2. The work of teaching, both publicly and privately I (1 Thess. v, 12; Tit. i, 9 ; 1 Tim. v, 17). At first, it
appears from the description of the practices of the Church in 1 Cor. xiv, 26, the work of oral teaching, whatever form it assumed, was not limited to any body of men, but was exercised according as each man pos- sessed a special Ya'piT^ia for it. Even then, however, there were, as the warnings of that chapter show, some inconveniences attendant on this freedom, and it was a natural remedy to select men for the special function of teaching because they possessed the vr/picr/jo, and then gradually to confine that work to them. The work of preaching (Ki]pva(riiv) to the heathen did not belong, apparently, to the bishop-elders as such, but was the office of the apostle-evangelist. Their duty was to feed the foci; teaching publicly (Tit. i, 9), op- posing errors, admonishing privately (1 Thess. v, 12).
3. The work of visiting the sick appears in James v, 14 as assigned to the elders of the Church. There, in- deed, it is connected with the practice of anointing as a means of healing, but this office of Christian sym- pathy would not, we may believe, be confined to the exercise of the extraordinary Yrtpi<xp«,rt ia/idrtov, and it is probablj' to this, and to acts of a like kind, that we are to refer the dvTi\aj.ifidvicQai rwv aaBevoivrwv of Acts xix, 34, and the «jT(X//i//f(c of 1 Cor. xii, 28.
4. Among these acts of charity that of receiving stran- gers occupied a conspicuous place (1 Tim. iii, 2 ; Tit. i, 8). The bishop-elder's house was to be the house of the Christian who arrived in a strange city and found himself without a friend. 5. Of the part taken by them in the liturgical meetings of the Church we have no distinct evidence. Reasoning from the lan- guage of 1 Cor. x, xii, and from the practices of the post-apostolic age, we may believe that they would preside at such meetings, that it would belong to them to bless and to give thanks when the Church met to break bread.
" The mode in which these officers of the Church were supported or remunerated varied probably in dif- ferent cities. At Miletus Paul exhorts the elders of the Church to follow his example and work for their own livelihood (Acts xix, 34). In 1 Cor. ix, 14, and Gal. vi, 6, he asserts the right of the ministers of the Church to be supported by it. In 1 Tim. v, 17, he gives a special application of the principle in the assignment of a double allowance (r</<//, comp. Hammond, in loc.') to those who have been conspicuous for their activity.
BISHOP
821
BISHOP
" Collectively at Jerusalem, and probably in other churches, the body of bishop-elders took part in delib- erations (Acts xv, 6-22; xxi, 18), addressed other churches (ibid, xv, 23), were joined with the apostles in the work of ordaining by the laying on of hands (2 Tim. i, G). It lay in the necessities of any organized society that such a body of men should be subject to a power higher than their own, whether vested in one chosen by themselves or deriving its authority from some external source ; and we find accordingly that it belonged to the delegate of an apostle, and, a fortiori, to the apostle himself, to receive accusations against them, to hear evidence, to admonish where there was the hope of amendment, to depose where this proved unavailing" (1 Tim. v, 19 ; iv, 1 ; Tit. iii, 10) (Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, s. v.).
It seems therefore to be certain that not only were the titles "bishop" and "presbyter" uniformly inter- changeable in the New Testament, but also that but one office was designated by these two names. The " bishop" of the N. T. is not to be thought of as a di- ocesan bishop, such as those of the Roman or other churches of later times, but only as an authorized officer of the Church and congregation. " The identity of presbyters and bishops in the Apostolic Church was acknowledged by the most learned Church fathers, on exegetical grounds, even after the Catholic episcopal system (whose origin was referred to the Apostolate) had come to its full form and force. We confine our- selves to the most important. Jerome says, ad Tit. i, 7 : Idem est ergo presbj'ter qui episcopus, etantequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent. . . . com- muni presbyterorum consilio ecclesia; gubernabantur. Again, Epist. 85, ad Eoagrium (in the later copies, ad Evangelum): Nam quum apostolus perspicue doceat eosdem esse presbyteros et episcopos, etc. Finally, Ep. 82, ad Oceanum (al. 83) : In utraque epistola (the first to Timothy and that to Titus) sive episcopi sive presbyteri (quamquam apud veteres iidem episcopi et presbyteri fuerint, quia illud nomen dignitatis est, hoc aetatis) jubentur monogami in clerum elegi. So Am- brosiaster, adEph. iv, 11, and the author of the Pseudo- Augustinian Qucestiones V. et N. T. qu. 101. Among the Greek fathers, Chrysostom, Horn. I. in Ep. ad Philipp. says : 2cj'£7rt(T/co7ro(c (so he reads Phil, i, 1, instead of avv s7no7C()7roie) Kai diaicovoig. ri tovto ; /.nag iroXeuig 7ro\\of tTrioKoiroi i\aav ; Ovdapwg aXXa tovq wpeafivTipovg ovrcog tKciXeaf Tort yap rscoc iicoi- Viovovv rolg ovouaai, Kai SuiKoi'og 6 tTriaicoirog tXiye- to, k. t. X. Still more plainly Theodoret, ad Phil, i, 1 : . . . 'tTTKJKo-Kovg St roiig TrpsafivTipovg tcaXH,d^(pvnpa yap a%ov kut tKtXvov rbv Kaipbv ra ovopara, for which he quotes texts already given. So again ad Tim. iii, 1 : tiviaKoirov de tvravSa tov TtptofivTtpov Xkyu, k. r. X. Even theologians of the Middle Ages maintained this view, among whom Pope Urban II (A.D. 1091) is especially worthy of note : Sacros au- tem ordines dicimus diaconatum et presbyteratum. Hos siquidem solos primitiva legitur ecclesia habuisse ; super his solum prajceptum habemus apostoli. Among the later Roman Catholic expositors, Mack (Pastoral- briefe des Ap. Paulus, Tub. 1836, p. 60 sq.) grants in full the identity of the N. T. presbyters and bishops ; he sees in them the later presbyters, and takes the later bishops, on the contrary, for the successors of the apos- tles and their immediate assistants. This last view is undoubtedly, from the Roman Catholic stand-point, the only tenable derivation of the episcopate. Among Pro- testant interpreters and historians, this identity has al- ways been asserted ; and this even by many learned Episcopalians, e. g. Dr. Whitby, who, on Phil, i, 1, ad- mits : ' Both the Greek and Latin fathers do with one consent declare that bishops were called presbyters and presbyters bishops in apostolic times, the names being then common.' See also, as a recent authority, Bloomfield on Acts xx. 17 (Grk. Test. Eng. Notes, etc., vol. i, p. 560, Phil, ed.)." — Schaff, Apost. Ch. § 132;