Thomas M. Lindsay · 4 of 17

Chapter II. A Christian Church in Apostolic Times.

Can we, piercing the mists of two thousand years, see a Christian Church as it was in Apostolic times—a tiny island in a sea of surrounding heathenism? Our vision gets most assistance from the Epistles of St. Paul, which not only are the oldest records of the literature of the New Testament, but give us much clearer pictures of the earliest Christian assemblies for edification and thanksgiving than are to be found in the Acts of the Apostles. The more we study these epistles the more clearly we discern that we must not project into these primitive times a picture taken from any of the long organized churches of our days. On the other hand, we can see many an analogy in the usages of the growing churches of the mission field. This is not to be wondered at. The primitive church and churches growing among heathen surroundings have both to do with the origins of organization.

For one thing, we must remember that the meetings of the congregation were held in private houses; and as the number of believers grew, more than one house must have been placed at the service of the brethren for their meetings for public worship and for the transaction of the necessary business of the congregation. We are told that in the primitive church at Jerusalem the Lord’s Supper was dispensed in the houses, and that the brethren met in the house of Mary the mother of John Mark, in the house of James the brother of our Lord, and probably elsewhere. At the close of the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul sends greetings to three, perhaps five, groups of brethren gathered round clusters of distinguished Christians whom he names. One of these groups he calls a “church,” and the others were presumably so also. The account of Saul, the persecutor, making havoc of the Church, entering every house and haling men and women to prison, reads like a record of the persecution of the Huguenots among the house-churches of Reformation times in France, or like raids on house-conventicles in the Covenanting times in Scotland. It becomes evident too as we study these early records that when it was possible, that is, when any member had a sufficiently large abode and was willing to open his house to the brethren, comparatively large assemblies, including all the Christians of the town or neighbourhood, met together at stated times and especially on the Lord’s Day, for the service of thanksgiving. Gaius was able to accommodate all his fellow Christians, and was the “host of the whole Church.”

Traces of these earliest house-churches survived in happier days. The ground plan of the earliest Roman church, discovered in 1900 in the Forum at Rome, is modelled not on the basilica or public hall, but on the audience hall of the wealthy Roman burgher, and the recollections of the familiar surroundings at the meetings in the house-churches probably guided the pencil of the architect who first planned the earliest public buildings dedicated to Christian worship. Old liturgies which enjoin the deacon, at the period of the service when the Lord’s Supper is about to be celebrated, to command the mothers to take their babies on their knees, bring with them memories of these homely gatherings in private houses, which lasted down to the close of the second century and probably much later, except in the larger towns.

It is St. Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, who gives us the most distinct picture of the meetings of the earliest Christian communities. The brethren appear to have had three distinct meetings—one for the purposes of edification by prayer and exhortation, another for thanksgiving which began with a common meal and ended with the Holy Supper, and a third for the business of the little society.

1. In his description of the first the apostle introduces us to an earnest company of men and women full of restrained enthusiasm, which might soon become unrestrained. We hear of no officials appointed to conduct the services. The brethren fill the body of the hall, the women sitting together, in all probability on the one side, and the men on the other; behind them are the inquirers; and behind them, clustering round the door, unbelievers, whom curiosity or some other motive has attracted, and who are welcomed to this meeting “for the Word.”

The service, and probably each part of the service, began with the benediction: “Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” which was followed by an invocation of Jesus and the confession that He is Lord. One of the brethren began to pray; then another and another; one began the Lord’s Prayer, and all joined; each prayer was followed by a hearty and fervent “Amen.” Then a hymn was sung; then another and another, for several of the brethren have composed or selected hymns at home which they wish to be sung by the congregation. Several of these hymns are preserved in the New Testament, and one is embodied in one of our Scotch paraphrases:—

To Him be power divine ascribed, And endless blessings paid; Salvation, glory, joy, remain For ever on His Head:

Thou hast redeemed us with Thy Blood, And set the prisoners free; Thou mad’st us kings and priests to God, And we shall reign with Thee,

* * * * *

To Him that sits upon the throne The God whom we adore, And to the Lamb that once was slain; Be glory evermore.

