suggests

an order

cised hospitality and protected the desolate and the widows,1 and in another place a list is given of the worthies of the church ministry, past and present, as follows: Apostles and bishops and teachers and deacons, who walked according to the gravity of God and exercised their episcopate and taught and ministered with purity and gravity to the elect of God.' 2 Now if these visions were seen and written down in the days of Clement we should naturally identify the 'bishops' with the 'presbyters who preside,' and suppose that the 'teachers' are inserted out of place or perhaps that the 'bishops' are called 'teachers' also, like the 'pastors' (i.e. presbyterbishops) of Eph. iv. II. On the other hand, if, as we are almost forced to believe, the writing dates from the days of Pius, we can hardly do otherwise than interpret bishops in the later sense and suppose that the 'teachers' are the presbyters here, to which again the passage of St. Paul just referred to would be a parallel. In this case we should naturally identify the 'bishops' with the 'rulers,' and should suppose that in the interval since Clement's Epistle these rulers had become localized in the different churches as bishops and, though as such they would have sat among the presbyters on the 'chief seat' and been reckoned among them, they still can be classed apart as a separate order and spoken of either by the title of 'bishop,' which belonged to their local presidency, or by their general name of 'rulers.'

In any case it seems clear that this document adds considerably to the force of the argument derived presbyters. from Clement's language, that even when the pres

superior to

1 Sim. ix. 27. 2: ἐπίσκοποι καὶ φιλόξενοι, οἵτινες ἡδέως εἰς τοὺς οἴκους ἑαυτῶν πάντοτε ὑπεδέξαντο τοὺς δούλους τοῦ θεοῦ ἄτερ ὑποκρίσεως· οἱ δὲ ἐπίσκοποι κ.τ.λ. 2 Vis. iii. 5. 1.

byters were the chief local authorities they were still in subordination to 'rulers,' who represented, since the apostles and teachers had passed away, the chief authority in the Church.

the West.

In summing up the results derived from a con- Summary for sideration of the historical links which in the Western Church connect the age of the Apostles with that of Irenaeus, there are two theories which require notice besides the one which we have been led to adopt.

theories:

colleges of

There is the view (which is undoubtedly supported Possible by the Epistle of Polycarp, taken alone) that the (i) equal Churches in the West were governed simply by a presbyterbishops; council of presbyters, who had no superiors over them, and who therefore must be supposed to have handed on their own ministry. There is no objection on ground of principle to this conclusion viewed in the light of the apostolic succession, as has been sufficiently explained already. These presbyterbishops legitimately ‘ordained' and fulfilled episcopal functions because those functions belonged to the equal commission they had all received. But later under the teachings of experience this full commission was confined to one 'bishop,' and the rest received the reduced authority which belongs to the presbyterate of later church history. Such a process would not represent the elevation of any new dignity from below but the limitation of an old dignity to one instead of its extension to many, and that in accordance with the precedent set by the Apostle St. John. 'Monepiscopacy' takes the place of a diffused episcopacy. It has however been pointed out that this supposition does not satisfy all the evidence of Clement's letter or of the Shepherd. It

1 So Dr. Langen states the principle Gesch. der röm. Kirche i. p. 95, and Lightfoot (Ignat. i. p. 376 n.1) expresses agreement with him.

(ii) the bishop hidden in

terate;

should also be added that it makes the strong tradition of the monepiscopal succession which meets us in the latter part of the second century, and the undisputed supremacy of the single bishop, almost unintelligible.

Secondly, there is a view based on the consideration that long after the existence of bishops in every the presby Church, as distinct from presbyters, the term presbyter could still be used for both orders, as it is occasionally by Irenaeus and Clement and Origen. Consequently it is maintainable that in the Church of Clement's day and of Polycarp's, at Corinth and at Philippi, there existed one amongst the presbyters who, though he held the unique powers which afterwards belonged to the episcopate, was still included under the common name.1 While however this view cannot be disproved, it must be admitted that it is unsupported by the evidence of the documents we have been considering.

