PRIMITIVE EPISCOPACY AND PRESBYTERIAN ORDINATION.
It has been already stated that, except in a few great cities where
there were several Christian congregations, the introduction of
Episcopacy produced a very slight change in the appearance of the
ecclesiastical community. In towns and villages, where the disciples
constituted but a single flock, they had commonly only one teaching
elder; and as, in accordance with apostolic rule, [575:1] this labourer
in the word and doctrine was deemed worthy of double honour, he was
already the most prominent and influential member of the brotherhood.
The new arrangement merely clothed him with the name of _bishop_, and
somewhat augmented his authority. Having the funds of the Church at his
disposal, he had special influence; and though he could not well act
without the sanction of his elders, he could easily contrive to negative
any of their resolutions which did not meet his approval.
It is abundantly clear that this primitive dignitary was ordinarily the
pastor of only a single congregation. "If, before the multitude
increase, there should be a place having a few faithful men in it, to
the extent of twelve, who shall be able to make a dedication to pious
uses for a bishop, let them write to the Churches round about the
place," says an ancient canon, "that three chosen men.... may come to
examine with diligence him who has been thought worthy of this
degree.... If he has not a wife, it is a good thing; but if he has
married a wife, having children, let him abide with her, continuing
steadfast in every doctrine, able to explain the Scriptures well."
[576:1] This humble functionary was assisted in the management of his
little flock by two or three elders. "If the bishop has attended to the
knowledge and patience of the love of God," says another regulation,
"let him ordain two presbyters, when he has examined them, or rather
three." [576:2] The bishop, the elders, and the deacons, all assembled
in one place every Lord's day for congregational worship. An old
ecclesiastical law accordingly prescribes the following
arrangement--"Let the seat of the bishop be placed in the midst, and let
the presbyters sit on each side of him, and let the deacons stand by
them,... and let it be their care that the people sit a with all
quietness and order in the other part of the church." [576:3] Thus,
except in the case of a few large towns, the primitive bishop was simply
the parochial minister. Towards the close of the second century, the
bishop and the teacher were designations of the same import. Speaking of
those at the head of the Churches, Irenaeus describes them as
distinguished by their superior or inferior ability in sermonizing;
[576:4] and a well-informed writer, who flourished as late as the fourth
century, mentions preaching as the bishop's peculiar function. [576:5]
In the apostolic age every one who had popular gifts was permitted to
edify the congregation by their exercise; [576:6] and, long afterwards,
any elder, who was qualified to speak in the Church, was at liberty to
address his fellow-worshippers. When Origen, prior to his ordination as
a presbyter, ventured to expound the Scriptures publicly at the request
of the bishops of Palestine, Demetrius, his own ecclesiastical superior,
denounced his conduct as irregular; but the parties, by whom the learned
Alexandrian had been invited to lecture, boldly vindicated the
proceeding. He (Demetrius) has asserted, said they, "that this was never
before either heard or done, that laymen should deliver discourses in
the presence of bishops. We know not how it happens that he is here
evidently so far from the truth. For, indeed, wherever there are found
those qualified to benefit the brethren, they are exhorted by the holy
bishops to address the people." [577:1] But still the bishop himself was
the stated and ordinary preacher; and when he was sick or absent, the
flock could seldom expect a sermon. When present, he always administered
the Lord's Supper with his own hands, and dispensed in person the rite
of baptism. He also occupied the chair at the meetings of the
presbytery, and presided at the ordination of the elders and deacons of
his congregation.
