§ 43. New Church Officers.
The expansion of the church, the development of her cultus, and the tendency towards hierarchical pomp, led to the multiplication of offices below the diaconate, which formed the ordines minores. About the middle of the third century the following new officers are mentioned:
1. Sub-deacons, or under-helpers; [149] 48 assistants and deputies of the deacons; the only one of these subordinate offices for which a formal ordination was required. Opinions differ as to its value.
2. Readers, [150] 49 who read the Scriptures in the assembly and had charge of the church books.
3. Acolyths, [151] 50 attendants of the bishops in their official duties and processions.
4. Exorcists, [152] 51 who, by prayer and the laying on of hands, cast out the evil spirit from the possessed, [153] 52 and from catechumens, and frequently assisted in baptism. This power had been formerly considered a free gift of the Holy Spirit.
5. Precentors, [154] 53 for the musical parts of the liturgy, psalms, benedictions, responses, etc.
6. Janitors or sextons, [155] 54 who took care of the religious meeting-rooms, and at a later period also of the church-yards.
7. Besides these there were in the larger churches catechists, and, where the church language in the worship was not understood, interpreters; but the interpreting was commonly done by presbyters, deacons, or readers.
The bishop Cornelius of Rome (d. 252), in a letter on the Novatian schism, [156] 55 gives the number of officers in his church as follows: Forty-six presbyters, probably corresponding to the number of the meeting-houses of the Christians in the city; seven deacons, after the model of the church at Jerusalem (Acts vi); seven sub-deacons; forty-two acolyths, and fifty-two exorcists, readers, and janitors.
As to the ordines majores, the deacons during this period rose in importance. In addition to their original duties of caring for the poor and sick, they baptized, distributed the sacramental cup, said the church prayers, not seldom preached, and were confidential advisers, sometimes even delegates and vicars of the bishops. This last is true especially of the "archdeacon," who does not appear, however, till the fourth century. The presbyters, on the contrary, though above the deacons, were now overtopped by the new office of bishop, in which the entire government of the church became centred.
[149] Hupodiakonoi,subdiaconi, perhaps the same as the huperetai of the New Testament and the earlier fathers.
[150] Anagnostai, lectores, mentioned by Tertullian.
[151] Akoluthoi, acolythi.
[152] Exorkistai,exorcistae
[153] Daimonizomenoi, energoumenoi
[154] Psaltai, psalmistae cantores
[155] thuroroi, puloroi, ostiarii janitores.
[156] In Euseb. vi. 43.
§ 44. Origin of the Episcopate.
Besides the works already cited, compare the special works and essays on the Ignatian controversy, published since 1837, by Rothe (close of his Anfänge, etc.), Hefele (R.C.), Baur, Hilgenfeld, Bunsen, Petermann, Cureton, Lipsius, Uhlhorn, Zahn, Lightfoot (I. 376 sqq). Also R. D. Hitchcock on the Origin of Episcopacy, N. Y. 1867 (in the "Am. Presbyt. & Theol. Review" for Jan. 1867, pp. 133-169); Lightfoot on the Christian Ministry (1873); Hatch on the Organization of the Early Christian Church (1881); Renan, L'Eglise chrétienne (1879), ch. VI.Progrés de l'épiscopat; and Gore, The Ministry of the Church (1889).
The most important and also the most difficult phenomenon of our period in the department of church organization is the rise and development of the episcopate as distinct from the presbyterate. This institution comes to view in the second century as the supreme spiritual office, and is retained to this day by all Roman and Greek Christendom, and by a large part of the Evangelical church, especially the Anglican communion. A form of government so ancient and so widely adopted, can be satisfactorily accounted for only on the supposition of a religious need, namely, the need of a tangible outward representation and centralization, to illustrate and embody to the people their relation to Christ and to God, and the visible unity of the church. It is therefore inseparable from the catholic principle of authority and mediation; while the protestant principle of freedom and direct intercourse of the believer with Christ, consistently carried out, infringes the strict episcopal constitution, and tends to ministerial equality. Episcopacy in the full sense of the term requires for its base the idea of a real priesthood and real sacrifice, and an essential distinction between clergy and laity. Divested of these associations, it resolves itself into a mere superintendency. [157] 56
During the lifetime of the apostles, those eye- and ear-witnesses of the divine-human life of Jesus, and the inspired organs of the Holy Spirit, there was no room for proper bishops; and those who were so called, must have held only a subordinate place. The church, too, in the first century was as yet a strictly supernatural organization, a stranger in this world, standing with one foot in eternity, and longing for the second coming of her heavenly bridegroom. But in the episcopal constitution the church provided an extremely simple but compact and freely expansible organization, planted foot firmly upon earth, became an institution for the education of her infant people, and, as chiliastic hopes receded, fell into the path of quiet historical development; yet unquestionably she thus incurred also the danger of a secularization which reached its height just when the hierarchy became complete in the Roman church, and which finally necessitated a reformation on the basis of apostolical Christianity. That this secularization began with the growing power of the bishops even before Constantine and the Byzantine court orthodoxy, we perceive, for instance, in the lax penitential discipline, the avarice, and the corruption with which Hippolytus, in the ninth book of his Philosophumena, reproaches Zephyrinus and Callistus, the Roman bishops of his time (202-223); also in the example of the bishop Paul of Samosata, who was deposed in 269 on almost incredible charges, not only against his doctrine, but still more against his moral character. [158] 57 Origen complains that there are, especially in the larger cities, overseers of the people of God, who seek to outdo the pomp of heathen potentates, would surround themselves, like the emperors, with a body-guard, and make themselves terrible and inaccessible to the poor. [159] 58
We consider, first, the origin of the episcopate. The unreliable character of our documents and traditions from the transition period between the close of the apostolic church and the beginning of the post-apostolic, leaves large room here for critical research and combination. First of all comes the question: Was the episcopate directly or indirectly of apostolic (Johannean) origin? [160] 59 Or did it arise after the death of the apostles, and develope itself from the presidency of the congregational presbytery? [161] 60 In other words, was the episcopate a continuation and contraction of, and substitute for, the apostolate, or was it an expansion and elevation of the presbyterate? [162] 61 The later view is more natural and better sustained by facts. Most of its advocates date the change from the time of Ignatius in the first quarter of the second century, while a few carry it further back to the close of the first, when St. John still lived in Ephesus.
