II. The theory of the post-apostolic origin of the episcopate as a separate office or order, and its rise out of the presidency of the original congregational presbyterate, by way of human, though natural and necessary, development, is supported by the following facts:
(1) The undeniable identity of presbyters and bishops in the New Testament, [176] 75 conceded even by the best interpreters among the church fathers, by Jerome, Chrysostom, and Theodoret, and by the best scholars of recent times.
(2) Later, at the close of the first and even in the second century, the two terms are still used in like manner for the same office. The Roman bishop Clement, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians says, that the apostles, in the newly-founded churches, appointed the first fruits of the faith, i.e., the first converts, "bishops and deacons." [177] 76 He here omits the presbuteroi, as Paul does in Phil. 1:1, for the simple reason that they are in his view identical with episkopoi; while conversely, in c. 57, he enjoins subjection to presbyters, without mentioning bishops. [178] 77 The Didache mentions bishops and deacons, but no presbyters. [179] 78 Clement of Alexandria distinguishes, it is true, the deaconate, the presbyterate, and the episcopate; but he supposes only a two-fold official character, that of presbyters, and that of deacons--a view which found advocates so late as the middle ages, even in pope Urban II., a.d. 1091. Lastly, Irenaeus, towards the close of the second century, though himself a bishop, makes only a relative difference between episcopi and presbyteri; speaks of successions of the one in the same sense as of the other; terms the office of the latter episcopatus; and calls the bishops of Rome "presbyters". [180] 79 Sometimes, it is true, he appears to use the term "presbyters" in a more general sense, for the old men, the fathers. [181] 80 But in any case his language shows that the distinction between the two offices was at that time still relative and indefinite.
(3) The express testimony of the learned Jerome, that the churches originally, before divisions arose through the instigation of Satan, were governed by the common council of the presbyters, and not till a later period was one of the pres-byters placed at the head, to watch over the church and suppress schisms. [182] 81 He traces the difference of the office simply to "ecclesiastical" custom as distinct from divine institution. [183] 82
(4) The custom of the church of Alexandria, where, from the evangelist Mark down to the middle of the third century, the twelve presbyters elected one of their number president, and called him bishop. This fact rests on the authority of Jerome, [184] 83 and is confirmed independently by the Annals of the Alexandrian patriarch, Eutychius, of the tenth century. [185] 84 The latter states that Mark instituted in that city a patriarch (this is an anachronism) and twelve presbyters, who should fill the vacant patriarchate by electing and ordaining to that office one of their number and then electing a new presbyter, so as always to retain the number twelve. He relates, moreover, that down to the time of Demetrius, at the end of the second century, there was no bishop in Egypt besides the one at Alexandria; consequently there could have been no episcopal ordination except by going out of the province.
III. Conclusion. The only satisfactory conclusion from these various facts and traditions seems to be, that the episcopate proceeded, both in the descending and ascending scale, from the apostolate and the original presbyterate conjointly, as a contraction of the former and an expansion of the latter, without either express concert or general regulation of the apostles, neither of which, at least, can be historically proved. It arose, instinctively, as it were, in that obscure and critical transition period between the end of the first and the middle of the second century. It was not a sudden creation, much less the invention of a single mind. It grew, in part, out of the general demand for a continuation of, or substitute for, the apostolic church government, and this, so far as it was transmissible at all, very naturally passed first to the most eminent disciples and fellow-laborers of the apostles, to Mark, Luke, Timothy, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, which accounts for the fact that tradition makes them all bishops in the prominent sense of the term. It was further occasioned by the need of a unity in the presbyterial government of congregations, which, in the nature of the case and according to the analogy of the Jewish archisunagogos, [186] 85 required a head or president. This president was called bishop, at first only by eminence, as primus inter pares; afterwards in the exclusive sense. In the smaller churches there was, perhaps, from the beginning, only one presbyter, who of himself formed this centre, like the chorepiscopi or country-bishops in the fourth century. The dioceses of the bishops in Asia Minor and North Africa, owing to their large number, in the second and third centuries, can hardly have exceeded the extent of respectable pastoral charges. James of Jerusalem, on the other hand, and his immediate successors, whose positions in many respects were altogether peculiar, seem to have been the only bishops in Palestine. Somewhat similar was the state of things in Egypt, where, down to Demetrius (a.d. 190-232), we find only the one bishop of Alexandria.
We cannot therefore assume any strict uniformity. But the whole church spirit of the age tended towards centralization; it everywhere felt a demand for compact, solid unity; and this inward bent, amidst the surrounding dangers of persecution and heresy, carried the church irresistibly towards the episcopate. In so critical and stormy a time, the principle, union is strength, division is weakness, prevailed over all. In fact, the existence of the church at that period may be said to have depended in a great measure on the preservation and promotion of unity, and that in an outward, tangible form, suited to the existing grade of culture. Such a unity was offered in the bishop, who held a monarchical, or more properly a patriarchal relation to the congregation. In the bishop was found the visible representative of Christ, the great Head of the whole church. In the bishop, therefore, all sentiments of piety found a centre. In the bishop the whole religious posture of the people towards God and towards Christ had its outward support and guide. And in proportion as every church pressed towards a single centre, this central personage must acquire a peculiar importance and subordinate the other presbyters to itself; though, at the same time, as the language of Clement and Irenaeus, the state of things in Egypt, and even in North Africa, and the testimony of Jerome and other fathers, clearly prove, the remembrance of the original equality could not be entirely blotted out, but continued to show itself in various ways.