After the hymns came reading from the Old Testament Scriptures, and readings or recitations concerning the life and death, the sayings and deeds of Jesus. Then came the “instruction”—sober words for edification, based on what had been read, and coming either from the gift of “wisdom,” or from that intuitive power of seeing into the heart of spiritual things which the apostle calls “knowledge.” Then came the moment of greatest expectancy. It was the time for the prophets, men who believed themselves and were believed by their brethren to be specially taught by the Holy Spirit, to take part. They started forward, the gifted men, so eager to impart what had been given them, that sometimes two or more rose at once and spoke together; and sometimes when one was speaking the message came to another, and he leapt to his feet, increasing the emotion and taking from the edification. When the prophets were silent, first one, then another, and sometimes two at once, began strange ejaculatory prayers, in sentences so rugged and disjointed that the audience for the most part could not understand, and had to wait till some of their number, who could follow the strange utterances, were ready to translate them into intelligible language. Then followed the benediction: “The Grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all”; the “kiss of peace”; and the congregation dispersed. Sometimes during the meeting, at some part of the services, but oftenest when the prophets were speaking, there was a stir at the back of the room, and a heathen, who had been listening in careless curiosity or in barely concealed scorn, suddenly felt the sinful secrets of his own heart revealed to him, and pushing forward fell down at the feet of the speaker and made his confession, while the assembly raised the doxology: “Blessed be God, the Father of the Lord Jesus, for evermore. Amen.”

Such was a Christian meeting for public worship in Corinth in apostolic times; and foreign as it may seem to us, the like can be still seen in mission fields among the hot-blooded people of the East. I have witnessed everything but the speaking “with tongues” in meetings of native Christians in the Deccan in India, when European influence was not present to restrain Eastern enthusiasm and condense it in Western moulds.

The meeting described by the apostle is not to be taken as something which might be seen in Corinth but was peculiar to that city; it may be taken as a type of the Christian meeting throughout the Gentile Christian Churches; for the Apostle, in his suggestions and criticisms, continually speaks of what took place throughout all the churches.

It is to be observed that if the apostle finds fault with some things, he gives the order of the service and expressly approves of every part of it, even of the strange ejaculatory prayers. He gives his Corinthian converts one broad principle, which he expects them to apply for themselves in order to better their service. Everything is to be done for the edification of the brethren, and the first qualification for edification is that all things be done “decently and in order,” for God is not a God of confusion but of peace. He gives examples of his principle. The prophets were to restrain themselves; they were to speak one at a time, and not more than two or three at one meeting; and those who prayed “in tongues” were to keep silence altogether unless some one who could interpret was present, for it is better to speak five words with understanding than ten thousand in a tongue. The women too who had the gift of prophecy were to use it in private, and not start forward at the public meeting and deliver their message there. So far from finding fault with the kind of meeting described, St. Paul seems to look on the manifestation of these gifts of praise, prayer, teaching, and prophecy, within the congregation at Corinth, as an evidence that the Christian community there was completely furnished within its own membership with all the gifts needed for the building up in faith and works.

What cannot fail to strike us in this picture is the untrammelled liberty of the worship, the possibility of every male member of the congregation taking part in the prayers and the exhortations, and the consequent responsibility laid on the whole community to see that the service was for the edification of all. When we consider the rebukes that the apostle considered it necessary to administer, it is also somewhat surprising to find so few injunctions which take the form of definite rules for public worship, and to observe the confidence which the apostle had that if certain broad principles were laid down and observed, the community was of itself able to conduct all things with that attention to decency and order which ensured edification.

Our wonder is apt to be increased when we remember the social surroundings and conditions of these Corinthian Christians. They were a number of burghers, freedmen and slaves, who, as their names show, were mostly of Roman origin, gathered from the wealthiest and most profligate city on the Mediterranean. The population of Corinth was as mixed as that of Alexandria. At Cenchrea, on the eastern shore of the isthmus, the wealth of Asia and Egypt poured in, and was sent off to Rome and Italy from Lechaeum, the western harbour. The flow of commerce brought with it the peoples, religions and habits of all lands. The religion of the city was a strange medley of cults Eastern and Western. Aphrodite and Astarte, Isis and Cybele, were among her deities; Romans, Jews, Egyptians and Phoenicians among her people. The familiar illustrations which the apostle uses in his epistles indicate the habits of the population. He speaks of the arena and the wild-beast fights, of the theatre, of the boxing match and the stadium race, of the great idol-feasts and processions. The city, we know, was honeycombed with “gilds”—religious corporations for the practices of the Eastern religions, and trades unions for the artizans and the seamen. The Christian society was gathered from all classes; from the poor and the slaves, from the well-to-do like the city treasurer, and an elder from the Jewish Synagogue; it included ladies of rank like Chloe, and men of abounding wealth like Gains. It was this hcterogenous society, including so many jarring elements, that the apostle expected to develop into an orderly Church of Christ in virtue of the “ gifts “ of the Spirit implanted within it.

