Thomas M. Lindsay · 8 of 17

Chapter IV. The Churches Creating Their Ministry. · Part 3

The view taken about presbyters or elders at the close of the preceding chapter was for a long time undisputed by all serious students of the conditions of the primitive Church. It may be found stated at length in the late Dr. Lightfoot’s Note on “The synonymes ` ‘bishop’ and ‘presbyter,’” in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians. It has been disputed by such distinguished scholars as Harnack, Sohm and Weizsacker, and their divergence from the opinion which was previously held with great unanimity arose after and in consequence of the publication of the late Dr. Hatch’s Bampton Lectures in 1881.

The theory about early ecclesiastical organization which embodies this change of view as to the relation between the “presbyters” and “deacons,” will be discussed in an Appendix. The matter which concerns us here is whether “presbyters “ were church officials, chosen and appointed as such, in the Church of the first century, and identical with “bishops,” or whether Harnack is right when he says that “We meet with chosen or appointed presbyters for the first time in the second century. The oldest witnesses for them are the Epistle of James, the Acts of the Apostles, the Pastoral Epistles, the Original Document of the so-called Apostolic , and the Shepherd of Hermas.”

Harnack’s opinion, if I do not mistake him, is, when put briefly, as follows. He believes that in the last decades of the first century there was at the head of each Christian congregation what may be called a three-fold organization—a prophetic, a patriarchal and an administrative one. The patriarchal rule was based upon the natural deference of the younger to the older members of the community, and the circle of elders, in all emergencies which affected the congregation, could come forward as their guides; these elders watched over the conduct and the evangelical character of the members, and admonished, punished and exhorted the congregation. The elders were the natural heads of the community, the aged members who were revered on account of age and character, but were not elected or appointed officials. The real officials, who formed the administration, were the bishops and the deacons—men who possessed the “gifts” of government and of public service. They were appointed primarily to preside at public worship. Originally there was no distinction between the bishops and the deacons save what came from age and experience, but their work naturally fell into two divisions, in which the oversight belonged to the bishops and the subordinate services were performed by the deacons. The bishops, in consequence of their position as the officials appointed to conduct public worship, became naturally the custodians and administrators of the property of the congregation, the distributors of the gifts of the faithful, the recognized guardians of the poor, the sick, the infirm and strangers, and the representatives of the society to people outside.

Harnack, therefore, holds that presbyters and bishops were distinct from the first. He believes, besides, that while a circle of elders, in the sense of “honoured” old men, existed from the most primitive times, there were no elected or chosen elders forming a college of office-bearers till the second century; but he thinks that the bishops were usually selected from the circle of honoured old men, were sometimes called “elders,” and were invariably classed among them. In reaching this conclusion he rejects as unhistorical the statement in Acts xiv. 23, which tells us that the apostles, Paul and Barnabas, saw to the appointment of elders in the churches, which they had formed in Derbe, Lystra and Iconium; he believes that the “elders” of Acts xx. 17 were bishops; he concludes that the “elders” of 1 Peter v. 1 ff. were not office-bearers; he rejects, as an interpolation, the verses in Titus i. 7-9, which practically assert the identity of bishops and presbyters; and he finds a complete of his views in the statements about presbyters and bishops in the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.

Let us accept, for the sake of argument, the critical conclusion of Harnack about the dates of documents and the interpolations which may have come into texts, and then see what emerges from an examination of the authorities in which presbyters and bishops are mentioned.

The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians is the best starting point, for there is practical unanimity among scholars of all schools that this document belongs to about the middle of the last decade of the first century. The letter was sent from the Roman Church to remonstrate with the Corinthian Christians about the dismissal of the leaders of the Church there from their office. We find three names given to these men—ἡγούμενοι, ἐπίσκοποι, πρεσβύτεροι. Harnack’s contention is that πρεσβύτεροι invariably denote the members of the circle of revered old men in the community, and that when the term is used to denote office-bearers, they are so called because they were always members of that circle. On the other hand, Light-foot, in the past, and Loening, Loofs and Schmiedel in the present, declare that πρεσβύτερος is the technical name for the office, while ἐπίσποκος describes what was done (having ἐπισκοπή or oversight), or at all events that πρεσβύτερος and ἐπίσκοπος are synonymous terms for the same officials.

One thing to begin with is significant. Three men were sent from Rome to Corinth with the letter, Valerius Bito, Claudius Ephebus and Fortunatus, “men that have walked among us,” says the writer, “from youth to old age unblameably.” They belonged, therefore, to that class whom Harnack supposes to have been generally called “presbyters,” and if his theory were correct we should expect them to be so designated in an official letter, but they are not.

In the Church in Corinth some men had been thrust from office, and the office is always referred to as ἐπισκοπή This is what is said: “For it will be no light sin for us, if we have thrust out of the oversight (ἐπισκοπή) those who have offered the gifts (i.e. the prayers of the congregation) unblameably and holily. Blessed are those presbyters who have gone before, seeing that their departure was fruitful and ripe, for they have no fear lest any one should remove them from their appointed place. For we see that ye have displaced certain persons though they were living honourably, from the ministration (λειτουργία) which they had kept blamelessly.” Everything implies that the men who had been thrust out from their ἐπισκοπή were called presbyters. This inference is strengthened by what follows: “It is shameful . . . that it should be reported that the very steadfast and ancient Church of the Corinthians, for the sake of one or two persons, maketh sedition against its presbyters.” “Only let the flock of Christ be at peace with its duly appointed presbyters.” “Ye therefore that laid the foundation of the sedition, submit yourselves unto the presbyters.” The only sentence in the epistle which lends itself to the theory of Harnack is: “Let us reverence our rulers (προηγούμενοι), let us honour our elders (πρεσβύτεροι), let us instruct our young men in the lesson of the fear of God; let us guide our women toward that which is good”; where ‘elders’ evidently mean old men. Sshmiedel’s remark on the rhetorical effect of substituting “elders” (πρεσβύτεροι) for “old men” (πρεσβῦται) is a sound explanation of the use of the words.

