Adolf von Harnack · 24 of 39

Chapter I. The Christian Missionaries (Apostles, Evangelists, and Prophets or Teachers: The Informal Missionaries) · Part 1

Before entering upon the subject proper, let us briefly survey the usage of the term “apostle,” in its wider and narrower senses, throughout the primitive Christian writings.

1. In Matthew, Mark, and John, “apostle” is not a special and distinctive name for the inner circle of the disciples of Jesus. These are almost invariably described as “the twelve,” or the twelve disciples. As may be inferred from Matt. xix. 28, the choice of this number probably referred to the twelve tribes of Israel. In my opinion the fact of their selection is historical, as is also the tradition that even during his lifetime Jesus once dispatched them to preach the gospel, and selected them with that end in view. At the same time, the primitive church honored them pre-eminently not as apostles but as the twelve disciples (chosen by Jesus). In John they are never called the apostles; in Matthew they are apparently called “the twelve apostles” (x. 2) once, but this reading is a correction, Syr. Sin. giving “disciples.” At one place Mark writes “the apostles” (vi. 30), but this refers to their temporary missionary labors during the life of Jesus. All three evangelists are thus ignorant of “apostle” as a designation of the twelve: there is but one instance where the term is applied to them ad hoc.

2. With Paul it is quite otherwise. He never employs the term “the twelve” (for in 1 Cor. xv. 5 he is repeating a formula of the primitive church), but confines himself to the idea of “apostles.” His terminology, however, is not unambiguous on this point.

(a) He calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, and lays the greatest stress upon this fact. He became an apostle, as alone one could, through God (or Christ); God called him and gave him his apostleship, and his apostleship was proved by the work he did and by the way in which he did it.

(b) His fellow-missionaries—e.g., Barnabas and Silvanus—are also apostles; not so, however, his assistants and pupils, such as Timothy and Sosthenes.

(c) Others also—probably, e.g., Andronicus and Junias are apostles. In fact, the term cannot be sharply restricted at all; for as God appoints prophets and teachers “in the church,” so also does he appoint apostles to be the front rank therein, and since such charismatic callings depend upon the church's needs, which are known to God alone, their numbers are not fixed. To the apostleship belong (in addition to the above mentioned call of God or Christ) the wonderful deeds which accredit it (2 Cor. xii. 12) and a work of its own (1 Cor. ix. 1-2), in addition to special rights. He who can point to such is an apostle. The very polemic against false apostles (2 Cor. ix. 13) and “super-apostles” (2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11) proves that Paul did not regard the conception of “apostle” as implying any fixed number of persons, otherwise the polemic would have been differently put. Finally, a comparison of 1 Cor. xv. 7 with verse 5 of the same chapter shows, with the utmost clearness, that Paul distinguished a circle of apostles which was wider than the twelve—a distinction, moreover, which prevailed during the earliest period of the church and within Palestine.

(d) But in a further, strict, sense of the term, “apostle” is reserved for those with whom he himself works and here some significance attaches to the very chronological succession of those who were called to the apostleship (Rom. xvi. 7). The twelve who were called during the lifetime of Jesus fall to be considered as the oldest apostles; with their qualities and functions they form the pattern and standard for all subsequent apostles. Thus the twelve, and (what is more) the twelve as apostles, come to the front. As apostles Paul put them in front; in order to set the dignity of his own office in its true light, he embraced the twelve under the category of the original apostolate (thereby allowing their personal discipleship to fall into the background, in his terminology), and thus raised them above all other apostles, although not higher than the level which he claimed to occupy himself. That the twelve henceforth rank in history as the twelve apostles, and in fact as the apostles, was a result brought about by Paul; and, paradoxically enough, this was brought about by him in his very effort to fix the value of his own apostleship. He certainly did not work out this conception, for he neither could nor would give up the more general conception of the apostleship. Thus the term “apostle” is confined to the twelve only twice in Paul, and even in these passages the reference is not absolutely certain. They occur in the first chapter of Galatians and in 1 Cor. ix. 5. Gal. i. 17 speaks of of οἱ πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλοι (”those who were apostles before me”), where in all likeliehood the twelve are alone to be understood. Yet the subsequent remark in verse 19 (ἕτερον τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου) shows that it was of no moment to Paul to restrict the conception rigidly. In 1 Cor. ix. 5 we read, μὴ οὐκ ἔχομεν ἐξουσίαν ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα περιάγειν ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ Κηφᾶς the collocation of λοιπῶν ἀπόστολῶν with the Lord's brothers renders it very probable that Paul here is thinking of the twelve exclusively, and not of all the existing apostles, when he mentions “the apostles.” To sum up our results: Paul holds fast to the wider conception of the apostolate, but the twelve disciples form in his view its original nucleus.