2. It is by no means so easy to get a clear picture of the second meeting of the Christian community—the meeting for thanksgiving—as it is to see what the meeting for edification was like. With the latter we have only to remove the blemishes which the apostle found, and the vision of the meeting as he approved of it stands clearly before us. But the abuses which had corrupted the meeting for thanksgiving had so changed it, from what it ought to have been, that it could not serve what it was meant to do. The framework of the degenerate meeting and of the same gathering re-organized according to the apostle’s directions can easily be traced. The members of the Christian community in Corinth assembled together in one place, where they ate together a meal which they themselves provided; and this meeting ended with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The Holy Supper was the essential part. The common meal and what belonged to it were accessories, the casket to contain the one precious jewel, the body to be vivified by this soul. It was the Holy Supper that really brought them together; but their conduct had made it impossible for them to be the Lord’s guests at His Table. The apostle tells the Corinthians that their meeting could not be a Lord’s Supper nor even a love-feast if each ate his own meal and one was hungry, while another drank his fill. The common meal showed that all the brethren belonged to one living organism which was the Church in Corinth, of which the Lord was the Head. Nothing could so wound this thought as making the distinctions between rich and poor, which had been done. It banished the whole idea of fellow-ship, and sensuality was introduced where, above all places, it ought to have been absent. God had manifested His displeasure by sending sickness and death into the congregation. The apostle lays down a general principle, and gives instances of its application, which if followed out will make the common meal a fitting introduction to the Holy Supper, and then shows how the Lord’s Supper itself is to be solemnly and fitly celebrated according to the commands of Jesus. If we take the principles which the apostle lays down and suggestions from other portions of the New Testament, with those which come from the earliest post-apostolic descriptions of similar meetings, we may perhaps venture to reconstruct the scene.

The apostle shows that this meeting for thanksgiving is to be a social meal representing the fellowship which subsists between all the members of the brotherhood, because they have each a personal fellowship with their Lord. They are therefore to eat all together, and if anyone is too hungry to wait for his neighbours he ought to eat at home. It is also to be a fitting introduction for the Lord’s Supper, which both symbolises and imparts that personal fellowship with Christ which is the permanent basis of their fellowship with each other. This thought that the Holy Supper is to come at the end of it must dominate the meeting during its entire duration. From beginning to end the brethren are at the Lord’s Table and are His guests.

The whole membership of the Church at Corinth met together at one place on a fixed day, the Lord’s day, for their Thanks-giving Meeting. The meeting was confined to the member-ship; even catechumens, as well as inquirers and unbelievers, were excluded. The partakers brought provisions, according to their ability. Some of the brethren, who belonged to that honoured number who were recognized to have the prophetic gift, presided. The food brought was handed over to them, and they distributed so that the superfluity of the rich made up for the lack of the poor. They also conducted the devotional services at the feast and at the Holy Supper which followed. The presidents began with prayers of thanksgiving for the food prepared for them and before them; it was an evidence of the bounty of God the Creator; a pledge of His fellowship with them His creatures; a warrant for their continuous trust in His Fatherly care and providence; and a suggestion of the bounties of His redemption which were more fully symbolised in the Holy Supper which followed. During the feast the brethren were taught to regard themselves as in God’s presence and His guests; but this did not hinder a prevailing sense of gladness, nor prevent them satisfying their hunger and their thirst; God the creator had placed the food and drink before them for that purpose. It did prevent all unseemly behaviour, all unbrotherly conduct in speech or action, and it insisted on the absence of all who were at variance with their neighbours until the quarrel had been put an end to. During the feast hymns were sung at intervals, and probably short exhortations were given by the prophets. Then when all was decently finished the Holy Communion was solemnly celebrated as commanded by the apostle.

