ing out the duties of each. "A bishop," he says, “has a particular charge laid upon him, and the priest exercises functions special to his office; the levite has his own proper ministry, but laymen have to do only with the laws that pertain to their own order;" and, according to SS. Ignatius and Polycarp, also Apostolic Fathers, the bishop is the sole ruler and master of his church, and all things pertaining to it are subject to his control and inspection.1

2

1

Those passages of Scripture which speak of a universal priesthood, and apparently run counter to the distinction we have been drawing out, have no application in this connection. These and similar texts of Old Testament,3 upon which the former are based, refer to the sacrifices of prayer, charity, and penance which every one is obliged to offer to God-something very distinct from the office of teaching and the commission to administer the other functions belonging especially to a separate priesthood.

§ 53. The Institution of the Hierarchy by Jesus Christ. The Episcopate, Presbyterate, and Diaconate.

Christ, in committing to the Apostles the office of priesthood with the plenitude of its gifts, clothed them with a sublime character and preeminent dignity which made them in a special sense His representatives among men, and gave His name and authority to whatever they did or said.

The Apostles, conscious that their ministry should endure forever, and that they themselves would soon pass away;"

1 Clem. Rom. ep. 1 ad Corinthios, c. 40. Ignat. ep. ad Ephes., c. 6; ad Smyrn., c. 8. Polycarp. ep. ad Philipp., c. 5.

21 Petr. ii. 5, 9; Apocal. i. 6.

3 Exod. xix. 6.

6

♦ Orig. hom. IX. in Lev., n. 9. Cf. Tert. de orat., c. 28, and Constitut. Apost. 1, III., c. 15 (Galland. T. III., pp. 99, 100). Augustin. de civit. Dei X. 3: "Each soul is a temple of God; our heart is an altar, on which we offer up to God a sacrifice of humility, praise, and burning charity;" or, "The family is the church, of which the parents are the priests, the children the faithful.” 5 Matt. xxviii. 20.

6 Heb. vii. 23.

2

and, as Pope Clement says,1 foreseeing that strife for preëminence would arise, in order that fit and proved men might, after their death, take up their work, transferred their mission and functions to bishops (êniσzoño), who differed from priests in this, that they were invested with the fullness of apostolic power and authority. Thus the apostolic office was continued in the episcopacy, with this difference, however, that while the authority of the Apostles extended to all Christian communities and was unlimited, that of bishops was limited both in extent and jurisdiction.

That it was the will of Christ that one Supreme Pastor, and not many equal in authority and dignity, should preside over His Church, may be proved both explicitly and inferentially from a number of passages in the New Testament. The usage of the apostolic age confirms this assertion.

3

The words of St. Paul, in his exhortations to Titus and Timothy, whom he had set over the Churches of Crete and Ephesus, are sufficient evidence that bishops exercised a supreme authority over both clergy and laity; and the censures of St. John are directed only against the angels or superiors of the Churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, and the rest; for, although there were, as is well known, many inferior clergy connected with these churches, the bishops were their only true and accredited representatives.

4

St. Ignatius, an Apostolic Father († 107), lays special stress in his letters upon the preeminent dignity enjoyed by bishops over priests. "Let each of you," he says, "obey his bishop as Christ did His Father, and priests as the Apostles, and give honor to the deacons as to God's commandment."5 If this gradation of dignity and authority had not existed in the early ages, how could the Doctors of the Church, in their

1 Clem. Rom. ep. 1 ad Corinthios, c. 44.

22 Tim. ii. 2.

3 3 Tit. i. 5; 1 Tim. v. 17–19.

Apocal. ii.; Galat. iv. 14.

5 Ep. ad Ephes., c. 6; ad Smyrn., c. 8; ad Magnes., c. 6; ad Trallian., c. 2; and various other passages. Conf. ad Philad., c. 3: öσoɩ yàp Veoũ eiow kaì 'Inoov Χριστοῦ οὗτοι μετὰ τοῦ επισκόπου εἰσίν.—Those who are of God and Jesus Christ are also of the Bishop. Ad Polycarpum, c. 6: τῷ επισκόπῳ προσέχετε, ἵνα καὶ ὁ Dɛòç vμiv.-Listen to the Bishop, that God may hear you.