I. For the apostolic origin of episcopacy the following points may be made:
(1) The position of James, who evidently stood at the head of the church at Jerusalem, [163] 62 and is called bishop, at least in the pseudo-Clementine literature, and in fact supreme bishop of the whole church. [164] 63 This instance, however, stands quite alone, and does not warrant an inference in regard to the entire church.
(2) The office of the assistants and delegates of the apostles, like Timothy, Titus, Silas, Epaphroditus, Luke, Mark, who had a sort of supervision of several churches and congregational officers, and in a measure represented the apostles in special missions. But, in any case, these were not limited, at least during the life of the apostles, each to a particular diocese; they were itinerant evangelists and legates of the apostles; only the doubtful tradition of a later day assigns them distinct bishoprics. If bishops at all, they were missionary bishops.
(3) The angels of the seven churches of Asia, [165] 64 who, if regarded as individuals, look very like the later bishops, and indicate a monarchical shaping of the church government in the days of John. But, apart from the various interpretations of the Apocalyptic angeloi, that office appears not co-ordinate with the apostolate of John, but subordinate to it, and was no more than a congregational superintendency.
(4) The testimony of Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of John, in his seven (or three) epistles from the beginning of the second century (even according to the shorter Syriac version), presupposes the episcopate, in distinction from the presbyterate, as already existing, though as a new institution, yet in its growth.
(5) The statement of Clement of Alexandria, [166] 65 that John instituted bishops after his return from Patmos; and the accounts of Irenaeus, [167] 66 Tertullian, [168] 67 Eusebius, [169] 68 and Jerome, [170] 69 that the same apostle nominated and ordained Polycarp (with whom Irenaeus was personally acquainted) bishop of Smyrna.
(6) The uncertain tradition in Eusebius, who derived it probably from Hegesippus, that the surviving apostles and disciples of the apostles, soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, elected Symeon, the son of Klopas and a cousin of Jesus, bishop of that city and successor of James. But this arrangement at best was merely local, and not general. [171] 70
(7) The tradition of the churches of Antioch and Rome, which trace their line of bishops back to apostolic institution, and kept the record of an unbroken succession.
(8) A passage in the second of the Pfaff Fragments of Irenaeus, which speaks of "second ordinances of the apostles" (deuterai ton apostolon diataxeis). Rothe understands by these the institution of the episcopate. But aside from the doubtful genuineness of the Fragments, these words are at all events of unsettled interpretation, and, according to the connection, relate not to the government of the church at all, but to the celebration of the eucharist.
(9) Equally uncertain is the conclusion drawn from an obscure passage in the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, which admits of different interpretations. [172] 71 The apostles, it is said, foreseeing the future controversy about the name of the episcopal office, appointed bishops and deacons, and afterwards made the disposition, [173] 72 that when they should fall asleep, other approved men should follow them in office. Rothe refers "they" and "them" to the apostles as the main subject. But these words naturally refer to the congregational officers just before mentioned, and in this case the "other approved men" are not successors of the apostles, but of the presbyter-bishops and deacons. [174] 73 This view is sustained by the connection. The difficulty in the Corinthian congregation was a rebellion, not against a single bishop, but against a number of presbyter-bishops, and Clement reminds them that the apostles instituted this office not only for the first generation, but provided for a permanent succession, and that the officers were appointed for life, and could therefore not be deposed so long as they discharged their duties. Hence he goes on to say, immediately after the disputed passage in chapter 44: "Wherefore we think that those cannot justly be thrown out of their ministry who were appointed either by them (the apostles), or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole congregation; and who have with all lowliness and innocency ministered to the flock of Christ, in peace, and without self-interest, and were for a long time commended by all."
(10) Finally, the philosophical consideration, that the universal and uncontested spread of the episcopate in the second century cannot be satisfactorily explained without the presumption of at least the indirect sanction of the apostles. By the same argument the observance of Sunday and infant baptism are usually traced to apostolic origin. But it is not quite conclusive, since most of the apostles died before the destruction of Jerusalem. It could only apply to John, who was the living centre of the church in Asia Minor to the close of the first century. [175] 74