Church, or rather the associated churches, had to sup- 
 plant ere it could come to terms with the state and become the 
 acknowledged religion of the empire. Christianity could not 
 become the religion of the empire until this great state religion . 
 had been overthrown and its priests abolished or their offices 
 secularized. The question arises — Did the churches seek to 
 adapt themselves to the form and organization of this great 
 imperial religious system in such a way that when the hour of 
 Christian triumph came the Christian leaders could at once step 
 into the position of those who held the leading places in it 
 and who formed that great pagan hierarchy ? 
 
 The answer seems to be that in two marked particulars at 
 least the Christian churches did copy the great pagan hierarchy. 
 They did so in the distinction introduced into the ranks of bishops 
 by the institution of metropolitans and grades of bishops, and 
 they did so also in the multiplication of the lower orders of clergy 
 on the model of the organization of the state temple service. 
 
 M. Desjardins, the learned author of the Geographie Historique 
 et Administrative de la Gaule Romaine,^ has investigated carefully 
 
 ' Desjardins, Oeographie Historique et Administrative dela Oavle Romaine, 
 iiL 417, 418. 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE OHUEOH 351 
 
 the geograpliical organization of the imperial cult for ancient 
 France, and has compared it with the Christian ecclesiastical 
 administration which succeeded it after the conversion of Con- 
 stantine. The result he has come to is, that the pagan organiza- 
 tion was everywhere the forerunner of the Christian. His con- 
 clusion is that, almost without exception, every city which had 
 a flamen to superintend the worship of Rome and Augmtus or 
 of the Genius of the reigning emperor and of the Divi Imf era- 
 tores, became the seat of a Christian bishopric when diocesan 
 episcopacy emerged — and the diocesan system began in Gaul — 
 and every city which had a provincial priest of the imperial cult 
 became the seat of a metropolitan archbishop. The Christian 
 hierarchy, modelled on the earlier pagan hierarchy, stepped 
 into its place. When the Bishop of Rome claimed to be the 
 Pontifex Maximus and to rule the Christian metropoHtans, and 
 when the metropolitans claimed rights over the bishops of their 
 provinces, and when these claims were largely acceded to, then 
 the pagan hierarchy of the imperial pagan worship was christened 
 and became the framework of the visible unity of the Church of 
 Christ. 
 
 The same result appears when the other principle of associa- 
 tion — ^that of councils — is investigated. M. Paul Monceaux, 
 in his thesis De Communi Asiae Provinciae,^ has shown how the 
 councils of the Church established themselves in the cities where 
 the old assemblies of pagan times had met under the presidency 
 of the provincial priests of the imperial cult, and how these 
 Christian councils had frequently the same number of members 
 as attended the pagan assemblies. The organization of the 
 imperial cult or the Roman pagan state religion was copied, to 
 be supplanted, by the Christian churches. 
 
 The investigations which have led to these results have not 
 
 been prosecuted with regard to every province of the empire 
 
 and there is still room for a great deal of archaeological xesearch 
 
 but where the subject has been examined the results show the 
 
 « Monceaux, De Communi Asiae Provinciae, pp. 117 fE. 
 
352 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 close resemblance between the pagan and the succeeding Christian 
 organisation. The Abb^ Beurlier, whose monograph Le Cvlte 
 Imperial is the most detailed account of the subject yet published, 
 appreciates the force of the arguments of MM. Desjardins and 
 Monceaux, but explains that this close correspondence did not 
 necessarily imply that the Christian Church copied the organiza- 
 tion of the state religion of pagan Rome. He thinks that the 
 leaders of the Christian churches followed so closely in the foot- 
 steps of the pagan religious administration because the Christian 
 Church found it necessary to cover the same groimd, and took 
 advantage of the same imperial administration and its land 
 divisions.' He admits that the organization of the imperial 
 state religion did not exactly follow the civil administration ; 
 that some provinces had no provincial priest, and that others 
 had more than one ; and that the organization of the Christian 
 Church followed these deviations. But he is of opinion that all 
 this can be explained by natural causes common to the needs 
 of both organizations. " The geographical reasons which had 
 grouped together cities to render a common worship to Augustm, 
 and which had led them to establish the centre of the cult some- 
 times in the capital of the province, sometimes at a point where 
 several provinces met, or, as in Asia, in a certain number of 
 cities rivalling each other in size, acted in the same way in group- 
 ing together the bishops of the small towns of the province, 
 and consequently in gradually increasing the jurisdiction of the 
 bishop in the principal centres." 
 
 There are, however, coincidences which the distribution of 
 population and the geographical utiUtyof centres will not fully 
 account for. The Christian bishops — the metropolitans and 
 their urban bishops — had assigned to them under the Christian 
 emperors who followed Constantine the same powers to in- 
 vestigate contraventions of religious arrangements which in the 
 pagan days belonged to the provincial and municipal priests 
 of the imperial cult. Nor will it explain how Christian bishops 
 « Beurlier, Le CuUe Imperial, pp. 304-307. 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 353 
 
 of important centres demanded and obtained from Christian 
 emperors the same places of civil precedence which belonged to 
 the provincial priests of the Divi Imperatores. The fact that the 
 chief ecclesiastic in England has to this day precedence of every 
 one save princes of the blood comes down through long genera- 
 tions, a legacy from the state paganism of the old Roman empire. 
 " The conquering Christian Church," as Mom m sen says, " took 
 its hierarchic weapons from the arsenal of the enemy." ' 
 
 The modeUing of the Church on the organization of the imperial 
 cult grew more intimate as the decades passed, and the re- 
 semblance between them stronger when the recognition of the 
 Christian rehgion by the state gave the leaders of the Church 
 more opportunities. The pagan title of Pontifex Maximus^ 
 applied in scorn by Tertullian^ in the beginning of the third 
 century to an overweening Bishop of Rome, was appropriated 
 by the Christian bishop of the capital and still remains, and with 
 it the implied claim to be the ruler over the whole religious 
 administration of the empire. The vestments of the clergy, 
 unknown in these early centuries — dalmatic, chasuble, stole 
 and maniple — were aU taken over by the Christian clergy from 
 the Roman magistracy ; ^ the word BvUy to denote a papal 
 rescript, was borrowed from the old imperial administration — 
 but these things take us far beyond our period. 
 
 The imitation of the pagan priesthood was also seen within our 
 period in the multiphcation of subordinate ecclesiastical offices. 
 The second half of the third and the fourth century witnessed 
 an increase in the lower orders of the clergy, both in the East and 
 in the West. The organizing genius of the Roman Church 
 led the way. The institution of these minor orders, as they were 
 called, can almost be dated. They began about the year 
 
 * Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire (1886), i. 349. 
 
 * Tertullian, De Pvdicitiay 1. 
 
 3 Bock, Geschichie der Liturgischen Oewdnder des MittddUers (1859) ; 
 Marriott, Fesitanttffi Christianum (1868) ; also, but not so exact, Stanley's 
 Christian Institutions (1881), pp. 148 ff. 
 
354 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 236 A.D. So far as the West is concerned, the minor orders 
 seem to have reached their completion by the beginning of the 
 fourth century, if not a little earlier.' We find included in the 
 clergy, besides the bishops, elders and deacons, subdeacons, 
 readers, exorcists, acolytes, door-keepers and grave-diggers. 
 The subdeacons are evidently developed from the deacons. 
 The readers and the exorcists represent the old j>ropheiic min- 
 istry.* The acolytes and the door-keepers were added to the 
 dergy in imitation of the ofl&cials in the state temples during 
 the days of paganism. 
 
 The service of priests in the state temples was so arranged 
 that there was a higher and a lower priesthood, and that the 
 members of the latter were looked upon as the personal attend- 
 ants of the former. The one was set apart for the performance 
 of the sacrifices and other holy mysteries, the others were their 
 servants who performed the menial parts of the services. At 
 first they were slaves ; afterwards they were usually freed-men ; 
 these servant priests could never rise to be priests of the higher 
 class. They had different names, all of which conveyed their 
 menial position ; they were the body-servants, the messengers, 
 the robe-keepers, etc., of the higher priests. Besides these 
 
 ' The final fonn which the new organization of the congregation took, 
 says Hamack, " was characterized by four moments : — (1) by the quaUty 
 of the sacrificing priesthood, who now took the position of higher clergy, 
 and were settled in it by a solemn consecration ; (2) by a comprehensive 
 adoption of the compUcated forms of the heathen worship, of the temple 
 service, and of the priesthood, as well as by the development of the idea 
 of a magical power and real efficacy of sacred actions ; (3) by the strict 
 and perfect carrying out of the clerical organization in the sense that 
 everything, however old, of dignities, claims and rights should be excluded, 
 or at any rate made over and subordinated to this organization ; and (4) 
 by the dying out, that is by the extermination, of the last remains of the 
 charismata, which under the new ideas were dangerous, seldom appearing, 
 and often compromising and discrediting as far as they rose above the 
 ranks of harmless." Sources of the Apostolic Canons (1895, Eng. Trans.), 
 p. 83. 
 
 * Compare Hamack's masterly constructive bit of historical criticism, 
 his essay on The Origin of the Readership and of the other Minor Orders^ 
 appended to Sources of the Apostolic Canons, pp. 64 flf. 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 355 
 
 servants of the sacred persons, there were servants of the holy 
 places or temples. There was always a keeper (aeditum), and 
 he had various servants under him, whose duty it was to open, 
 shut and clean the sacred place ; to show strangers its curio- 
 sities ; to allow those persons who had permission to offer prayers 
 and present offerings according to the rules of the temple, and to 
 refuse admission to aU others. All these attendants of the lower 
 class — whether servants of the higher priests or servants of the 
 sacred place — were included in the temple ministry, and had in 
 consequence their definite share in the temple offerings.' 
 
 The acolytes and the door-keepers (ostiarii, TruXcopol) corre- 
 spond to these two classes of the lower priesthood in the pagan 
 state temples. The acolyte (aKoXovOos) was originally an 
 attendant, a scholar, a follower, or more definitely the boy or 
 man-servant who followed his master when the latter went out 
 of his house. They were the servants of the Christian priests 
 doing all manner of services for them, carrying their messages 
 or letters,* and in general acting like the cdatores of the state 
 temples. The door-keepers or ostiarii had the same duties 
 in the Christian churches that the aeditui had in the state temples. 
 " He had to look after the opening and the shutting of the doors 
 to watch over the coming in and out of the faithful, to refuse 
 entrance to suspicious persons, and, from the date of the more 
 strict separation between the missa catechumenorurn and the 
 missa fiddium, to close the doors, after the dismissal of the 
 catechumens, against those doing penance and against un- 
 believers. He first became necessary when there were special 
 
 ' Compare what Marquardt says about the state temples and their 
 attendants and about the state priests in his StacUsverwaltung, Pt. ii. 
 {Handhuch der Bomischen Alterthumtr, Mommsen and Marquardt, VI.). 
 
 2 Acolytes are mentioned as carrying letters in Cyprian's Epistles fre- 
 quently : — xlv. 4 (xU.) ; xlix. 3 (xlv.) ; lii. 1 (xlvi.) ; lix. 1, 9 (Uv.) ; Ixxviii. 
 1 (Ixxviii.) ; Ixxix. The point is, of course, not that Christian bishops 
 should have persons to carry their letters, but that these acolytes acting 
 as the servants of the bishops should be reckoned among the clergy. 
 
856 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 cliurcli buildings, and when they, like temples, together with 
 the ceremonial of divine service, had come to be considered as 
 holy, that is since about 225 a.d." ' The significant thing is 
 not that the Christian churches should have given servants to 
 their bishops and elders or attendants to their buildings for 
 public worship, but that these officials should be classed among 
 the clergy. It is this that was taken over from the pagan state 
 religion. 
 
 The Church, however, did not copy its pagan models slavishly. 
 It broke the pagan rule that the higher ministry was to be 
 reserved for men of a certain rank, and that there was a social 
 gulf between the acting and the serving priesthood. It made 
 those lower orders the recruiting ground for the higher, and in this 
 way constructed a ladder by which deserving men could climb 
 from the lowest to the highest ranks of service within the Church 
 of Christ. 
 
 Thus the ministry of the Church of the fourth century had 
 become so closely fashioned after the organization of the im- 
 perial state religion that when the time of the Church's triumph 
 came, which it did early in the century, very Httle change of 
 previous state arrangements was needed to instal the new 
 religion in the place of the old. The influences of reHgion on the 
 state, and the support given by the state to religious rulers and 
 teachers, acted through an administration which, so far as 
 external organization was concerned, was surprisingly Hke the one 
 that had gone before — only now the cisterns stored and the con- 
 duits distributed a wholesome water. The gradations in the 
 hierarchy, the times and places of its synods, the additions to 
 its lower ministry, were all borrowed from the methods of the 
 old imperial paganism. 
 
 This need not be a matter of reproach. The Church and 
 its leaders had a lofty aim before them in all these changes ; and 
 the evangeUcal life could be and was sustained under this com- 
 
 ' Hamack,' Sources of the Apostolie Carums, p. 88^ 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 357 
 
 plicated ministry, The Church acquired an external polity 
 which gave it not merely such a sense of unity as it had not 
 previously possessed, but also endowed it with the power of 
 acting as one great organization in its work of Christianizing 
 the Roman Empire and the cultivated paganism which died 
 hard. The Church undoubtedly lost its old democratic ideals ; 
 the laity counted for little and the clergy for much; but the 
 times were becoming less and less democratic, and the principles 
 of democratic government were scarcely understood unless when 
 applied within very small areas. In the centuries which came 
 long afterwards it can be seen how this centralized government 
 helped to preserve the Church in the dissolution of the empire 
 in the West in those times which are called " The Wandering 
 of the Nations," On the other hand, there were evils. The 
 spirit of compromise with paganism, which this imitation even 
 of the externals of a pagan religious administration could scarcely 
 fail to produce, did lead to much corruption both in the beliefs 
 and in the life of the Christian Church. These need not be here 
 dwelt upon. The evangelical life in the Church was strong 
 enough to enable her to conquer for the Christian faith, not 
 merely persecuting Rome, but the barbarian nations which 
 overthrew the western portion of the empire. That only need 
 be remembered now. 
 
 It is enough to say that the chief seeds of evil which lay in 
 this new organization of the Church which had assumed a de- 
 finite form by the beginning of the fourth century, were the 
 two pagan ideas introduced mainly by Cyprian of Carthage ; 
 (1) that of a special priesthood, in the sense that a man (the 
 bishop) could, by reason of the power ascribed to him of for- 
 giving sin, and, flowing from that, the right claimed for him of 
 exacting implicit obedience, stand practically in the place of 
 Grod towards his fellow-men ; and (2) that of a sacrifice in the 
 Eucharist, unique in kind, propitiatory, differing essentially 
 from all other acts of worship that imply self-surrender to 
 God and from all services of self-den5dng love, and possessing 
 
358 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 an efficacy independent of the faith and the piety of the 
 worshippers. It was these thoughts, not the organization which 
 enclosed them, which were to breed evil more abundantly as the 
 centuries passed. 
 
 A study at first hand of the contemporary evidence belonging 
 to the first three centuries — and this has been accumulating 
 wonderfully during the last quarter of a century — reveals the 
 important fact that changes were being continually made. 
 Almost every ancient document as it unexpectedly appears, 
 rescued from nooks in eastern convent Hbraries, dug out of 
 Egyptian sands, unrolled from bundles of forgotten parchments, 
 tells us something new about the organization of the early 
 churches. The unvarying lesson they teach is, that there was 
 anjrthing but a monotonous uniformity in the ecclesiasticai 
 organization of the churches of the early centuries. They all 
 speak of changes, experiments, inventions in administration made 
 by men who were ahve to the needs of their times and who were 
 unfettered by the notion that there is only one form of govern- 
 ment possible to the Church of Christ and essential to its very 
 existence as a Church. The changes made from half-century 
 to half- century, and in different parts of the Church contem- 
 poraneously, are all multiphed proofs that it belongs to the 
 Church to create, to modify, to change its ministry from age to 
 age in order to make it as effective an instrument as possible for 
 evangeUsing the world. They teach, in short, that it is the 
 Church that makes the ministry and not the ministry that 
 makes the Church. 
 
 The close of the third century is the limit of our period ; 
 it saw the last stage in the growth of the Church before it became 
 absorbed within the administration of the Roman empire. 
 
