THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
212, New York, 1890). These words are notable. They closely associate bishops and deacons. Their functions are primarily concerned with public worship, are personal in character, and deal also with financial administration. Unlike Apostles, prophets, and teachers, they are appointed by the community. They show that speaking the Word does not belong naturally to their functions, but that this service in the lack of prophets and teachers is already in process of transference to them. A great distinction seems to prevail between prophets and teachers on the one side and bishops and deacons on the other, which the author says must be avoided, because the last class are now performing the services of the first. The letter of Polycarp is addressed to the community at Philippi. It appears that at Philippi there was no monarchical episcopate, but a collegial administration. First are mentioned men, then widows, then deacons, then the younger element, then virgins, then presbyters; presbyters and deacons are to be reverenced by the younger element as God and Christ. The title bishop is not found in the letter; directions and warnings as to administration and pastoral care are directed to the presbyters. Valens, an individual who seems to be entrusted with the economic administration of the community, is mentioned as a presbyter.
Immediately after the time to which these various records belong, a monarchical episcopate along with its special organization is found everywhere in the Church. In Antioch and in Asia the letters of Ignatius show that it existed about 115. [It is to be noted that the authenticity and early date of these writings are still questioned by many scholars. a. h. n.J At the head of each community stands a bishop by this name, and no other (the 5. Monar- Roman community is an exception). chical He is the real monarch of the communi- Episcopate, ty. He takes the lead in divine worship and Other and in their meetings: " nothing against Offices, the bishop; nothing without the bishop." This is the tenor of all these letters. Under him there is a college of presbyters, acting not individually, but as a whole as counsel of the bishop. The deacons are not organized in a college, but are looked upon as individuals. They act as administrative organs of the bishop in divine worship and in ministering to the community and so are especially near to him. The bishop, in Ignatius' eyes, stands in the position of God; the presbyters in the position of the Apostles. How far this theory was realized in Asia is uncertain. Later records show that monarchical bishops were still called presbyters. Ignatius' warnings and speculations certainly produced one effect; to give the bishop preeminence in conducting public worship. The episcopal lists of the second century show that in Rome the monarchical episcopate did not originate until 150. Anicetus is mentioned as a bishop in an almost contemporary document. At the same time Primus is called bishop in Corinth by Hegesippus (in Eusebius, Hist, eccl., IV., xxiii. sqq.). There are records by various authorities of monarchical bishops in Greek and Asiatic cities; still a Christian regarded himself as belonging to the whole Church rather than simply to a local community. The gov-
ernment was regarded as a spiritual government; charismata were given preeminence. The whole community was ruled in strict monarchical form; Christ was its shepherd, leader, and bishop; it is built upon the infallible Word of God, and this was present in a living form as the teaching of the Apostles in those who witnessed to it and declared it. The influence of profane organizations for worship probably was small. The internal life of the local community, the natural distinction between presbyter and the younger element, was of the utmost importance. To the presbyter belonged all of those whose merits and services deserved honor and recognition. Where the conditions did not permit the missionaries to hand over the care and supervision of the whole to the father of a family, or to the most prominent first converts, or to the elders, there were officers appointed, probably always by laying on of hands. The appointment may have been due to the missionary apostles, or to the influence of the prophets, or the community could request the appointment of an individual. The officials had not everywhere the same name. The name presbyter was suggested naturally by the distinction between the old and the young. By the laying on of hands this particular type of elder was sometimes distinguished from the whole mass of elders though they sometimes disappeared again in it. " Shepherds and overseers " indicates not an office but a function. The function of these presbyters was, so long as edification by the free activity of the Spirit was the rule, of a diaconal nature. Here distinction must be made between a diaconia in a narrower and in a broader sense. Broadly it signifies any kind of service which is not the service of the Word. In a narrower sense it indicates care for the poor and the service during the congregational gathering. From this point of view the presbyters received the appellations bishop and deacon. In the broader use of the word they were called bishops only in the beginning, and even then rarely. As a rule, the terminology was applied to presbyters engaged in the diaconate in the narrower sense; that is, it was given to those who were engaged in looking after the poor and in services performed in the congregational gathering. The practise became usual then of not reckoning these officials among the presbyters, but of giving them the title " deacon." The word deacon, used of one who now really became a server, was no longer looked upon as a title of honor. Originally it must have stood higher.
In the earliest times, here and there, the presbyter and the bishop are assimilated, so that every "appointed" presbyter was also called bishop. But soon the terminology changed. The, custom arose that only those officials employed in active and leading duties concerned with the care of the poor and with the conduct of congregational meetings were called bishops, without, however, losing the title of presbyter or their places in the college of presbyters. The victory of the episcopos is plainly an indication of the increased importance of the care for the poor and of the services undertaken in congregational gatherings, which more and more took the form of established public worship.
The disappearance of prophets and teachers con-