It appears to me that the Epistle of Clement, on which Harnack so firmly relies to establish his conclusion that “elders” had no official position until the second century, fails him utterly, and that his own earlier position is much more in accordance with the facts of the case. In his edition of the Epistles of Clement, published in 1875, Harnack said, commenting on the words episcopi et diaconi (xlii. 5): “Luce clarius est, duo in clero ordines tum temporis (i.e. in the time of the apostles) fuisse, episcopos (= presbyteros) et diaconos.” This seems still to hold good.

When we turn to 1 Peter (v. 1, 2) we find there that, even if we discard the disputed reading “exercising the oversight” (ἐπισκοποῦντες), the elders are told to “shepherd the flock of God which is among you.” There is no word in the whole round of primitive ecclesiastical phraseology which is more frequently used to express the relation of office-bearers than “to shepherd” (ποιμαίνειν); and the difference between “shepherds” and “flock” is much greater than between the more aged and the younger members of the society.

In Acts xx. 17, St. Paul summoned the presbyters (τοὺς πρεσβοτέρους) of the Church of Ephesus to meet him at Miletus; he charged them to “shepherd the Church of God”; he called the Church a “flock” (ποίμνιον); and he said that the Holy Spirit had made them overseers (ἐπισκόπους) in this flock. Whatever be the date or authorship of the book the fact remains that the author did believe that the presbyters (not some of them) were the “overseers” and the “shepherds” of the Church in Ephesus. They were the office-bearers there and were called both presbyters and overseers or bishops.

These statements carry us a long way. They prove to us that before the close of the first century bodies of presbyters existed as ruling colleges in Christian congregations over a great part of the Roman Empire. The Epistle of Clement proves this for the Roman Church. The First Epistle of Peter proves it for Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. The Apocalypse confirms the proof for Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. The Acts of the Apostles adds its confirmation for Ephesus and Jerusalem. The writings all imply that the colleges of presbyters at the head of congregations were no new institution. They had evidently existed for a long time. It will be observed that the places include the sphere of the mission-journey of Paul and Barnabas. They seem to me to confirm what the Acts of the Apostles tell us of the institution of presbyters by the apostles. All this has been reached on the dates of the writings as given by advanced critics.

The proofs for the identity of the offices of elders and bishops in the Church of the first century have often been collected. They may be arranged thus: (1) Acts xx. 17; St. Paul sent for the elders of Ephesus, and in his address to them said that “the Holy Spirit had made them bishops; (2) in 1 Peter v. 1, 2, elders are told to act as pastors and as bishops (πρεσβύτεροι . . . ποιμάνατε . . . ἐπισκοποῦντες); (3) in 1 Clement it is made clear that at Rome presbyters or elders and bishops are the same officials; (4) in 1 Timothy a description of bishops is given (iii. 1-7), then follows what is required of deacons (iii. 8-13); in v. 17-19 the former ministers are alluded to as presbyters; (5) in Titus i. 5-7 we find that “thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city . . . for the bishop must be.”; (6) in the Peshito Syriac Version of the New Testament ἐπίσκοπος is usually translated by kashisho—elder or presbyter; (7) the opinion of the ancient Church, founding on these passages, and voiced by Jerome, unhesitatingly declared that in the apostolic age elders and bishops were the same; and this idea may almost be said to have prevailed throughout the Middle Ages down to the Council of Trent.

The word episcopus had a long and varied history before it was used in connexion with the Christian Church. Hatch has tried in a very interesting but not quite conclusive manner to show that episcopi were officers of administration and finance; Lightfoot has shown that the Attic bishop was the commissioner appointed to inspect a newly acquired province, and that the word was used in a similar way outside the sphere of Athenian influence. In the Septuagint episcopus means an official set to oversee work, a military officer, a commissioner to carry out the orders of the king. But while all these parallels are interesting much may be said for the more commonplace idea that the word episcopus means simply one who has an episcope, one who has oversight or superintendence. If so the word is not, during the first century, the technical term for an office-bearer; it is rather the word which describes what the office-bearer, i.e. the elder, does. The elder was the episcopus, overseer or superintendent, while the deacon rendered the subordinate services. The office connected itself therefore with the κυβερνήσεις, while deacon was related to the ἀντιλήψεις of 1 Cor. xii. 28. The use of the words in the earliest Christian literature seems to bear out this idea, This leads to the conclusion in the end of the preceding chapter that elder is the name for the office, while bishop is the title describing what the elder has to do. It can claim the support of Professor Sanday of Oxford and of Professor Loofs of Halle. Dr. Loofs asserts that in his opinion the idea that ἐπίσκοπος is the name of an office, and not the term describing the work done by the official, is the πρῶτον ψεῦδος of many of the modern attempts to investigate and describe primitive ecclesiastical organization.