_ST. STEPHEN AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY._
"And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose
Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip,
and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas
a proselyte of Antioch: whom they set before the Apostles: and
when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.... Stephen,
full of grace and power, wrought great wonders and signs among
the people. But there arose certain of them that were of the
synagogue called the synagogue of the Libertines, and of the
Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and
Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to withstand
the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned
men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words
against Moses, and against God."--ACTS vi. 5, 6; 8-11.
The names of the seven chosen on the suggestion of the Apostles raises
very naturally the question, To what office were they appointed? Did
the seven elected on this occasion represent the first beginning of
that office of deacon which is regarded as the third rank in the
Church, bishops being first, and presbyters or priests second. It is
agreed by all parties that the title of deacon is not given to them in
the sixth chapter of the Acts, and yet such an unprejudiced and fair
authority as Bishop Lightfoot, in his Essay on the Christian Ministry,
maintains that the persons selected and ordained at this crisis
constituted the first origin of the diaconate as it is now
known.[120] The Seven are not called, either here or wherever else
they are mentioned in the Acts, by the name of deacons, though the
word διακονεῖν (serve), which cannot be exactly rendered
into English, as the noun deacon has no equivalent verb answering to
it, is applied to the duties assigned to them. But all the best
critics are agreed that the ordination of the Seven was the occasion
of the rise of a new order and a new office in the Church, whose work
dealt more especially with the secular side of the ministerial
function. The great German critic Meyer, commenting on this sixth
chapter, puts it well, though not so clearly as we should like. "From
the first regular overseership of alms, the mode of appointment to
which could not but regulate analogically the practice of the Church,
was gradually developed the diaconate, which subsequently underwent
further elaboration." This statement is somewhat obscure, and
thoroughly after the manner of a German critic; let us develop it a
little, and see what the process was whereby the distributers of alms
to the widows of the earliest Church organization became the officials
of whom St. Laurence of Rome in the third, and St. Athanasius of
Alexandria in the fourth century were such eminent examples.
[120] Bishop Lightfoot, commenting on Philippians, p. 186, says:
"I have assumed that the office thus established represents the
later diaconate; for though this point has been much disputed, I
do not see how the identity of the two can reasonably be called in
question. If the word deacon does not occur in the passage, yet
the corresponding verb and substantive, διακονεῖν and
διακονία, are repeated more than once. The functions,
moreover, are substantially those which devolved on the deacons of
the earliest ages, and which still in theory, though not
altogether in practice, form the primary duties of the office.
Again, it seems clear, from the emphasis with which St. Luke
dwells on the new institution, that he looks on the establishment
of this office, not as an isolated incident, but as the
institution of a new order of things in the Church. It is, in
short, one of those representative facts of which the earlier part
of his narrative is almost wholly made up."
I. The institutions of the synagogue must necessarily have exercised a
great influence over the minds of the Apostles and of their first
converts. One fact alone vividly illustrates this idea. Christians
soon began to call their places of assembly by the name of churches or
the Lord's houses, but the old habit was at first too strong, and so
the churches or congregations of the earliest Christians were called
synagogues. This is evident even from the text of the Revised Version
of the New Testament, for if we turn to the second chapter of the
Epistle of James we read there, "If there come into your _synagogue_ a
man with a gold ring,"--showing that in St. James's day a Christian
church was called a synagogue. This custom received some few years ago
a remarkable confirmation from the records of travel and discovery.
The Marcionites were a curious Christian sect or heresy which sprang
up in the second century. They were intensely opposed to Judaism, and
yet so strong was this tradition that even they seem to have retained,
down to the fourth century, the name of synagogue as the title of
their churches, for some celebrated French explorers have discovered
in Syria an inscription, still in existence, carved over the door of a
Marcionite church, dated A.D. 318, and that inscription runs thus:
"The Synagogue of the Marcionites."[121]
[121] See Le Bas and Waddington's _Voyage Archéologique_, vol.
iii., p. 583, _Inscriptions_, No. 2558; and Dr. Salmon's article
on Marcion in Smith's _Dict. Christ. Biog._, iii., 819. There is
one passage in the Epistles which shows that not merely the name
but the organization of synagogues was adopted by the early
Church. In 1 Cor. vi. 1 it is written, "Dare any of you, having a
matter against his neighbour, go to law before the unrighteous,
and not before the saints?" This verse cannot be rightly
understood unless we remember that every synagogue had its own
judicial tribunal, composed of ten men, who decided on Mondays and
Thursdays every controversy among the Jews, inflicting immediate
corporal punishment on the condemned. The Romans permitted and
supported this domestic jurisdiction, just as the Turkish Empire,
which has inherited so many of the Roman traditions, allows the
Greek and other Eastern Churches to exercise jurisdiction over
their own members in all questions touching religion, supporting
their decisions by force if necessary. St. Paul, in this passage,
wishes the members of the Christian synagogues to act like those
of the Jewish, and avoid the scandal of Christians going to law
with their brethren before pagans.
