PASTORAL LETTER
Joi
PASTORAL THEOLOGY
" Rebuke not an elder, but entreat bim as a fatber" (1 Tim. V, 1). Few ideas are more beautiful than that of a pastor attaining parental iniluence over his tiock, and of his people gladly according to him parental oversight of their most sacred interests.
The Greek and Roman churches apply the term pas- tor to all who assume the clerical otHcc, and in so doing indicate what the office and its possessor ought to be. Yet there is reason to think that the apostolic idea of spiritual fatherhood as an attribute of the pastoral office is less comprehended in those old and spiritually dead churches than in the living churches of Protestant countries. On the part of the people there is a greater appreciation, amounting, indeed, to a superstitious rev- erence for the clerical office, but on the part of the clergy, priests so-called, lax views of spiritual experi- ence and obligation, and still looser practice. Happy would it be if the character of the true Christian fatlier were consistently illustrated by pastors of every name and every branch of the Church.
The pastoral office bas thus far been considered in the light of a personal agency, and as such alone it is sublime. But it rises to a still grander importance when seen to be invested with organic power. Pastors die, but the Church is immortal. Nevertheless, each true pastor, by faithful service, contributes not only to the perpetuation, but to the wider extension of the Church. A Christian shepherd takes the oversight of souls. Aggregately they form a single flock. But the flock is designed to increase in numbers, and with its growth to become divisible, forming additional flocks and founding other churches, each of which will have expansive and self-multiplying power. Individuals in the original flock and in every Church that may grow out of it may, under pastoral influence, be themselves called to the ministry, and become, in due time, the founders and pastors of other churches which shall go on multiplying to the end of time.
"So shall the bright succession run Through all the courses of the suu."
See what glorious results have followed from the faith- ful ministry of the apostles, and also from the initial labors of apostolic men in the various countries of the world — results which would have been impossible to individual and disconnected effort, but which flowed as legitimate consequences of evangelical and pastoral ef- fort, working through the divinely appointed agency of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. (D. P. K.)
Pastoral Letter, a letter addressed either at cer- tain stated times, or on the occurrence of some notable occasion, by a " pastor," but especially by a bishop to the clergy under his jurisdiction, to the laity of his flock, or to both. Of the former class, in the Church of Rome, are the so-called Lenten Mandates, or Instruc- tions, issued before the commencement of Lent, and making known the regulations enacted for the obser- vance of the Lenten fast, thfe dispensations granted, and the devotions and other pious works prescribed. Such also are tlie letters issued by a bishop on many of the chief festivals of the year. It is usual for bishops, be- sides their stated letters, to address to their clergy or people instructions suited to any particular emergency which may arise, and sometimes to take occasion from the issuing of the stated pastoral letter to offer instruc- tion on some topic of importance which may engage public attention at the time, on some prevalent abuse or scandal, or some apprehended danger to the faith or to morals. To this class belong many of the remains of the early fathers, especially in the Western Church. In some countries the government, as formerly in Aus- tria, claimed a right to exercise a censorship over the pastoral letters to be issued by the bishops. Tiiis right, however, is regarded by churchmen as a usur[)ation, and, although submitted to, is admitted only under protest.
Pastoral Staff, sometimes also, although not prop- erly, called crosier (q. v.) (Lat. baculus pastoralis, cam-
Pastoral Staff.
buea, pedum, crocia, virga, ferula, camljutta in (iregory's Sucramentu- 7\i/), is one of the insignia of the epis- copal office, sometimes also borne by an abbot. It is a tall staff of metal, or of wood ornamented with metal, having, at least in the Western Church, the head curved in the furin of a shepherd's crook, as a symbol of the pastoral office. The head of the pastoral staff of an archbishop, instead of the crook, has a double cross, from which its name of crosier is derived. In the Greek Church the staff is much shorter, and the head is either a plain Greek cross of the form of the letter Tail, or it is a double-headed crook, which sometimes appears in the shape of the upsilon, T. It is dilHcult to determine the time at which the pas- toral statt" flrst came into use. The flrst distinct allusion to it is in St. Au- gustine's commentary on Psa. cxxiv. (iregory of Tours, in his life of St. ISIartin, mentions the pastoral staff of St. Severinus, who was bishop of Cologne at the end of the 4th century. From an early- time the pastoral staff was connected with the actual possession of the jurisdiction which it symbolizes. The giving of it was one of the ceremonies of investiture; its withdrawal was part of the form of deprivation; its voluntary abandomnent accompanied the act of resig- nation; its being broken was the most solemn form of degradation. So also the veiling of the crook of an ab- bot's pastoral staff during the episcopal visitation sig- nirted the temporary subjection of his authority to that of the bishop. An abbot being required to carry his pas- toral staff with the crook turned inwards, showed that liis autliority was purely domestic. In the 4th century the pastoral staff' resembled a simple cane with a knob, or else a crutch-like staff, like a Tau. After the I'lth century the staffs increased in height and ornamenta- tion, but the abbots, especially those of the Order of St. Anthony, long retained the Tau-shaped one. The pope gave up the use of the staff in the middle of the 12th century, and cardinal-bishops no longer carry it. The earh^ staffs were generally made of cypress-wood. In the later medieval period the material was often extremely costly, and, referring to the relaxation of the times, it was said " that formerly the Church had wooden pasto- ral staffs and golden bishops, but that now the staffs are of gold and the bishops of wood." The workmanship was sometimes extremely beautiful. We annex as a specimen of the highest art the pastoral staff of William of Wykebam, now in New College, Oxford. This is a sample of the Norman pastoral staff. The Saxon was by no means so tall. The Irish pastoral staff is of a type quite peculiar, and some of the sculptured specimens pre- served in the British Museum, at the Royal Irish Acad- emy, and elsewhere, are very interesting as illustrating the ecclesiastical costume of the period. See Staff.