 But the use of the word Church is very misleading. There 
 was no one all-embracing institution, visible to the eye, which 
 could be called the Church of Christ. What did exist was thou- 
 sands of churches, more or less independent, associated in groups 
 ac<;ording to the divisions of the empire. The real bond of 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 359 
 
 association was the willingness of the leaders of the individual 
 Christian communities to consent to federation, for the terms 
 of communion were never exactly settled. The federation was 
 constantly liable to be dissolved. When the party in Rome 
 which favoured a stricter dealing with the lapsed formed a 
 second and rival congregation and placed Novatian at the head 
 of it as bishop, he and not Cornelius was in communion with 
 many of the Eastern bishops and their churches. It was only 
 the magnanimity of Cyprian which prevented the breaking up 
 of the federation on the question of the re-baptism of heretics. 
 Hundreds of the associated churches broke away from the con- 
 federation in what was commonly called the Donatist schism. 
 Church is therefore scarcely the word to use ; associated churches 
 is the really accurate phrase. 
 
 It should also be remembered that according to the view 
 of Cyprian every bishop occupied a thoroughly independent 
 position, and could accept or reject the conditions of federation 
 and decline to be bound by the action of the associated churches.' 
 Examples of such bishops are to be met with very late.^ But be- 
 sides such sporadic cases, there were rival associations of churches 
 outside what historians misleadingly call the Catholic Church of 
 Christ. In some parts of the empire they were more numerous 
 than the Catholics, and everyivhere they were, to say the least 
 of it, as sincere and as whole-hearted Christians. Marcionites, 
 Montanists, and many others, lived, worked and taught, follow- 
 ing the precepts of Jesus in the way they understood them, and 
 suffered for Christ in times of persecution as faithfully as those 
 who called them heretics and schismatics. The state of matters 
 was much liker what exists in a modern divided Christendom 
 than many would have us believe. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether the great body of associated 
 churches would of itself have been able to overcome these non* 
 conformists of the early centuries and stand forward as the one 
 
 ^ Compaje article AutocephcUoi in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, 
 and Hatch, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (1881), p. 180. 
 
860 THE ROMAN STATE RELIGION AND ITS EFFECTS 
 
 Ckristian Church, including all or all but a very few Christian 
 communities. That this state of things did actually come to 
 pass was due to the constraints and persecutions of the imperial 
 government, which never tolerated these Christians, and whose 
 persecution was almost continuous after the Council of Nicea 
 till the dissolution of the empire. It was the State which first 
 gave a thoroughly visible unity to the associated churches. 
 The imperial unity was the forerunner of the Papal. The State 
 supported the associated churches by all the means in its power. 
 It recognized the decisions of their councils and enforced them 
 with civil pains and penalties ; it also recognized the sentences 
 of deposition and excommunication passed on members of the 
 clergy or laity belonging to any one of the associated churches 
 and followed them with civil disabiUties.' It did its best to 
 destroy all Christianity outside of the associated churches, and 
 largely succeeded. The rigour of the state persecution directed 
 against Christian nonconformists in the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies has not received the attention due to it. The State 
 confiscated their churches and ecclesiastical property (sometimes 
 their private property also) ; it prohibited under penalty of 
 proscription and death their meeting for public worship ; it 
 took from these nonconformist Christians the right to inherit 
 or bequeath property by will ; it banished their clergy ; finally, 
 it made raids upon them by its soldiery and sometimes butch- 
 ered whole communities, as was the case with the Montanists 
 in Phrygia and with the Donatists in Africa.* And this glaringly 
 un-Christian mode of creating and vindicating the visible unity 
 of the Catholic Church of Christ was vigorously encouraged 
 by the leaders of the associated churches who had the recog- 
 nition and support of the State.^ 
 
 ' Compare the evidence collected from the imperial codes by Dr. Hatch 
 in his Organization of the Early Christian Churches, p. 176 n. 
 
 * Procopius, Historia Arcana, 11. 
 
 3 Compare letter of Ambrose written to the Emperor Theodoerius, in the 
 name of Oie Council of Aquileia demanding the lappression by force of 
 
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 861 
 
 Safe witllin the fold of the State, they could speak of them- 
 selves as the one Catholic Church of Christ outside of which 
 there was no salvation ; they could apply to their own circle 
 of churches all the metaphors and promises of Old Testament 
 prophecy and aU the sublime descriptions of the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, while their fellow-Christians who were outside state 
 protection were being exterminated. Such strange methods do 
 men think it right to use when they try in their haste to make 
 clear to the coarser human vision the wondrous divine thought 
 of the visible unity of the Church of Christ ! 
 
 non-conformist ordinations and meetings for public worahip: Ambroe% 
 Oyera, Epist I. x. (Migne's Pair, Lot. xyi p. 940). 
 
Appendix 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Sketch of the History of Modern Controversy about the 
 Office-bearers in the Primitive Christian Churches 
 
 THE history of modern discussions about the nature of the 
 government and the office-bearers in the earliest Christian 
 Churches begins with Dr. Lightfoot's Essay on the Christian Ministry ^ 
 published in 1868, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians: 
 This essay has been recently republished, but unfortunately the 
 valuable dissertation on the terms bishop and presbyter has not 
 been appended to the repubhshed essay. 
 
 In his dissertation on the words bishop and presbyter, Dr. Light- 
 foot begins by examining the previous history of the words. 
 
 Episcopus in classical Greek was used to denote the Athenian 
 commissioners appointed to take over and regulate a new territorial 
 acquisition, the inspectors appointed by Indian kings, the com- 
 missioner appointed by Mithridates to settle the affairs of Ephesus^ 
 magistrates who regulated the sales of provisions, certain officers 
 in Rhodes whose occupation is unknown, and perhaps the officials 
 of a club or confraternity. In the Septuagint the word was used 
 to mean inspectors or taskmasters, captains or presidents, the com- 
 missioners appointed by king Antiochus when he resolved to destroy 
 the Jewish religion. From this survey Dr. Lightfoot argued that 
 the primary meaning in the word was inspection, and that it con- 
 tained two subsidiary thoughts, responsibility to a superior power^ 
 and the introduction of a new order of things. 
 
 Presbyter or elder, both name and office^ was distinctly Jewish, 
 Dr. Lightfoot thought. It was a common practice certainly to call 
 the governing body the aged (senate, gerousia, aldermen), but all 
 through Jewish history there are elders ; these elders were mainly 
 civil officials, but the synagogues of the Dispersion had religious 
 elders belonging to them. It was not unnatural, therefore, that when 
 the Christian synagogue took its place by the side of the Jewish* 
 
366 APPENDIX 
 
 a similar organization should be carried over from tlie old dispen- 
 sation into the new. 
 
 These two names, ejnscopus^ with its Greek, and eWer, with its 
 Jewish history, mean in the primitive Christian Church absolutely 
 the same thing ; this can be proved from Scriptural and patristic 
 evidence. The *' elders " of Ephesus were also " bishops " (Acts xx. 
 17, 28), and the identity of the names is shown in 1 Peter v. 1, 2 ; 
 in 1 Tim. iii. 1-7 and v. 17-19 ; and in Tit. i. 5-7. The same 
 identity is observed in the First Epistle of Clement (42, 44). With 
 the beginning of the second century a new phraseology began and 
 the words took their modern significations ; by the close of that 
 century the original meanings seem to have been forgotten. But 
 in the fourth century, when the fathers of the Church began to 
 examine the records of the primitive times, they perceived the 
 original meanings, and Jerome, Chrysostom, Pelagius, Theodore 
 of Mopsuestia and Theodoret all recognized the original identity 
 of episcojms and 'presbyter. 
 
 The question then arises, how it came to pass that in the end of the 
 second century everywhere the original college of presbyters or 
 bishops had given place to a different organization, in which we find 
 ONE president called generally the bishop, and frequently the pastor, 
 and under him a college of elders or presbyters and a band of deacons ? 
 This is the question which Dr. Lightfoot set himself to answer in his 
 essay on the Christian Ministry, He first collects his facts, which 
 are these. That the change from a Church government where the 
 rulers were a college of presbyter-bishops to the type in which there 
 is one president with a college of presbyters under him is first ap- 
 parent in Asia Minor. We get the information from Ignatius, who 
 was himself at the head of the Church in Antioch, and who gives 
 us the name of two other presidents in that region — Polycarp at 
 Smyrna and Onesimus at Ephesus. The change came later in 
 Macedonia and Greece ; for the Church at Philippi was ruled by a 
 college of presbyter-bishops during the time of Polycarp. Corinth 
 Aad the new constitution before 170, and from some various con- 
 siderations we may fix the date of the introduction of the new 
 organization into Greece about the time of Hadrian. The same date 
 may be assigned to the new organization of the churches in Crete. 
 The early history of a single presidency in the Roman Church pre- 
 sents a perplexing problem. Neither Clement nor Ignatius allow 
 us to see the presidency of one man in the early Roman Churchy 
 and the evidence to be gathered from Hermas is too uncertain to be 
 relied upon. There are lists of so-called bishops of Rome from 
 St. Peter and Linus, but these belong at the earliest to the end of the 
 
APPENDIX . 867 
 
 second century,- and the names they give may only be those of men 
 known to strangers to be prominent in the Church of the Capital. 
 We know absolutely nothing of the Church in Africa before the time 
 of TertuUian, but the institution of the single ruler was established 
 in strength in his time. In Alexandria there is evidence to show 
 that up to the middle of the third century the bishop was not only 
 nominated but apparently ordained by the twelve presbyters out 
 of their own number. In Gaul the earliest bishop recorded was 
 Pothinus, the immediate predecessor of Irenaeus. It is to be 
 observed, however, that it is scarcely reasonable to suppose that the 
 three-fold ministry only began to exist when we can prove that a 
 *' bishop " is actually mentioned, for there are many things which 
 witness that the three-fold ministry was not regarded as a novelty 
 at the close of the second century. 
 
 Having stated his facts. Dr. Lightfoot proceeded to construct 
 a theory of the origin of this three-fold ministry, or, to put it other- 
 wise, to give an explanation how the two-fold ministry of the primi- 
 tive Church became a three-fold ministry in the third century. 
 
 He notes the gradual and uneven development of the three-fold 
 order. He accepts the statements of Jerome, " that one presbyter 
 was elected that he might be placed over the rest as a remedy against 
 schism, and that each man might not draw to himself and thus break 
 up the Church of Christ." The dissensions between Jew and Gentile, 
 the disputes occasioned by the Gnostic teachers, the necessity for 
 preserving a united front in times of trial and persecution, were the 
 causes for the gradual change which gave a single and permanent 
 head to the college of presbyter-bishops which had ruled the Chris- 
 tian communities in the earliest times. 
 
 This statement, facts and theory, was generally accepted by all 
 save certain Anglicans, who were too much in love with a theory 
 to care to look closely at historical facts. It may be said to have 
 represented the ideas of competent scholars in England and in 
 Germany until the late Dr. Hatch published his celebrated Bampton 
 Lectures in 1881. 
 
 Dr. Hatch was one of the most original and erudite students of 
 early Church History that England has produced. These lectures 
 and his articles in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities^ were the 
 result of extensive reading, with the view of constructing a scientific 
 history of the beginnings of Canon law — a work which the author's 
 premature death prevented him from accomplishing. 
 
 Dr. Hatch set himself to investigate the origins of ecclesiastical 
 organization from a comparative review of the political, social and 
 religious assemblies and confraternities in society contemporary 
 
368 APPENDIX 
 
 with the beginnings of Christianity. He was not the first to do this. 
 Renan had directed attention to the confraternities of pagan times 
 and instituted a parallel between them and the organization of the 
 early Christian societies. Heinrici had carried on the same kind 
 of investigation in two learned articles published in the Zeitschrijt 
 fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie, in 1876-7, and in his Commentary 
 on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, published in 1879. But 
 Dr. Hatch brought to the work a wealth of material more abundant 
 than had been collected by any of his predecessors, and grouped it 
 in a much more skilful way. His idea was that the term episccpus 
 came into the Christian Church from the heathen confraternities, 
 and was used for the leaders in the Gentile, as the term presbyter 
 was used in the Jewish, Christian societies. If the Gentile Christian 
 churches are to be alone considered, Dr. Hatch thought that the 
 presbyters whom we find in them had an origin quite spontaneous 
 and independent of the example of the Jewish communities. He 
 derived the Christian presbyters from the common practice of a 
 council of elderly men which superintended most of the confra- 
 ternities which abounded in the early centuries of our era. 
 
 Dr. Hatch seems to have thought that the ofiice as well as the 
 name episcopus was distinct from that of presbyter from the be- 
 ginning, but he did not make this opinion very emphatic. His idea 
 was that the episcopus filled an administrative and financial office, 
 and its duties in both respects came from the position of the epis- 
 copus as the leader of the worship, and therefore the receiver of the 
 " gifts " of the people, who gave them after the service to the 
 officiating minister, by whom they were distributed to those to 
 whom they were due. Dr. Hatch thus disputed the identity of 
 presbyter and episcopus, at least in Gentile Christian societies. He 
 agreed with Dr. Lightfoot, however, in declaring that all the Chris- 
 tian churches were originally governed by a plurality of office- 
 bearers, none of whom had a pre-eminence over his fellows. In 
 attempting to account for the fact that in course of time we find this 
 government by a plurality of office-bearers of equal rank superseded 
 by a three-fold ministry, in which the local Church was governed 
 by one episcopus, a college of presbyters and several deacons, Dr. 
 Hatch followed Dr. Lightfoot's argument. He adduced the general 
 tendency in all societies to have a president at their head, and the 
 natural tendency when once a single president had been appointed 
 for power to grow in his hands ; the specific tendency in the Christian 
 societies of the second century to believe that the coming of the 
 Lord was at hand, and the consequent endeavour to represent each 
 society as having at its head one who would represent the Lord until 
 
APPENDIX 869 
 
 He came ; and lastly the need felt in times of danger, whether from 
 persecution or from speculation, to have one head who could be 
 obeyed by all. He declared that his explanation of the change was 
 exactly that made by Jerome. 
 
 Dr. Hatch's Lectures, at once original and erudite, attracted a 
 great deal of attention both in this country and abroad. They were 
 the object of some grossly unfair and almost virulent attacks on the 
 part of High Church Anglicans, and these attacks continue. In 
 Germany the Lectures made a very great impression, all the more 
 so that the distinguished Church historian, Dr. Adolf Harnack, then 
 a professor at Giessen, now at Berlin, was so struck with the book 
 that he translated it into German and published it with elaborate 
 notes of his own. With this translation modern German critical 
 research into the organization of the primitive Church may be said 
 to have begun. 
 
 While Dr. Hatch had denied Dr. Lightfoot's starting point, the 
 identity of episcopi and presbyters, he had done so mainly by in- 
 sisting on a difference in origin and perhaps in work ; but he had 
 not made very clear the real relation between the episcopus and the 
 presbyter J nor had he explained why it was that when the three-fold 
 ministry emerged the superior officer was called episcopus and not 
 presbyter. Dr. Harnack, in his " analecta " to his translation 
 set himself to supply these defects. He insisted in a much more 
 thoroughgoing way than Dr. Hatch that the two offices of episcopus 
 and presbyter were distinct in their origin, and represented two 
 distinct types of organization which could never throughout their 
 whole history be completely identified. The former, along with the 
 deacons, were administrative officers, and had mainly to do with the 
 distribution and reception of the offerings of the worshippers, and 
 through these with the worship of the congregation, while the 
 presbyters were from the first and always men who had charge of the 
 discipline and morals of their fellow Christians. In his " analecta," 
 Dr. Harnack attempts to trace this clear distinction down through 
 sub-apostolic hterature. This translation was published in 1883. 
 In the same year appeared the DidachCy issued by Bishop Bry- 
 ennios — a venerable reUc from primitive times, which shed a light 
 on many things hitherto obscure in primitive Christianity. The 
 appearance of the Didache was the occasion of a very thorough- 
 going resifting of the earliest literature bearing on the organization 
 and worship of the primitive Church. As a result of this we have 
 now the completed hypothesis of Dr. Harnack about the beginnings 
 and growth of the Christian organization, which is as follows. While 
 we have traces of at least four separate roots of organization in the 
 
 CM. 24 
 
370 APPENDIX 
 
 primitive Church, which may be called the " religious," the " patri- 
 archal," the " administrative " and the " aristocratic," it may be 
 said that a completely organized congregation possessed at the end 
 of the apostolic age : (1) " prophets and teachers," who were 
 awakened and taught by the Spirit, and who spoke the " Word of 
 God " ; (2) a circle of " presbyters " or " elders," select old men, 
 but perhaps not yet elected " old men," who in all emergencies which 
 affected the congregation could guide them, and whose special duty 
 it was to watch over the Hfe and behaviour of the members of the 
 community, and who therefore comforted, admonished and punished; 
 they also formed the court of arbiters before whom all cases of 
 dispute between members of the Christian society were brought and 
 judged ; (3) the administrative officers — " episcopi " and fleacons — 
 who possessed the " gifts " of government and pubhc service, and 
 who had to act especially in public worship and in the care of the 
 poor ; the " episcopi " were also members of the circle of " presby- 
 ters." But besides these there were also in the congregations many 
 varied " gifts " (1 Cor. xii.) ; and each individual " gift " or talent 
 which was useful to edify, in the widest sense of the word, the 
 members of the society, was considered a " gift " of the Spirit ; 
 but only those who possessed in peculiar measure the " gift " of 
 speaking the " Word of God," the apostles, prophets and teachers, 
 held a special rank in the congregation. That was the first stage 
 in the organization. 
 