Now seeing that the force of tradition was so great as to compel even
an anti-Jewish sect to call their meeting-houses by a Jewish name, we
may be sure that the tradition of the institutions, forms, and
arrangements of the synagogue must have been infinitely more potent
with the earliest Christian believers, constraining them to adopt
similar institutions in their own assemblies. Human nature is always
the same, and the example of our own colonists sheds light upon the
course of Church development in Palestine. When the Pilgrim Fathers
went to America, they reproduced the English constitution and the
English laws in that country with so much precision and accuracy that
the expositions of law produced by American lawyers are studied with
great respect in England. The American colonists reproduced the
institutions and laws with which they were familiar, modifying them
merely to suit their own peculiar circumstances; and so has it been
all the world over wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has settled--they
have done exactly the same thing. They have established states and
governments modelled after the type of England, and not of France or
Russia. So was it with the early Christians. Human nature compelled
them to fall back upon their first experience, and to develop under a
Christian shape the institutions of the synagogue under which they had
been trained. And now when we read the Acts we see that here lies the
most natural explanation of the course of history, and specially of
this sixth chapter. In the synagogue, as Dr. John Lightfoot expounds
it in his _Horæ Hebraicæ_ (Matt. iv. 23), the government was in the
hands of the ruler and the council of elders or presbyters, while
under them there were three almoners or deacons, who served in the
same capacity as the Seven in superintending the charitable work of
the congregation. The great work for which the Seven were appointed
was distribution, and we shall see that this was ever maintained, and
is still maintained, as the leading idea of the diaconate, though
other and more directly spiritual work was at once added to their
functions by St. Stephen and St. Philip.[122] Now just as our
colonists brought English institutions and ideas with them wherever
they settled, so was it with the missionaries who went forth from the
Mother Church of Jerusalem. They carried the ideas and institutions
with them which had been there sanctioned by the Apostles, and thus we
find deacons mentioned in conjunction with bishops at Philippi,
deacons joined with bishops in St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, and the
existence of the institution at Corinth, and its special work as a
charitable organization, implied in the description given of Phœbe
to the Roman Christians in the sixteenth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans. St. Paul's directions to Timothy in the third chapter of his
first Epistle deal both with deacons and deaconesses, and in each case
lay down qualifications specially suited for distributers of
charitable relief, whose duty called upon them to visit from house to
house, but say nothing about any higher work. They are indeed "to hold
the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience;" they must be sound in
the faith like the Seven themselves; but the special qualifications
demanded by St. Paul are those needed in almoners: "The deacons must
be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of
filthy lucre."
[122] Bishop Lightfoot, in his well-known Essay on the Christian
Ministry, from which we have already quoted, does not admit any
likeness between the office of the diaconate in the Church and any
similar office in the synagogue. He refuses to recognise the
Chazzan or sexton of the synagogue as in any sense typical of
Christian deacons. But he has not noticed the three almoners or
deacons attached to every synagogue, whom his seventeenth-century
namesake, Dr. John Lightfoot, in his tract on synagogues (_Horæ
Hebr._, St. Matt. iv. 23), considers the origin of the Christian
deacons.
So far as to the testimony of Scripture. When we pass beyond the
bounds of the canonical books, and come to the apostolic fathers, the
evidence is equally clear. They testify to the universality of the
institution, and bear witness to its work of distribution. Clement of
Rome was a contemporary of the Apostles. He wrote an Epistle to the
Corinthians, which is the earliest witness to the existence of St.
Paul's Epistles to the same Church. In Clement's epistle we find
express mention of deacons, of their apostolic appointment, and of the
universal diffusion of the office. In the forty-third chapter of his
epistle Clement writes to the Corinthians concerning the
Apostles:--"Thus preaching through countries and cities they appointed
bishops and deacons for those who should afterwards believe," clearly
implying that deacons then existed at Rome, though we have no express
notice of them in the epistle written by St. Paul to the Roman
Church.
There is a rule, however, very needful for historical investigations.
Silence is no conclusive argument against an alleged fact, unless
there be silence where, if the alleged fact had existed, it must have
been mentioned. Josephus, for instance, is silent about Christ and
Christianity. Yet he wrote when its existence was a matter of common
notoriety. But there was no necessity for him to notice it. It was an
awkward fact too, and so he is silent. St. Paul does not mention
deacons as existing at Rome, though he does mention them at Philippi.
