iii. Bishops. — Is there any trace of an order of bishops in NT ? The name of a bishop, as we have seen, is applied to elders ; but are there i)ermanent local oflicials, each ruling singly the elders of hia own city? This is the definition of the bishop when he first ajqiears distinct from his elders ; and if we find this, we find a bishop, whatever he may be called. The instarces commonly given are James the I/ord's brother at Jerus., Timothy and Titus in Ephesus and Crete, and the angels of the seven Churches. The plural rulers (He 13'- ^) of a single Church are hardly worth mention. Now, .lames was clearly the leading man of the Chtirch at .lenisaleni. His strictness of life and his neai
CHURCHES, ROBBERS OF
CIELED, CIELIXG
441
relation to the Lord (a more important matter witli Easterns than witli us) must have given him enor- nious influence. But inlluence is one tiling, olUce is another. No doubt he had very much of a bishop's position, and his succe.ss at Jerus. may have suggested imitation elsewhere ; but there is nothing recorded of him which requires us to believe that he held any <iclinile local olBce. The ea.se of Timothy and Titus is a stronger one, for we know that they ajijiointed and governed elders like a modern bishop. But this is work which must be ■ione in every Church, so that a man who does it is not necessarily a bishop. Neither Timothy nor Titus is a permanent otlicial, and Titus is not con- nected with any particular city. They are rather temporary vicars-apostolic, sent on special mis- sions to Lphesus and Crete. The letters by which we know them are (2 Tl 4', Tit S"") letters of recall ; and there is no serious evidence that they ever saw Ephesus and Crete again. Titus is hist heard of (2 Ti 4'") in Dalmatia, Timothy from the writer to the Hebrews ( 13^), a work which there is no reason to connect ^vith Ephesus. There remain the angels of the seven Churches ; and it would be very bold to take these for literal bishops. In addition to the generul presumption from the symbolic char- acter of the Apoc, tliere is the particular argument that ' the woman .Iczebel ' at Thyatira (Rev 2-'" — the rea/iing T-iji' ywaUd <rov would make her the angel s wife) can hardly be taken literally. Moreover, these an<'els are praised and blamed for the doin'rs of their Churches in a way no literal bishop justly can l)e. It is safer to take them as personifications of the Churches.
Our general conclusion is, that while we find deacons and elders (or bishops in NT .sense) in the apostolic age, there is no clear trace of bishops (in the later sense), or of any apostolic ordinance that •very Church was to have its bishop. This conclu- »i m is fully confirmed by Clement and Ignatius. If Corinth had had a bishop in Clement's lime, or been remarkable or blameworthy in having no bishop, we should scarcely have failed to hear of it in a letter called forth by the unjust deposition of certain elders. Instead of this, it seems clear that the eUlers at Corinth had no authority of any sort over them to comi)ose their (iuarrel.s. Ignatius certainly uses the most empliatic language in urging obedience to the bishop ; but the greater his emphasis the more signilicant is the .absence of anj' aii]jeal (Trull. 7 is not one) to any institution of &norili:roi bishops by the apo-stles. The absenic of an argument which would have rendered all the rest superfluous, seems nothing less than an ad- mission that he knew of no such institution.
Nevertheless, his earnestness implies anostolic sanction. Episcopacy must have originated before the apostles had all p.issed away ; and its early strength in Asia cannot well be explained without some encouragement from St. John. But it must have lieen at first local and partial, and due per- haps to more causes than one. On one side, the need of firmer government after the apostles and prophets died out, would often tend to raise the chairman of the elders into something like a bishop's po.siticm ; on the other, vicars - apostolic of the type of Timothy might occasionally be left stranded by the apostle's death, and if they re- mained at their post would settle down into genuine bishops. See also Hort, Chrixtinn Erclesia (1897), published too late for use in this article,
II. M. (iWATKIN.
CHURCHES, ROBBERS OF, is the misleading rendering in AV Ac 10" of the word Upb<n<\oi (applying the word 'churches' in the wider oM Eng. sense to jiagan temples), while in RV the rendering is ' robliers of temples'; but both arc unsatisfactory. The .secretary of the city (7pa/i;iarei''!
TTjs irbXtwi) of Ephesus points out to the riotous .us.sembly in the theatre that St. Paul and his friends are not guilty of sacrilege, the category of crime under which it was natural for St. Paul's accusers to bring his action. After the word do^/Seio had been apj)ropriated to translate the Rom. legal term Im.fa m-ijcstris ' treason,' UpoauXla was the natural rendering for the Lat. sncrilcgium ; and here for emphasis the speaker uses the double term oCre tepofft'Xous oCtc ^\a,a(p-qfiovifTa% tt]v Ondv, which implies ' guilty neither in act nor in language of disrespect to the established religion of our city.'