terate.

bishop in succession to Demetrius, and (again according to Jerome) the separate ordination of the Alexandrian bishop and his consequent differentiation from the presbyters began-i.e., presumably, was provided for, and carried into effect at the ordination of his successor Dionysius, c. A.D. 248. Origen therefore, on this hypothesis, had intimate experience of a gradual change resulting in the clear differentiation at Alexandria of the episcopate from the presbyAt the same time he had every reason for scanning with some jealousy the exaltation of the bishop: nor does he elsewhere show any disposition to spare bishops castigation which he thinks well merited. Moreover, such a change in ecclesiastical status could hardly be carried through without some amount of jealousy or friction. Yet writing against Celsus about the time of Heraclas' death and Dionysius' succession, he compares 'ecclesiae of God' with the civil 'ecclesiae' at Athens, Corinth, and Alexandria; he compares for each city the archon (bishop), the councillors (presbyters), and the people; he finds the Christian Churches characterized by 'mildness and stability' if fault is to be found with some of the Christian councillors or archons,' it is because they are found to lead indolent lives compared with some of their more energetic fellows.1 Neither here nor elsewhere and Origen often alludes to bishops and presbyters 2-does he give any hint that bishops were

c. Cels. iii. 30.

'Origen's language about church offices is of this nature:

(1) Bishops and presbyters are classed together as τὰς πρωτοκαθεδρίας πεπιστευ μένοι οἱ ἐν ἐκκλησιαστικῇ δοκοῦντες εἶναι ὑπεροχῇ (in Matt. xvi. 22, in Ioann. xxxii. 7 [12]). (So later Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of 'my fellow-presbyter' ap. Euseb. H. E. vii. 5. 6 and 11. 3.) [But while deacons are excluded from this class in the passage in Matt. xvi. 22 (those that buy and sell are laity, the money-changers are deacons, those that sell doves are bishops and presbyters), in an earlier passage of the same commentary, in Matt. xiv. 22, they are included with bishops and presbyters among the ἐκκλησιαστικαὶ ἀρχαί.]

(2) Much more frequently they are spoken of as constituting distinct classes; cf. in Luc. XX. : 'Si Iesus Filius Dei subicitur Ioseph et Mariae, ego non subiciar episcopo qui mihi a Deo ordinatus est pater? Non subiciar presbytero qui mihi Domini dignatione praepositus est?' He distinguishes, in Exod. xi. 6, those ui

exalting their order at the expense of presbyters.1 Indeed he assumes for the episcopate a completely stable and traditional position clearly distinct from the presbyterate. Further in his homilies on Numbers (after A.D. 244) when he is desiring a more religious method of appointing bishops than was customary, he speaks of bishops nominating their successors (and giving preference to their relations), of popular nomination, and of nomination by one of the priests'; but he does not contemplate election by the body of presbyters, and he does imply that the bishop was, after designation, ordained by laying on of hands.2 He is not talking, in this passage, specially of Alexandria, and he had long ceased to live there; but Caesarea was not very far off, so

populis praesunt' from the 'inferior sacerdos,' the 'laicus,' and the 'gentilis.' Again, speaking (de Orat. 28) of the different 'debts' which different classes of the community have to pay, he specifies the distinct debt of widow, deacon, presbyter, and continues: καὶ ἐπισκόπου δὲ ὀφειλὴ βαρυτάτη ἐστὶν ἀπαιτουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ τῆς ὅλης ἐκκλησίας σωτῆρος καὶ ἐκδικουμένη εἰ μὴ ἀποδιδῷτο. And in a similar strain in Jerem. xi. 3: οὐ πάντως ὁ κλῆρος σώζει πλεῖον ἐγὼ ἀπαιτοῦμαι παρὰ τὸν διάκονον (this was after he was ordained priest), πλεῖον ὁ διάκονος παρὰ τὸν λαϊκόν ὁ δὲ τὴν πάντων ἡμῶν ἐγκεχειρισμένος ἀρχὴν αὐτὴν τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν ἐπὶ πλεῖον ànaireira. Cf. in Ezech. v. 4 ; in Luc. xvii. ad fin.