3. It is to be remembered that the apostle regarded the community of Christians at Corinth as something more than a society for performing together acts of public worship, whether eucharistic or for prayer, praise and exhortation. It was a little self-governing republic. This made the third kind of meeting necessary. The common worship of the society, especially the eucharistic service, united it with the whole brotherhood of believers throughout the world, and showed it to be in the succession from the ancient people of God; but it had a corporate unity of its own which manifested itself in actions for which the whole body of the Corinthian believers were responsible. This local unity took shape in the meeting of the congregation which is expressly called the “Church” by the apostle, at which all the members apparently had the right of appearing and taking part in the discussion and voting—women at first as well as men.

This meeting had charge of the discipline of the congregation and of the fraternal relations between the community and other Christian communities. Letters seeking apostolic advice were prepared and dispatched in its name; it appointed delegates to represent the church and gave them letters of commendation, and in all probability it took charge of the money gathered in the great collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem. The whole administration of the external affairs of the congregation was under its control; and this was a work of very great importance, because it was this fraternal intercourse that made visible the essential unity of the whole Church of Christ.

It exercised the same complete control over the internal administration of the affairs of the congregation. It expelled unworthy members; it deliberated upon and came to conclusions about the restoration of brethren who had fallen away and showed signs of repentance. It arrived at its decisions when necessary by voting, and the vote of the majority decided the case. We hear nothing in the epistles of a common congregational fund for purposes common to the brethren; if such existed it was probably under the care of this meeting also.

All these things implied independent self-government; and the apostle asks the brethren to undertake another task which shows even more clearly how independent and autonomous he expected the congregation to be. He censured Christians for bringing their fellow-believers before the ordinary law-courts should disputes arise between brethren; he urged that such matters should be settled within the congregation. He used stronger language about this than about any other side of the practical expression of their religious life. “Dare any of you,” he says, “having a matter against his neighbour, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?” To grasp the full significance of his meaning we must remember that the apostle is speaking to men living in the busiest commercial city of the age, and to a little community within it which included city officials, merchants, and artizans, as well as slaves. He is not addressing men belonging to a small rural village where life is simple and the occasions of dispute few and mainly personal. The Christians of Corinth lived in the grasp of a highly artificial and complicated commercial life, where the complexity of affairs offered any number of points at which differences of opinion might honestly arise between brethren related as masters and servants, buyers and sellers, traders and carriers. It was men living in these surroundings whom the apostle ordered to abstain from going before the ordinary law courts for the purpose of settling disputes which might arise between them, and whom he commanded to create tribunals within the community before which they were to bring all differences. Have they not one single “wise man,” he asks, among them who could act as judge? We are apt to forget that Christianity came to establish a new social living as well as a religion, and that from the first it demanded that all the relations between man and man ought to be regulated on Christian principles. That means now that our national laws ought to conform to the principles of the Gospel; it meant then that all disputes were to be settled within the Christian community, and that nothing was to be taken before the heathen tribunals.

Such is the picture of a Christian church in the Apostolic age, as it appears in the pages of the Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, and, although no such clear outline is given us of any other Christian community, still we are warranted, as we shall see, in assuming that the Church in Corinth did not differ much from the other churches which came into being through the mission work of the great apostle to the Gentiles. We see a little self-governing republic—a tiny island in a sea of surrounding paganism—with an active, eager, enthusiastic life of its own. It has its meetings for edification, open to all who care to attend, where the conversions are made which multiply the little community; its quieter meetings for thanksgiving, where none but the believing brethren assemble, and where the common meal enshrines the Holy Supper as the common fellowship among the brethren embodies the personal but not solitary fellowship which each believer has with the Redeemer; its business meetings where it rules its members in the true democratic fashion of a little village republic, and attaches itself to other brotherhoods who share the same faith and hope, trust in and live for the same Saviour, and have things in common in this world as well as beyond it. The meeting for thanksgiving represents the centre of spiritual repose, the quiet source of active life and service; the meeting for edification, the enthusiastic, eager, aggressive side of the life and work; and the business meeting, the deliberative and practical action of men who recognize that they are in the world though not of it.

We can see our brethren in the faith living, loving, working together, quarrelling and making it up again, across these long centuries, and all very human as we are.