Though Christians formed but a fraction, and often but a small fraction
of the population, their bishops were thickly planted. Thus, Cenchrea,
the port of Corinth, had an episcopal overseer, [577:2] as well as
Corinth itself; the bishop of Portus and the bishop of Ostia were only
two miles asunder; [577:3] and, of the eighty-seven bishops who met at
Carthage, about A.D. 256, to discuss the question of the rebaptism of
heretics, many, such as Mannulus, Polianus, Dativus, and Secundinus,
[577:4] were located in small towns or villages. Though, probably, some
of these pastors had not the care of more than twenty or thirty
Christian families, each had the same rank and authority as the bishop
of Carthage. "It remains," said Cyprian at the opening of the council,
"that we severally declare our opinion on this same subject, judging no
one, nor depriving any one of the right of communion if he differ from
us. For no one of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or by
tyrannical terror forces his colleagues to a necessity of obeying;
inasmuch as every bishop in the free use of his liberty and power has
the right of forming his own judgment." [578:1] In other quarters of the
Church its episcopal guardians were equally numerous. Hence it is said
of the famous Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, that, to sustain his
reputation, he instigated "the bishops of the adjacent rural districts
and towns" to praise him in their addresses to the people. [578:2] Even
so late as the middle of the third century, the jurisdiction of the
greatest bishops was extremely limited. Cyprian of Carthage, in point of
position the second prelate in the Western Church, presided over only
eight or nine presbyters; [578:3] and Cornelius of Rome, confessedly the
most influential ecclesiastic in Christendom, had the charge of probably
not more than fourteen congregations. [578:4]
There were commonly several elders and deacons connected with every
worshipping society, and though these, as well as the bishops, began,
towards the close of the second century, to be called clergymen, [578:5]
and were thus taught to cherish the idea that the Lord was their
inheritance, it would be quite a mistake to infer that they all
subsisted on their official income. Not a few of them probably derived
their maintenance from secular employments, some of them being tradesmen
or artizans, and others in stations of greater prominence. Hyacinthus,
an elder of the Church of Rome in the time of bishop Victor, appears to
have held a situation in the Imperial household, [579:1] and Tertullian
complains that persons engaged in trades directly connected with the
support of idolatry were promoted to ecclesiastical offices. [579:2]
There was a time when even an apostle laboured as a tent-maker, but as
the hierarchical spirit acquired strength, and as the Church increased
in wealth and numbers, there was a growing impression that all its
office-bearers were degraded by such services. Cyprian speaks with
extreme bitterness of a deceased elder who had appointed a brother elder
the executor of his will, declaring that the clergy "should in no way be
called off from their holy ministrations nor tied down by secular
troubles and business." [579:3] But the common sense of the Church
revolted against such high-flown spiritualism, as in many districts
where the disciples were still few and indigent, they could not afford a
suitable support for all entrusted with the performance of
ecclesiastical duties. Hence, before the recognition of Christianity by
Constantine, even bishops in some countries were permitted by trade to
eke out a scanty maintenance. "Let not bishops, elders, and deacons
leave their places for the sake of trading," says a council held in the
beginning of the fourth century, "nor travelling about the provinces let
them be found dealing in fairs. However, _to provide a living for
themselves_, let them send either a son, or a freedman, or a servant, or
a friend, or any one else: and if they wish to trade, let them do so
within their province." [580:1]
It is clear, from the New Testament, that, in the apostolic age,
ordination was performed by "the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery," and this mode of designation to the ministry appears to
have continued until some time in the third century. We are informed by
the most learned of the fathers, in a passage to which the attention of
the reader has already been invited, [580:2] that "even at Alexandria,
from Mark the Evangelist until Heraclas and Dionysius the bishops, the
presbyters were always in the habit of naming bishop one chosen from
among themselves and placed in a higher degree, in the same manner as if
an army should make an emperor, or the deacons choose from among
themselves one whom they knew to be industrious and call him
archdeacon." [580:3] As Jerome here mentions various important facts of
which we might have otherwise remained ignorant, and as this statement
throws much light upon the ecclesiastical history of the early Church,
it is entitled to special notice.
In the letter where this passage occurs the writer is extolling the
dignity of presbyters, and is endeavouring to shew that they are very
little inferior to bishops. He admits, indeed, that, in his own days,
they had ceased to ordain; but he intimates that they once possessed the
right, and that they retained it in all its integrity until the former
part of the preceding century. Some have thought that Jerome has here
expressed himself indefinitely, and that he did not know the exact date
at which the arrangement he describes ceased at Alexandria. But his
testimony, when fairly analysed, can scarcely be said to want precision;
for he obviously speaks of Heraclas and Dionysius as bishops _by
anticipation_, alleging that a custom which anciently existed among the
elders of the Egyptian metropolis was maintained until the time when
these ecclesiastics, who afterwards successively occupied the episcopal
chair, sat together in the presbytery. The period, thus pointed out, can
be easily ascertained. Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, after a long
official life of forty-three years, died about A.D. 232, [581:1] and it
is well known that Heraclas and Dionysius were both members of his
presbytery towards the close of his episcopal administration. It was,
therefore, shortly before his demise that the new system was introduced.
In certain parts of the Church the arrangement mentioned by Jerome
probably continued somewhat longer. Cyprian apparently hints at such
cases of exception when he says that in "_almost_ all the provinces,"
[581:2] the neighbouring bishops assembled, on the occasion of an
episcopal vacancy, at the new election and ordination. It may have been
that, in a few of the more considerable towns, the elders still
continued to nominate their president.