Besides this there was also a powerful practical reason for elevating the powers of the bishop. Every Christian congregation was a charitable society, regarding the care of the widow and orphan, the poor and the stranger as a sacred trust; and hence the great importance of the bishop as the administrative officer by whom the charitable funds were received and the alms disbursed. In Greek communities the title bishop (episkopos, epimelites), was in wide use for financial officers. Their administrative functions brought them in close relation to the deacons, as their executive aids in the care of the poor and sick. The archdeacon became the right arm, the "eye" and "heart" of the bishop. In primitive times every case of poverty or suffering was separately brought to the notice of the bishop and personally relieved by a deacon. Afterwards institutions were founded for widows and orphans, poor and infirm, and generally placed under the superintendence of the bishop; but personal responsibility was diminished by this organized charity, and the deacons lost their original significance and became subordinate officers of public worship. [187] 86
Whatever may be thought, therefore, of the origin and the divine right of the episcopate, no impartial historian can deny its adaptation to the wants of the church at the time, and its historical necessity.
But then, this primitive catholic episcopal system must by no means be confounded with the later hierarchy. The dioceses, excepting those of Jerusalem, Ephesus, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome, must have long remained very small, if we look at the number of professing Christians. In the Apocalypse seven such centres of unity are mentioned within a comparatively small compass in Asia Minor, and at a time when the number of Christians was insignificant. In the year 258, Cyprian assembled a council of eighty-seven bishops of North Africa. The functions of the bishops were not yet strictly separated from those of the presbyters, and it was only by degrees that ordination, and, in the Western church, confirmation also, came to be intrusted exclusively to the bishops.
[157] Such is the Swedish and Danish Lutheran, the American Methodist, and the Moravian episcopate, which recognizes the validity of non-episcopal orders. The Anglican church harbors a high-church and a low-church theory of episcopacy, the one derived from the mediaeval hierarchy, the other from the Reformation, but repudiates the primacy as an antichristian usurpation, although it must be confessed to be almost as old as episcopacy, its roots going back to Clement of Rome, or at all events to the age of Irenaeus.
[158] Comp. Euseb. vii. 27-30
[159] See the passages quoted by Gieseler, vol. I. 282 sq. (Harpers' ed. of New York.)
[160] This is the Greek, the Roman Catholic, and the high Anglican theory. It is advocated by a very few Continental Protestants as Chevalier Bunsen, Rothe and Thiersch (an Irvingite), who trace episcopacy to John in Ephesus.
[161] So the Lutheran, Presbyterian, and some eminent Episcopal writers. We mention Mosheim, Neander, Lightfoot, Stanley, Hatch. Also Baur and Renan, who judge as mere critics.
[162] Bishop Lightfoot (l.c. p. 194) thus states the question with his own answer: "The episcopate was formed, not out of the apostolic order by localization, but out of the presbyterial by elevation; and the title, which originally was common to all, came at length to be appropriated to the chief among them."
[163] Acts 15:13; 21:18. Comp. vol. I. 264 sqq.
[164] Episkopos episkopon.
[165] Rev. 1:20. For the different views see vol. I. 497
[166] Quis dives salvus, c. 42.
[167] Adv.Haer. III. 3
[168] De PraescR.C. 32
[169] H. E.III. 36
[170] Catal. sub Polyc
[171] H. E. III. 11. Comp. the fragment of Hegesippus, in IV. 22. Lightfoot (Philippians p. 202) remarks against Rothe's inference: "The account of Hegesippus confines the object of this gathering to the appointment of a successor of St. James. If its deliberations had exerted that vast and permanent influence on the future of the church which Rothe's theory supposes, it is scarcely possible that this early historian should have been ignorant of the fact, or knowing it should have passed it over in silence."
[172] Ad Corinth. c. 44: Hoi apostoloi hemon egnosan dia tou kuriouhemon Iesou Christou hoti eris estai epi tou onomatos tes episkopes . Dia tauten ou'n ten aitian prognosin eilephotes teleian katestesan tous proeiremenous kai metaxu epinomen (or epimonen) edokan, hopos , ean koimethosin, diadexontai heteroi dedokimasmenoi andres ten leitourgian auton. " Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the name of the bishop's office [i.e., the office of the ministry, in general; Comp. Acts 1:20; Sept. Num. 4:16; Ps. 109:8; 2 Chr. 23:18]. For this cause, therefore, having complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid persons [i.e., presbyter-bishops and deacons; Comp. c. 42 and 57], and afterwards they made the disposition [or provided a continuance, if we read with Lightfoot epimonen.], that if these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministration."
[173] The reading is obscure and disputed. The Alexandrian MS. reads: epinomen, the Constantinopolitan: epidomen (both have EPI-OMHN). The former word is rare (from or from nemo or fromnomos) is not found in the dictionaries; and hence various emendations have been proposed, as aponomen (Junius), epidochen (Bryennios), epibolen (von Gebhardt and Harnack), epimonen (Bunsen, Lightfoot), epitropen (Hilgenfeld), epilogen, epinomian, epistolen, epitagen, eti nomon. Rothe (Anfänge, p. 374) ingeniously translates epinomen " testamentary disposition" (testamentarische Verfügung =epinomis ,an after-enactment, a codicil), and identifies it with the deuterai diataxeis of the fragment of Irenaeus. But this is rejected by the latest editors as untenable. Lightfoot (with Bunsen) reads epimonen, permanence (not "life-tenure," as Bunsen rendered it). The drift of the passage, however, does not so much depend upon the meaning of this word as upon the question whether the apostles, or the congregational officers are the grammatical subjects of the following verb, koimethosin.