But Clement's words expressly assert that universally, in all cities
and countries, this order was established wherever the Apostles
taught; and so we find it even from pagan records. Pliny's letter to
Trajan, written about A.D. 110, some fifteen or twenty years later
than Clement, testifies that the order of deacons existed in far
distant Bithynia, among the Christians of the Dispersion to whom St.
Peter directed his Epistle. Pliny's words are, "I therefore thought it
the more necessary, in order to ascertain what truth there was in this
account, to examine two slave-girls who were called deaconesses
(_ministræ_), and even to use torture." (See the article Trajanus in
the _Dict. Christ. Biog._, iv., 1040.) It is exactly the same with St.
Ignatius in the second chapter of his Epistle to the Trallians, which
dates about the same period. The spiritual side of the office had now
come more prominently into notice, as the occasion of their first
appointment had fallen into disuse; but still Ignatius recognises the
origin of the diaconate when he writes that "the deacons are not
deacons of meats and drinks, but servants of the Church of God"
(Lightfoot, _Apost. Fathers_, vol. ii., sec. i., p. 156). While again
Polycarp, in his Epistle to the Philippians, ch. v., recognises the
same qualities as necessary to deacons which St. Paul requires and
enumerates in his Epistle to Timothy. Justin Martyr, a little later,
twenty years or so, tells us that the deacons distributed the elements
consecrated in the Holy Communion to the believers that were absent
(Justin, _First Apol._, ch. lxvii.). This is most important testimony,
connecting the order of deacons as then flourishing at Rome and their
work with the Seven constituted by the Apostle. The daily distribution
of the Apostle's time was closely connected with the celebration of
the Eucharist, which indeed in its meal or food, common to all the
faithful, and its charitable collections and oblations, of which
Justin Martyr speaks, retained still some trace of the daily
distribution which prevailed in the early Church, and occasioned the
choice of the Seven. The deacons in Justin Martyr's day distributed
the spiritual food to the faithful, just as in earlier times they
distributed all the sustenance which the faithful required, whether in
their spiritual or their temporal aspect. It is evident, from this
recital of the places where the deacons are incidentally referred to,
that their origin was never forgotten, and that distribution of
charitable relief and help was always retained as the essence, the
central idea and notion, of the office of deacon, though at the same
time other and larger functions were by degrees entrusted to them, as
the Church grew and increased, and ecclesiastical life and wants
became more involved and complex.[123] History bears out this view.
Irenæus was the disciple of Polycarp, and must have known many
apostolic men, men who had companied with the Apostles and knew the
whole detail of primitive Church government; and Irenæus, speaking of
Nicolas the proselyte of Antioch, describes him as "one of the seven
who were first ordained to the diaconate by the Apostles." Now Irenæus
is one of our great witnesses for the authenticity of the Four
Gospels; surely then he must be an equally good witness to the origin
of the order of deacons and the existence of the Acts of the Apostles
which is implied in this reference. It is scarcely necessary to go
farther in Church history, but the lower one goes the more clearly we
shall see that the original notion of the diaconate is never
forgotten. In the third century we find that there were still only
seven deacons in Rome, though there were forty-six presbyters, a
number which was retained down to the twelfth century in the seven
cardinal deacons of that Church.[124] The touching story of the
martyrdom of St. Laurence, Archdeacon of Rome in the middle of the
third century, shows that he was roasted over a slow fire in order to
extort the vast sums he was supposed to have in charge for the purpose
of relieving the sick and the poor connected with the Roman Church;
proving that the original conception of the office as an executive and
charitable organization was then vigorously retained; just as it is
still set forth in the ordinal of the Church of England, where, after
reciting how the deacon's office is to help the priest in several
subordinate positions, it goes on to say, "Furthermore, it is his
office, where provision is so made, to search for the sick, poor, and
impotent people of the parish, to intimate their estates, names, and
places where they dwell, unto the curate, that by his exhortation they
may be relieved by the alms of the parishioners."