The evidence for the independence and self-government of the churches to which St. Paul addressed his epistles is so overwhelming that it is impossible even to imagine the presence within them of any ecclesiastical authority with an origin and power independent of the assembly of the congregation, and the apostle does not make the slightest allusion to any such governing or controlling authority, whether vested in one man or in a group of men. The apostle was so filled with the sense of high rank to which all Christians are raised in being called to be “sons of God” through Jesus Christ, that in his view this sublime position makes all believers of equal standing no matter with what spiritual gifts and natural abilities particular individuals may be endowed. It was a natural and practical consequence of this thought that all believers should share the responsibilities of control in the community to which they belonged. So we find it as a matter of fact in the churches to which St. Paul addressed his epistles. He did not write to ecclesiastical persons to whom the brethren owed obedience as to an authority different from, and superior to, the assembly of the congregation. He addressed his letters to the whole community, who, in his eyes, are responsible for the progress and good behaviour as for the misdeeds and decline of the society and of individual Christians within it. His letters are quite consistent with the existence of ministering officials who owe their position to the assembly and are responsible in the last resort to it; but they are not consistent with the existence within the community of any authority whose power comes directly from a source outside the brotherhood.

In his letters to the Church at Corinth, the apostle makes scant allusion to office-bearers of any kind. The meeting of the congregation is the one thing which gathers up the unity of administration within the community. The apostle appears to acquiesce in this state of matters, unless we consider the query as to whether there are no wise men within the society who can settle disputes within the brotherhood to be a suggestion that some kind of recognized officials are needed for the furtherance of the orderly life of the local church. In verses 3-15 of the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, whether these be a short letter addressed to the Church at Ephesus, as some think, or whether they be an integral part of the letter to “all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints,” the apostle ad-dresses Christians who appear to be living in an even less organized condition of Christian fellowship. They form a unity because of their common faith and love; but that unity does not appear to find expression even in one common congregational meeting. Little companies, to whom the apostle unhesitatingly gives the name of “churches,” have gathered round prominent persons who appear to have been the first converts, or those who had placed their houses at the disposal of the brethren for holding meetings for worship, or those who had voluntarily done special services to their fellow believers. The same condition of things is to be found at Colossae and at Laodicea. The apostle sends greetings to persons of different sexes and positions in life, but never to office-bearers as such. Nor among his many exhortations does he allude to the need of organization under hierarchical authority, still less does he prescribe a form of organization which was to be uniform throughout the whole Church of Christ.

We do, however, find traces of an organization within the Christian communities, if we use the word in the most general way, in the Epistles of St. Paul. The meeting of the congregation is almost as prominent in the Church of the Thessalonians as it is at Corinth; it exercises discipline; it selects faithful men to accompany the apostle to Jerusalem with the money brought together in the great collection; it evidently has all administrative powers in its hands. But besides this, we hear of men who are called “those who are over you in the Lord,” and the brethren of Thessalonica are told to value them highly for their works’ sake. In the Corinthian Church we hear of “gifts,” of “helps” (ἀντιλήψεις), anything that could be done for the poor or outcast brethren, either by rich and influential brethren, or by the devotion of those who stood on no such eminence; and guidances or “governments” (κυβερνήσεις), men who by wise councils did for the community what the steersman or pilot does for the ship. These “gifts” were bestowed on members of the community for the service of all; and men who were recognized to be able to guide wisely as well as others from whom all kinds of subordinate service could be expected, were present within the Christian community at Corinth. Again the Corinthian Christians are told “to be in subjection” to Stephanas, the first convert, and others like him who have ministered to the saints and who have laboured among them, putting heart into their work. In the Epistle to the Romans there is express mention of men who are over their brethren, and they are told to do their work diligently. These references and others show us that there were men in these Christian societies who were recognized as leaders and who rendered continuous and valued services to their brethren by so doing. They may not have been office-bearers by election and appointment, but they were engaged in doing the work that office-bearers do in a Christian church.

Altogether apart, however, from the organization of the local churches, whether developed or undeveloped, we find a ministry which existed in all the churches of the Epistles of St. Paul, and indeed in all the churches of the New Testament. We meet everywhere with men who are called prophets, and who occupy a distinguished place in the primitive churches. St. Paul esteemed them highly. He placed them second to apostles in his enumeration of the “gifts” bestowed by God on the churches. He exhorts the Corinthian Christians to cultivate the “gift” of prophecy, and the Thessalonian Christians are told to cherish “prophesyings.” It becomes evident the more these epistles of St. Paul are studied, that teaching and exhortation, associated afterwards in a very special manner with the functions of rule and leadership, were in the hands of the prophets to a very large extent in the apostolic Church, and that no inquiry into the “ministry” of the primitive Church can omit the functions and position of prophets and prophecy.