 The second stage arose during the second century, when the basis 
 of organization was thoroughly altered and the alteration was mainly 
 due to the gradual dying out of the " charismatic " element. It 
 shows three elements. (1) The " prophets and teachers " either 
 gradually died out or probably the calling led to so many abuses that 
 these men lost their original pre-eminence, and their places were 
 taken by the " episcopi." (2) The worship and other things made 
 it more and more necessary for one man to be at the head of the 
 administration — the " episcopi " coalesced into one " episcopus " 
 or " pastor." (3) The college of " presbyters " lost much of its 
 earlier standing and became more an advising college supporting 
 the " episcopus " or " pastor." Thus the organization became a 
 three-fold order of ministry — " episcopus" or " pastor," presbyters 
 or " elders," and deacons — and these officials formed a consecrated 
 body of men set over the laity. This change came with varying 
 degrees of rapidity in the various parts of the empire, and we find 
 transitional forms. One of the most important parts of the change 
 was that the duty of edifying the people by sermon and hortatory 
 address passed for the most part to the " episcopus " or " pastor/' 
 
APPENDIX 871 
 
 and in a lesser degree to the " elders " ; but on into the third cen- 
 tury there were, surrounding the " pastor," laymen who not merely 
 edified the congregation by exhortations, but who instructed it 
 in the faith. Such gifted individuals, along with members who bore 
 eminent testimony to the faith in peculiar holiness of life or in 
 suffering, such as the confessors, virgins and widows, held a place 
 of special honour within the congregation alongside of the clergy. 
 
 The first half of the third century saw the final form of organization 
 adopted, and it is characterized by attributing a sacerdotal character 
 to the clergy, who had this character fixed upon them by a solemn 
 service, by a comprehensive adoption of the complicated forms of 
 heathen worship, of the temple service, and of the priesthood, with 
 a corresponding idea of the magical power of priestly actions, by 
 strictly and thoroughly including within the clerical order every- 
 thing of ancient dignity and rule, and by the complete extinction 
 of the old " charismatic " gifts of edification, or their relegation to a 
 very subordinate place. 
 
 These views of Dr. Harnack will be found stated at length with 
 his proofs in his second volume of the Didache, in his Sources of the 
 Apostolic Canons {Texte und Untersuchungen, II. i. ii. v.), and in an 
 article contributed to the Expositor, 1887, January-June, p. 321. 
 In the same number, on pp. 1 and 97, will be found two articles 
 by Dr. Sanday summarizing and criticising Dr. Harnack's posi- 
 tions. 
 
 Dr. Harnack's theory was at once adopted by many distinguished 
 students of early Church History in Germany, such as Weizsacker 
 and Sohm, and has been assented to by many Americans, such as 
 Dr. Allen in his Christian Institutions (1898) ; but it has also met 
 with a good deal of opposition. The hypothesis is marked by all 
 Dr. Harnack's originality of view, and is illustrated by a wealth of 
 references which perhaps he alone could give. It fascinated me at 
 first, and it was only after reading and re-reading the evidence that 
 I was obliged to come to the conclusion that it was untenable. Its 
 leading opponents are Seyerlen {Zeitschrift fur praktische Theologie, 
 1887, pp. 97 ff. 201 £E., 297 £E.), Loening, Loofs and lastly Schmiedel. 
 
 Dr. Loening {Die Gemeindeverfassung des Urchristenthums, 1889) 
 is Professor of Law in the University of Halle, and the author of a 
 valuable work on Church Law. He has a lawyer's demand for exact 
 evidence and a lawyer's love of precedents. He holds that there 
 was little or no organization in the Christian communities during 
 strictly apostolic times.^ What we find are Uttle societies of Chris- 
 
 ^ Dr. Loening belongs to that school of New Testament critics who are 
 
872 APPENDIX 
 
 tians meeting and worshipping together in house churches j we sec 
 no traces of office-bearers in the proper sense of the word ; we have 
 various terms applied to men because of the work they do, but no 
 word of office. In the last genuine Epistle of St. Paul, that written 
 to the Philippians, we meet for the first time with real office-bearers 
 who are called " bishops and deacons." This epistle and these names 
 must be the starting point of investigation into the origins of primi- 
 tive Christian organization. After a rapid criticism of the state- 
 ments of Dr. Hatch and Professor Harnack, he comes to the con- 
 clusion that no real proof has been brought forward to enable us to 
 explain these names from the titles of the officials of heathen confra- 
 ternities ; as little have they any connexion with the organization 
 of the synagogue. We can learn nothing about " bishops and 
 deacons ** save from the ordinary uses of the Greek words and their 
 special use in Christian literature. It would almost seem, thinks 
 Dr. Loening, that the Apostle Paul used these special words to show 
 that the organization of the Christian societies founded by him 
 had no connection with Judaism on the one hand, nor with heathen- 
 ism on the other. When we examine patristic and sub-apostolic 
 literature there is a much closer connexion between the function 
 of teaching and these office-bearers than Harnack allows ; indeed, 
 Dr. Loening is inclined to question Dr. Harnack's opinion that the 
 " bishops and deacons '* of the Didache were the officials who had 
 specially to do with the worship as distinct from the instruction. 
 He finds that the Poimenes of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the 
 Hegoumenoi of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Episcopi of the 
 Didache^ meant the same kind of officials, and that there was a 
 
 furthest removed from the traditional ideas about the date and author- 
 ship of the New Testament writings. He does not believe that we can 
 accept the account given in the Acts of the Apostles as trustworthy history 
 for apostolic times. Therefore while he accepts the account of the election 
 and setting apart of the Seven, he refuses to admit that Paul and Barnabas 
 saw " presbyters " appointed in the Churches founded during their first 
 mission journey, and to accept the fact of the existence of ** presbyters " 
 in the primitive Christian Church in Jerusalem. He holds that Rom. xvi. 
 3-16 is not part of the Epistle to the Romans, but a letter to the Church 
 at Ephesus, and to be taken as evidence for the organization of the Churches 
 in further Asia and in Greece. He does not believe in the Pauline origin 
 of the Epistle to the Ephesians or of the Pastoral Epistles. He dates the 
 former at 70-90 a.d. and the latter at sometime during the first quarter 
 of the second century; while he relegates the date of the Acts of the Apostles 
 to the beginning of the second century. He makes up for this incredulity 
 by accepting with unquestioning faith the gossip of Hegesippuo and such 
 writers. 
 
APPENDIX 873 
 
 close union between teacbing and oversight in the last quarter of the 
 first century. But what of the " presbyters " ? Dr. Loening 
 asserts strongly that the " presbyters " in the Gentile Christian 
 communities had no connexion whatever with officials in Greek 
 city life, social or poUtical. The name comes from Judaism ; but 
 the Christian presbyters have nothing in common with the Jewish 
 presbyters but the name. Although he does not accept the Acts 
 of the Apostles as a testimony for the organization of the churches 
 in the earliest days of Christianity, yet it is a trustworthy witness 
 for the organization which prevailed in the beginning of the second 
 century. That book, the First Epistle of St. Peter, and the Apo- 
 calypse, all show that there were " presbyters " in the Gentile 
 Christian communities in Palestine, in Syria, and in Asia Minor, and 
 that that office had been established in these parts for some time. 
 Where did it come from ? From Judaism, says Dr. Loening ; and 
 his proof is that it, he thinks, brought with it " ordination," which 
 was a distinctly Jewish institution. He finds this in the Pastoral 
 Epistles, and further declares that in these epistles we see the 
 Jewish term " presbyter " and the Gentile term " bishop " applied 
 to one and the same set of office-bearers. Thus Dr. Loening arrives 
 at the conclusion of the identity of " presbyter " and " episcopus,'* 
 with which Dr. Lightfoot started. But he has a difficulty to en- 
 counter from his rejection of the authority of the Acts of the Apostles^ 
 and from his placing the Pastoral Epistles at such a late date. Dr. 
 Harnack had said, standing on the same critical ground as Dr. Loen- 
 ing, that if the Gentile Christian organization had taken elders 
 from the Jewish, these officials would surely have appeared earlier 
 than the last years of the first century, which is the earliest date 
 which the critical theories about certain New Testament writings 
 permit. Dr. Loening gets round this objection by supposing, on the 
 authority, or at least on what he calls the authority, of Hegesippus,; 
 that there was no organization at all in Jewish Christian com- 
 munities until after the death of James, and that the Jewish Christian 
 Church was first thoroughly detached from Judaism and furnished 
 with an organization of its own when Symeon became its head; 
 His refusal to accept the trustworthiness of the Acts of the Apostles, 
 and his full credence of all the gossip of Hegesippus, justifies Loofs' 
 sarcasm that Loening is an ideal " modern critic," because the only 
 sources of information that are not to be accepted uncritically are 
 the canonical Scriptures. Coming to the question of how the single 
 president of a Church emerged from the college of " presbyter- 
 bishops," Dr. Loening has a theory which is all his own. The thick 
 veil which covers the change from the two-fold to the three-fold 
 
874 APPENDIX 
 
 order of the ministry can be Kfted, lie thinks^ by the aid of the 
 Epistles of Ignatius. With these to guide us we can gather that 
 while in Rome and Macedonia there was still a collegiate constitu- 
 tion, there was in Antioch and Asia Minor a three-fold ministry ; 
 but the " bishop " was not considered a successor of the apostles 
 but a representative of Jesus Christ and of God. The change did 
 not come from the colleges of " presbyter-bishops " taking to them- 
 selves a permanent president, for there is no evidence of any such 
 movement, nor did it follow any analogy of heathen gilds or civic 
 constitutions, for no such analogies present themselves. It came 
 from an imitation of the position of Symeon at the head of the Jewish- 
 Christian community at Pella. Symeon, of the natural family 
 line of our Lord, was the representative of Jesus ; and Ignatius got 
 the " ecclesiastical precedent " required there, and that is why he 
 considers the " bishop " or permanent president of the college of 
 " presbyter-bishops " the successor of the Lord. Ignatius seized 
 on this idea, and his enthusiastic support of it made the conception 
 widely known. Besides, it was useful in the circumstances of the 
 second century, and so the practice spread throughout the Church. 
 Only the main thought of Ignatius — that the permanent president 
 represented Christ — was departed from, and the " bishop " was 
 looked upon as the successor of the apostles. Then came Cyprian 
 with his sacerdotal ideas, and the simple president changed into the 
 hierarchical bishop through the idea of an ordination which gave a 
 " charismatic *' character to an office held for Ufe. 
 
 The theory of Professor Loofs of Halle is given in an elaborate 
 article published in the Studien und Kritiken for 1890 (pp. 619-658). 
 Professor Loofs is the most distinguished of the younger Church 
 historians of Germany, and is an eminently sane and scientific 
 worker and thinker. 
 
 Professor Loofs agrees with all our authorities that there was in 
 apostolic and in sub-apostolic times a " charismatic ministry " 
 of " apostles, prophets and teachers," and that they were in no sense 
 the office-bearers in local Churches ; but he thinks that some autho- 
 rities have drawn too hard and fast a Une between the two classes 
 of ministry. As to the office-bearers in local Churches, the contro- 
 versy concerns these points : Whence comes the name " episcopus," 
 and what were the original functions of the men so called ? What 
 was the origin of the " presbyteri," and what was their relation 
 to the " episcopi " ? At what time did the guidance of the com- 
 munity fall into the hands of one episcopus, and how did it come 
 about % These questions exhaust the points in dispute. 
 
 He has not much belief in the relation of the name " episcopus " 
 
APPENDIX 375 
 
 to the officials of heathen confraternities or to civil officials ; the 
 references given by Dr. Hatch and Dr. Harnack do not prove their 
 contention. He does not think that the word is a direct term of 
 distinct office in the New Testament writings any more than poimen 
 (pastor) or hegoumenos ; in the address to the Epistle to the PhiHp- 
 pians episcopi are merely those members of the brethren who take 
 an active oversight, and diakoni are those who render active assist- 
 ance. When we get beyond the New Testament writings and come 
 to the Didachey the episcopi are undoubtedly the officials of the con- 
 gregation who preside over the public worship, but the question is 
 whether they did this and nothing else, and whether this was their 
 original work. He thinks that they were more than merely the presi- 
 ding officers at pubHc worship and what that included, for they are 
 continually called poimeneSy and " to shepherd " surely means more 
 than to preside at worship and distribute the ofierings. And he is of 
 opinion that originally they were simply prohistamenoi, and gradu- 
 ally became the presidents of the public worship. It is difficult to 
 say whether they taught, but 1 Thess. v. 12 seems to imply that 
 teaching was from the first associated with leading the congregation. 
 Then as to the " presbyters " — excluding for the sake of argument 
 the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse and the Epistle of James — 
 the first fairly debatable places where they are mentioned are in the 
 First Epistle of St. Peter and the First Epistle of Clement. The 
 presbyters or elders mentioned in these epistles are undoubtedly 
 office-bearers ; and it is impossible to prove that the " presbyters " 
 in the Gentile Christian Churches were not the same as in, and taken 
 from, the Jewish Christian Churches, unless it can be shown that the 
 office they held in the one was different from what they held in the 
 other, or that there was a period when there were no " presbyters " 
 in the Gentile Churches, and to prove this more is needed than the 
 argument of silence from St. Paul's epistles. If " presbjrters " 
 were in Gentile Christian Churches then they were exactly the same 
 as " episcopi " ; and " presbyter " is the name of the office, while 
 " episcopus " tells us that this official exercised the function of 
 " oversight." This can be proved without reference to the presence 
 of the word " presbyter " in writings disputed on critical grounds. 
 The testimony of Jerome is not to be set aside lightly ; it is un- 
 questionable that Clement calls " episcopi " " presbyters " ; even if 
 the word " episkopountes " be rejected in 1 Peter v. 2, " presbyters " 
 are called " pastors " in that epistle, and " pastor " is a common 
 equivalent for " episcopus " ; the " presbyters '* of Ephesus are called 
 ^* episcopi " (Acts xx. 17, 28), and this evidence is quite independent 
 
376 APPENDIX 
 
 of Tertullian (Apol. 39) and of Irenaeus. All this is mucli stronger 
 evidence for the identity of the words than anything that Hatch or 
 Harnack has brought forward against the conception. But this 
 does not settle the question whether the " presbyter " and the 
 • * episcopus " were identical from the first, or when the term " pres- 
 byter " came into the Christian organization. All the probabilities 
 are that it came from the Jewish Church ; Christianity came out of 
 Judaism, and that gives an antecedent probability. This does 
 not mean that they got the word from Palestine ; Jewish synagogues 
 abounded all throughout the Roman Empire, and converts must have 
 come from them into the Christian Churches. But there is no need 
 to suppose that all Christian congregations got hold of the word 
 in the same way ; some may have got it from others, and .some may 
 have taken the idea and the function from the civil and social 
 organizations around them ; we need not suppose any monotonous 
 uniformity of derivation. At all events, the word and the function 
 were within the Christian congregations, and if St. Paul says nothing 
 about " presbyters," he recognizes " prohistamenoi," who were much 
 the same. But of course it is quite unnecessary to suppose that 
 the organization of Christian congregations took from the very 
 first the form it afterwards assumed in apostolic and post- apostolic 
 times. There is a growth which takes time. It is much more 
 credible to believe that the terms " presbyteri," " prohistamenoi " 
 and " episcopi " all mean the same thing than to accept any of the 
 more recent reconstructions. Thus it will be seen that Professor 
 Loofs reaches exactly the same position as Dr. Lightfoot. In all 
 that has been said, it is presupposed that there was at the head of 
 each local Church a number of " presbyter-bishops," and the next 
 question is. How did the three-fold ministry arise ? Dr. Loofs 
 answers that we really do not know. We are in absolute ignorance 
 about two things which might give us light on the question if we 
 could learn something about them — the relation of the " House 
 Churches " to the body of Christians in the town to which they 
 belonged, and what provision was made for the instruction of candi- 
 dates for baptism, and by whom this instruction was given. But 
 while we can give no certain answer to the question, something can 
 be said both negatively and positively. We can say negatively 
 that the change from the one to the other did not come by any 
 sudden alteration which gave rise to contentions ; there is no word 
 of such contention in the whole round of primitive Christian htera- 
 ture ; the change came naturally, so naturally as to make it seem 
 that there was no change. We can say positively that there is 
 great likelihood that the channel of the change was the relation of the 
 
APPENDIX 877 
 
 officials to the conduct of public worship, and more especially in their 
 relation to the Eucharist. What happened there while a college of 
 ^* presbyter-bishops " was at the head of the congregation we do 
 not know ; but it is manifest that there could not be a collegiate 
 superintendence of the Lord's Supper. Did the " presbyter- 
 bishops " take it in turn to officiate, or was one of their number 
 appointed to undertake this service usually ? We do not know. 
 But it did become the duty of one man to superintend the ad- 
 ministration of the Eucharist ; we see this in Justin Martyr ; and 
 the man whom Justin calls the 7r/joe<rTa)9 is plainly the fore- 
 runner of the single episcojms. This, however, is not all that is 
 needed to account for the change which did come about ; and prob- 
 ably something has yet to be done in the Une of following up 
 Harnack's idea that the single president was supposed to inherit 
 the spiritual gifts of the charismatic ministry. Once, however, the 
 single bishop became the rule, the growth and the importance of the 
 higher order can easily be traced. 
 
