ἐμβιώσεως. In regard to the practice of primitive Christianity in the matter of caring for the sick Harnack says: ‘‘ Even from the fragments of our extant litera- ture, although that literature was not written with any such intention, we can still recognise the careful attention paid to works of mercy. At the outset we meet with directions everywhere to care for sick people, 1 Thess. v. 14... - In the prayer of the Church, preserved in the first epistle of Clement, supplications are expressly offered for those who are sick in soul and body (1 Clem. lix., τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς ἴασαι . . . ἐξανάστησον τοὺς ἀσθενοῦντας, παρακάλεσον τοὺς ὀλιγο- Ψψυχοῦντας). . . . Epistle of Polycarp, vi. I; Justin Martyr, Ixvii....”; he also quotes Lactantius, Div. Inst., vi. 12: “ Aegros quoque quibus defuerit qui ad- sistat, curandos fovendosque suscipere summae humanitatis et magnae opera- tionis est” (Expansion . . . 1. 147 1. first English ed.). A like care was character- istic of the Rabbis, who declared it to be a duty incumbent upon every Jew to visit and relieve the sick whether they were Jews or Gentiles (Git., 61 a, Sotah, 14 a); “the Haberim, or Hasidic associations, made the performance of this duty a special obligation” (fewish Encycl., xi. 327).--τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους τῆς ἐκκλησίας: both the words “" presby- ters” ( = “priest”’) and “ecclesia” were taken over from the Jews, being the
Greek equivalents for D373 and ο.
While, however, the word πρεσβύτερος was, without question, in the Christian
Church taken over from the jy in the
Jewish Church, it is well to recall the extended use which attached to it accord- ing to the evidence of the papyri. The phrase 6 πρεσβύτερος τῆς κώμης Occurs. on a papyrus belonging to the time of the Ptolemies, and is evidently an official title of some kind; ot πρεσβύτεροι is found together with ἱερεῖς of an idola-
30°”
474
u Cf. Acts Kupiou.! ix. 40, XXViili, and see Matt.ix.2. v Matt. ix. 21, 22.
1Om. του Κυριου BA, ha Tregms; tv xv €.
3 mv 2.
trous worship (ο. 40 B.Cc.); and in the second century A.D. ot πρεσβύτεροι occurs in reference to “elders” of villages in Egypt. The Septuagint translators were therefore probably using in this case a word which had a well-known technical sense. Deissmann believes it possible, therefore, that the Christian congrega- tions of Asia Minor got the title of πρεσ- βύτερος from the minor officials who were so called, and not necessarily from the Jewish prototype (Op. cé#t., pp. 153 f.). This might well be the case in vari- ous centres, though not all (as for ex- ample, Babylonia), of the Diaspora, but not in Palestine. It is, of course, an open question as to whether our Epistle was written from Palestine or not; see, further, Deissmann (Neue Bibelst. pp. 6ο ff.). As regards ἐκκλησία, Harnack remarks that “originally it was beyond question a collective term (2.6., ΣΙ: 5 it was the most solemn expression Ἵ the Jews for their worship as a collective body, and as such it was taken over by the Christians. But ere long it was ap- plied to the individual communities, and then again to the general meeting for worship. ... Its acquisition rendered the capture of the term ‘synagogue’ a superfluity, and once the inner cleavage had taken place, the very neglect of the latter title served to distinguish Christians sharply from Judaism and its religious gatherings even in terminology. .. . Most important of all, however, was the fact that ἐκκλησία was conceived of, in the first instance, not simply as an earthly but as a heavenly and transcen- ene entity ο (ο. ας, ρρ τι |,
“bas (usually rendered ἐκκλησία in LXX) enotes Lue community in relation to God, and consequently is more sacred
than the profaner τῆν (regularly trans- lated by συναγωγή in the LXX).... Among the Jews ἐκκλησία lagged far behind συναγωγή in practical use, and this was all in favour of the Christians and their adoption of the term” (zbid.). In the verse before us it is the combina- tion of these two terms, ot πρεσβύτεροι τῆς ἐκκλησίας which points to a de-