When the erudite Roman presbyter informs us that "_even_ at Alexandria"
[581:3] the elders formerly made their own bishop, his language
obviously implies that such a mode of creating the chief pastor was not
confined to the Church of the metropolis of Egypt. It existed wherever
Christianity had gained a footing, and he mentions this particular see,
partly, because of its importance--being, in point of rank, the second
in the Empire--and partly, perhaps, because the remarkable circumstances
in its history, leading to the alteration which he specifies, were known
to all his well-informed contemporaries. Jerome does not say that the
Alexandrian presbyters inducted their bishop by imposition of hands,
[582:1] or set him apart to his office by any formal ordination. His
words apparently indicate that they did not recognize the necessity of
any special rite of investiture; that they made the bishop by election;
and that, when once acknowledged as the object of their choice, he was
at liberty to enter forthwith on the performance of his episcopal
duties. When the Roman soldiers made an emperor they appointed him by
acclamation, and the cheers which issued from their ranks as he stood up
before the legions and as he was clothed with the purple by one of
themselves, constituted the ceremony of his inauguration. The ancient
archdeacon was still one of the deacons; [582:2] as he was the chief
almoner of the Church, he required to possess tact, discernment, and
activity; and, in the fourth century, he was nominated to his office by
his fellow-deacons. Jerome assures us that, until the time of Heraclas
and Dionysius, the elders made a bishop just in the same way as in his
own day the soldiers made an emperor, or as the deacons chose one whom
they knew to be industrious, and made him an archdeacon.
In one of the letters purporting to have been written by Pius, bishop of
Rome, to Justus of Vienne, shortly after the middle of the second
century, there is a passage which supplies a singularly striking
confirmation of the testimony of Jerome. Even were we to admit that the
genuineness of this epistle cannot be satisfactorily established, it
must still be acknowledged to be a very ancient document, and were it of
somewhat later date than its title indicates, it should at least be
received as representing the traditions which prevailed respecting the
ecclesiastical arrangements of an early antiquity. In this communication
Pius speaks of his episcopal correspondent of Vienne as "_constituted by
the brethren_ and clothed with the dress of the bishops." [583:1] By
"the brethren," as is plain from another part of the letter, [583:2] he
understands the presbytery. And as the soldiers made a sovereign by
saluting him emperor, and arraying him in the purple; so the elders made
a president by clothing him with a certain piece of dress, and calling
him bishop. Thus, the statement of Jerome is exactly corroborated by the
evidence of this witness.
We may infer from the letter of Pius that in Gaul and Italy, as well as
in Egypt, the elders were in the habit of making their own bishop.
[583:3] There is not a particle of evidence to shew that any other
arrangement originally existed. The declaration of so competent an
authority as Jerome backed by the attestation of this ancient epistle
may be regarded as perfectly conclusive. [583:4] But other proofs
of the same fact are not wanting. For a long period the bishop continued
to be known by the title of "the elder who presides"-a designation which
obviously implies that he was still only one of the presbyters. When the
Paschal controversy created such excitement, and when Victor of Rome
threatened to renounce the communion of those who held views different
from his own, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote a letter of remonstrance to the
haughty churchman in which he broadly reminded him of his ecclesiastical
position. "_Those, presbyters_ before Soter _who governed_ the Church
over which you now preside, I mean," said he, "Anicetus, and Pius,
Hyginus with Telesphorus and Xystus, neither did themselves observe, nor
did they permit those after them to observe it.... But those _very
presbyters_ before you who did not observe it, sent the Eucharist to
those of Churches which did." [584:1] Irenaeus here endeavours to teach
the bishop of Rome a lesson of humility by reminding him repeatedly that
he and his predecessors were but presbyters.
The pastor of Lyons speaks even still more distinctly respecting the
status of the bishops who flourished in his generation. Thus, he
says--"We should obey those presbyters in the Church who have the
succession from the apostles, and who, _with the succession of the
episcopate_, have received the certain gift of truth according to the
good pleasure of the Father: but we should hold as suspected or as
heretics and of bad sentiments the rest who depart from the principal
succession, and meet together wherever they please.... From all such we
must keep aloof, but we must adhere to those who both preserve, as we
have already mentioned, the doctrine of the apostles, and exhibit, _with
the order of the presbytery_, sound teaching and an inoffensive
conversation." [585:1] "The order of the presbytery" obviously signifies
the official character conveyed by "the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery," and yet such was the ordination of those who, in the time
of Irenaeus, possessed "the succession from the apostles" and "the
succession of the episcopate."