 The theory of Professor Schmiedel on the origin and growth of the 
 ministry in the primitive Christian congregations is to be found 
 in the article on Ministry in the Encyclopaedia Bihlica. It is easily 
 accessible. I have recently described and criticised it in an article 
 contributed to the first number of the Hibhert Journal. It may be 
 sufficient to say that the whole of the recent discussions in Germany 
 on the origin of the Christian Ministry are condensed in the article. 
 
 The article Church, contributed by the Rev. S. C. Gayford to 
 Hastings^ Bible Dictionary, is one of exceptional interest. It is a 
 very exhaustive account of the Churches of the New Testament^ 
 based on a searching analysis of the documents of the New Testa- 
 ment. Unfortunately the author confines himself almost exclusively 
 to the canonical writings. The article is marked by two things which 
 are treated in a fresh clear way — a description of the gradual growth 
 of organization to be seen within the Churches during apostoUc times, 
 and a clear account of the prophetic ministry. The article is in 
 every way worthy of attention and of study. 
 
Josephusi 
 
 
 
 
 AntiquitatesIV. viii. 
 
 14,38. 
 
 .117 
 
 »• 
 
 XIV. X. 
 
 8 
 
 .132 
 
 »» 
 
 XV. X. 
 
 3 
 
 . 3 
 
 BelL JuA 
 
 L xxi. 
 
 3 
 
 . 3 
 
 »» w 
 
 II. XX. 
 
 5 
 
 .117 
 
 INDEX OF REFERENCES' 
 
 To Contemporary Authorities Canonical 
 
 and Non-canonical 
 
 VI. : 1. 56 ; 4. 10 ; 6. 46, 67, 176; 
 
 9. 12, 50, 80 ; 16. 46 
 VII. : 1. 55 ; 6. 88, 104 ; 7. 63 ; 
 
 10. 87, 88, 89, 104; 12. 87; 
 
 17. 10, 12 ; 25. 87, 88. 104 ; 31. 
 50 ; 40. 87, 88 
 
 VIII. : 10. 50 
 
 1 Thbssalonians (circa 48-52 jx. ; i. gO, 82, 84 ; 2. 82, 83, 88 ; 
 
 A.D.) 6. 79, 81, 98 ; 6. 79 ; 8-13. 46 ; 
 
 I. : 1. 10, 11, 80 ; 6. 80. 13. 73 ; 14. 73, 98 ; 24-27. 50 
 
 11. : 6. 88 ; 14. 10, 11. X. : 1-4. 55 ; 14-22. 64 ; 15. 71, 
 
 III. : 2. 62, 143 100 ; 32. 10, 18, 22 
 
 IV. : 1. 87 ; 9-11. 21 ; 10. 22 XI. : 1. 89 ; 2. 12, 84 ; 6. 98 ; 13. 
 V. : 12» 60, 72, 123, 150, 216 ; 13. 71, 100 ; 16. 10, 48 ; 18. 10, 55 ; 
 60, 123 ; 14. 60,96, 150; 20. 91, 20. 51 ; 21. 51 ; 22. 18, 51 ; 23. 
 93 ; 21. 71, 100. 12, 16, 104 ; 23-27. 16 ; 30-32. 
 
 51 
 
 2 Thbssalonians (circa 48-52 xu. : 8 58 • 1-4. 71, 100 ; 3. 
 
 ^•^•) 44, 94, 102 ; 4. 49 ; 4-11. 63 ; 
 
 I.: 1.10; 4.10 6. 62; 8. 46; 10. 47, 71, 100; 
 
 n. : 15. 104 13. 22 ; 27. 14 ; 28-31. 63 ; 28. 
 
 18, 60, 61, 74, 93, 103, 149, 165. 
 1 COEINTHIANS (oirca 53-55 a.d.) ^III. : Whole Chapter, 58 ; 2. 
 I.: 1. 84; 2. 7, 10; 11. 50; 104 
 
 12. 12 ; 13. 12 ; 14. 60 ; 26. 50 XIV. : 1. 93 ; 2. 47, 104 ; 4. 10, 
 
 II. : 6. 104 ; 7. 46 ; 14. 71 ; 15. 69 47 ; 6. 66, 93 ; 6. 94 ; 7. 47 ; 8. 
 
 III. : 1. 69 ; 3-9. 113 ; 6. 62 ; 47 ; 10. 47 ; 11. 47 ; 12. 10 ; 13. 
 
 IV.: 9. 50, 80; 13-21. 89; 14. 47; 14.47; 15.48; 16. 44 ; 19. 
 
 89 ; 16. 87, 89 ; 17. 10, 12, 87; 10, 55 ; 21. 46 ; 23. 10 ; 25. 47. 
 
 21. 89 95 ; 26. 45, 48, 94, 104, 110 ; 27. 
 
 V. : 1-8. 56, 96; 1-13. 89; 3. 87 ; 47 ; 28. 47 ; 29-33. 48, 93 ; 30. 
 
 3-5. 33 46, 94 ; 31. 46 ; 32. 91, 94 ; 33. 
 
 1 Arabic numerals followed by a full stop (21.) denote the verses or small sectioni 
 of the books quoted ; all other Arabic numerals denote the pages on which they are 
 quoted. 
 
 879 
 
880 
 
 INDEX 
 
 10, 48 ; 34. 10, 65, 146 ; 36. 91 ; 
 
 37. 87, 91, 188 ; 39. 48, 93 ; 40. 
 
 48. 
 XV. : 1-3. 104 ; 2. 104 ; 6-8. 31 ; 
 
 7.81; 8.84; 9. 10,118; 10.75, 
 
 122 ; 32. 60 ; 61. 104 
 XVI. : 1. 10, 12, 22 ; 1-2. 65 ; 10. 
 
 43 ; 16. 42, 62, 125 ; 16. 123 ; 
 
 19. 10, 21, 22, 123 
 
 2 CoBiNTHiANS (cifca 63-66 a.d.) 
 
 I. : 1. 10, 22, 80, 84 ; 24. 87 
 
 II. : 6. 87 ; 5-8. 96 ; 6. 33, 56 ; 6- 
 
 9.56; 9.89 
 III. : 1. 55, 81, 173 ; 1-3. 83, 88 ; 
 
 2. 55; 3. 62; 6. 62; 7. 62; 8. 
 
 62; 12.83 
 IV. : 1. 62 
 v.: 16.82; 18.62 
 VI. : 3. 62, 87 ; 4. 62 ; 16. 46 ; 18. 
 
 46 
 VII.: 5.83; 11.87 
 VIII. : 1. 10 ; 4. 62 ; 9. 104 ; 15. 
 
 46 ; 19. 10, 66, 60, 62 ; 20. 62 ; 
 
 23. 10, 79 ; 24. 10 
 IX. : 1. 62 ; 9. 46 ; 12. 62 ; 13. 62 
 X. : 1. 82, 83, 104 ; 6. 46 
 XI. : 5. 81 ; 6. 46 ; 8. 10, 73 ; 9. 
 
 73 ; 13. 81 ; 21. 83 ; 22. 10, 82 ; 
 
 23. 82 ; 28. 10 
 XII. : 1.82; 1-4.78; 1-6.9,94; 
 
 10. 83; 11. 81; 12. 82,83; 13. 
 
 10 ; 18. 142 ; 28. 10 
 XIII. : 2. 89 ; 3. 89 ; 6. 100 ; 6. 
 
 100 
 
 Gaiatians (ciroa 63-66 a.d.) 
 
 I. : 1. 84 ; 2. 10, 21 ; 7. 80 ; 8. 80 ; 
 
 13. 3, 10, 118 ; 16-17. 78 ; 19. 
 
 81, 119; 22. 10, 118 
 n. : 1. 32 ; 3. 142 ; 6. 80 ; 7. 76 ; 
 
 7-9. 84 ; 8. 76 ; 9. 20, 76, 79, 
 
 119; 12. 119 
 in. : 3-5. 91 ; 26-28. 58 ; 27. 16 ; 
 
 28. 12 
 IV. : 6. 44 ; 11. 122 ; 13. 89 ; 14. 
 
 96 ; 19. 89 
 
 VI. : 1. 33, 69, 96 ; 6. 73. 98, 104 ; 
 16.6 
 
 Romans (circa 54-57 A.D.) 
 
 I.: 7.72 
 
 in.: 29.22 
 
 VI. : 3-6. 16 ; 17. 105 
 
 Vm. : 15.44 
 
 XI. : 13. 62 ; 27. 12 
 
 XII. : 1. 34 ; 3-16. 8 ; 6. 71, 91. 
 
 93, 150 ; 6-8. 60, 63 ; 7. 62, 70. 
 
 91 ; 8. 61, 123 
 XIII. : 4. 62 
 XV. : 8. 62 ; 16. 34 ; 20. 76 ; 26. 
 
 62 ; 31. 62 
 XVI. : 1. 10 ; 1. 62 ; 1-3. 123 ; 2. 
 
 123 ; 3-5. 42 ; 3-15. 59 ; 4. 10 ; 
 
 6. 10, 123 ; 6. 122 ; 7. 79 ; 10. 
 
 42, 123 ; 11. 42, 123 ; 12. 122 ; 
 
 14. 42, 123 ; 15. 42, 123 ; 16. 10, 
 
 21 ; 21-23. 21 ; 23. 10, 42, 50 
 
 Ephesians (circa 68 a.d.) 
 
 I. : 1. 7 ; 22. 10 
 
 n. : 20. 74 
 
 III. : 7. 62 ; 10. 10 ; 21. 10 
 
 IV. : 4-6. 14 ; 4-13. 8 ; 7-12. 63 ; 
 
 11.74-80; 12.62; 15. 105; 16. 
 
 49, 106 
 v.: 23. 10, 26; 24. 10 ; 25. 10; 
 
 27. 10 ; 29. 10 ; 32. 10 
 VI. : 21. 62 
 
 CoLOSSiANS (circa 66-68 a.d.) 
 
 I. : 1. 80 ; 2. 7 ; 7. 62 ; 18. 10, 26 ; 
 
 23. 62 ; 24. 10 ; 25. 62 
 in. : 14. 14 
 IV. : 1. 21 ; 2. 21 ; 7. 62 ; 15. 10, 
 
 42, 123 ; 16. 10, 21 ; 17. 62 
 
 PmiJppiANS (ciroa 66-58 a.d.) 
 
 I.: 1.7,62,80 
 n. : 17. 34 ; 25. 81 
 III. : 6. 10 ; 17. 89 
 IV. : 10. 73 ; 15. 10 ; 18. 34 ; 21. 
 21 ; 22. 21 
 
INDEX 
 
 881 
 
 Philemok (circa 56>68 A.D.) 
 2. 10, 42, 123 ; 13. 62 
 
 1 Timothy (circa 64 a.d.) 
 
 I. : 12. 62 ; 18. 143 
 
 n. : 7. 74 ; 11. 146 ; 12. 146 
 
 in. : 1. 87, 146 ; 1-7. 163 ; 1-9. 
 
 60; 2-7. 146; 5. 10, 146; 7. 
 
 146 ; 8. 146 ; 8-10. 147 ; 8-13. 
 
 62, 163 ; 9. 146 ; 10. 146 ; 12. 
 
 146, 147 ; 13. 146, 147 ; 15. 10 
 IV. : 6. 62 ; 14. 143 
 V. : 9. 202 ; 16. 10 ; 17. 70, 73, 
 
 163, 202 ; 18. 202 ; 17-20. 147 ; 
 
 19. 187, 188 ; 20. 87 
 
 2 Timothy (circa 64 a.d.) 
 I. : 6. 143 ; 11. 74 ; 18. 62 
 II. : 2. 146 ; 4-7. 202 
 IV. : 5. 62, 80 
 
 Titus (circa 64 a.d.) 
 
 I. : 4. 142 ; 6. 87 ; 5-7. 163 ; 7. 
 
 165 ; 7-9. 158. 
 in.: 10.87 
 
 Acts (circa 80 a.d.) 
 I.: 17. 62; 21. 82; 21-23. 82; 
 
 22. 80 ; 23. 32 ; 23-26. 82 ; 26. 
 
 77 
 II. : 16. 91 ; 46. 41. 53 
 V. : 11. 10 
 VI. : 1. 54, 62 ; 2. 54, 60, 62, 65^ 
 
 115 ; 3. 65, 87, 115, 117 ; 4. 62 ; 
 
 6. 32 
 VIII.: 1. 10; 3. 10; 5, 66; 14- 
 
 27.24; 40.66 
 IX. : 2. 113 ; 10. 77 ; 31. 10 
 X.: 46.47 
 XL : 1-4. 32 ; 22. 10, 24, 32 ; 23. 
 
 24 ; 26. 10 ; 27. 91 ; 28. 91, 98 ; 
 
 29. 62 ; 30. 21, 153, 163 
 XII. : 1. 10 ; 5. 10 ; 12. 41 ; 17. 
 
 42, 119 ; 25. 21, 62 
 XIII. : 1. 10, 91, 92, 95 ; 1-3. 74 ; 
 
 2. 79, 82, 95 ; 3. 79 ; 6. 233 
 
 XIV. : 4. 79 ; 14. 79 ; 23. 10, 118, 
 
 137, 154, 158, 163 ; 27. 10 
 XV. : 3. 10 ; 4. 10, 163 ; 6. 163 ; 
 
 12. 32 ; 13. 119 ; 16. 5 ; 22. 10, 
 
 92, 163; 22-29. 32, 27. 328; 
 
 30-34. 328; 32. 91, 110, 328; 
 
 41. 10 
 XVI. : 1-4. 143 ; 4. 163 ; 5. 10 
 XVIII. : 2. 123 ; 8. 50 ; 22. 10 ; 
 
 26. 123 
 XIX. : 6. 47 ; 9. 41, 126, 134 ; 10. 
 
 22, 41 ; 22. 62 ; 23. 134 ; 41. 4 
 XX. 7. 22 ; 17. 10, 158, 162, 163 
 
 24. 62 ; 28. 5, 10 
 XXI. : 8. 80, 117 ; 9. 91 ; 10. 91] 
 
 98 ; 18. 42, 119 ; 19. 62 
 XXII. : 4. 113 ; 21. 92 
 XXIV. : 14. 113 ; 17. 34 
 XXVI.: 27.92 
 XXVIII.: 33-35.63 
 
 Revelation 
 
 I. : 4. 10 ; 11. 10 ; 20. 10 
 
 II.: 10; 1. 10; 2. 100.233; 7.10; 
 
 11. 10 ; 14. 100, 233 ; 15. 100, 
 
 233; 17. 10; 19. 62; 20. 92, 
 
 100, 233 ; 29. 10 
 ni.: 6. 10; 7. 27; 13. 10; 20. 
 