[123] The community of goods may have evolved itself naturally
enough out of the celebration of the Eucharist. Just let us
realize what must have happened, say, on the day of Pentecost and
the few succeeding days. The Apostles seem to have been living a
common life during the ten days of expectation. They dwelt in the
house where the upper room was. The day after Pentecost there must
have been a great deal to do, in prayer, baptism, and celebration
of the Eucharist. Their converts would join with them in the
eucharistic feast, from day to day celebrated after the primitive
fashion at the end of a common meal. Some enthusiast may then have
suggested that, as the Master might at any moment appear, they
should always live and eat in common. After a time, as the numbers
increased, this arrangement had to be modified, and a daily
distribution was substituted for daily common meals. The community
of goods may thus have been developed out of the spiritual feast
of the Eucharist, which they took in common. When the daily
distribution terminated by the exhaustion of the funds, the Agape
or lovefeast took its place, remaining as a fragment or relic of
the earlier custom. Pliny in his letter mentions the Agape, and
rightly distinguishes it from the worship of the Christians which
was celebrated in the early morning. "After these ceremonies they
used to disperse, and assemble again to share a common meal of
innocent food."
[124] In the twelfth century the number of cardinal deacons was
fixed at fourteen, at which it has ever since remained.
The only objection of any value which has been raised to this line of
argument is based on a mere assumption. It has been said that the
Seven were appointed for a special emergency, and to serve a temporary
purpose connected with the community of goods which existed in the
early Church of Jerusalem, and therefore when this arrangement ceased
the office itself ceased also. But this argument is based on the
assumption that the Christian idea of a community of goods wholly
passed away, so that services of an order like the Seven were no
longer required. This is a pure assumption. The community of goods as
practised at Jerusalem was found by experience to be a mistake. The
shape of the idea was changed, but the idea itself survived. The old
form of community of goods passed away. The Christians retained their
rights of private property, but were taught to regard this private
property as in a sense common, and liable for all the wants and needs
of their poor and suffering brethren. A charitable order, or at least
an order charged with the care of the poor and their relief, must
inevitably have sprung up among the Jewish Christians. The relief of
the poor was a necessary part of the duty of a synagogue. The Jewish
domestic law enforced a poor-rate, and collected it through the
organization of each synagogue, by means of three deacons attached to
each. Selden, in his great work on _The Laws of the Hebrews_, bk. ii.,
chap. vi. (_Works_, i., 632), tells us that if "any Jew did not pay
his fair contribution he was punished with stripes." As soon as the
Jewish Christians began to organize themselves, the idea of almoners,
with their daily and weekly distributions, after the synagogue model,
was necessarily developed.[125] We have an unexceptionable piece of
evidence upon this point. The satirist Lucian lived at the close of
the second century. He was a bitter scoffer, who jeered at every form
of religion, and at Christianity above all. He wrote an account of a
certain Syrian named Peregrinus Proteus, who was an impostor trading
upon the religious principles of various philosophical sects, and
specially on those of the Christians. Lucian tells us that the
Christians were the easiest persons to be deceived, because of their
opinions. Lucian's words are interesting as showing what a
second-century pagan, a clever literary man too, thought of
Christianity, viewing it from the outside. For this reason we shall
quote a little more than the words which immediately bear upon the
subject. "It is incredible with what alacrity these people (the
Christians) support and defend the public cause. They spare nothing,
in fact, to promote it. These poor men have persuaded themselves that
they shall be immortal, and live for ever. They despise death
therefore, and offer up their lives a voluntary sacrifice, being
taught by their lawgiver that they are all brethren, and that,
quitting our Grecian gods, they must worship their own sophist, who
was crucified, and live in obedience to His laws. In compliance with
them, they look with contempt on all worldly treasures, and hold
everything in common--a maxim which they have adopted without any
reason or foundation. If any cunning impostor, therefore, who knows
how to manage matters, come amongst them, he soon grows rich by
imposing on the credulity of those weak and foolish men." We can see
here that the great outer world of paganism considered a community of
goods as still prevailing among the Christians. Their boundless
liberality, their intense devotion to the cause of their suffering
brethren, proved this, and therefore, because a practical community of
goods existed amongst them, an order of men was required to
superintend the distribution of their liberality in the Second Century
just as truly as the work of the Seven was needed in the Church of
Jerusalem.
[125] See Kitto's _Biblical Cyclopædia_, articles on Synagogue and
Deacon, or Schaff's edition of Herzog's _Cyclopædia_, article on
Synagogues.
II. We thus can see that the office of deacon, as now constituted, had
its origin in apostolic times, and is built upon a scriptural
foundation; but here we are bound to point out a great difference
between the ancient and the modern office. An office or organization
may spring up in one age, and after existing for several centuries may
develop into a shape utterly unlike its original. Yet it may be very
hard to point out any special time when a vital change was made. All
we can say is that the first occupants of the office would never
recognise their modern successors. Take the papacy as an instance.