1

controversies with heretics during the second and third centuries, have appealed to, and given catalogues of, the line of bishops which in all the principal churches came down unbroken from the days of the Apostles? That the bishop, during the first three centuries, was everywhere the recognized head of his Church and his clergy subject to his jurisdiction, can be easily proved from history.

The uniform organization of all the churches established wherever Christianity spread is an irrefragable proof that the episcopate is of divine institution, and the more so as we never hear that the presbyters appealed to their ancient constitution against episcopal rule. The importance of this fact becomes still more impressive when it is compared with the diversity in form of the different governments of the earth as they existed at various times. To explain this universal practice by calling it a usurpation is simply a gratuitous assertion." A collusion at once so uniform and so universal, and that, too, in the earliest

1 Iren. contra haer., III., 3, n. 3, 4.

Tertull. de praescr. haer., c. 32, 36.

2St. Jerome, carried away by a fit of momentary excitement, attempted to explain in this sense the superiority of bishops to priests in the oft-cited passage of his commentary on Tit., ch. 1: "Idem est," he says, "Presbyter, qui est Episcopus, et antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent, et diceretur in populis: Ego sum Pauli, etc. (1 Cor. i. 12), communi presbyterorum consilio ecclesiae gubernabantur. Postquam vero unusquisque eos, quos baptizaverat; suos esse putabat, non Christi; in toto orbe decretum est (?!), ut unus de presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris, ad quem omnis ecclesiae cura pertineret, ut schismatum semina tollerentur."-The Priest was the same as the Bishop, till, through instinct of the Devil, there grew in the Church factions; and among the people it began to be professed, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas. Churches were governed by the common advice of presbyters; but when every one began to reckon those whom he had baptized his own, and not Christ's, it was decreed in the whole world that one chosen out of the presbyters should be placed above the rest, to whom all care of the Church should belong, and so all seeds of schism be removed. His proof he draws from Phil. i. 1; Acts xx. 17, 28; 1 Pet. v. 1. In his ep. 82 ad Oceanum, Jerome uses such expressions: "Apud Veteres üdem Episcopi et Presbyteri fuerunt, quia illud nomen dignitatis, hoc aetatis."-Among the ancients, Bishops and Presbyters were the same, the former being a title of dignity and the latter of age. This opinion is based rather on a misconception of Scripture than historical evidence. It should also be remembered that St. Jerome, in opposing certain theories or crying down abuses, was easily carried to extremes. This is the reason for his bitterness in the present instance. His object was not to lower bishops, but to insist on the dignity of priests who had been insolently treated by certain deacons.

1

and purest age of the Church, is something too absurd to be entertained. Neither was the episcopal dignity sought in those days from motives of ambition, for the examples of Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Cyprian of Carthage, and many others, sufficiently attest that those who held the office were in posts of danger, and drew upon themselves all the fury of persecution.

In answer to these arguments, it is said:

1. The words πíокоñоs and πрeσẞúтεроs are, in the N. T., applied indifferently to the same person. It should, however, be borne in mind that an indifferent use of terms by no means implies identity of rank, for a change in the character of an object does not necessarily imply a change of name. Peter and John, though Apostles, called themselves peoẞúrepo, and so did the bishops of the second and third centuries, whose right to exercise authority over priests was certainly never called in question in that age.

3

Π

The most satisfactory answer to this objection, however, is the fact that in the primitive Church the distinction between presbyterate and episcopate was not so rigorously insisted upon as at a later date; and, moreover, the name “Bishop," signifying a title of authority, was of later origin. In Churches whose members were composed of Jewish converts, the word Elders (πpεoßúτεpoi) was used to designate those holding offices of dignity, while in those frequented by Pagan converts the word used for the same purpose was Overseers (ÉñíσKOTOI), and hence Peter and James uniformly use πρεσβύτερος, not ἐπίσκοπος, That dignitaries designated by the former term were of a secondary rank, and subject to some jurisdiction, permanent or temporary, apostolic or otherwise, will presently appear.