 53 ; 22. 10 
 IV. : 4. 163 ; 10. 163 
 V. : 46 ; 5. 163 ; 6. 163 i 8. 163 ; 
 
 9-13. 45 
 VI.: 46 
 
 XL: 17.45; 18.92 
 XV.: 3.45 
 XVI. : 6. 92 
 XVIII. : 20. 74 
 XXI. : 9. 10 
 XXn.: 9.95; 16. 10 
 
 Hebrews 
 
 L: 14.62; 
 VI.: 10.62 
 
 XIII. : 7. 72, 73, 92 ; 15. 34 ; 16. 
 34 
 
INDEX 
 
 1 Pbtib 
 I. : 1. 163 ; 12. 62 
 n. : 5. 34 ; 9. 10 ; 12. 165 ; 17. 
 
 10, 21 ; 25. 167 
 IV. : 9-11. 63 ; 10. 30, 62 ; 11. 62 
 V. t 1. 156, 158 
 
 IL: 1.233 
 
 2 Peteb 
 
 James 
 
 n. : 2. 113 
 in. : 1. 105 
 V. : 14. 10 
 
 1 John 
 
 IV. : 1. 102 ; 1-3. 71. 100, 233 ; 
 20. 116 
 
 3 JOHH 
 6.10; 9.10; 10.10' 
 
 Clement of Rome. 1 Epistle 
 (circa 96 A.D.) 
 
 I. : 3. 169 
 
 III. : 3. 159, 161 
 
 v.: 139; 6.269 
 
 IX. : 3. 165 
 
 XXI. : 6. 159, 161 
 
 XXXVI. : 1. 123 
 
 XXXVn.: 194 
 
 XL.: 5.307 
 
 XLH. : 80 ; 1-2. 76 ; 4. 123, 159 ; 
 
 5. 159, 161 
 XLm. : 4. 152 
 
 XLIV.: 1. 152, 160; 4. 160; 4- 
 
 6. 160 ; 6. 159, 160 
 XLVII. : 6. 159, 160, 161 
 XLVin. : 80 ; 5. 216 
 LIV. : 2. 159, 160, 161, 176 
 LVn. : 1. 159, 160, 161 
 LXI. : 3. 123 
 
 LXm. : 1. 178 
 LXIV.: 123 
 LXV.: 1.328 
 
 Pliny (111-113 a.d.) 
 
 Epistles to Trajan 
 
 96 (97). 45, 128, 136 
 Vni: 16. 124 
 
 Ignatius (circa 116 a.d.) 
 
 Epistle to the Ephesians 
 
 1. 186, 200 ; 2. 197, 198, 200 ; 3. 
 191, 193 ; 4. 188, 191, 197, 198 ; 
 6. 191; 6. 189, 197, 193; 7. 
 188, 189, 200 ; 9. 188, 194 ; 13. 
 191; 14. 188; 15. 194; 19. 
 188 ; 20. 191, 197, 198 ; 31. 200 
 
 Epistle to the Magnesiajis 
 
 I. 189, 191, 192; 2. 171, 196, 197,- 
 198, 200 ; 3. 192, 193, 197 ; 4. 
 197 ; 6. 171, 190, 191, 196, 197, 
 200 ; 7 190, 191, 197 ; 8. 171 ; 
 10-11. 194; 11. 200; 13. 191, 
 196, 197, 198 ; 16. 190 
 
 Epistle to the TralUans 
 
 1. 200; 2. 171, 190, 193, 196, 197, 
 198 ; 3. 190, 191, 197, 198, 199 ; 
 6. 192; 6-11. 194; 7. 171, 196, 
 198 ; 12. 197 ; 13. 197, 198 
 Epistle to the Romans 
 
 Preface, 269 ; 4. 188 ; 6. 186 
 Epistle to the Philadelphians 
 
 1. 188; 3. 193; preface 4. 171* 
 
 196, 198 ; 5. 198 ; 6. 194, 
 200; 7. 66, 171, 189, 193, 196, 
 
 197, 198, 236, 241 ; 8. 195, 196^ 
 197 ; 9. 196 ; 10. 171, 196, 200 
 
 Epistle to the Smyrneans 
 
 1. 190; 4. 200; 5-7. 194; 8. 
 14,50, 171, 190, 194, 196, 197; 
 9. 193, 197; 11. 200; 12. 171, 
 196 ; 14. 36 ; 16. 66 
 
 Epistle to Polycarp 
 1. 188 ; 2. 188, 189, 200 ; 3. 199^ 
 200 ; 4. 197, 199 ; 5. 198, 199^ 
 2U0 ; 6. 171, 196, 197 ; 7. 200 
 
INDEX 
 
 383 
 
 POLYOARP 
 
 Epistle to the Philippiana 
 36 ; 3. 199 ; 4. 115, 183 ; 6. 116 ; 
 6-12. 199 
 
 Epistle of Babnabas (circa 130) 
 
 IV. : 9. 106 ; VIII. : 3. 80 ; XL : 
 221 
 
 The Didachb (circa 136 a.d.) 
 L-VL: 174 
 IV. : 1. 70, 72, 90, 95 
 VII. : 174 
 VIII. : 44 
 
 X. : 52, 53 ; 1. 50 ; 7. 96, 99, 174 
 XI : 175 ; 1. 100, 234 ; 2. 100, 
 
 234 ; 3. 74 ; 4. 82 ; 6. 82 ; 6. 
 
 82 ; 7. 213 ; 8. 103, 234 ; 9-12. 
 
 103; 10. 92; 11. 100 
 XIL: 173 
 XIII. : 98 ; 1. 74, 100, 202 ; 1-3. 
 
 73 ; 2. 74, 105 ; 3. 174, 307 ; 3- 
 
 7. 174 ; 12. 175 ; 
 XIV. : 54 ; 1. 52 ; 1-2. 176 
 XV. : 1. 175, 176 ; 2. 70, 105, 176^ 
 
 176 
 XVI. : 2. 74 
 
 SouECES OP Apostolic Canons 
 (140-180 A.D.) 
 
 I.; 4. 178; 10-16. 178; 16-23. 
 
 178 ; 22. 178 
 II. : 180 ; 15. 178, 185 ; 18. 178 ; 
 
 19. 178, 180 ; 23. 180 
 IV.: 181 
 v.: 181; 13-16.203 
 
 ViOTOB OP Rome (circa 190) 
 De Aleatorihua 
 1. 16, 21 
 
 Pastob op Hbemas (circa 140) 
 
 Visionea 
 II. : 4. 123, 207 
 IIL : 6. 74 ; 7. 95, 268 ; 9. 165 
 
 Mandaia 
 IV. : 295 ; 3. 97, 268 
 XI: 234 
 
 IX. 
 
 SimilUvdineB 
 16.74 
 
 Justin Mabtyb (circa 160 a.d.) 
 
 1 Apology 
 
 229 ; 13. 113, 309 ; 66. 123, 255 ; 
 65-67. 309; 67. 50, 123, 173, 
 201, 208, 252, 253, 266, 256, 
 338 
 
 Dialogue tvith Trypho 
 
 28. 309; 29. 309; 39. 240; 82. 
 234, 240; 116-118. 309; 117. 
 36, 309 
 
 Tatian (circa 172 a.d.) 
 Address to the Greeks 
 §28.231; §29.231; §42.231 
 
 Athenagobas (circa 177-180 a.d.) 
 
 Plea for the Christians 
 § 3. 230 ; § 7. 242 ; § 9. 242 ; § 13. 
 308 ; § 37. 230 
 
 Ieenaeus (circa 180-202) 
 
 Contra Haereses 
 
 I, : X. 1. 223 ; x. 2. 223 ; xiii. 
 
 234 ; xiii. 4. 227, 241 
 II. : xxxii. 4. 227, 240 ; xxxii. 6. 
 
 240 ; xxxiii. 3. 227 
 III. : i. 269 ; ii. 1. 223 ; ii. 2. 225 ; 
 
 iii. 269 ; iii. 1. 225 ; iii. 2. 228 ; 
 
 iii. 3. 225 ; iv. 1. 223, 224 ; iv. 
 
 2. 223, 224 ; xi. 3. 222 ; xi. 9. 
 
 213, 227, 234 ; xxiv. 1. 223, 227 
 IV. : xxvi. 2. 213, 225, 227 ; xxvi. 
 
 4. 225; xxvi. 6. 225, 227; 
 
 xxvii. 1. 223, 225; xxxii. 1. 
 
 225 ; xxxiii. 8. 225 
 V. : vi. 1. 96, 227 ; vi. 47 
 
 Clement op Alexandbia (circa 
 190-202) 
 
 Stromata 
 VI: 13.282 
 VII. : 6. 36 ; 6. 43 
 
884 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tebtuluaw (200-217 a.d.) 
 Apology 
 § 1. 230 ; §5. 232 ; § 21. 134 ; § 39. 
 21, 172, 202 ; §42. 232 
 
 Dt praescriptione EaereUc- 
 orum 
 § 4. 80 ; § 19. 221 ; § 20. 21, 166, 
 172, 268, 271 ; § 24. 269 ; § 32. 
 225, 226, 271 ; § 36. 226, 226, 
 271 ; § 37. 76 ; § 39, 221 ; § 40. 
 308 ; § 41. 208 ; § 42. 222 
 
 De fuga in persecutione 
 $14.16 
 
 De pudicitia 
 { 1. 276, 276, 281 ; § 7 276 ; § 13. 
 21, 297; § 21. 16, 97, 268, 270, 
 272, 274, 295, § 22. 227, 274. 
 296, 317 
 
 De poeniterUia 
 1 10. 15 ; I 7. 274 
 
 De ezhortcUione eastitcUit 
 f 7. 16, 246 
 
 Ad uxorem 
 L: 7.36,116 
 
 Ad martyr as 
 I. : 1. 296 
 
 Adv€r9us Marcumem 
 I.: 1.222 
 IV. : 6. 269 ; 9. 267 
 
 De anima 
 S9. 240 
 
 AdversuB Prazean 
 SI. 243 
 
 Scorpiace 
 S 6. 269 
 
 De jejunio 
 § 13. 313, 326, 333 
 
 De baptismo 
 S 6. 308 ; § 17. 306 
 
 Canons of Hippolytus (circa 230- 
 
 260 A.D.) 
 L: 260 
 EL : 246, 250 ; 7-9. 71 
 
 in. : 246, 263. 266 ; 11-19. 331 
 
 IV.: 249 
 
 v.: 249,266; 14.248; 16.248 
 
 VI.: 248 
 
 VIII.: 248 
 
 IX.: 183,246,266 
 
 XL-XVI.: 260 
 
 Xn.: 263 
 
 XIV.: 232 
 
 XVn. : 261, 257, 258 
 
 XIX. : 249, 250, 251, 263, 264, 267^ 
 
 268 
 XXI.: 261 
 XXn.: 261 
 XXIV.: 264,257,268 
 XXVII. : 261,252 
 XXIX.: 264.257,258 
 XXXn.: 202,266.266.267 
 XXXIV.: 258 
 XXXV.: 256 
 XXXVI.: 254,267 
 XXXVII. : 253 
 
 HiFPOLYTUS (235-258 a.d.) 
 
 Refutation of all Heresies 
 L: 281 
 Vn.: 26.222 
 
 IX. : 6. 274, 281 ; 7. 136. 274, 276^ 
 281 
 
 CfYPBIAN (260-258 A.D.) 
 
 BpisUea 
 in. : 1. 265, 302, 306 ; 3. 303 
 IV. : 2. 303 ; 4. 265, 306 
 v.: 1.292 
 vn. : 304 
 XI. : 3. 4. 300, 303, 313 ; 7. 303 ; 
 
 8.297 
 XIII.: 5.300 
 XIV. : 2. 292, 303, 304 ; 4. 292, 
 
 297, 316. 
 XV. : 1. 292, 297, 303, 316, 317 ; 
 
 2. 303, 304 
 XVI. : 4. 297, 313, 316 ; 3. 293. 
 
 303 ; 2. 326 
 XVn. : 1. 316 ; 2. 293. 303 ; S. 
 
 298,293 
 
INDEX 
 
 885 
 
 XVm. : 293, 30ft, 303 ; 304, 1. 2. 
 
 326 
 XIX. : 1. 2. 290, 293, 303, 316, 331 
 XX. : 1. 292, 293 ; 2. 294, 326 ; 3. 
 
 300, 304 
 XXL: 289 
 XXV.: 294 
 XXVI. : 294 
 
 XXX.: 6.8.294,316,331 
 XXXI. : 3.289; 6.7.298,316 
 XXXIIL: 299 
 XXXIV.: 4.304 
 XXXIX.: 1.313 
 XL.: 294,301 
 XLL: 301,304 
 XLIL: 294 
 XLIIL : 301 ; 1. 288 ; 3. 294 ; 7. 
 
 266, 306, 316, 317, 331 
 XLIV.: 316 
 XLV.: 316 
 XLV. : 316 ; 4. 355 
 XLVL : 2. 326 
 XLVIII. : 4. 303 
 XLIX.: 2.331,333; 3. 355 
 LIL : 1. 355 ; 2. 318 
 LV. : 2. 4. 303, 315 ; 5. 331 ; 6. 
 
 315, 316 ; 8. 302, 303, 330 ; 21. 
 
 275 ; 22. 304 
 LVIL : 5. 66, 227, 313, 315 ; 1. 
 
 300, 304 
 LIX. : 1. 9. 355 ; 4. 265, 303, 306 ; 
 
 5. 302, 303, 312 ; 6. 302, 330 ; 13. 
 
 316; 14. 17.315; 15.316 
 
 LXIL: 305 
 
 LXIII. : 10. 11. 304 
 
 LXIV.: L 316, 316 
 
 LXV.: 312 
 
 LXVI. : 1. 9. 303, 312, 316; 
 
 4, 311; 6.305,330; 8.306; 10. 
 66, 313 ; 3. 265 
 
 LXVIL : 1. 316 ; 3. 212 j 4. 302 
 
 5. 302, 330 ; 6. 127 
 LXVIIL: 302 
 LXIX.: 302 
 LXX.: L316 
 
 LXXI. : 1. 303, 317 ; 4. 326 
 LXXIL : 1. 316 ; 3. 315 
 LXXm. : 1. 316 ; 3. 326 ; 7. 304, 
 
 306 ; 9. 306 ; 26. 315 
 LXXIV.: 10.315 
 LXXV.: 7.306; 16.311,318; 17 
 
 318 
 LXXVIIL : 1. 355 
 
 De Lapaia 
 I 6. 203, 310 ; § 8. 288 
 
 Ad Donaium 
 § 15. 285 
 
 Testimonia 
 IIL: 28.297 
 
 De Ecdesiae UnifcUe 
 § 17. 305 ; § 5. 314 ; § 20. 300 
 
 De Opere ei Eleemosynia 
 1 1. 304, 310 ; f§ 6. 6. 310 
 
INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 
 
 " Above, from," 25 n. 121, 236 
 
 Aohaia, Churches of, 22 
 
 Achelis, Dr. Hans, 246 n, 252 n, 256, 
 304n 
 
 " Activities (ej'cfyyrJ/xaTa) become 
 offices, 64 n, 149, 150 
 
 Acolytes, 355 
 
 d8fX,ff>OTrj': (the church), 21, 182 
 „ (the laity), 326 
 
 Agabus, 01, 98 
 
 Agape. See Love-feasts 
 
 Alcibiades, 96 n 
 
 Ale:tandria, 49, 106, 129,323/. 339 
 
 Almoner of the Church, 185, 304 
 
 "Altar" (the poor). 115 n, 183; 
 208, 257. See Bva-Kurrrjpiov. 
 