There has been at Rome a regular historical succession of bishops
since the first century. The succession is known and undoubted. Yet
could one of the bishops of Rome of the first three centuries,--above
all, could a first-century bishop of Rome like St. Clement, by any
possibility recognise himself or his office in the present Pope Leo
XIII.? Yet one would find it difficult to fix the exact moment when
any vital change was made, or any unwonted claims put forward on
behalf of the Roman See.[126] So was it in the case of deacons and
their office. Their modern successors may trace themselves back to the
seven elected in the primitive Church at Jerusalem, and yet the office
is now a very different one in practice from what it was then. Perhaps
the greatest difference, and the only one we can notice, was this. The
diaconate is now merely the primary and lowest rank of the Christian
ministry; a kind of apprenticeship, in fact, wherein the youthful
minister serves for a year, and is then promoted as a matter of
course; whereas in Jerusalem or Rome of old it was a lifelong office,
in the exercise of which maturity of judgment, of piety, and of
character were required for the due discharge of its manifold duties.
It is now a temporary office, it was of old a permanent one. And the
apostolical custom was much the best. It avoided many difficulties
and solved many a problem. At present the office of the diaconate is
practically in abeyance, and yet the functions which the ancient
deacons discharged are not in abeyance, but are placed upon the
shoulders of the other orders in the Church, already overwhelmed with
manifold responsibilities, and neglecting, while serving tables, the
higher aspects of their work. The Christian ministry in its purely
spiritual, and specially in its prophetical or preaching aspect, is
sorely suffering because an apostolic office is practically set aside.
In the ancient Church it was never so. The deacons were chosen to a
life-office. It was then but very seldom that a man chosen to the
diaconate abandoned it for a higher function. It did not indeed demand
the wholesale devotion of time and attention which the higher offices
of the ministry did. Men even till a late period, both in East and
West, combined secular pursuits with it. Thus let us take one
celebrated instance. The ancient Church of England and of Ireland
alike was Celtic in origin and constitution. It was intensely
conservative, therefore, of ancient customs and usages derived from
the times of persecution, when Christianity was first taught among the
Gauls and Celts of the extreme West. The well-known story of the
introduction of Christianity into England under St. Augustine and the
opposition he met with prove this. As it was in other matters, so was
it with the ancient Celtic deacons; the old customs remained; they
held office for life, and joined with it at the same time other and
ordinary occupations. St. Patrick, for instance, the apostle of
Ireland, tells us that his father Calpurnius was a deacon, and yet he
was a farmer and a decurion, or alderman, as we should say, of a Roman
town near Dumbarton on the river Clyde. This happened about the year
400 of the Christian era.[127]
[126] The College of Cardinals offers another illustration of
this. The Cardinals were originally the parochial clergy of Rome.
As Rome's ecclesiastical ambition increased, so did that of her
parochial clergy, who came to imagine that, standing so close to
the Pope, who was the door, they were themselves the hinges
(cardines) on whom the door turned. I wonder if one of the
original presbyters of Rome would be able to recognise his office
in that of a modern cardinal claiming princely rank and
precedence!
[127] I have expanded this subject in _Ireland and the Celtic
Church_, ch. ii., viii., ix.; and in _Ireland and the Anglo-Norman
Church_, pp. 352-70.
Here indeed, as in so many other cases, the Church of Christ needs to
go back to scriptural example and to apostolic rule. We require for
the work of the Church deacons like the primitive men who devoted
their whole lives to this one object; made it the subject of their
thoughts, their cares, their studies, how they might instruct the
ignorant, relieve the poor and widows, comfort the prisoners, sustain
the martyrs in their last supreme hour; and who thus using well the
office of a deacon found in it a sufficient scope for their efforts
and a sufficient reward for their exertions, because they thereby
purchased for themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith
of Jesus Christ. The Church now requires the help of living agencies
in vast numbers, and they are not forthcoming. Let her avail herself
of apostolic resources, and fall back upon primitive precedents. The
real diaconate should be revived. Godly and spiritual men should be
called upon to do their duty. Deacons should be ordained without being
called to give up their ordinary employments. Work which now unduly
accumulates upon overburdened shoulders should be assigned to others
suitably to their talents, and thus a twofold blessing would be
secured. Christian life would flourish more abundantly, and many a
rent and schism, the simple result of energies repressed and
unemployed, would be destroyed in their very commencement.
