RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
pisoopaoy Episoopius
United States, to investigate the validity of its orders, but the convention let the matter drop and no decision was pronounced. There is much doubt concerning the integrity of the succession. Lawrence Peterson was consecrated by Paul Justin, Bishop of Abo, in 1575 Archbishop of Upsala. The evidence for the validity of Justin's consecration is defective. But the confessions of the Swedish Church recognize the equality of the ministry. The bishops of the Church of Denmark have no claim whatever to apostolic succession, although the English bishops of India have recognized Danish ordination. Christian III. in 1536 imprisoned the old bishops; and the new ones whom he appointed were at first called superintendents, and ordained by Bugenhagen.
VIII. The Reformed Churches recognize two orders of the ministry, — presbyters and deacons. They believe that the bishops of the New Testament were identical with presbyters, and deny that the apostles appointed any successors. They do not deny that episcopacy as a matter of expediency may be justifiable; but they do not concede either its divine origin, or the transmission of grace by the imposition of hands, or apostolic succession, in the Anglo-Catholic sense. (Cf. the Form of Government of the Presbyterian Church, chaps, iii., v., etc.) Calvin supported episcopacy for Poland and acquiesced in it for England. John Knox divided Scotland into eleven districts, for each of which a " superintendent " was to be chosen; his duties were to be those of a missionary supervisor and the idea of a separate order of the ministry was not thought of.
IX. The American Methodist Episcopal Churches have an episcopacy which is neither diocesan nor hierarchical, but itinerant and presbyterial. The bishops constitute an " itinerant general superintendency," and are " amenable to the body of ministers and preachers," who may divest them of their office. They are not a distinct order of the clergy, but only presbyters. The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States (North) at several of its recent General Conferences has emphatically disavowed that the episcopate is an order; it is only a function. The Methodist Church can not claim apostolic succession if it would. John Wesley after having applied in vain to the Bishop of London to ordain preachers for America, himself ordained the first bishop, Thomas Coke (q.v.), in 1784. The Wesleyan Church in Great Britain has superintendents. The Evangelical Association and the Church of the United Brethren also have an episcopate. Their bishops are elected for a stated period and not for life.
X. The Historic Episcopate is an expression first used in its technical sense by the Protestant Episcopal Church at its Triennial Convention in Chicago, 1886. The expression occurs in a series of four articles adopted by the Convention which were intended to be a basis for the reunion of Christendom. They were reaffirmed by the Pan-Anglican Synod at Lambeth, 1888 (see Lambeth Conference). In the communications which passed between the committee appointed by the Triennial
Convention and the Presbyterian General Assembly of the United States of America, it was found that the expression meant that there is a special order of bishops which goes back to apostolic times and the proposition of union on that basis was declined (cf. the Minutes of the General Assembly for 1887, pp. 132-134, 154-156, and for 1880, pp. 93-101; also C. W. Shields, The Historic Episcopate (New York, 1894). D. S.Schaff.
Bibliography: Add to the works cited under Bishops and Polity, Ecclesiastical, J. Reville, Les Origines del' episcopat, Paris, 1895.
EPISCOPAL CHURCH, REFORMED. See Reformed Episcopal Church.
EPISCOPIUS (BISSCHOP), SIMON: Dutch theologian; b. at Amsterdam Jan. 8, 1583; d. there Apr. 4, 1643. For his gifts and industry shown in the schools of Amsterdam the city authorities made him alumnus, and sent him to the University of Leyden in 1600. There he became master of arts in 1606 and then began the study of theology under Arminius and Gomarus. When the Amsterdam officials wished to make him preacher there, the Calvinists protested. He went to Franeker and heard Johannes Drusius. In 1610 he became pastor at Bleiswyk, after having declined other calls. He took part on the side of the Remonstrants (q.v.) in the conferences at The Hague (1611) and at Delft (1613). When Gomarus resigned as professor at Leyden the curators nominated Episcopius as his successor and he entered upon his duties as professor there Feb. 23, 1612, with an address De optima regni Christi instruendi ratione. During the six years that he held this position he published several works which were collected after his death in his Opera theologica (ed. S. Curcelleeus and P van Limborch, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1650-65). Festus Hommius, pastor in Leyden, attacked him in Specimen controversiarum Belgicarum (Leyden, 1618) and he was once publicly affronted in Amsterdam.
With twelve other Remonstrant ministers Episcopius was cited to appear at the Synod of Dort and he was one of the leaders of the Remonstrants before that body (see Dort, Synod of). He and the others were banished and for a time he lived in Antwerp, then at Paris and in Rouen, until, after the death of Prince Maurice (1625), the animosity against the Remonstrants in his native land began to diminish and he was able to return to Rotterdam (1626). He wrote much during his exile including the Confessio sive declaratio pastorum qui in frdcrato Belgio Remonstr antes vocantur (1622; Dutch transl. by Uytenbogaert, 1621). In Sept., 1630, he consecrated the new Remonstrant church in Amsterdam; in Oct., 1634, he became the head of the newly founded Remonstrant theological seminary there, and filled the position with much honor and renown for nine years, displaying vast energy and exercising a far-reaching influence. In his Institutiones theologica (left incomplete; published in four volumes, 1650-51) he gave a scientific basis to the doctrines of the Remonstrants, in his Apologia pro confessione (1629) he refuted an attack of four Leyden professors upon the
Eplscopua Eponym