 Ambrose of Milan, 360 » 
 
 " Amen " in public worship, 44 
 
 Amentia. See Ecstasy 
 
 Ammia, prophetess, 236 
 
 ivaXoyia rxj^i irtoTCia?, 71 » 
 
 " Anamneseis." 257 n 
 
 Anicetus of Rome. 324 
 
 Antioch, Church in, 24, 32, 74, 83, 
 90 /, 98, 186. 328, 332 
 
 Ancyra, 325 /, 328 
 
 Antiphonal singing. 45 n 
 
 ArUistea Christi, a bishop is the, 305 
 
 Apelles* creed (Gnostic), 222 n 
 
 Aphrodite, 49 
 
 A polios, an apostle, 80 
 
 Apologists, The, 230 / 
 
 Apostles, the word. 76 n, 85 ; marks 
 of, 75, 82 ff ; others besides the 
 Twelve. S\,16 ff, 79 ff; increased 
 in number, 82 ; differed in call 
 and preparation, 76 ; and evan- 
 
 gelists, 80 n ; of the Churches, 
 78; false, 80 n, 81; "pre-emi- 
 nent," 81 ; their twofold action, 
 86 ; succession oft 311 ; 8, 31, 
 73,74^ 
 ^Troo-ToX^, 77 
 
 "Apostolic Canons," 177 n. See 
 Suurcea of the Apostolic Canons 
 
 Apostolic Oiurches. 225. 271 
 " Apostolic Constitutions," 66 n, 6 
 183n, 184, 281, 282 n 
 
 " Apostolic men," 225, 279 
 
 " Apostolic Succession," 224 /f ; a 
 legal fiction, 278 ff ; a creation 
 of the Roman Church, 278, 280 ; 
 historical basis, 223 ^, 279^; 
 growth of idea, 280 ; " gnosti- 
 cally perfect " men, 282 ; Neo- 
 Platonic succession, 283 n ; suc- 
 cession of Apostles, 311 ; not in 
 Ignatius, 197, 198 ; nor in 
 Apostolic Constitutions, 281 ; 
 and Judaising Christians, 19 n 
 
 Apprentice mission of the Twelve, 
 31, 77 
 
 " Approaching God," 34 
 
 Aquila, 42 n 
 
 Arena, The, 60 
 
 Arian idea in thought of priest- 
 hood, 25 n 
 
 Aristides, the Apologist, 36 n, 230 
 
 Aries, Synod of, 179 n, 329 n 
 
 apXttrvvaya>yo9, 130, 131 n, 153 n 
 
 ap^ovTcs in Synagogues, 130, 153 n 
 
 Asceticism, 220, 233 
 
 Assembly of the Church. 8u 
 Congregational Meeting 
 
INDEX 
 
 387 
 
 Assimilative power in Oriental re- 
 ligions, 101, 140 n 
 
 Astarte, 49 
 
 Athenagoras, 230 n, 242, 308 n. 
 
 Attalus, 95 n, 236 
 
 Audience Halls, 42, 124, 286 
 
 Augsburg, Confession of, 72 n 
 
 Augustus, the word, 343 n ; wor- 
 shipped as a god, 3, 342 / ; pro- 
 tected the Jews, 129 ; restored 
 Roman religion, 342 ; instituted 
 the Imperial cult, 342 
 
 Aurehan, 333 n 
 
 Authority in the Church, 24, 25 n^ 
 26, 28, 32, 298 ;7 
 
 Bannerman, D.D., 11 n, 26 n 
 
 Baptism, 3n, 16, 136, 174, 198, 
 249/, 306 
 
 Barnabas, 22, 24, 32, 91, 95, 98, 
 116, 118, 143 n; Epistle of, 65, 
 177 », 221 
 
 Basilica. See Audience Hall 
 
 Batanea, 337 
 
 Beatitudes, The, 172 
 
 Beaudouin, 341 n, 344 n 
 
 "Benediction," The, 44 
 
 Benson, Archbishop, 284 », 285 n, 
 291 w, 292 n, 300 w, 314, 318 n 
 
 Beryllus, 332 
 
 Beuriier, Abb6, 341 n, 352 
 
 Bible- woman, 181 
 
 " Bind and loose," 26 
 
 Bishops, heads of local churches, 
 178; pastors, 178 », 323, 327, 
 330 n ; qualifications and duties, 
 179 », 182, 199,301/; appoint- 
 ment of, described, 246, 302, 
 330; elected by the people, 175, 
 246; ordained by elders, 246; 
 by three bishops (Synods), 179 n, 
 327, 329/; unlettered, 182; 
 worked at trades, 203 ; elders 
 and deacons an inseparable 
 unity, 171 n, 196 ; limited powers, 
 179, 196, 200, 277; centre of 
 congregational life, 198, 304 j^. 
 
 338, 246/, 253; presided over 
 discipline, 199, 300, 303; dis- 
 tributed offerings, 180, 185, 209, 
 255 ; paymaster of the clergy, 
 304; supremacy of, 195, 298, 
 301/, 304, 314, 334; represen- 
 tative of Christ, 305/, 197 ; 
 have chariamcUic gifts, 227, 313 ; 
 judges of teaching, 223 ff ; have 
 power to pardon sins, 276 n, 300, 
 303, 306 ; power comes from God 
 directly, 301 /, 312 n ; represent 
 God, 282 n, 301 ; priests in a 
 unique sense, 305//, 357; took 
 the places of the priests of the 
 Imperial Cult, 352 / ; Imperial 
 ideas influenced later conceptions 
 of, 335 ; cease to be bishops 
 when guilty of grievous sin, 65, 
 128 n, 152, 176,312 
 
 Bithynia, 128 n 
 
 Bleek, 47 n 
 
 " Body of Christ, " 14 n, 136 
 
 Boehmer, 116 n 
 
 Boissier, Gaston, 101 n, 127 n, 341 n 
 
 Boxing match, 50 
 
 " Brotherhood," The Church, 10 n; 
 20, 21, 62, 54, 181, 182; the 
 laity, 326 
 
 "Brethren," Christians called the, 
 11, 114 » ; the laity, 326 ; mem- 
 bers of confraternities, 125 
 
 Bruston, Edouard, \%1 n 
 
 Bryennios, Philotheos, 171 n, 172 n 
 
 Burial Clubs, 126, 133; the Ro- 
 man Church, 129 n, 135 n 
 
 Burial Usages, 135, 257 n 
 
 Caesarea, Church in, 91^ 98 
 
 Caesarea PhiUppi, 3 
 
 CaUxtus of Rome, on penitence; 
 274, 276 w, 297, 299, 317 n ; on 
 Apostolic Succession, 280 
 
 " Call*i of an Apostle, 76, 84 
 
 Calvin, John, 72 n 
 
 Canon (Scripture) of Marcion, 220 ; 
 of Gnostics, 222 
 
INDEX 
 
 Canons of Basil, 203 n, 267 n 
 
 Canons of Hippolytus, 50 n, 63 n 
 64 n, 71 n, 183 n, 202, 206, 246 ff 
 331 n 
 
 Cassius. 8u Dio Cassias 
 
 Catechetical School of Alexandria; 
 106 n 
 
 Catechumens, 62, 104, 251, 267 
 
 Celsus caricature of prophets, 109 n 
 
 Cenchrea, 49, 124 n 
 
 Character, the qualification for 
 office, 145/, 178/, 247 
 
 Chariama VeritcUis, 227 /, 280 
 
 Charismata, 16, 63, 71, etc. 8u 
 " Gifts " 
 
 Charismatic Ministry, 70 
 
 Charity, 22 ; its place in tiie 
 Primitive Church, 116/. 8u 
 Almoner, Bishop, Offerings, Poor 
 
 CMoe, 60 
 
 Christ Set Jesus Christ 
 
 " Christ-trafficker." 173 
 
 Church, the word ; used by Jesus, 
 3 n ; by Paul, 6 ; uses in N.T.^ 
 10 n, 14, 65. See Eccleeia 
 
 Church, The, crystallizes round 
 Christ, 190, 192; a fellowship, 
 6/7, 20, 271 ; an organism, 8, 
 16 n; a unity, 10)7; * visible 
 unity, 16^, 166, 182, 268^; 
 historical continuity, 223^, 19, 
 24 ; Household of God, 23, 145 /, 
 189 ; a theocratic democracy, 
 4, 25, 33, 177 ; has authority, 
 24 ^, 309 ; a sacerdotal society, 
 33 ff, 307 ; what makes it, 9, 18 ; 
 266, 268 if 
 
 Church, The Local, what makes it, 
 69, 266; of less than twelve 
 families, 178, 337 ; must elect 
 office-bearers, 175, 178 ; self- 
 governing, 20, 32, 49, 121 ; inter- 
 communication, 21 /, 73, 173, 
 178, 199, 271, 290/7 {see Synod), 
 power of discipline, 27, 32, 55 ff 
 199 / {see Bishop, Elder) ; ruled 
 by a senate, 156 /, 170; by bishop 
 
 and council, 180 ^, 197 / ; merged 
 in the bishop, 306 ; external 
 likeness to Jewish synagogue^ 
 134; to pagan confraternity ^ 
 128 n, 135 
 
 Chrysostom, 64 n, 79 » 
 
 CiUcia, 118 
 
 Clarus of Mascula, 311 n 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, 16, 36 n; 
 43 n, 171 n, 282 
 
 Clement of Rome, 65, 76 n, 80 n, 
 123 n, 141 n, 151, 152 n, 176, 183, 
 193, 216 n 
 
 Qergy, unsalaried, 202 // ; worked 
 at trades, 203; 245,246,276. See 
 Pastor, Bishop, Elder, Deacon, 
 Minor Orders, Orders 
 
 Oohn, 127 n 
 
 Collection, The Great, 22 /, 34 n ; 
 in kind, 254 
 
 Collegia. See Confraternities 
 
 Collegia tenuiorum, 133 
 
 Collegiate Churches, 260, 330n, 
 339 
 
 Colossae, 22, 42 n, 69 
 
 Commands of Jesus, 88 n, 104 
 
 Commission, a, superseding the 
 office-bearers, 294, 301 
 
 •* Commissioners of Sacrifices," The, 
 288 
 
 Communicatio Pacis, 166, 270 
 
 Conciliar system of Church Go- 
 vernment, 170 n 
 
 Confession, The Augsburg, 72 n; 
 The Westminster, 72 n 
 
 Confession, The, of St. Peter, 6, 
 
 25/7 
 
 Confession, in Public Worship^ 
 44 
 
 Confessor, 289 n, 290; made El- 
 ders, 247 
 
 " Confirmation," 340 
 
 Confraternities, pagan, to practise 
 religions, 50, 64 n, organization, 
 125/; iUicit, 133, 135; not 
 models for Christian organi- 
 cation, 128 / 
 
INDEX 
 
 889 
 
 Congregational Meetings; for ex- 
 hortation, 44 /, 251 ; for the 
 Eucharist, 60/, 252; for busi- 
 ness, 64 If, 60, 66, 173, 176, 199 n, 
 200, 250, 316 ; passed judgment 
 on Apostles, 32 / 
 
 Ck}ngregationaUsm and Primitive 
 Organization, 259 
 
 Constantine, 134 
 
 Converts, The first, earliest office- 
 bearers, 60, 122 /, 162, 164 
 
 Cornelius, 24 
 
 Corinth, Church at^ 7; 12, 14; 17j 
 33 n, 49 /, 66, 69 ff, 74, 83, 91 /, 
 101, 160/, 299 n 
 
 Corycus, Inscriptions at, 203 
 
 Cramer, 120 n 
 
 Creeds, Gnostic, 222; a common 
 creed, 222, 270 
 
 Cureton, 187 n 
 
 Cybele, 49 
 
 Cyprian of Carthage; dates, 286 n ; 
 relations to his elders, 291 ^, 294, 
 331 ; to the Roman Elders, 291, 
 293; the Lapsed, 294 /f; au- 
 thority, 298 ff ; independence of 
 bishops, 316 ; sacerdotalism, 
 305^; his visions, 66, 95 n, 
 97 n, 284 n, 313 ; use of Synods, 
 313 / ; his character, 284 n ; 
 pagan ideas, 357 
 
 Cyrene, Jews in, 129 
 
 Demons, Fear of, 258 » 
 
 Derbe, 118, 142, 164 
 
 De Rossi, 124, 135 n 
 
 Desjardins, 341 n, 360 
 
 8ta8o;(i}, 311 n 
 
 SittKovta, 8 », 60 n, 62 / nj 70 » 
 
 Siafcptcris, 64 n, 99 / 
 
 hihaxn, 46, 105 n 
 
 Didache, The, 65, 74^ 82, 170, 171 If, 
 183, 213, etc. ^ 
 
 DUigerUia, 292 
 
 Dio Cassius, 4 n, 133 n, 344 n 
 
 Dionysius of Corinth, 299 n 
 
 Directory for Ordination of Minis- 
 ters, 331 n 
 
 Discernment, The Gift of, 64 n; 70, 
 71 n, 149, 176 
 
 " Disciple Company," 190 
 
 Disciples, 9, 25, 27, 30, 113 n 
 
 Diapensaiores Dei, 301 
 
 " Dispersion," The, 116 n, 129, 153 
 
 Divi ImpercUores, 346 /, 361, 363 
 
 Dobschiitz, 17 n 
 
 Dollinger, 274 n 
 
 Domnus of Antioch, 332 
 
 Double element in things; 18 ; in 
 missionary work, 86 / 
 
 Doxology, The, in worship; 47 
 
 Dress of the clergy, 253, 353 
 
 Dury, v., 341 n 
 
 Dutch Presbyterian Churchi 260 n. 
 
 Damascus, 77, 114 n 
 
 Dates of N.T. writings, 121 n, 137? 
 
 138 n, 139 and n, 159 n 
 Deacons, 62 n, 65, 152, 180, 249 ff, 
 
 251, 316 
 Dead, memorial feasts for the, 136, 
 
 257 
 Decian Persecution, 287 /, 296, 338 
 Decuriones, 125 
 Deissmann, 119 n, 154 n 
 Delegates from Churches, 23/, 55, 
 
 200 
 Democracy, The Church at; 4, 25, 
 
 177i 334, 357 
 
 Eastern Religions within the Em- 
 pire, 100 /, 140 n, 218 
 Ecclesia, the history of the word, 
 
 4andn 
 Ecstasy, in Prophecy, 94, 241 
 Egyptian priests called Elders, 164 n ; 
 " Election by show of hands," 118; 
 "Eleven," The, 30, 84/ 
 €KXeKTot Tpcts av8p€9, 179 n 
 Elders, common name for rulers, 
 154 ; among the Jews, 130 n ; 
 in Churches in Palestine, 116, 
 118 ; in the Acta, 137, 142 ; in 
 Pastoral Epistlesj 142; 160; 
 
890 
 
 INDEX 
 
 elsewhere, 180, 196, 250, etc. 
 applied to first converts, 154 
 qualifications, 145, 180, 247/ 
 ordination of, 248 ; theoretically 
 same rank as bishops, 164 n, 205, 
 250, 259 ; received money for 
 the poor, 116, 180 ; superin- 
 tended the bishop 180 ; a council 
 round the bishop, 196 ; could 
 ordain a bishop, 246 ; succes- 
 sors of the Apostles, 197, 225, 
 282 n ; have a charisma veriUUia^ 
 227 
 
 Eliakim, 26 
 
 iyepyrjfjLaraf 64 n 
 
 Ephesus, Church at, 69, 74, 100 /, 
 114 n; Epistle, 10, 12, 74 
 
 EpiphaniuB, 114 n, 153 n, 237 n 
 
 eViTay?;, 88 n 
 
 Esciilapius, 217 
 
 Etecusa, 289 
 
 Eucharist, prophets presided at the, 
 99 n, offerings, 209 ; in the third 
 century, 252 ff ; a unique sacri- 
 fice, 257, 305 /7 ; 3 n, 31 n, 35 /, 
 43,50/, 172 
 
 "Evangelists," 80 n; Readers to 
 take the place of, 182 
 
 Exhortation, the meeting for, 44/, 
 250/ 
 
 External Unity of the Church, 
 exhibited in fruits of the Spirit, 
 20; by Synods, 334; by har- 
 mony of bishops, 314 ; by 
 Roman supremacy, 335, 353 
 
 " Five," The, 117 
 
 Flesh, Sins of the, to he pardoned; 
 
 275 
 Forum of Rome, ancient Church 
 
 in the, 42 
 Foucart, P., 54 n, 127 n 
 Francis of Assisi, St., 82 
 FrcUernitatis AppellaiiOy 156. See 
 
 Brotherhood 
 Freewill offerings, 147, 201, 304 
 Fruits of the Spirit, 20, 24 
 Fundanus, Minucius, 229 
 Funk, F. X.. 172 n, 246 n 
 
