[37] So Chrysostom _in loco_: but this is an exaggeration respecting Jewish limitations.
[38] See Clement of Rome, _Cor._ xli.
[39] _Didache_, x. 7; Just. Mart., _Apol._, 1. lxvii. Justin probably uses the term "president" =ho proestôs= in order to be intelligible to heathen readers.
[40] _Strom._, VII. vii.
[41] _De Orat._, xiii., xiv., xvii.; _Apol._ xxx.; Comp. _Adv. Jud._, x.
[42] _Vit. Const._, IV. xv. 1.
[43] 1 Tim. iii. 3, 8, 11; v. 13; vi. 11; 2 Tim. ii. 24; Tit. i. 7; ii. 3; iii. 2.
[44] 1 Cor. xi. 2-16; 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4.
[45] _Paed._, II. xiii.
[46] _De Cult Fem._, II. i. ix.
_ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY; VARIOUS CERTAINTIES AND PROBABILITIES DISTINGUISHED._
"If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. The bishop therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality, apt to teach; no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money; one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (but if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the house of God?) not a novice, lest being puffed up he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have good testimony from them that are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Deacons in like manner must be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved; then let them serve as deacons, if they be blameless."--1 TIM. iii. 1-10.
This passage is one of the most important in the New Testament respecting the Christian ministry; and in the Pastoral Epistles it does not stand alone. Of the two classes of ministers mentioned here, one is again touched upon in the Epistle to Titus (i. 5-9), and the qualifications for this office, which is evidently the superior of the two, are stated in terms not very different from those which are used in the passage before us. Therefore a series of expositions upon the Pastoral Epistles would be culpably incomplete which did not attempt to arrive at some conclusions respecting the question of the primitive Christian ministry; a question which at the present time is being investigated with immense industry and interest, and with some clear and substantial results. The time is probably far distant when the last word will have been said upon the subject; for it is one on which considerable difference of opinion is not only possible but reasonable: and those persons would seem to be least worthy of consideration, who are most confident that they are in possession of the whole truth on the subject. One of the first requisites in the examination of questions of fact is a power of accurately distinguishing what is certain from what is not certain: and the person who is confident that he has attained to certainty, when the evidence in his possession does not at all warrant certainty, is not a trustworthy guide.
It would be impossible in a discussion of moderate length to touch upon all the points which have been raised in connexion with this problem; but some service will have been rendered if a few of the more important features of the question are pointed out and classified under the two heads just indicated, as certain or not certain. In any scientific enquiry, whether historical or experimental, this classification is a useful one, and very often leads to the enlargement of the class of certainties. When the group of certainties has been properly investigated, and when the various items have been placed in their proper relations to one another and to the whole of which they are only constituent parts, the result is likely to be a transfer of other items from the domain of what is only probable or possible to the domain of what is certain.