who act as later bishops, but are not diocesan ; spirit of Christ's directions and leave them to their 5 1 Tit. iii. 10, II. This 'rejection' of a heretic seems to express the idea of St. Matt. xviii. 17. He is to be as one avoided-as 'the gentile or the publican.' He is among those without.' See for an interesting comment on the passage Origen c. Cels. v. 63, where he describes the true method of dealing with opponents of the faith. * Dr. Lightfoot calls the usual conception of Timothy by church writers as 'bishop of Ephesus' the 'conception of a later age' (Dissert. p. 199), but he also describes it as not altogether without foundation. 'With less permanence but perhaps greater authority, the position occupied by these apostolic delegates nevertheless fairly represents the functions of the bishop early in the second century.' Perhaps then the only question in dispute between Dr. Lightfoot and one who, like Prof. Shirley (Apostolic Age p. 116), represents the office of Timothy and Titus as 'episcopal in the full range of its power' is as to the exact localization of the office. It can hardly be denied that Timothy and Titus possessed a permanent authority as apostolic delegates, with a permanent xápioμa-in this sense a delegatio perpetua.' The only question is whether it was limited to one place, or still, like the apostolic office which it represented, general. 2 Tim iv. 1-8. The presbytery of 1 Tim. iv. 14 is presumably the presbytery of Ephesus, but see Hort Ecclesia p. 184. On the other hand 'the good confession' (1 Tim. vi. 12) apparently refers to Timothy's baptismal profession: note esp. the èkλýons, and cf. Kühl op. cit. p. 29 n.. 2 Tim. iv. 9, Hebr. xiii. 23. to have left again not for Crete but for Dalmatia.1 Again we do not gather from these Epistles any clear intimation that Timothy and Titus, though they were to provide for a succession of sound. teachers, 2 were to ordain men to succeed them in their apostolic office in the local churches. All that we can fairly conclude is that St. Paul after ordaining, or with a view to ordaining, the local ministers, bishops and deacons, appointed delegates to exercise the apostolic office of supervision in his place, both before and after his death: and the needs which required this extension of the apostolic ministry were not transitory ones. They were the needs of 'the last times'-the constant phenomena of moral failure and doctrinal and moral instability and disorder. should be added that no definite title is assigned to Timothy and Titus, though their function is spoken of as a ' ministry' and as 'the work of an evangelist,' 3 and Timothy at least is distinguished from the presbyters as a comparatively young man. No doubt the necessity for fixed titles grew greater with lapse of time and increase of controversy. It idea of ordi Thirdly, the Pastoral Epistles give us a clear view (iii) on the of St. Paul's conception of the ministerial office. nation. Beyond what constitutes the gift of the Christian life, the apostolic 'minister '5 is spoken of as qualified for his work by a special ministerial gift or 'charisma' -'a spirit of power and love and discipline'-imparted to him (after his fitness has been indicated by prophetic intimations) in a definite and formal manner, by means of the laying-on of the hands of the Titus iii. 12, a Tim. iv. 1o. • 2 Tim. li. 2. 2 Tim. iv. 5, 1 Tim. iv. 6. It should be noticed that St. Paul calls his own ministry also a diakovía (1 Tim. i. 12) and speaks of himself as a didáσκaλos élvŵr, as well as knpuέ Kaì áñóσTodos (ii. 7, 2 Tim. i. 11). It is most likely, I think, that Timothy and Titus would have been known as evangelists. ⚫ 1 Tim. iv. 12; cf. pp. 219 n.', 270 n.3. I assume that what St. Paul says of Timothy he could have said of Titus alsono great assumption, as their offices are so wholly similar. apostle,' or 'with the accompaniment of the laying-on of the hands of the presbytery.'1 In this process there was one feature which was not destined to be permanent. The prophetic indication of the person to be ordained gradually ceased. The 'bishops' of the later Church owed their appointment not to prophecy but to some other means of election. And indeed, even in the earliest days, the prophetic voice was only one means of selection to office. But it is only a very arbitrary criticism which can fail to see here, save in the single point of nomination by prophecy, the permanent process of ordination with which we are familiar in later church history, and that conception of the bestowal in ordination of a special charisma,' which at once carries with it the idea of 'permanent character,' 2 and that 1 2 Tim. i. 6, 7 : ἀναμιμνήσκω σε ἀναζωπυρεῖν τὸ χάρισμα τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅ ἐστιν ἐν σοὶ διὰ τῆς ἐπιθέσεως τῶν χειρῶν μου· οὐ γὰρ ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ θεὸς πνεῦμα δειλίας, ἀλλὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀγάπης καὶ σωφρονισμού. (The ἡμῖν here refers surely to St. Paul and Timothy classified together in the ministry.) 