Says Dr. Blakie ( The Presbyterian Churches through- out 0,, World\ Edinb. 1*77 |, p. L): •• Ii is admitted even by many Lpi -copal ians that, so far as Scripture indicates, the primitive' Church constituted under the apostles was governed by elders. The office of apostle was tempo- rary, and some other temporary arrangements were re- sorted to in the peculiar eircum-tances ofthe Church. Hut everywhere in settled (bun Ins there was a body of presbj lev- or elders; the terms presbj u r an, I bishop were applied freely to the same individuals; aid when the presbyters were addressed together, as those of Ephesus were addressed at Miletus, there was no hint of one of them having authority over the r. -t ; they were tailed equally u> feed ami care for the Church
PRESBYTER
over which the Holy Ghost had made them over- seers."
The offices of presbyter and bishop, according to the Roman Catholic theory, belong both, though in differ- ent degrees, to what Roman Catholics regard as the priesthood of the New Law. They teach that the pres- byter is, in the sacerdotal order, an intermediate degree between the deacon and the highest functionary of the hierarchy, the episcopos. They also maintain stoutly that Scripture, and tradition attest alike the divine in- stitution of the presbyteriatc. "Besides the apostles, the Lord marked out of the troop of his followers seven- ty (according to the Vulg. seventy-two), whom he sent out before him, two by two, into the cities and towns he intended to visit, with the mission of healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God. These seventy men were, in consequence, the assistants of the apostles, but subordinated to them. Soon their number proved insufficient, and the apostles established in every city of some importance, at the foundation of the community, or when it had reached a certain degree of development, besides the bishop, whom they intended for their per- manent representative and successor, a number of pres- byters, who assisted the bishop in his functions." The Roman Catholic Church, as she considers the bishops the successors of the apostles, so she holds the presby- ters to be the successors of the seventy assistants chosen by Christ himself. Inasmuch as they are entitled to perform the highest function of the priesthood, the ad- ministration of the Eucharist, they are called also sacer- dos (tepeug) ; yet this denomination, if not specified, ap- plies only to the bishop: therefore we find frequently the summits sacerdos, or sacerdos primi ordinit, i. e. the bishop, thus distinguished from the simple priest, who is sacerdos secundi ordinis. The presbyters of an epis- copal church had a share in the government, not indi- vidually, but as a college, presided over by the bishop ; the}7 had no jurisdiction of their own, and were merely assistants to the bishop. The bishop took their advice on the admission of higher clerical functionaries, on the management of discipline, especially of penitence, etc. They were themselves amenable to the spiritual juris- diction of the bishop, and depended on him in the dis- charge of their duties as teachers and as priests. Ac- cording to Roman Catholics, the bishop alone possesses the priesthood in its fulness, while the presbyter pos- sesses it only in part. The functions, however, which belong to that part are discharged alike by the bishop and the presbyter. What those functions are will be detailed under the head Pkiest (q. v.). It is, of course, an easy matter for the prelatical churchmen to prove that by the end of the 2d century the bishop was above the presbyter. Even before the end of the 2d century the Church had departed from her early simplicity, and soon the episcopacy became the only prevalent govern- ment of the Church, although in some cases, as among the Culdees or the Waldenses, government by presby- ters continued to prevail during the Middle Ages. The Church fathers of the 3d and 4th centuries point to the superiority of the episcopos. Thus Clement of Rome points out clearly three different hierarchical degrees — bishops, priests, and deacons; and Ignatius of Antioch lays particidar stress on the superior power of the bish- ops (Epist. ad Magnes. c. 6 ; Smyrn. c. 8, etc.). Affir- mations of the same kind are given by Tertullian, Ire- nasus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, etc. " It is true," say the Romanists, " that the bishops, in the fathers as well as in Scripture, are sometimes called merely priests, but there is not one passage in which a simple priest is called bishop." Those who accept the authority of St. Jerome for the equality of the bishop and presbyter because he says (Comment, on the Epistle to Titus'), " Noverint episcopi, se magis consuetudine quam dispositione Dominica presbyteris esse majores, et in commune debere ecclesiam regere, imitantes Moy- sen, qui cum haberet solus prasesse populo Israel, septua- ginta elegit, cum quibus populum judicaret,"are replied YIII.-K k
13 PRESBYTER1AL CONSECRATION
to by Romanists that (1) "even this parallel between Moses and his seventy, and the bishop and his presby- ters, implies the pre-eminence of the bishop," and (2) that, " in the passage in question, St. Jerome is up- braiding a number of deacons who, in several places, ami especially at Rome, had committed several en- croachments on the rights of the presbyters in the ad- ministration of the ecclesiastical possessions. He, on this occasion, exalts the presbyters as much as he can, and in such cases where an abuse is to be eradicated, it frequently happens to this father to fall into the oppo- site extreme, as he does in his treatise Be Virginitqte ndr. .Iiicinianum, in which, as an encomiast of virginity, he deems tit to treat matrimony with the most cruel contempt. He shows in other places his sense of the superiority of the episcopate: 'Quod Aaron et filii ejus atque Levitae in templo, hoc sibi episcopi et presbyteri et diaconi vindicant.' The bishops have the same au- thority over priests and deacons that Aaron had over his sons and Levites. He speaks still more pointedly in his work against the Lueiferians : ' EcclesiiB salus in summi sacerdotis (i. e. episcopi) dignitate pendet, cui si non exsors quaedam et ab omnibus eminens detur potes- tas, tot in ecclesiis efficientur schismata, quot sacer- dotes.r But even if Jerome's opinion were contrary to the episcopal supremacy, what could it avail against the uninterrupted and unanimous tradition of so many fa- thers and ecclesiastical writers of the early centuries? If really the episcopate had not been originally distinct from the presbyteriate, we should then have to under- stand that a sudden and uniform change in the consti- tution of the Church took place in the whole extent of its expansion — that in all the communities, and at the same time, some ambitious and proud individualities set themselves above their colleagues." "But how." ask Humanists, "could this have come to pass without a long and desperate struggle; and how Could this strug- gle, if it did take place, end so uniformly, in all the churches without exception, with the victory of the usurpers? History does not mention the least fact that anything of that kind ever took place. When several presbyters were attached to a single church, of which there were some instances, one of the i. umber received the title of proto-presbyter, or archi-presbyter ; but it is quite certain that this office bore no analogy to that of the bishop." To these arguments of Roman Catholics it is readily replied that the New Testament (as above seen) does explicitly refer to the original equality of presbyters and bishops, and that history contains not a few nor obscure indications of the usurpation of exclu- sive prerogatives by the latter. See, for Roman Cath- olic views, Wetzer u. Welte, Kirehen-Lexikon ; for High- Church Anglican views, Blunt, Diet. Hist. Theol. ; for Low-Church views, Herzog, Real-EncyMop., the author- ities already quoted, and the Lond. Quar. Per. Jan. 1878, art. v; Princeton Rev. Jan. 1878, art. iv. See Prelacy.