(3) He puts the bishops alone in a remarkable way, as the Church's rulers: 'per singulas ecclesias bini sunt episcopi, alius visibilis, alius invisibilis; ille visui carnis, hic sensui patens' (in Luc. xiii.). He is alluding to the Angel of the Apocalypse, whom he conceives of as the spiritual guardian of the church and counterpart of the earthly bishop. This leads to the remark that

(4) He conceives the bishop of his day to be the bishop of whose qualifications St. Paul instructs us (in Matt. xi. 15, xiv. 22; c. Cels. iii. 48). Also he speaks of bishops as the immemorial tradition in the Church; he speaks of people who can boast of fathers and ancestors προεδρίας ἠξιωμένοις ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐπισκοπικού θρόνου ἢ πρεσβυτερίου τιμῆς ἢ διακονίας εἰς τὸν λαόν (in Matt. xv. 26). And as he singles out 'stability' as a note of the Alexandrian church, when he is contrasting it with the pagan societies (c. Cels. iii. 30: mpacîá ris kai evoTabs)—and this when Alexandria is specially mentioned among other churches- he is clearly not conscious of any change in the church's constitution which is going on. Nor does his language at all suggest that the episcopate of Alexandria was in a peculiar position.

1 He does, as a fact, rebuke the bishops, especially those of great cities, for covetousness, secularity and pride, but not as if their order was at the moment exalting itself at the expense of the presbyters; cf. in Matt. xvi. 22, in Exod. xi. 6. (Bishops will hardly condescend to take counsel with the inferior priests.)

In Num. xxii. 4. He quotes Num. xxvii. 18-20 (where Moses is directed to choose Joshua and lay hands upon him, etc.) and continues: audis evidenter ordinationem principis populi tam manifeste descriptam, ut paene expositione non egeat.' Just above he had brought the 'princeps populi' into comparison with the ecclesiarum principes,' and had distinguished him from the 'presbyteri' of Num. xi. 16.

that he could hardly have ignored any markedly different conditions in the great neighbouring church of Alexandria.

case there

It does not seem as if anything like sufficient attention had been paid to this language of Origen's, which certainly renders very difficult the acceptance of any tradition differentiating the Alexandrian church of his experience from all other churches.1 But the witness of Jerome-witness which is now reinforced by that of Severus of Antioch--has been so generally accepted by western writers from the fourth to the twelfth century and by modern critics, that it will be the better course, as our object is not merely archaeological, to face what is at any rate the possibility of its being true. It should then be noticed But in any that Severus, in recording the tradition, shows that is no inconin his mind it carried with it no consequences such the principie as modern controversy has sometimes attached to it, sion. and that, when western church writers of the Middle Ages quote and accept Jerome's statement, it causes them no disquietude in view of the existing distinction of bishops and priests. They would maintain that no one can validly execute any ecclesiastical function which does not belong to him by the proper devolution of ecclesiastical authority. But this no one accuses the Alexandrian presbyters of having done. They were ordained, ex hypothesi, on the understanding that under certain circumstances they might be called,

So far again as Jerome's words postulate that the elective authority for the episcopate lay simply with the presbytery, it has against it the evidence that the ancient mode of episcopal election at Alexandria gave great power to the vote of the whole people. See Athan. Apol. c. Av. 6 mây tò nàŋbos kai mâs ò Aaos, and Greg. Naz. Orat. xxi. 8, who praises this as the ancient and apostolic method.