2. In the N. T., the only words used to express superiority of rank or lead

On another occasion he writes: "Quid facit, excepta ordinatione, Episcopus quod presbyter non faciat" (Ep. 101, alias 85, ad Evangelum)--freely admitting the superiority of bishops in the power of conferring orders. In his cooler moments he writes more temperately. Ut sciamus, traditiones Apostolicas sumtas de V. T. Quod Aaron et filii ejus atque Levitae in templo fuerunt, hoc sibi Episcopi, Presbyteri, et Diaconi vindicent in ecclesia Christi (Ep. 101 ad Evang.) Cf. ep. 34 ad Nepotian. Against the Luciferians, he maintained: Ecclesiae salus in summi socerdotis dignitate pendet; cui si non exsors quaedam et ab omnibus eminens detur potestas, tot in ecclesia efficientur schismata quam sacerdotes. Cf. Petav. Theol. dogm., T. VI.: dissertation. ecclesiasticar. lib. I., de Episcopis et eorum jurisdict. ac dignitate, c. 1–3, p. 21–25; Mamachii origg., etc., T. IV., p. 503 sq.

1Conf. Milman, History of Christianity, Vol. II., p. 25; Vol. III., p. 254 sq. (Tr.)

2 Acts xx. 17, 28; Tit. i. 5, 7.

31 Petr. v. 1, and 2 John i. 1.

1

ership are έñíσкoñoι and diákovo,1 and hence the former must also include the term πрεσẞíτεроt, and is here, to all intent and purpose, its synonyme or equivalent.

It has often been remarked that in the form of salutation used in the epistle to the Philippians, "To all the saints in Christ Jesus, who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons," the plural form, civ έñiοkóñolç, is used without the article, for the purpose of including the bishops of Macedonia, properly so called.2 A comparison of Philipp. iv. 15, with 2 Cor. xi. 8, 9, confirms this opinion.

But, even granting that the iскоTо here mentioned are the same as those designated by the term πрεσßúrɛpo, it should not be forgotten that St. Paul, in his epistle to the Phil. iv. 3, speaking of these very έπiσкоñо, mentions one superior to the others, and invested with apostolic authority, whom he calls his “sincere companion,” oúšvye yvýoɩ. And, in his Epistle to the Colossians, he exhorts only Archippus to be faithful to his ministry. The passage in 1 Tim. iii. 2, 8, is still more pointed, and in Acts xv. the word peoẞúrεpos is used five different times to designate dignitaries distinct from both apostles and deacons, the latter of whom are mentioned in the sixth chapter of the same book.

It may also be fairly assumed that the primitive churches founded by the Apostles had each an elder or overseer, who exercised all the principal functions, and to whom, according to circumstances, one or several deacons were associated; moreover, persons fitted for so high an office were not easily found, and if the faithful were few in number, one would suffice for their wants.

To bring forward the writings of Clement of Rome to support the theory that the hierarchy was divided into only two classes, bishops or priests and deacons, is certainly to make a strange use of testimony.

It is evident from his First Epistle to the Cor., c. 40, that the triple division of the clergy there laid down applies to both the Old and the New Testament, for he draws a clear distinction between the episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate. Ignatius, however, was the first who clearly and pointedly brought out the essential division of the clergy into bishops, priests, and deacons.3

We know, in the case of priests, that, in particular churches, when the number of the faithful greatly increased, the bishops raised them to the office of coöperators, and intrusted to them the administration of the sacraments. This power once conferred was permanent in the individual, and jurisdiction to exercise it could be withdrawn only for important reasons. Priests were dependent upon the bishops for authority to exercise their functions, and could not confer the priesthood

4

1Philip. i. 1; 1 Tim. iii. 1, 8. Compare also Clem. Rom. ep. 1 ad Corinth.,

c. 42.

2 As in Tit. i. 5.

3 Conf. Döllinger, Christianity and the Church, p. 300–313.

41 Tim. v. 17.