 Gains of Corinth, 42, 60 ; of Didda^ 
 295 
 
 Galatia, Churches of, 22, 91 
 
 Gayford, S. C, 90 n, 149 n, 377 
 
 Gerard, 127 n 
 
 ycpovo-ta, ytpovo'idpxfl'ii 130 
 
 " Gifts," use of the term, 63 n, 70 ; 
 two great classes, 214 ; mani- 
 fest the presence of Christ, 8, 33, 
 113 ; create a Church, 121 ; of 
 speaking the Word, 8, 70, 76, 
 214 ; of healing, 64 n, 248 ; of 
 leadership and service, 64, 113, 
 151, 214 ; of discernment and 
 judging, 64 n, 71 n, 99, 149 ; all 
 service a, 8 n, 16, 60, 69, 71, 
 86 
 
 " Gilds " of soothsayers, 100 ; 60, 
 54 n. See Confraternities 
 
 Gladness in the Eucharistic Ser- 
 vice, 53 n 
 
 Fabian of Rome, 290 
 
 False Prophets, 91, 100 /, 109, 234 n 
 
 Family Council assist at election, 
 
 120 
 Fechtrup, 284 n 
 FeUcissimus of Carthage, 299 
 Fellowship, the Church a, 6^, 
 
 191 ; 20 ff, 55, 181, 268, 271 
 Pirmilian of Caesarea, 311 n, 318 n 
 " Firstfruits," 98, 147, 174 /, 202, 
 
 254, 282 n, 304 
 
 Gnostics, 65, 141 n, 218 /, 221 ; a 
 
 Gnostic creed, 222 n ; Gnostic 
 
 idea in mediating priesthood, 25 n 
 
 Gore, Bishop, 6n, 89 n, 171 n 
 
 "Great" Church, The, 243, 259, 
 
 323 
 Greek worship of rulers, 347 
 Gregory the Great, 203 n, 284 
 Groups of Churches, 21 /, 323/; 
 
 of congregations, 337 
 Gwatkin, H. M., 75 n, 89 n, 116 n 
 
INDEX 
 
 391 
 
 Hadrian, Emperor, 229 
 
 Hands, Laying on of, a Jewish 
 benediction, 143 n ; in ordina- 
 tion, 246 ; in restoration to 
 Church communion, 147, 304 
 
 Hamack, Adolf, 65 n, 70 n, 74 n^ 
 76 n, 80 n, 90 n, 97 n, 114 n, 121 n, 
 130 n, 139 n, 150/, 171 n, 176 n, 
 177 n, 230 n, 238 n, 240 n. 274 n; 
 281 n, 291 n, 333 n, 354 n; re- 
 lation of bishops and elders^ 
 157 ff ; on organization, 369 ff 
 
 Hartel, 283 n, 318 n 
 
 Hatch, Edwin, 4n, 116 n, 127 n? 
 128 n, 202, 219 rt, 302 n, 311 n; 
 on organization, 369 ff 
 
 Hegesippus, 119 /j 141 n 
 
 -fiyovfjiivoLf oi, 73, 92 
 
 Heinrici, C. F. G., 9 n, 47 n^ 57 m 
 81 n, 90 n, 127 n, 128 
 
 Hermas of Rome, 65, 74, 95, 97 n, 
 123, 169 n, 176 n^ 207 n, 234, 
 241 
 
 Hierapolis, 22, 236 
 
 Hierarchy, none in Early Church, 
 32 / ; of the Imperial Cult, 348 / ; 
 copied in the Church, 350 ff 
 
 Hinduism, 140 n, 218 
 
 Hirschfeld, Otto, 341 n, 347 n 
 
 "Honoured," The, 70 n, 73, 105, 
 176 n 
 
 Hort, 4 n, 6 n, 9 n, 11 n, 13 n, 31 m 
 60 w, 75 n, 77 n, 89, 147 n 
 
 Hospitality, 21, 173, 256 
 
 House Churches, 41 /, 59, 286 
 
 loonium, 118, 142, 154 n 
 
 Ideal BeaUty, The Church is an^ 
 
 16 ; the Ideal Israel, 33, 6 
 Idol Feasts, 50, 54 n 
 Idolatry, a deadly sin, 296 
 Ignatius, of Antioch, a prophet, 
 66, 189 n, 192, 209, 236; 14, 
 50 n, 186^, 233; his epistles, 
 186 n ; prophetic chants in^ 
 189 71, 192 
 Inner circle of disciples, 30, 84 
 
 Innocent I. of Rome, 339 n 
 
 Inscriptions, 114 n, 203 
 
 Intercourse between Churches, 21, 
 55, 153, 156 
 
 Interpolation of Cyprian's writ- 
 ings, 317 
 
 Invocation of Jesus in worship, 44 
 
 Irenaeus, on a succession from the 
 Apostles, 225 / ; on a charisma 
 veritatis, 227 ; on Prophecy, 
 240 / ; 47 n, 65, 213, 221, 223 
 
 Isis, 49 
 
 James, pre-eminence in Jerusalem, 
 119/;5, 22, 42, 81 
 
 Jerome, 164 w, 205 
 
 Jerusalem, 11, 21 ff, 91 ; its po- 
 verty, 116 n; Church, 20, 28, 
 53 n; 83, 98, 114 n, 117, 118 
 
 Jesus Christ, promise of the Church, 
 3/; fellowship with, 9, 190; 
 manifests His Presence in 
 His " Gifts," 7, 32, 113 ; com- 
 mands of, 88 n, 104 ; sayings 
 of, 46, 63, 104; Head of the 
 Church, 14, 25, 32, 190 
 
 Jewish Synagogues, organization, 
 129 ; resemblance to confra- 
 ternities, 125, 131 ; had patrons, 
 124 n, 130 n; resemblance to 
 Churches, 131, 153 ; Churches, 
 91, 153 ; rehgion, protected, 
 129, 133 
 
 Jezebel, a prophetess, 92 n 
 
 Josephus, 3 n, 117 n, 132 n 
 
 Judge, power to, spiritual " gifts," 
 70, 71 n, 99 ff, 175 
 
 JuUus Caesar, protected the Jews, 
 129 ; worshipped as a god, 342 / 
 
 Justin Martyr, 36, 60 n, 65, 106, 
 114 n, 123, 173 n, 201/, 234, 
 252, 308 
 
 Justinian's persecutions, 243, 369 
 
 Kataphrygian Church, The^ 243 
 
 Keating, 44 n 
 
 Keys, Power of the, 26 / 
 
INDEX 
 
 Kiua of Peaoe^ 47 
 Kotvwvui, 9, 20, 271 
 KOTTtoivaes, 01, 61 n, 122 
 Krascheniimikoff, 341 n 
 Kvfitpyrjauit 8, 60, 64 n, 70 n, 136j 
 
 149. 214. 
 Kohl 9 H 
 
 Lagarde, P. de, 245 n 
 
 XoAovKTc? TOK Xoyov, oJ, 72 
 
 Lange, 116 n 
 
 Laodlcea, 21 n. 42 n, 09 
 
 "Upted." TTie. 290/7, 295/; Ro- 
 man Elden on the, 290 ; Martyra 
 and pardon, 295 
 
 Law, ChrifltianB not to go to, 66 
 
 Leaden, Leadership, in the kins- 
 folk of JesoB, 119/; related to 
 service and gifts, 63/. 113, 161 ; 
 23, 60/, 73, 92 
 
 Lebanon, 43 n 
 
 Lebegue, 341 n 
 
 Laohaeum, 49 
 
 ** Letters of Commendation,*' 66, 
 81, 83, 172 
 
 LibeUatiei,2S9 
 
 LS>dlut, from magistrates, 288/; 
 specimens of, 280 »; from 
 martyrs, 290 
 
 Licentious cults, 3, 17 
 
 Liebenam, W., 64 m, 124 », 127 », 
 134 n, 135 n 
 
 Lightfoot, Bishop, 35, 74 », 76 ». 
 79 n, 80 n, 81 n, 82 n. 92 n, 116 n, 
 162 n, 188 », 187 n, 193 n, 195 n, 
 197 n, 198 n, 229 » ; on organi- 
 sation, 365 
 
 Littledale, 43 f» 
 
 Liturgy of St Qement, 43 n 
 
 " Living sacrifices," 34 
 
 Loening, Edgar, 75 n, 87 n, 88, 
 90 n, 127 n, 151, 152 n, 172 n; 
 on organization, 371 
 
 X^09 cro<j>La^y 46 n, 64 n 
 
 Loofs, Fr., 152 n, 166 ; on organi- 
 zation, 374 
 
 Lord's Day. 62, 172, 262 
 
 Lord's Prayer, in worship, 44 % 
 Lord's Supper, 31 n, 36, 43, 60 fi 
 
 52, 172, 174, 208, 305. Set 
 
 Eucharist 
 Lordship, excluded from Qiristian 
 
 ministry, 31 ; introduced, 306 /, 
 
 276 n, 282 n, 300, 301 
 Lovefcast, 17, 44, 50, 54 n, 198, 
 
 255/ 
 Lncian, 17, 129 n, 163, 173. 188 n 
 Lucius of Gyrene, 91 
 Liiders. Otto, 127 n 
 Luther, 35, 276 n 
 Lycaonia, 98 
 Lyons Valley, 22 
 
 Lyons, The Martyrs of, 95 n, 296 
 Lystra, 118, 142, 143 n, 154 n 
 
 Haoedonia, Churches of, 22 
 MajorDomo, 26 
 
 Majority of votes decides, 33, 55 
 lialchion. Elder at Antioch, 332 / 
 Bianaen, prophet, 91 
 Marathi schoolmaster, 106 n 
 Marcion, 219 / ; Marcionite Churchy 
 its organization, 208 n ; perse- 
 cuted by Christian Emperors, 
 243; 66, 114 n, 219/ 
 Marks of an Apostle, 82 n, 83 
 liarquhardt, J., 335 n, 341 n 
 Martyr, Justin. 8u Justin 
 ?• Martyrs,'* 290; their power to 
 absolve, 97, 293, 295 ; made 
 Elders, 247 
 Martyrs of Lyons, 95 n, 296 
 Mary, mother of John Mark, 41 
 Maseebieau, 172 n 
 Mater Synagogatt 131 % 
 liaByjraiy 9, 113 n 
 Matthias, 32, 77 
 Mau, Auguste, 341 f» 
 Meals, Common, 51, 63 n; 255 / 
 Meetings of whole Church. Su 
 
 Congregational Meeting 
 Membership of the Church, the 
 
 seat of authority, 32, 121, 309 
 Meesiahship without sofiering, 6 m 
 
INDEX 
 
 893 
 
 " Metropolitans," 336, 350, 362 
 
 Milton, 154 n 
 
 Ministry, use of word, 62 n ; based 
 on " giftfl," 63 /, 70 /, 76, 85, 99, 
 113, 161, 235, 248 ; two different 
 kinds of, 63 n, 65 /, 149, 228, 272 ; 
 the local ministry created by the 
 Churches, 113-166 ; changed in 
 second century, 169 /, 205 if; 
 became a lordship in the third 
 century, 266/7, 276^, 303^; 
 modelled on pagan hierarchy, 
 356 ; " from above," 26 /, 121, 
 235 ; not a plastic medium 
 between God and His people 25 n ; 
 included from the first oversight 
 and subordinate service, 154, 
 169 ; of women, 181, 249. See 
 Bishop, Elder, Deacon, Minor 
 Orders, yv/Sepvrja-eiSt Priesthood, 
 Prophetic Ministry 
 
 Minor Orders, 246, 340 ; modelled 
 on pagan priesthood, 354 / ; 
 absorbed remains of prophetic 
 ministry, 354 n 
 
 Missa catechumenorum, Missa fide- 
 lium, 355 
 
 Missionary analogies in organiza- 
 tion, 41, 106 n, 117, 121, 140 n, 
 144, 162 », 254 n, 256 n, 258, 337 
 
 Mommsen, Theod., 127 », 229 n, 
 335 n, 343 n, 353 
 
 Monceaux, P., 351 
 
 Montanus, 236 / ; Montanism, 
 wider and narrower, 236 ff ; 
 Phrygian, had new elements, 
 237 ; movement conservative, 
 235 ff; divided the Church, 
 271 ; Montanist Prophecy, 239, 
 271 / ; persecuted by Christian 
 Emperors, 243, 360 
 
 Monthly payments to the clergy, 
 304 ; in confraternities, 125, 202 
 
 Moses' seat, 27 
 
 Mosheim, J. L., 90 n, 162 n 
 
 Mother Church (of Jerusalem), 20, 
 118,153; 337 
 
 Mowat, B., 341 n 
 Municipal Priests, 349/ 
 Muratorian Fragment, 140 
 " Mysteries," 104 ; Pagan Mys- 
 teries, 308 
 
 Names given to Christians, 113 »t/ 
 
 Naturahst Religions, 100 
 
 Nazareth, 75 n 
 
 Neale, J. M., 43 n 
 
 Nestorians, 85 n 
 
 Nicopolis, 142 
 
 vov^cTovvre?, oi, 61 n 
 
 Novatian, 331, 359 
 
 Nurses in Christian communities^ 
 
 181, 249 / 
 Nymphas, 42 n 
 
 Obedience to ecclesiastical au- 
 thority, 24/, 60, 69, 193, 197, 
 265 /, 277 ; by beHevers to each 
 other, 191 
 
 Oblations. See Offerings 
 
 Octavius. See Augustus 
 
 Offences and offenders within the 
 Church, 27, 176 
 
 Offerings, 34, 174, 181, 201, 209, 
 254 ff, 277, 309 
 
 Office - bearers were frequently 
 prophets, 66, 209, 217 ; taught 
 from the first, 155 n, 216 ; obedi- 
 ence due to them, 60, etc ; earhest, 
 were the first converts, 60, 122 /, 
 152 ; existed in the PauUne 
 Churches, 60^. See Ministry 
 
 Old Testament Scriptures, 46 ; 
 prophecy, 100; priesthood, 196, 
 307, 334 
 
 Orders, 25 n, 32 
 
 Ordo et Pleba, 245 n 
 
 Ordination, 246^; of bishops, 
 246, 302 n, 330 ; of elders, 
 248 ; of presbyterian ministers, 
 330 n ; the entrance to ecclesias- 
 tical office, 302 
 
 Organization, of confraternities, 
 125 / ; of Synagogues, 129 / ; of 
 
3d4 
 
 INDEX 
 
 the Pagan State Religion, 348 ; 
 copied by the Church, 360, 355 / ; 
 of the Qiurches, 113 /f; several 
 roots, 115/7; followed a course 
 of its own, 128 ; in Pauline 
 Churches, 136^; in Pastoral 
 Epistles, 144/; passed through 
 several stages, 149 /, 155 /, 169 ^, 
 183, 350 / ; two ideals in, 335 / ; 
 social, dreaded by Roman Em- 
 perors, 132 / 
 Organism, the Church an, 8, 15, 51 
 Origen, on Celsos' account of Chris- 
 tian prophets, 109 n ; 16, 79 * 
 Osiiarii, 355 
 
 Paganism, intellectual, 217/ 
 
 Palestine, the home of prophecy^ 
 91 ; Churches in, 118 
 
 Pamphylia, 98 
 
 Paraphrases, Scotch, 45/ 
 
 Pardon may not be granted for 
 some sins, 96/. 213, 267, 272, 
 295, 297 n ; but may if prophet 
 or Martyr demands it, 97, 268, 
 272, 295 ; if bishop remitted the 
 ■in, 265, 272/, 276 1». 300, 303, 
 306; 28. 29n 
 
 Parish system, beginning of, 339 
 
 Paroichia, 326, 332 
 
 Pastoral Epistles, 139 /f, 139 n, 
 202 n, 216; and sooroes of 
 Apostolic Canons, 146 n 
 
 Pastors, 8, 65, 152; synonymous 
 with Bishops, 178, 330 n 
 
 Patron and Qient, 123/, 124 n ; 
 in Confraternities and Syna- 
 gogues, 124 n, 126, 131 n 
 
 •* Pattern of Teaching," 105 
 
 Paul, St., use of the word Church, 
 3n, 6, 10. 18; fellowship. Iff, 
 
 20 ^, 271 ; grouped his Churches, 
 
 21 ;7 ; method of making the 
 unity of the Church visible, 
 22/7; call and preparation, 77; 
 the typical Apostle, 88 ; attacked 
 in the Pseudo-Clementines, 78 ; 
 
 apostolic career began at Anti- 
 och, 92 n ; what makes a Church, 
 49, 69, 121, 149 ; cultivated the 
 sense of responsibiUty in his 
 Churches, 48 /, 56 /f, 148 ; thought 
 highly of prophecy, 61 ; 31 n , 32/, 
 41 n, 44 n, 46 n, 58/. 70, 77^, 
 87 n, 88, 93/, 96. 102, 113, 118, 
 141 n, 143 n, 154 », 172 n, 214, etc. 
 
