232 CHAPTER X. ORGANIZATION OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. term bishop. The first thing which Paul and Barnabas did sovereign congregation, while the presbyters had charge after preaching the gospel in of the discipline. He admits that bishops and presbyters Asia Minor was to organize churches by the appoint- were equals in rank, and their names interchangeable, ment of elders.719 but that their relations differed in different churches 3. The office of the presbyter-bishops was to teach and during the first two centuries, and that the chief function to rule the particular congregation committed to their of the bishop originally was the care and disposition of charge. They were the regular “pastors and teachers.”720 the charitable funds. Hence the stress laid by Paul on the To them belonged the direction of public worship, the necessity of a bishop being ἀφιλάργυρος and φιλόζενος administration of discipline, the care of souls, and the . In the long series of ecclesiastical canons and imperial management of church property. They were usually cho- edicts, the bishops are represented especially in the light sen from the first converts, and appointed by the apostles of trustees of church property. or their delegates, with the approval of the congregation, Acts 11:30, at the time of the famine when the church or by the congregation itself, which supported them by of Antioch sent a collection to the elders for their brethvoluntary contributions. They were solemnly introduced ren in Judaea. Acts 14:23; comp. Tit. 1:5. into their office by the ποιμένες καὶ διδάσκαλοι, Eph. 4:11. the one passage apostles or by their fellow presbyters through prayers on which it rests only speaks of two functions in the and the laying on of hands.701 same office.703 Whatever may have been the distribution The presbyters always formed a college or corpora- and rotation of duties, Paul expressly mentions ability to tion, a presbytery; as at Jerusalem, at Ephesus, at Philip- teach among the regular requisites for the episcopal or pi, and at the ordination of Timothy.702 They no doubt presbyteral office.704 maintained a relation of fraternal equality. The New 703 1 Tim. 5:17: “Let the elders that rule well (οἱ καλως Testament gives us no information about the division of προεστωτες πρεσβύτεροι) be counted of double honor ( labor among them, or the nature and term of a presidenδιπλης τιμης), especially those who labor in the word and in cy. It is quite probable that the members of the presby- teaching (ἐνλόγῳκαὶδιδασκαλία)ͅ.” Some commentators emteral college distributed the various duties of their office phasizeκαλως, some refer the “ double honor” to higher rank among themselves according to their respective talents, and position, others to better remuneration, still others to tastes, experience, and convenience. Possibly, too, the both. president, whether temporary or permanent, was styled 704 1 Tim. 3:2: “The bishop must be ... apt to teach distinctively the bishop; and from this the subsequent (διδακτικόν).” The same is implied in Tit. 1:9; Act 20:28; and separation of the episcopate from the presbyterate may Heb. 13:17. Lightfoot takes the right view (p. 192): “Though easily have arisen. But so long as the general government government was probably the first conception of the office, of the church was in the hands of the apostles and their yet the work of teaching must have fallen to the presbyters delegates, the bishops were limited in their jurisdiction from the very first and have assumed greater prominence as time went on.” On the question of teaching and ruling elders, either to one congregation or to a small circle of congrecompare, besides other treatises, Peter Colin Campbell: The gations. Theory of Ruling Eldership (Edinb. and London, 1866), and The distinction of “teaching presbyters” or ministers two able articles by Dr. R. D. Hitchcock and Dr. E. F. Hatfield proper, and “ruling presbyters” or lay-elders, is a conve- (both Presbyterians) in the “American Presbyterian Review” nient arrangement of Reformed churches, but can hardly for April and October, 1868. All these writers dissent from claim apostolic sanction, since See Hatch, Organiz. Lect. Calvin’s interpretation of 1 Tim. 5:17, as teaching two kinds of II. and IV., and his art. “Priest” in Smith and Cheetham, presbyters: (1) those who both taught and ruled, and (2) those II. 1700. Hatch makes large use of the inscriptions found who ruled only; but Campbell pleads from 1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. at Salkhad, in the Haurân, at Thera, and elsewhere. He 12:8; and Acts 15:22, 25 for what he calls “Lay Assessors.” Dr. advances the new theory that the bishops were originally Hitchcock holds that the primitive presbyters were empowa higher order of deacons and supreme almoners of the ered and expected both to teach and to rule. Dr. Hatfield tries 701 Acts 14:23; Tit. 1:5; 1 Tim. 5:22; 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6. On the election, ordination and support of ministers, see my Hist. Ap. Ch. pp. 500-506. 702 Acts 11:30; 14:23; 15:2, 4, 6, 23; 16:4; 20:17, 28; 21:18; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim 4:14; James 5: 14; 1 Pet. 5: 1.
to prove that the Christian presbyters, like the Jewish elders, were only to rule; the office of teaching having been committed to the apostles, evangelists, and other missionaries. The last was also the view of Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina (on Ruling Elders), and is advocated in a modified form by an Oxford scholar of great ability, Vice-Principal Hatch (l.c. Lecture
