vicars, i. e. men clothed with special powers for a special purpose and for a limited time, may be admit- ted, but this does not determine the nature of the office of an evangelist. They exercised these powers not as evangelists, but as delegates or commissioners.
And some, pastors and teachers, τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους. According to one interpretation we have here two distinct offices—that of pastor and that of teacher. The latter, says Calvin, “had nothing to do with discipline, nor with the administration of the sacra- ments, nor with admonitions or exhortations, but simply with the interpretation of Scripture.” Institutes IV, 3,4. Allthis is inferred from the meaning of the word teacher. There is no evidence from Scripture that there was a set of men authorized to teach but not author- ized to exhort. The thing is well nigh impossible. The one function includes the other. The man who teaches duty and the grounds of it, does at the same time ad- monish and exhort. It was however on the ground of this unnatural interpretation that the Westminster Directory made teachers a distinet and permanent class of jure divino officers in the church. The Puritans in New England endeavoured to reduce the theory to practice, and appointed doctors as distinct from preach- ers. But the attempt proved to be a failure. The two functions could not be kept separate. The whole theory rested on a false interpretation of Scripture. The absence of the article before διδασκάλους proves that the apostle intended to designate the same persons as at once pastors and teachers. The former term de-
CHAP. Iv. VER. 12. 227
signates them as ἐπίσκοποι, overscers, the latter as instructors. Every pastor or bishop was required to be apt to teach. This interpretation is given by Augustin and Jerome; the latter of whom says: Non enim ait: alios autem pastores et alios magistros, sed alios pas- tores et magistros, ut qui pastor est, esse debeat et mag- ister. In this interpretation the modern commentators almost without exception concur. It is true the article is at times omitted between two substantives referring to different classes, where the two constitute one order —as in Mark 15,1, wera τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καὶ γραμ- ματέων, because the elders and scribes formed one body. But in such an enumeration as that contained in this verse, τοὺς μὲν ἀποστόλους, τοὺς δὲ προφήτας, τοὺς δὲ εὐαγγελιστάς, τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας, the laws of the language require τοὺς δὲ διδασκάλους, had the apostle intended to distinguish the διδάσκαλοι from the ποιμένες. Pastors and teachers, therefore, must be taken as a two-fold de- signation of the same officers, who were at once the guides and instructors of the people.
Υ. 12. Having mentioned the officers Christ gave his church, the apostle states the end for which this gift was conferred—it was πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων, εἰς ἔργον διακονίας, εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Both the meaning of the words and the relation of the several clauses in this verse, are doubtful. The word καταρτισμός, rendered perfecting, admits of dif-