1 Tim. iv. 14: μǹ àμédec ToOÙ ἐν σοὶ χαρίσματος ὁ ἐδόθη σοι διὰ προφητείας μετὰ ἐπιθέσεως τῶν χειρῶν τοῦ πρεσβυτερίου. • Tim. i. 18: κατὰ τὰς προαγούσας ἐπὶ σὲ προφητείας. With this last expression compare Acts xiii. 2 and Clement of Alexandria Quis Dives 42, where he describes St. John as κλήρῳ ἕνα γέ τινα κληρώσων τῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος σημαινομένων. And the διὰ προφητείας of the second passage seems to refer to these same prophetic indications, to which equally with the laying-on of apostolic hands Timothy owed his office. The use of diá as applied to the apostle, while μerá is applied to the presbytery, would naturally indicate the secondary and unessential position of the latter in the act of ordination. But I doubt whether when the prepositions are used in different epistles it is fair to lay as much stress on the contrast as is sometimes done. Besides, 'the presbytery' who lay on hands may include the Apostle himself (cf. 1 Peter v. 1, where the Apostle calls himself a presbyter among presbyters): i.e. the local officers, with the apostle amongst them, may still be described as 'the presbytery.' Dr. Chase Confirmation in the Apostolic Age (Macmillan, 1909) pp. 35 ff. interprets 1 Tim. iv. 14 of ordination, but 2 Tim. i. 6-7 of confirmation, though he acknowledges that he is perhaps alone in so doing. But I think that St. Paul's exhortation in the latter passage is not merely a personal exhortation to a Christian but, as appears more clearly in the second chapter, the exhortation of an apostle to his representative. I think σwopoviσμós means more naturally the disciplining of others than self-discipline or soberness: that is to say, it is a specially ministerial gift. On the whole I remain of the common opinion that the reference in both passages is the same-to the laying-on of hands in ordination. The 'charisma' is described as a permanent endowment which having been once received requires only to be 'stirred up,' like baptismal grace: 2 Tim. i. 6. The idea expressed by xápioua in the Pastoral Epistles is exactly the same as that expressed by пvеvμa (not тò veuμа) in St. John xx. 22. Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 12, where πνεύματα π πνευματικὰ χαρίσματα. Since Baur (Die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe des Apostels Paulus, 1835) denied the Pauline authorship of these Epistles and emphasized as a ground for this distinction of clergy and laity which is involved in the possession of a definite spiritual grace and power by those who have been ordained. It is also arbitrary to deny that St. Paul, when he appointed Timothy and Titus to ordain presbyters and deacons, as we gather, by the same process of laying on hands,1 would have hesitated to attach the same ideas to the subsequent ordinations made by them. The final conclusions which are to be drawn from what St. Paul tells us about the church ministry shall be reserved till we have finished our review of the New Testament literature.2 rejection their hierarchical character, a prolonged controversy has been carried on in Germany-the one party emphasizing everything hierarchical and sacerdotal in these documents, and denying their Pauline authorship on that account; the other party minimizing these characteristics, and then vindicating their Pauline authorship. Thus on their premisses the party of denial (of whom H. J. Holtzmann, Die Pastoralbriefe kritisch und exegetisch behandelt, 1880, is a distinguished representative) has a motive to exaggerate the sacerdotalism of the Pastoral Epistles, and the party of vindication (as represented in the able work of Kühl, 1885, Die Gemeindeordnung in den Pastoralbriefen) a motive to minimize it. If Holtzmann is exaggerating when he sees in où λooi of 1 Tim. v. 20 an expression for the laity (as was Baur when he saw in Timothy and Titus the prototypes of archbishops), on the other hand he seems to me to say no more than is true in the following passage (op. cit. p. 231): 'Es ist also keine Frage, dass der Ausdruck xápiσua in den Pastoralbriefen die bestimmtere Bedeutung einer, vermittels der Ordination übertragenen, Amstgabe besitzt. Erst bei solcher Auffassung versteht sich endlich auch die beidemal stehende Formel Tò xápioμa èv σoí, weil ein mit der Begabung zugleich übertragenes Amstrecht allerdings seinem Träger mehr einwohnt, als blos beiliegt. Fiele die Handauflegung 1 Tim. v. 22 mit den bisher besprochenen Stellen in eine Kategorie, so würde Timotheus hier überdies noch davor gewarnt werden, die ihm inhärirende Gabe vorschnell weiter zu tradiren.' So he quotes Weizsäcker (p. 233): 'Man sieht, hier ist eine ganze, festgeschlossene Kette von Begriffen, in welcher kein Ring fehlt; der Inhalt des Ganzen aber ist das Amt als Inhaber der reinen Lehre und des rechten Geistes, verbürgt durch eine förmliche und sichere Uebertragung.' 