Some imagine that no one can be properly qualified to administer divine
ordinances who has not received episcopal ordination, but a more
accurate acquaintance with the history of the early Church is all that
is required to dissipate the delusion. The preceding statements clearly
shew that, for upwards of one hundred and fifty years after the death of
our Lord, all the Christian ministers throughout the world were ordained
by presbyters. The bishops themselves were of "the order of the
presbytery," and, as they had never received episcopal consecration,
they could only ordain as presbyters. The bishop was, in fact, nothing
more than the chief presbyter. [585:2] A father of the third century
accordingly observes--"All power and grace are established in the Church
where _elders preside_, who possess the power, as well of baptizing, as
of confirming and ordaining." [585:3]
An old ecclesiastical law, recently presented for the first time to the
English reader, [586:1] throws much light on a portion of the history of
the Church long buried in great obscurity. This law may well remind us
of those remains of extinct classes of animals which the naturalist
studies with so much interest, as it obviously belongs to an era even
anterior to that of the so-called apostolical canons. [586:2] Though it
is part of a series of regulations once current in the Church of
Ethiopia, there is every reason to believe that it was framed in Italy,
and that its authority was acknowledged by the Church of Rome in the
time of Hippolytus. [586:3] It marks a transition period in the history
of ecclesiastical polity, and whilst it indirectly confirms the
testimony of Jerome relative to the custom of the Church of Alexandria,
it shews that the state of things to which the learned presbyter refers
was now superseded by another arrangement. This curious specimen of
ancient legislation treats of the appointment and ordination of
ministers. "The bishop," says this enactment, "is to be elected by all
the people.... And they shall choose ONE OF THE BISHOPS AND ONE OF THE
PRESBYTERS, ... AND THESE SHALL LAY THEIR HANDS UPON HIS HEAD AND PRAY."
[586:4] Here, to avoid the confusion arising from a whole crowd of
individuals imposing hands in ordination, two were selected to act on
behalf of the assembled office-bearers; and, that the parties entitled
to officiate might be fairly represented, the deputies were to be a
bishop and a presbyter. [587:1] The canon illustrates the jealousy with
which the presbyters in the early part of the third century still
guarded some of their rights and privileges. In the matter of investing
others with Church authority, they yet maintained their original
position, and though many bishops might be present when another was
inducted into office, they would permit only one of the number to unite
with one of themselves in the ceremony of ordination. Some at the
present day do not hesitate to assert that presbyters have no right
whatever to ordain, but this canon supplies evidence that in the third
century they were employed to ordain bishops.
It thus appears that the bishop of the ancient Church was very different
from the dignitary now known by the same designation. The primitive
bishop had often but two or three elders, and sometimes a single deacon,
[587:2] under his jurisdiction: the modern prelate has frequently the
oversight of several hundreds of ministers. The ancient bishop,
surrounded by his presbyters, preached ordinarily every Sabbath to his
whole flock: the modern bishop may spend an entire lifetime without
addressing a single sermon, on the Lord's day, to many who are under his
episcopal supervision. The early bishop had the care of a parish: the
modern bishop superintends a diocese. The elders of the primitive bishop
were not unfrequently decent tradesmen who earned their bread by the
sweat of their brow: [587:3] the presbyters of a modern prelate have
generally each the charge of a congregation, and are supposed to be
entirely devoted to sacred duties. Even the ancient city bishop had but
a faint resemblance to his modern namesake. He was the most laborious
city minister, and the chief preacher. He commonly baptized all who were
received into the Church, and dispensed the Eucharist to all the
communicants. He was, in fact, properly the minister of an overgrown
parish who required several assistants to supply his lack of service.
The foregoing testimonies likewise shew that the doctrine of apostolical
succession, as now commonly promulgated, is utterly destitute of any
sound historical basis. According to some, no one is duly qualified to
preach and to dispense the sacraments whose authority has not been
transmitted from the Twelve by an unbroken series of episcopal
ordinations. But it has been demonstrated that episcopal ordinations,
properly so called, originated only in the third century, and that even
the bishops of Rome, who flourished prior to that date, were "of the
order of the presbytery." All the primitive bishops received nothing
more than presbyterian ordination. It is plain, therefore, that the
doctrine of the transmission of spiritual power from the apostles
through an unbroken series of episcopal ordinations flows from sheer
ignorance of the actual constitution of the early Church.
But the arrangements now described were gradually subverted by episcopal
encroachments, and a separate chapter must be devoted to the
illustration of the progress of Prelacy.