We have devoted much of our space to this subject, because it is one
of great interest, as touching the origin and authority of the
Christian ministry, and also because it has been a subject much
debated; but we must hurry on to other points connected with the first
appointment to the diaconate. The people selected the person to be
ordained to this work. It is probable that they made their choice out
of the different classes composing the Christian community. The mode
of election of the Seven, and the qualifications laid down by the
Apostles, were derived from the synagogue. Thus we read in Kitto's
_Cyclopædia_, art. "Synagogue:"--"The greatest care was taken by the
rulers of the synagogue and of the congregation that those elected
almoners should be men of modesty, wisdom, justice, and have the
confidence of the people. They had to be elected by the harmonious
voice of the people." Seven deacons altogether were chosen. Three were
probably Hebrew Christians, three Grecian Christians or Hellenists,
and one a representative of the proselytes, Nicolas of Antioch. This
would have been but natural. The Apostles wanted to get rid of
murmurs, jealousies, and divisions in the Church, and in no way could
this have been more effectually done than by the principle of
representation. Had the Seven been all selected from one class alone,
divisions and jealousies would have prevailed as of old. The Apostles
themselves had proved this. They were all Hebrew Christians. Their
position and authority might have secured them from blame. Yet
murmurings had arisen against them as distributers, and so they
devised another plan, which, to have been successful, as it doubtless
was, must have proceeded on a different principle. Then when the seven
wise and prudent men were chosen from the various classes, the
Apostles asserted their supreme position: "When the Apostles had
prayed, they laid their hands on them." And as the result peace
descended like a shower upon the Church, and spiritual prosperity
followed upon internal peace and union.
III. "They laid their hands on them." This statement sets forth the
external expression and the visible channel of the ordination to their
office which the Apostles conferred. This action of the imposition of
hands was of frequent use among the ancient Jews. The Apostles, as
well acquainted with Old Testament history, must have remembered that
it was employed in the case of designation of Joshua as the leader of
Israel in the place of Moses (Num. xxvii. 18-23; compare Deut. xxxiv.
9), that it was used even in the synagogue in the appointment of
Jewish rabbis, and had been sanctioned by the practice of Jesus
Christ. The Apostles naturally, therefore, used this symbol upon the
solemn appointment of the first deacons, and the same ceremonial was
repeated upon similar occasions. Paul and Barnabas were set apart at
Antioch for their missionary work by the imposition of hands. St. Paul
uses the strongest language about the ceremony. He does not hesitate
to attribute to it a certain sacramental force and efficacy, bidding
Timothy "stir up the gift of God which is in thee through the laying
on of my hands" (2 Tim. i. 6); while again when we come down a few
years later we find the "laying on of hands" reckoned as one of the
fundamental elements of religion, in the sixth chapter of the Epistle
to the Hebrews. But it was not merely in the solemn appointment of
officials in the Church that this ceremony found place. It was
employed by the Apostles as the rite which filled up and perfected the
baptism which had been administered by others. Philip baptized the
Samaritans. Peter and John laid their hands on them and they received
the Holy Ghost. The ceremony of imposition of hands was so essential
and distinguishing a point that Simon Magus selects it as the one he
desires above all others effectually to purchase, so that the outward
symbol might be followed by the inward grace. "Give me also this
power, that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy
Ghost," was the prayer of the arch-heretic to St. Peter; while again
in the nineteenth chapter we find St. Paul using the same visible
ceremony in the case of St. John's disciples, who were first baptized
with Christian baptism, and then endued by St. Paul with the gift of
the Spirit. Imposition of hands in the case of ordination is a natural
symbol, indicative of the transmission of function and authority. It
fitly indicates and notifies to the whole Church the persons who have
been ordained, and therefore has ever been regarded as a necessary
part of ordination. St. Jerome, who was a very keen critic as well as
a close student of the Divine oracles, fixes upon this public and
solemn designation as a sufficient explanation and justification of
the imposition of hands in ordinations, lest any one should be
ordained without his knowledge by a silent and solitary prayer. Hence
every branch of the Church of Christ has rigorously insisted upon
imposition of hands after the apostolic example, in the case of
ordinations to official positions, with one or two apparent and very
doubtful exceptions, which merely prove the binding character of the
rule.
IV. The list of names again is full of profit and of warning. How
completely different from human histories, for instance, is this
Divine record of the first doings of the Church! How thoroughly shaped
after the Divine model is this catalogue of the earliest officials
chosen by the Apostles! Men have speculated whether they were Hebrews
or Grecians, whether they belonged to the seventy sent forth by Christ
or to the hundred and twenty who first gathered into the upper room at
Jerusalem. All such speculations are curious and interesting, but they
have nothing to do with man's salvation; therefore they are sternly
put on one side and out of sight. How we should long to know the
subsequent history of these men, and to trace their careers! yet Holy
Writ tells us but very little about them, nothing certain, in fact,
save what we learn about St. Stephen and St. Philip. God bestowed Holy
Scripture upon men, not to satisfy or minister to their curiosity, but
to nourish their souls and edify their spirits. And surely no lesson
is more needed than the one implied in the silences of this passage;
there is in truth none more necessary for our publicity-seeking and
popularity-hunting age than this, that God's holiest servants have
laboured in obscurity, have done their best work in secret, and have
looked to God alone and to His judgment for their reward. I have said
indeed that concerning the list of names recorded as those of the
first deacons, we know nothing but of St. Stephen and St. Philip,
whose careers will again come under our notice in later chapters.