'Das Amt ist daher im eigentlichen Sinne die Lebensbedingung für den Bestand und Geist der Gemeinde.' 1 1 Tim. v. 22: xeîpas raxéws μndevì émɩtíbel : cf. Acts vi. 6. It ought to be added that St. Paul recognises a ministry of women in the Church ; see Rom. xvi. 1: Φοίβην τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἡμῶν, οὖσαν [καὶ] διάκονον τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἐν Κεγχρεαῖς. But it is a ministry which is concerned with works of mercy and, if with teaching also, only in private (Acts xviii. 26). St. Paul clearly excludes women from public teaching (1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35; 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12). A woman may however have the gift of prophecy (1 Cor. xi. 5), and St. Paul apparently contemplated her exercising that in public. We naturally wish that we knew more of the position of prophetesses, like Philip's daughters (Acts xxi. 9), in the earliest Church. On the whole, however, St. Paul clearly excludes women from public teaching; and, at least in his Epistle to Timothy, he is doing this for communities situated in a general society which allowed great freedom to women. 'Under the Roman Empire we find women [in Asia Minor] magistrates, presidents at games, and loaded with honours. The custom of the country influenced even the Jews, who in at least one case appointed a woman at Smyrna to the position of archisynagogos,' Р II. Evidence II. There is very little additional information to be of the other derived from the other apostolic Epistles, but there Apostles. are indications which must not be neglected. It will be borne in mind that, though the apostolic office was essentially ecumenical, yet a distribution, not of area but of races, had been arrived at among the Apostles. It was recognised that St. Paul had been divinely 'intrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of the circumcision,' and it was accordingly agreed that Paul and Barnabas should evangelize the heathen, while James, Peter, and John preached the same Gospel amongst the Jews.1 But the arrangement was only temporary. Certainly the Epistles neither of St. Peter nor of St. John were written to specially Jewish Christians. Only St. James can give us any insight into the organization of a distinctively Jewish community. Thus, while we note indications in all the Epistles both of an apostolic and a local ministry,2 a special interest attaches Ramsay The Church in the Roman Empire pp. 67-8. 'The prominence assigned to women was,' Sir W. Ramsay explains, firstly, pagan rather than Christian, and, secondly, heretical rather than Catholic,' pp. 161-2, cf. 403. But it appears that the dignities of women in pagan society were honorary rather than administrative. There is no evidence that they could assist at assemblies or give votes or speak in public. See my Ephesians (John Murray, 1898) p. 227. Probably what was allowed and forbidden them in the Church represented pretty fairly the allowances and prohibitions of secular life. 1 Gal. ii. 7-9. Thus James writes as himself a teacher with the authority which we know him on other grounds to have held in specially Jewish circles, and speaks (iii. 1) of local teachers and more unmistakably (v. 14) of presbyters. Peter writes as an apostle of Jesus Christ' (1 Pet. i. 1, cf. 2 Pet. i. 1), but identifies himself as a presbyter with the local presbyters (1 Pet. v. 1-5) as sharing the same pastoral office. He speaks also (1 Pet. iv. 10, 11), in language which reminds us of St. Paul's, of the Church as differentiated by different charismata' for different ministries intended for the common good. Each man's charisma makes him a 'steward of the manifold grace of God.' The stewardships or charismata of which he especially speaks are those of speaking in God's name and of ministering. If, as is probable, these refer to the presbyterate and the diaconate, we have here another case to add to those of Eph. iv. 11 and 1 Tim. v. 17 of the presbyterate being considered a teaching office. St. Jude indicates that Korah, the author of revolt against the Old Testament priesthood, had, as well as the self-seeking pastors whom Ezekiel denounced, his followers in the Church of the new covenant (Jude 11, 12). The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of 'leaders' (youμevo) in the Christian Church who had spoken the word of God and were passed away, alluding apparently to apostolic teachers (cf. Acts xv. 22, Luke xxii. 26), and he uses the same expression |