(iii) the gradual

of apostolic

men-the best sup

The conclusion which on the whole we have been focalization led to form is that in the West no more than in the East did the supreme power ever devolve upon the ported view. presbyters. There was a time when they were in many places (as for instance at Corinth and Philippi) the chief local authorities-the sole ordinary occupants of the chief seat. But over them, not yet localized, were men either of prophetic inspiration or of apostolic authority and known character― 'prophets' or 'teachers' or 'evangelists' or 'rulers'— who in the subapostolic age ordained to the sacred ministry and in certain cases would have exercised the chief teaching and governing authority. Gradually

1 Dr. Salmon writes (Introd. p. 568): 'It has been thought that although Clement's letter exhibits the prominence of a single person as chief in the Church of Rome, it affords evidence that there was no such prominence in the Church of Corinth. But this inference is not warranted.'

...

these men, after the pattern set by James in Jerusalem or by John in the Churches of Asia, became themselves local presidents or instituted others in their place. Thus a transition was effected to a state of things in which every Church had its local president, who ranked amongst the presbytery — a fellow-presbyter, like St. Peter-sitting with them on the chief seat, but to whom was assigned exclusively the name of 'bishop.' This transference and limitation of a name can hardly be a difficulty when we remember the vague use of official titles which meets us in early church history. In the organization, as in the theology, of the Church nomenclature was only gradually fixed.1 The view here expressed of the development of the ministry has one great advantage, besides appearing to account for all the phenomena of the documents of the period: it accounts also for the strength of the tradition which gave authority to the episcopal successions when they first come into clear view, and for the unquestioned position which they held.2 There is no trace of elevation in the records of the episcopate.

1 Cf. Theodoret on : Tim. iii. 1: τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἐκάλουν ποτὲ πρεσβυτέρους καὶ ἐπισκόπους, τοὺς δὲ νῦν καλουμένους ἐπισκόπους ἀποστόλους ὠνόμαζον· τοῦ δὲ χρόνου προϊόντος, τὸ μὲν τῆς ἀποστολῆς ὄνομα τοῖς ἀληθῶς ἀποστόλοις κατέλιπον, τὴν δὲ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς προσηγορίαν τοῖς πάλαι καλουμένοις ἀποστόλοις ἐπέθεσαν. The idea that bishops were at first called apostles is derived from Theodore Mops. on 1 Tim. iii. 8. There is no early evidence to support it, though there were 'apostles' besides. the twelve. In other respects, however, Theodore's account of the development of the ministry is very interesting. Timothy and Titus represent, he thinks, a class of subapostolic church rulers, who were put in charge of 'eparchies' or large districts, and held the supreme control with the authority to ordain, while the local churches were ruled by presbyter-bishops: afterwards the increase in the number of the faithful led to the multiplication of the chief rulers, and their unwillingness to equal themselves to the Apostles, to their adoption of the name of bishops: in later days the episcopate, especially in the East, had come to be unduly multiplied. See Swete Theodore of Mops. on the Minor Epp. of St. Paul, ii. pp. 118-125.

2 We should still have to acknowledge a little idealizing in Tertullian's statement that the local episcopate at Corinth and Philippi was of apostolic institution. See de Praescr. 36.

U

The verdict

of history on

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSIONS AND APPLICATIONS

THE task which remains for us is that of endeavouring to sum up the conclusions of a long investigation. It appeared first of all that the record of history the Church; renders it practically indisputable that Jesus Christ founded a visible society or Church, to be the organ of His Spirit in the world, the depository of His truth, the covenanted sphere of His redemptive grace and discipline. Now such a society, as by its very nature it is to be universal and continuous, must have links of connection; and in the uninterrupted history of the Church, as it is spread out before us from the latter part of the second century, one such link has always existed in the apostolic successions of the the apostolic ministry. It appeared further that these successions have been regarded by the church writers, with an unanimity and to an extent which hardly admit of being exaggerated, as an essential element of her sacerdotal corporate life. Of course an essential ministry is a sacerdotal conception. Accordingly reasons have been given for believing that ideas now current as to

succession:

ism;

1 On the fundamental principle of the ministry I should like to take this last opportunity of referring to the Theologia Naturalis of Raymund of Sabunde, a very interesting theologian of the fifteenth century; cf. tit. 303: 'quia vita spiritualis consistit in charitate et unitate, ideo convenientissime debuit ordinari, ut homines vice Christi administrent sacramenta salutis hominibus, ut magis fierent unum inter se.'

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