Liberatus of Carthage (circa 560) tells us of a curious custom in the episcopal succession at Alexandria (Breviarium 20): Consuetudo quidem est Alexandriae illum qui defuncto succedit excubias super defuncti corpus agere, manuinque dexteram eius capiti suo imponere, et sepulto manibus suis accipere collo suo beati Marci pallium et tunc legitime sedere.' But he cannot mean that this was a substitute for consecration by living bishops. We know that stress was laid in Athanasius' case (328 A.D.) both on popular election and public episcopal consecration: and the latter could not have been abandoned later.

sistency with

of succes

Further evidence as

by simple election, to execute the bishop's office. They were not only presbyters with the ordinary commission of the presbyter, but also bishops in posse. Elsewhere there were two distinct ordinations, one making a man a presbyter and the other making him a bishop; at Alexandria there was only one ordination, which made a man a presbyter and potential bishop. When this arrangement ceased and Alexandria was assimilated to other churches, the presbyters began to be ordained as mere presbyters; and henceforward any assumption by one of them of episcopal powers would be treated as a mere assumption, the results of which were simply invalid. It is unnecessary to do more than recall, in view of such an hypothetical situation, the contention of the last chapter, namely, that the Church principle of succession would never be violated by the existence in any church of episcopal powers, whether free or conditional, in all the presbyters, supposing that those powers were not assumed by the individual for himself, but were understood to be conveyed to him by the ordination of the Church. The state of things, then, which is assumed to have existed at Alexandria would, if its existence were established, no doubt violate the complete uniformity of the church ministry in the period we are considering-it would require us to introduce qualifications into our generalization of results-but it would not affect the principle.2

So far we have been going through the evidence to how the supplied by the history of Eastern Christianity on conceived the existence of episcopal successions in every church. It remains to seek additional light on the

ministry was

from

1 Their position would not have been very unlike that of the chorepiscopi, who could only ordain validly (in the mind of the early Church) where they had the sanction of the town bishop.

* See Simcox Early Church History p. 359 n.1.

conception entertained of the ministry; and that from three sources

(1) writings which are concerned with worship and church order:

(2) the canons of councils :

(3) some representative Fathers.

etc.

the Areo

of Thmuis

(1) Besides the oriental offices of ordination, of (1) Liturgies, ancient though uncertain date,1 and some mediaeval commentaries on the ancient rites, such as that of Symeon of Thessalonica, we have older sources of evidence. There is the work of the Syrian pseudo- 'Dionysius Dionysius, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, a work pagite probably of the end of the fifth century, elaborating the mystical significance of the Church's orders. More ancient are the recently discovered Prayers of Serapion Bishop Serapion of Thmuis (c. 350), a friend of St. Athanasius, among which are prayers for ordinations or 'layings on of hands'; 2 and the Syrian Apostolic Constitutions, a work which in its present form may be some twenty-five years later than Serapion, but which is based almost throughout upon older material. In the portion which most concerns us its source is a Church Church Order of the third century, in all probability Hippolytus the work of Hippolytus; for the first six of the eight books its source is another third-century document known as the Didascalia. Between the Church Order and the Didascalia on the one side and the Apostolic Constitutions on the other lie the so-called Canons of Hippolytus, another recension of the Church Order: but there is no reason at all to think that this was

1 Given in Morinus de S. Ord. pars. ii. and see App. Note C, p. 320.

2 See Texte u. Untersuch. N.F. ii. 3. b. (Leipzig, 1898); Bishop Sarapion's Prayer Book, by John Wordsworth, D.D., Bishop of Salisbury (S.P.C.K., 1899); and Brightman in Journal of Theol. Studies i. pp. 88, 247 (1899, 1900).

On their date and character see Lightfoot Ignatius i. p. 253, Brightman Liturgies Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896) 1. p. xvii, Funk Die apostolischen Constitutionen (Rottenburg, 1891): Lightfoot puts them somewhat earlier, Funk somewhat later, than the date given in the text. But Funk's principal merit lies in his critical edition, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (2 vols. Paderborn, 1906), which has for the first time made possible an adequate study of the document and its sources.

Order of