 Paul of Samosata, 332 / 
 
 Pearson, John, 284 n 
 ' Peloponnesus, 85 n 
 
 Penitence, alteration in conditions 
 of, 273 ff ; how to be shown, 297. 
 310/ 
 
 Pergamos, a centre for the Imperial 
 Cult, 348 ; Church in, 22 
 
 Peter, St, the Rock-man, 6 n ; his 
 confession, 6, 25 ^ ; at the head 
 of the Church in Jerusalem, 119 
 
 Peter, Epistle of, 10 n, 137 
 
 Phanar, The, 171 n 
 
 Pharisees, 27 
 
 Philadelphia, The Church at, 22, 
 27, 236 ; Ignatius had the pro- 
 phetic afiBatus in, 189 n 
 
 Philemon, 42 n 
 
 Phihp, one of the " Seven," 24, 117 
 
 Philip, daughters of, prophetesses, 
 91,236 
 
 PhiUpof Sid6, 120 n 
 
 Phiiippi, The Church at, 36 n, 136, 
 194 
 
 Phoebe of Cenchrea, a " patroness," 
 124 n 
 
 Pisidia, 98 
 
 irioTi?, 46 n, 71 n 
 
 PiHis Sophia, The, 222 n 
 
 PUbs et Ordo, 245 n 
 
 " Plastic Medium," A special priest- 
 hood a, 25 n, 35 
 
 Platonic exegesis, 221 
 
 Pliny's Letters to Trajan^ 45, 
 60 n, 124 n, 128 n, 136 » 
 
 Plumptre, E. H., 107 n 
 
 Plutarch, 123 n 
 
 Trvcv/iartKoi, oi, 69 
 
INDEX 
 
 886 
 
 iroLfxviw, 36, 116, 155 n, 183 
 Polycarp, a prophet, 66, 194, 199, 
 236 
 
 Pontifex Mazimiis, the official 
 head of the Pagan State ReUgion, 
 349 ; the Bishop of the Roman 
 Church, 335, 351 
 
 Pontius, 286 n, 287 
 
 Poor, care of the, 21, 115/, 148, 
 255 / ; Church poor-roll, 148 
 
 Poverty in Roman Empire, 116 n 
 
 Praise in Pubhc Worship, 44, 251 ; 
 a sacrifice, 34, 307 
 
 Prayer in Public Worship, 44, 52 and 
 n ; the Lord's Prayer, 44 n ; 
 ejaculatory prayers, 47 / ; Utur- 
 gic prayers, 52 n, 174, 246 ; 
 Prayer of consecration at Eu- 
 charist spontaneous, 201, 253 n ; 
 prayers of prophets, spontaneous, 
 95 
 
 Preaching Ministry of Apostolic 
 Church, 72 
 
 Preparation of Apostles, 76, 84 
 
 Presbyters. See Elders 
 
 7rp€cr$vT€pa, 131 n 
 
 irpea-jSvTepoi, 118, 159, 161^ 
 
 Presbyterian system of Church 
 government, has the threefold 
 ministry, 170 n ; close resemblance 
 to what is found in Ignatius, 198, 
 205 ; where it differs from early 
 organization, 259; 330 » 
 
 Presbyterium, 196, 198 n 
 
 President (tt/ooco-tws), 173 n, 208; 
 52 
 
 Prisca, 42 n 
 
 Priests, N.T., 34 /, 307, 309 ; limited 
 to bishops, 305, 309 ; of Roman 
 State paganism, 349 ff, 354; of 
 provinces, 349, 351 ; of towns, 
 350; Christian imitation, 355/ 
 
 Proclamation about sins of the 
 Flesh, 274, 276 n 
 
 irpoicrTapLfvoii "frpoecrTib^j TrpocrraTts, 
 TrpoorraTiys, 61 n, 72 n, 123, 160, 
 165 n, 192 » 
 
 Promise of the Church, 25; of 
 
 authority, 28 /, 274, 303, 317 
 TrpovoiladaL, 185, 180 n 
 Prophecy, N.T., 61, 90^; ecsta- 
 tic and non-ecstatic, 94, 241 ; 
 compared with O.T., 107 ; de- 
 spisers of, debarred from the 
 Eucharist, 233; in Asia, 236; 
 Montanist, 94, 239 / 
 Prophetic Ministry, 69 ff ; Three- 
 fold division in, 73 ; passed 
 away, 109, 213 ff, 244, 272 ; in 
 the Didache, 172/; its duties 
 undertaken by local ministry 
 215, 229 ; Charisma of, sup- 
 posed to belong to office-bearers, 
 228 ; deterioration of, 108, 233 ; 
 was " from above," 235 ; main- 
 tained by the Montanists, 271 
 Prophet, Christian, uses of the 
 word, 92 ; was the messenger of 
 God, 95; influence, 96/; 61, 
 71 /, 192, 241 
 Prophets, Christian, 46, 65, 73 
 presence universal, 90 / ; names 
 of, 91, 189 n, 236, 313 n, 328 
 were teachers, 93 ; wandering 
 98 ; received the firstfruits, 99, 
 176 / ; not office-bearers, but 
 might be, 66, 96 ; controlled by 
 the "gift of discernment," 92, 
 102, 176; controlled by office- 
 bearers, 216 n, 236, 238, 298; 
 false, 100, 174, 234; tests of, 
 102, 213, 272; could pardon 
 sins, 97, 268, 272, 295; active 
 in great cities, 101 ; caricatured 
 by Celsus, 109 n 
 Prophetesses, 91, 236, 240 
 Punchayat, Hindu, 117 
 
 Quadratus, 236 
 
 Qualifications of office-bearers, 
 
 145/, 178/7,247/ 
 Quarrels among the Brethren, 66, 
 
 176/ 
 Rackham, R. B., 203 n 
 
396 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ramsay, W. M-^ 12 n, 23 n. 92 n, 
 
 134 n, 204 n, 207, 229 n, 341 n 
 
 " Readers," read the scriptures and 
 
 preached, 182 /, 253 ; 46 
 Reformation, The, 72, 205 
 Rdigio licita, 125, 129 /, 133 
 Religions losing their power, 92 
 Renan, E., 127 n, 128, 239 n 
 ilepresentative principle in Chris- 
 tian organization, 23, 115, 118, 
 146, 150 /, 175, 178, 305, 316, 334 
 Responsibility imposed by the 
 
 Apostles. 33, 89, 118, 148 
 Rethberg, 283 n 
 Revivals and Prophecy, 72 
 R^ville, J.^ 12711, 141 n, 195 1», 
 
 196 n 
 Riedel, W., 203 n, 245 n, 256 n 
 Ritsohl, Alb., 94 n, 116 n, 169, 239, 
 
 283 n 
 Ritschl, Otto, 283 n, 291 n, 292 f^ 
 
 318 n 
 Roads, Imperial, 22, 100, 336 
 Robinson, Dean A., 75n, 85 », 
 
 90 fi 
 Roma, the goddess, 343 /, 344 » 
 Rome, the Church in, early pre- 
 eminence, 318, 323 ; size in 
 third century, 338 ; the sins of 
 the fleshi 275; Apostolic suc- 
 cession, 280 ; Jews in, 129 ; 7, 
 23, 42, 59, 89, 93, 101, 123, 228, 
 335,351 
 Roman, Africans, 285 ; lists of 
 bishops, 281 n ; law and Christian 
 thought. 278; Lawyers, 278, 
 298, 301, 309; State Religion, 
 343^; Captivity of St Paul, 
 10, 12, 23, 150 ; Elders and the 
 Lapsed, 291/ 
 Rossi, Com. dej 8u De Rossi 
 Ruinart, 187 » 
 
 Sacerdotalism, 33 ^, 37 n, 
 
 307/, 357 
 SacrificcUi, 288, 289 n, 312 n 
 
 196, 
 
 Sacrifice, Christian, 34, 307 / 
 Saints, 114 n 
 
 Salmon, George, 238, 240 n 
 Sanday, W., 14 n, 139 n, 152 w^ 
 
 176 n, 177 n, 204 n, 215 n, 260 n 
 SchmiedeU P. W., 3 n, 75 n, 81 n, 
 
 89 n, 117 n, 127 n, 128 n, 135 n, 
 
 150 n, 152 n 
 Schola, 126 ; 41 
 Schoolmasters in pagan lands, 
 
 106 n 
 Scotch paraphrases, 45 and fi 
 Schultee, 135 n 
 Schurer, E.; 4fij 117 fi; 124 nj 
 
 130 n, 132 n 
 o-c^o/iicvoi, o(, 123 n 
 "Secret Doctrine," 222 
 Secularize the Church, movement 
 
 to, 238, 273 
 Self-government in the Churches^ 
 
 32 /, 55, 58, 99, 156 
 Selwyn, 90 n 
 " Sent Ones." 5, 75 n 
 Service, gifts and rule, 64, 113j 
 
 151 ; of Tables, 115 
 Services necessary for a com- 
 munity, 122 ; crystallize into 
 
 office, 149 
 Seufert, 75 n, 76 fi 
 * Seven," The, 115/, 139 n 
 " Signs of an Apostle," 83 
 Silas, 79, 80, 91, 143 n, 328 
 Sins not to be pardoned, 213, 267,- 
 
 272 n, 273/ 
 Smith, 0. A., 4 n 
 Smyrna, The Church at. 22, 100 
 Socrates (historian). 203 n 
 Sohm, Rudolf, 4 n, 70 n, 71 n, 75 n, 
 
 80 n, 87 n, 97 n, 208 n, 296 n ; 
 
 Theory of Synods, 327 ff 
 Soldiers and the Church, 232 
 Soter (Esculapius), 217 
 Sozomen. 203 n, 243 
 " Speaking the Word of God," 65, 
 
 72 
 " Specialized Gifts." 70 
 Spence, Canon, 172 n 
 
INDEX 
 
 897 
 
 Spirit of Christ, 8. See Fruits of 
 the Spirit 
 
 Spiritual sacrifices, 34, 307 ; men 
 69, 272 n 
 
 Stephen of Rome, 317 w, 318 n 
 
 Succession, historical, in manifes- 
 tation of the fruits of the Spirit, 
 19 / ; in the continuance of cir- 
 cumcision, 18 ; in rulers of the 
 kinsmen of Jesus, 119 / ; in 
 generations of office-bearers, 225, 
 227 ; of bishops succeeding by 
 vicarious ordination, 226, 270, 
 
 311/7 
 
 Suetonius, 132 n, 133 n, 344 n, 345 n 
 
 (Tvyyvw/JLyj, 88 n 
 
 Summus sacerdos, 306 n 
 
 Supper, The Lord's. See Eucharist 
 
 Symeon Niger, a prophet, 91 ; son 
 of aopas, 120 
 
 Synagogue, use of word, 4 n ; 
 Christian Church, 114. /See Jew- 
 ish Synagogue 
 
 Synod, grouped Churches, 324/, 
 328 ; ordination of bishop, 327 / ; 
 and congregational meetings, 
 328, 333, 334 ; met in Provincial 
 capitals, 336, 353; Sohm's theory, 
 327 / ; Synods in Africa, 326 ; 
 Ancyra, 325, 328 ; Aries, 329 n ; 
 Antioch, 328, 332; Carthage, 
 286, 316 ; Corinth, 328 ; Bostra, 
 332 ; Greece, 326 ; Rome, 331 ; 
 Nice, 329 n ; the laity at Synods, 
 316 », 331 
 
 " Table of the Body and Blood of 
 the Lord," 257 
 
 "Tables," service of, 60 », 115 
 
 Talmud, 117 w 
 
 Tatian, 105, 230 / 
 
 Teachers, 8, 73, 92, 103 ff ; office- 
 bearers were, 216; 113 n. 
 
 Temples for the worship of the 
 Imperial Cult, 3, 342/; priest* 
 in State, 354 
 
 Temptation, The, 7 
 
 r€p/j,a Trj<i Bvatu)? 141 n 
 TertuUian, 15, 36 n, 47 n, 65, 76 n, 
 
 80 n, 97, 106 w, 115 n, 129 w, 
 
 134 n, 172, 201, 208 n, 221, 225, 
 
 227 n, 228 w, 230, 238, 240, 245 n, 
 
 267 n, 268 n, 274, 297, 298 n, 
 
 300 n, 308 / 
 TestamerUum Jesu Christie 233 
 Testing the Prophetic Ministry, 70, 
 
 71 w, 99/7, 175, 213 
 TCTi/xry/xeVot, 70 n, 105 
 Timothy, 74, 79, 143 
 Thanksgiving. See Eucharist 
 Theocracy, the Church is a, 4, 25, 
 
 33, 177 
 Thessalonica, The Church at, 11, 22, 
 
 60, 61, 63, 91, 93, 101, 123 
 OCaaoSy Otaa-dpxr]^, 129 n 
 Thomas Aquinas, 205 
 Threefold ministry, not Episcopacy, 
 
 170 / ; how it arose, 207 ; earliest 
 
 in Asia, 236; 195,259 
 " Three Men," 28, 179 n, 327 
 Thurificati, 288 
 ©va-iacTTT^piov 0eov, of the poor, 115 
 
 n; 208 
 Thyatira, 22, 100 
 " Tongue, speaking in a," 47 n 
 Town Council ruled the world, a, 
 
 324 
 
 vTrr}p€T7)<;, 131 
 
 " Unified Church," 12 n 
 
 Uniformity of organization, not 
 necessary, 24, 60 
 
 Union with Clirist, 7, 189, 190 ff 
 
 Unity of the Church, 10/7, 24; 
 manifested in the gifts of the 
 Spirit, 20/; by fraternal inter- 
 course, 55, 156 ; made visible by 
 councils, 313 / ; by papal supre- 
 macy, 317/; dogmatic, 229 
 
 Universal Church visible, 16, 19/, 
 68, 172, 182; the Prophetic 
 Church belonged to, the 73; 
 shown in ordination, 329, 331 w 
 never expressed rji a polity, 359 / 
 
INDEX 
 
 nisber» Archbishop, 187 » 
 
 Veetmento. See Drees 
 Victor of Rome, 16, 317 n 
 Villages, Mission to the, 31 ; Qxris- 
 
 tians in, 106 n, 289 n 
 " Virgins," 249 
 Visible Church. 16^, 67. 172. 182, 
 
 191. 313/, 329, 336 n 
 Visions, 77 ; and Prophecy. 92. 94. 
 
 143 n ; in the Apocalypoe, 94 ; 
 
 in Hennas. 95 ; Cyprian's, 96 n, 
 
 284 n. 31311 
 Vitringa. 131 m 
 Voigt. 239 n 
 Voss. 187 n 
 Voting at Congregational meetings. 
 
 33.66 
 
 Wandering preachers. 73 ; 
 phetB, 98; teachers. 106 
 Wansleben. 266 n 
 -Way. those of the." lUi» 
 Weinel, 90 m 100 » 
 Weingarten. 127 n. 128 
 
 pro- 
 
 Weizsacker, 6n, 9 n, 23 ». 44 », 
 47 n. 67 n, 75 n, 81 n, 83 n, 89 n, 
 114 n 
 
 Westcott, Bishop, 29 n 
 
 " Widows," to pray for the Brother- 
 hood, 183, 249; Suppers for. 
 256; 181/ 
 
 " Wise Men," 67, 176, 182 
 
 Wissowa. 4 n, 101 n, 341 n 
 
 " Witness of the spirit," 72. 8u 
 Discernment. "Gifts" 
 
 Women prophesied. 44, 91, 182, 
 236. 240; ministry of. 147, 181 /, 
 249 
 
 Worship. Christian, 44 /f, 260 ff; 
 of the Emperors, in Palestine, 
 3; in Rome and in the Pro- 
 vinces. 342/7; popularity of, 347 
 
 Zahn. 172 », 187 n, 198 m 
 Zenobia, Queen. 333 n 
 Zephyrinus of Rome. 129 n. 136 a. 
 
 274 fi 
 Ziebarth. 127 ». 129 n 
 Zoker and James, 120 
 Zotious Otrenos. 328 
 
 »$iltr 4* r«MMr 7X# Stlwtttt Prmtimf Wwrkt Pr9mt mmd LtmJbm. 
 
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