There is, however, a current tradition that Nicolas, the proselyte of
Antioch, did distinguish himself, but in an unhappy direction. It is
asserted by Irenæus in his work _Against Heresies_ (Book I., ch. 26),
that Nicolas was the founder of the sect of Nicolaitans denounced in
the Revelation of St. John (ch. ii., 6, 16). Critics are, however,
much divided upon this point. Some clear Nicolas of this charge, while
others uphold it. It is indeed impossible to determine this matter.
But supposing that Nicolas of Antioch was the author of this heresy,
which was of an antinomian character, like so many of the earliest
heresies that distracted the primitive Church, this circumstance would
teach us an instructive lesson. Just as there was a Judas Iscariot
among the Apostles, and a Demas among St. Paul's most intimate
disciples, so was there a Nicolas among the first deacons. No place is
so holy, no office so sacred, no privileges so great, but that the
tempter can make his way there. He can lurk unseen and unsuspected
amid the pillars of the temple, and he can find us out, as he did the
Son of God Himself, amid the wilds of the desert. Official position
and exalted privileges confer no immunity from temptation. Nay,
rather, they bring with them additional temptations over and above
those which assail the ordinary Christian, and should therefore lead
everyone called to any similar work to diligent watchfulness, to
earnest prayer, lest while teaching others they themselves fall into
condemnation. There is, however, another lesson which a different
version of the history of Nicolas would teach. Clement of Alexandria,
in his celebrated work called the _Stromata_ (Book II., chap. 20, and
Book III., chap. 4), tells us that Nicolas was a most strictly
virtuous man. He was extreme even in his asceticism, and, like many
ascetics, used language that might be easily abused to the purposes of
wickedness. He was wont to say that the "flesh must be abused,"
meaning that it must be chastised and restrained. One-sided and
extreme teaching is easily perverted by the wicked nature of man, and
men of impure lives, listening to the language of Nicolas, interpreted
his words as an excuse for abusing the flesh by plunging into the
depths of immorality and crime. Men placed in official positions and
called to the exercise of the clerical office should weigh their
words. Extreme statements are bad unless duly and strictly guarded.
The intention of the speaker may be good, and a man's own life
thoroughly consistent, but unbalanced teaching will fall upon ground
where the life and intention of the teacher will have no power or
influence, and bring forth evil fruit, as in the case of the
Nicolaitans.
V. The central figure of this whole section of our narrative is St.
Stephen. He is introduced into the narrative with the same startling
suddenness which we may note in the case of Barnabas and of Elijah. He
runs a rapid course, flings all, Apostles and every one else, into the
shade for a time, and then disappears, exemplifying those fruitful
sayings of inspiration, so true in our every-day experience of God's
dealings, "The first shall be last, and the last first." "Paul may
plant, Apollos may water, but it is God alone that giveth the
increase." Stephen, full of grace and power, did great signs and
wonders among the people. These two words, grace and power, are
closely connected. Their union in this passage is significant. It was
not the intellect, or the eloquence, or the activity of St. Stephen
which made him powerful among the people and crowned his labours with
such success. It was his abundant grace. Eloquence and learning,
active days and laborious nights, are good and necessary things. God
uses them and demands them from His people. He chooses to use human
agencies, and therefore demands that the human agents shall give Him
of their best, and not offer to Him the blind and lame of their flock.
But these things will be utterly useless and ineffective apart from
Christ and the power of His grace. The Church of Christ is a
supernatural society, and the work of Christ is a supernatural work,
and in that work the grace of Christ is absolutely necessary to make
any human gift or exertion effectual in carrying out His purposes of
love and mercy. This is an age of organizations and committees and
boards; and some good men are so wrapped up in them that they have no
time to think of anything else. To this busy age these words,
"Stephen, full of grace and power," convey a useful warning, teaching
that the best organizations and schemes will be useless to produce
Stephen's power unless Stephen's grace be found there as well. This
passage is a prophecy and picture of the future in another aspect. The
fulness of grace in Stephen wrought powerfully amongst the people. It
was the savour of life unto life in some. But in others it was a
savour of death unto death, and provoked them to evil deeds, for they
suborned men "which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words
against Moses, and against God."