This brings us to consider the “ministry” and organization of the churches in the apostolic age, a thing necessary to complete our conception of what a Christian society was like in these early times. The subject is interesting, but confessedly difficult. Yet we have light enough, from the writings of the New Testament and the earliest extra-canonic literature, to show us that it was entirely unlike anything which has existed in any part of the Christian Church from the beginning of the third century downwards.

Before we begin to inquire what this ministry and organization were, it may be useful to note two things: first, it must be remembered that our Lord has clearly intimated that leadership within His Church was to have a distinctive character of its own; and secondly, there is from the very first beginnings of organization a clearly marked separation between two different kinds of ministry.

The distinctive character of leadership in the Christian Church is given in the saying of our Lord contained in Luke xxii. 26: “He that is greater among you let him become as the younger, and he that is chief as he that doth serve”; and this junction of service and leadership is maintained throughout the Epistles of St. Paul. The Corinthian Christians were to place themselves under the guidance of Stephanas and those like him who had served them and laboured among them. Those that are “over the Thessalonian brethren in the Lord” are the men who spend most labour upon them. Everywhere service and leadership go together. These two thoughts are continually associated with a third, that of “gifts”; for the qualifications which fit a man for service and therefore for rule within the Church of Christ are always looked upon as special “gifts” of the Spirit of God, or charismata. Thus we have three thoughts: of qualification, which is the “gift” of God; the service to the Church of Christ which these “gifts” enable those who possess them to perform; and lastly the promise that such service is honoured by the Father, and is the basis of leadership or rule within the Church of Christ.

The earliest evidence we have for the beginnings of the organization of a local church is given in Acts vi., where we are told about “seven” men being set apart for what is called the “ministry of tables,” and which is contrasted with the “ministry of the Word.” We have thus at the very beginnings of organization a division of ministry, or rather two different kinds of ministry, within the Church of Christ in the apostolic age. Harnack calls this division the “earliest datum in the history of organization.” The distinction which comes into sight at the very beginning runs all through the apostolic Church, and goes far down into the sub-apostolic period. It can be traced through the Pauline epistles and other New Testament writings, and down through such sub-apostolic writings as the Didache, the Pastor of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apology of Justin Martyr, and the writings of Irenaeus. It is also found in the Christian literature which does not belong to the main stream of the Church’s history, among the Gnostics, the Marcionites and the Montanists. The distinction ceases to be an essential one or one inherent in the very idea of the ministry when we get down as far as Tertullian, but it does not cease entirely. Prophets are found long after Tertullian’s time, but they no longer occupy the position which once was theirs.

The common name for those who belong to the first kind of ministry is “ those speaking the Word of God,” and this name is given to them not only in the New Testament, but also in the Didache, by Hermas, and by Clement of Rome. To the second class belonged the ministry of a local church by whatever names they came to be called, pastors, elders, bishops, deacons. We may call the first kind the prophetic, and the second kind the local ministry. The great practical distinction between the two was that the prophetic ministry did not mean office-bearers in a local church; while the local ministry consisted of these office-bearers. The one was a ministry to the whole Church of God, and by its activity bound all the scattered parts of the Church visible together; the other was a ministry within a local church, and, with the assembly of the congregate in, manifested and preserved the unity and the independence of the local community. In the apostolic and early sub-apostolic church the prophetic ministry was manifestly the higher and the local ministry the lower; the latter had to give place to the former even within the congregation over which they were office-bearers.

But while this higher ministry can be clearly separated from the lower ministry of the local churches, it does not follow that these office-bearers did not from the first count among their number men who possessed the prophetic gift. Prophecy or the gift of magnetic utterance might come to any Christian, and St. Paul desired that it might belong to all. The two ministries can be clearly distinguished, but no hard and fast line can be drawn between the men who compose the ministries. The “prophetic” gift of magnetic speech was so highly esteemed that it is only natural to suppose that when congregations chose their office-bearers they selected men so gifted, if any such were within their membership. This, we can see, was the case in later times. Polycarp was an office-bearer in the Church at Smyrna, but he was also a “prophet.” Ignatius of Antioch was a prophet. Cyprian and other pastors in North Africa had the same gift, which was a personal and not an official source of enlightenment. We have by no means obscure indications that what took place later happened in the earliest period. The “Seven,” who were selected for the lower ministry in Jerusalem, did not confine themselves to the “service of tables,” but were found among those who “spoke the Word of God” with power.