3. The terminology of Luke is determined as much by that of the primitive age (the Synoptic tradition) as by the post-Pauline. Following the former, he calls the chosen disciples of Jesus “the twelve,” or “the eleven;” but he reproduces the latter in describing these disciples almost invariably throughout Acts as simply “the apostles”—just as though there were no other apostles at all—and in relating, in his gospel, how Jesus himself called them apostles (vi. 13). Accordingly, even in the gospel he occasionally calls them “the apostles.” This would incline one to assert that Luke either knew, or wished to know, of no apostles save the twelve; but the verdict would be precipitate, for in Acts xiv. 4, 14, he describes not merely Paul but also Barnabas as an apostle. Obviously, the terminology was not yet fixed by any means. Nevertheless it is surprising that Paul is only described as an “apostle” upon one occasion in the whole course of the book. He does not come under the description of the qualities requisite for the apostleship which Luke has in view in Acts i. 21 f., a description which became more and more normative for the next age. Consequently he cannot have been an apostle for Luke, except in the wider sense of the term.

4. The apocalypse of John mentions those who call themselves apostles and are not (ii. 2), which implies that they might be apostles. Obviously the writer is following the wider and original conception of the apostolate, The reference in xviii. 20 does not at least contradict this, any more than xxi. 14 (see above), although only the twelve are named here “apostles,” while the statement with its symbolic character has certainly contributed largely to win the victory for the narrower sense of the term.

5. In First Peter and Second Peter (i. 1), Peter is called an apostle of Jesus Christ. As for Jud. 17 and 2 Peter iii. 2 (μνησθῆναι τῶν προειρημένων ῥημάτων ὑπὸ τῶν ἁγίων προφητῶν καὶ τῆς τῶν ἀποστόλων ὑμῶν ἐντολῆς τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτῆρος), in the first passage it is certain, and in the second very likely, that only the twelve disciples are to be understood.

6. That the epistle of Clement uses “apostles” merely to denote the original apostles and Paul, is perfectly clear from xlii. 1 f. (the apostles chosen previous to the resurrection) and xlvii. 4 (where Apollos, as ἀνὴρ δεδοκιμάσμενος παρ᾽ ἀποστόλοις, a man approved by the apostles, is definitely distinguished from the apostles); cp. also v. 3 and xliv. 1. For Clement's conception of the apostolate, see below. The epistle of Barnabas (v. 9) speaks of the Lord's choice of his own apostles (ἴδιος ἀπόστολοι), and therefore seems to know of some other apostles; in viii. 3 the author only mentions the twelve “who preached to us the gospel of the forgiveness of sins and were empowered to preach the gospel,” without calling them expressly “apostles.” As the Preaching of Peter professes to be an actual composition of Peter, it is self-evident that whenever it speaks of apostles, the twelve are alone in view.

7. The passage in Sim. IX. xvii. 1 leaves it ambiguous whether Hermas meant by “apostles” the twelve or some wider circle. But the other four passages in which the apostles emerge (Vis., III. v. 1; Sim., IX. xv. 4, xvi. 5, xxv. 2) make it perfectly clear that the author had in view a wider, although apparently a definite, circle of persons, and that he consequently paid no special attention to the twelve (see below, Sect. III., for a discussion upon this point and upon the collocation of apostles, bishops, and teachers, or of apostles and teachers). Similarly, the Didachê contemplates nothing but a wider circle of apostles. It certainly avows itself to be, as the title suggests, a διδαχὴ κυρίου διὰ τῶν ιβ´ ἀποστόλων (an instruction of the Lord given through the twelve apostles), but the very addition of the number in this title is enough to show that the book knew of other apostles as well, and xi. 3-6 takes apostles exclusively in the wider sense of the term (details of this in a later section).

8. In the dozen or so passages where the word “apostle” occurs in Ignatius, there is not a single one which renders it probable that the word is used in its wider sense. On the contrary, there are several in which the only possible allusion is to the primitive apostles. We must therefore conclude that by “apostle” Ignatius simply and solely understood the twelve and Paul (Rom. iv. 3). Any decision in the case of Polycarp (Ep., vi. 3, viii. 1) is uncertain, but he would hardly have occupied a different position from that of Ignatius. His church added to his name the title of an “apostolic and prophetic teacher” (Ep. Smyrn., xvi. 2). shows that while two conceptions existed side by side, the narrower was successful in making headway against its rival.