We get in these words, in this false accusation, even through its
falsehood, a glimpse into the character of St. Stephen's preaching. A
false accusation need not be necessarily altogether false. Perhaps
rather we should say that, in order to be effective for mischief, a
twisted, distorted charge, with some basis of truth, some semblance of
justification about it, is the best for the accuser's purpose, and the
most difficult for the defendant to answer. St. Stephen was ripening
for heaven more rapidly than the Apostles themselves. He was learning
more rapidly than St. Peter himself the true spiritual meaning of the
Christian scheme. He had taught, in no ambiguous language, the
universal character of the Gospel and the catholic mission of the
Church. He had expanded and applied the magnificent declarations of
the Master Himself, "The hour cometh, when neither in this mountain,
nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father;" "The hour cometh, and
now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth." And then the narrow-minded Grecian Jews, anxious to
vindicate their orthodoxy, which was doubted by their Hebrew brethren,
distorted Stephen's wider and grander conceptions into a charge of
blasphemy against the holy man. What a picture of the future of
Christ's best and truest witnesses, especially when insisting on some
nobler and wider or forgotten aspect of truth. Their teaching has been
ever suspected, distorted, accused as blasphemous; and so it must ever
be. And yet God's servants, when they find themselves thus
misrepresented, can realize to themselves that they are but following
the course which the saints of every age have run, that they are being
made like unto the image of Stephen the first martyr, and of Jesus
Christ Himself, the King of Saints, who suffered under a similar
accusation. The mere popularity-hunter will, of course, carefully
eschew such charges and suspicions. His object is human praise and
reward, and he shapes his teaching so as to carefully avoid giving
offence. But then the mere popularity-hunter seeks his reward here
below, and very often gets it. Stephen, however, and every true
teacher looks not for reward in this world. Stephen taught truth as
God revealed it to his soul. He suffered the consequence, and then
received his crown from that Almighty Judge before whose awful
tribunal he ever consciously stood. Misrepresentation must ever be
expected by God's true servants. It must be discounted, borne with
patiently, taken as a trial of faith and patience, and then, in God's
own time, it will turn out to our greater blessing. One consideration
alone ought to prove sufficient to console us under such
circumstances. If our teaching was not proving injurious to his cause,
the Evil One would not trouble himself about it. Let us only take good
heed lest our own self-love and vanity should lead us to annoy
ourselves too much about the slander or the evil report, remembering
that misrepresentation and slander is ever the portion of God's
servants. Jesus Christ and Stephen were thus treated. St. Paul's
teaching was accused of tending to licentiousness; the earliest
Christians were accused of vilest practices; St. Athanasius in his
struggles for truth was accused of rebellion and murder; the Reformers
were accused of lawlessness; John Wesley of Romanism and disloyalty;
William Wilberforce of being an enemy to British trade; John Howard of
being an encourager of crime and immorality. Let us be content then if
our lot be with the saints, and our portion be that of the servants of
the Most High.
Again, we learn from this place how religious zeal can overthrow
religion and work out the purposes of evil. Religious zeal, mere party
spirit taking the place of real religion, led the Hellenists to suborn
men and falsely accuse St. Stephen. They made an idol of the system of
Judaism, and forgot its spirit. They worshipped their idol so much
that they were ready to break the commandments of God for its sake.
The dangers of party spirit in matters of religion, and the evil deeds
which have been done in apparent zeal for God and real zeal for the
devil, these are still the lessons, true for the future ages of the
Church, which we read in this passage. And how true to life has even
our own age found this prophetic picture. Men cannot indeed now
suborn men and bring fatal charges against them in matters of
religion, and yet they can fall into exactly the same crime. Party
religion and party zeal lead men into precisely the same courses as
they did in the days of St. Stephen. Partisanship causes them to
violate all the laws of honour, of honesty, of Christian charity,
imagining that they are thereby advancing the cause of Christ,
forgetting that they are acting on the rule which the Scriptures
repudiate,--they are doing evil that good may come,--and striving to
further Christ's kingdom by a violation of His fundamental precepts.
Oh for more of the spirit of true charity, which will lead men to
support their own views in a spirit of Christian love! Oh for more of
that true grasp of Christianity which will teach that a breach of
Christian charity is far worse than any amount of speculative error!
The error as we think it may be in reality God's own truth; but the
violation of God's law implied in such conduct as Stephen's
adversaries displayed, and as party zeal now often prompts, can never
be otherwise than contrary to the mind and law of Jesus Christ.