Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/505

EPISCOPACY 485 ascension, or of any direct revelation to that effect sub sequent to that event, binding on the church for all time. The conclusion that would be naturally drawn from the brief and scanty references to the organization of the Christian ministry in Holy Scripture is that the apostles were left free to act, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, as they might from time to time judge to be most for the good of the church. There can be no question that this was so in the appointment of the seven whose office is commonly identified with the Diaconate (Acts vi.).; and, though the evidence is less distinct, it appears to have been the case with the Presbyterate (Acts xiv. 23), while the authority of Timothy and Titus, in whom we see the first adumbration of diocesan Episcopacy, is plainly represented as delegated by the Apostle Paul with the view of carry ing out the arrangements which special circumstances ren dered desirable for the particular time and place. There is certainly nothing in the apostle s language to either of them to support the idea that by such delegation he was carrying into effect a divine ordinance of perpetual obliga tion. If, however, we interpret the expression "divine authority in the larger sense, as including all that the apostles did, as the holders of Christ s express commission " as my Father hath sent me even so send I you" (John xx. 21) through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, for the edification of the church of which they were the divinely appointed governors and propagators, there need be as little scruple in allowing the divine authority of Episcopacy as there is in the case of other ordinances of the Christian church, such as the observation of the Lord s day, the baptism of infants, and confirmation. An institution of which traces are seen in apostolic times, and which is found prevailing throughout the church in the age succeeding the apostles, and con tinuing everywhere without a break of continuity to the 16th century, and in most parts of Christendom to the present day, cannot be looked upon as anything less than the deliberate expression of the mind of the church. In this qualified sense we may safely adopt the verdict of Hooker, " that if anything in the church s government, surely the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was even of God, the Holy Ghost was the author of it, and is to be acknowledged the ordinance of God no less than that ancient Jewish regiment, whereof though Jethro was the deviser, yet after that God had allowed it all men were subject unto it, as to the polity of God not of Jethro" (Ecd. Pol-it., bk. vii. c. v. 2, 10). II. The twelve apostles were the depositaries of Christ s commission as the founders and governors of His church (Matt. xvi. 19, xviii. 18, xxviii. 19, 20; Mark xvi. 15; Luke xxiv. 47, 48 ; John xx. 21-23). In the Acts we find them its sole directors and administrators. The whole ministry of the church was, in the germ, included in the apostolate, from which it was gradually developed as occasion required by the successive delegation of the powers lodged with the apostles to other members of the church, first as their substitutes and afterwards as their successors. Thus the Christian ministry, as Canon Robertson has remarked (History of the Christian Church, vol. i. p. 8), " was developed not from below but from above," not by elovation, but by devolution. The first delegation was to the seven, for the discharge of the secular functions and lower spiritual offices for which the rapid growth of the church rendered the apostles personally un equal. This was succeeded by the delegation of the duties of teaching, government, and discipline to presbyters or elders, especially in congregations (such as those planted by Paul and Barnabas in Asia Minor) over which the apostles were unable to exercise any continuous personal superin tendence (Acts xiv. 23). In Hooker s words, " the form or regiment by them established at first was that the laity, or people, should be subject unto a college of ecclesiastical persons which were in every such city appointed for that purpose" (Ecd. Polit., bk. vii. ch. v. 1). It may be desirable here to remove the confusion which may be pro duced by the ambiguous use of the word " bishop/ 7Tt<7K07ros, in the New Testament. It happens in all languages that in process of time the meaning of a word changes. That which in one generation is a general term, in the next contracts into a technical term, or a word which designated one office becomes the title of another. It is so with the word "bishop." In its fundamental sense of an " overseer," " inspector," it was not originally a term of office at all. When it appears as such in the New Testa ment, it is simply synonymous with " presbyter," the same officer of the church being called indifferently by the one or the other name. The " presbyters " or " elders " of the Ephesian church summoned by St Paul to nleet him at Miletus (Acts xx. 17) are in verse 28 designated by him " bishops," or " overseers," of the flock. In the pastoral epistles the words are used indifferently. Corresponding directions are given to Titus concerning the ordaining of " elders " (Tit. i. 5-7), and to Timothy for the ordination of " bishops " (1 Tim. iii. 1-7), while the identity of the two is further evidenced by the use of the term "bishop" in Tit. i. 7, and "elders," 1 Tim. v. 17-19. St Peter also, when exhorting the presbyters, as their " brother presbyter " (cru^Trpfo-^m-epos), to the zealous fulfil ment of their charge, speaks of it as " the work of an over- seer,"or "bishop" (eTrio-KOTrorvTes) (1 Pet. v. 1, 2.) The titles continue synonymous in the epistle of Clement of Rome (Epist., i. 42, 44). That the offices were identical in the apostolic age is also more than once asserted by St Jerome, writing towards the close of the 4th century (e.g., "the apostle shows us plainly that presbyters and bishops are the same .... it is proved most clearly that a bishop is the same as a presbyter." Epist. cxlvi. : see also Epist. Ixix ; and Ad Tit. i. 8), as well as by Chrysostom, Theodoret, and others, and may be regarded as indisput able. Any conclusion, therefore, drawn from the use of the term " bishop " in the New Testament, as to the existence of the episcopal office, would be fallacious. " Things," however, as Hooker has said, " are always ancienter than their names," and letting go the name and coming to the thing, indications may be discovered in the Acts and pastoral epistles of something closely answering to a localized episcopate in apostolic times. James, the Lord s brother, occupies a position in the church at Jerusalem, associated with and yet distinct from and superior to his presbytery, and in some respects, at least in Jerusalem, higher than the apostles themselves, which presents many features of the diocesan episcopate of later times (Acts xii. 17, xv. 13, 19, xxi. 18; Gal. i. 19, ii. 9, 12), and tends to confirm the unanimous statement of early writers that he was the first bishop of Jerusalem. (Hieron., De Script. Ecdes., ii.; Euseb., Hist. Ecd., ii. 1.) But in him we have the only example of such an organization presented in the Acts. As Professor Shirley Las remarked (Apostolic Age, p. 133), his position was in important respects ex ceptional. Whether one of the twelve or not, he was ranked with the apostles (Gal. i. 19), and his authority was therefore inherent, not derived from them. And therefore for years he remained the only Christian bishop. We have to pass on to the pastoral epistles of St Paul (the latest that proceeded from his pen) before we again meet with any clear traces of the existence of Episcopacy. The evidence of these epistles, however, is unquestion able, whatever the exact nature of the office to which

Timothy and Titus were designated by St Paul. Whether