Part 8

In addition to these three are mentioned, in verse 28, ἀντιλήψεις, care of the poor, the sick and strangers, and κυβερνήσεις, church government. The essential distinction between speaking with tongues and prophesying consists, according to 1 Cor. xiv. 1-18, in this, that whereas the latter is represented as an inspiration by the Spirit of God, acting upon the consciousness, the νοῦς of the prophet, and therefore requiring no further explanation to render it applicable for the edification of the congregation, the former is represented as an ecstatic utterance, wholly uncontrolled by the νοῦς of the human instrument, yet employing the human organs of speech, γλῶσσαι, which leaves the assembled congregation out of view and addresses itself directly to God, so that in ver. 13-15 it is called a προσεύχεσθαι, being made intelligible to the audience only by means of the charismatic interpretation of men immediately acted upon for the purpose by the Spirit of God. In Rom. xii. 6-8, although there the charisms are enumerated in even greater details, so as to include even the showing of mercy with cheerfulness, the γλώσσαις λαλεῖν is wanting. It would thus seem that this sort of spiritual display, if not exclusively (Acts ii. 4; x. 46; xix. 6; Mark xvi. 17), yet with peculiar fondness, which was by no means commended by the Apostle, was fostered in the church of Corinth. The thoroughly unique speaking with tongues which took place on the first Pentecost (Acts ii. 6, 11) is certainly not to be understood as implying that the Apostles had been either temporarily or permanently qualified to speak in the several languages and dialects of those present from all the countries of the dispersion. It probably means simply that the power was conferred upon the speakers of speaking with tongues and that at the same time an analogous endowment of the interpretation of tongues was conferred upon those who heard (Comp., Acts ii. 12, 15, with 1 Cor. xiv. 22 f. ).

§ 17.2. =The Constitution of the Mother Church at Jerusalem.=--The notion which gained currency through Vitringa’s learned work “_De synagoga vetere_,” publ. 1696, that the constitution of the Apostolic church was moulded upon the pattern of the synagogues, is now no longer seriously entertained. Not only in regard to the Pauline churches wholly or chiefly composed of Gentile Christians, but also in regard to the Palestinian churches of purely Jewish Christians, no evidence in support of such a theory can be found. There is no sort of analogy between any office bearers in the church and the ἀρχισυνάγωγοι who were essentially characteristic of all the synagogues both in Palestine and among the dispersion (Mark v. 22; Luke viii. 41, 49; Acts xiii. 15; xviii. 8, 17), nor do we find anything to correspond to the ὑπήρεται or inferior officers of the synagogue (Luke iv. 20). On the other hand, the office bearers of the Christian churches, who, consisting, according to Acts vi., of deacons, and also afterwards, according to Acts xi. 30, of πρεσβύτεροι, or elders of the church at Jerusalem, occupied a place alongside of the Apostles in the government of the church, are without any analogy in the synagogues. The Jewish πρεσβύτεροι τοῦ λαοῦ mentioned in Matt. xxi. 23; xxvi. 3; Acts iv. 5; xxii. 5, etc., did not exercise a ministry of teaching and edification in the numerous synagogues of Jerusalem, but a legislatory, judicial and civil authority over the whole Jewish commonwealth as members of the Sanhedrim, of chief priest, scribes and elders. Between even these, however, and the elders of the Christian church a far-reaching difference exists. The Jewish elders are indeed representatives of the people, and have as such a seat and vote in the supreme council, but no voice is allowed to the people themselves. In the council of the Christian church, on the other hand, with reference to all important questions, the membership of all believers is called together for consultation and deliverance (Acts vi. 2-6; xv. 4, 22). A complaint on the part of the Hellenistic members of the church that their poor were being neglected led to the election of seven men who should care for the poor, not by the Apostles, but by the church. This is commonly but erroneously regarded as the first institution of the deaconship. To those then chosen, for whom the Acts (xxi. 8) has no other designation than that of “the seven,” the διακονεῖν τραπέζαις is certainly assigned: but they were not and were not called Deacons in the official sense any more than the Apostles, who still continued, according to v. 4, to exercise the διακονία τοῦ λόγου. When the bitter persecution that followed the stoning of Stephen had scattered the church abroad over the neighbouring countries, they also departed at the same time from Jerusalem (Acts viii. 1), and Philip, who was now the most notable of their number, officiated henceforth only as an evangelist, that is, as an itinerant preacher of the gospel, in the region about his own house in Cæsarea (Acts viii. 5; xxi. 8; comp. Eph. iv. 11; 2 Tim. iv. 5). Upon the reorganization of the church at Jerusalem, the Apostles beginning more clearly to appreciate their own special calling (Matt. xxviii. 19), gave themselves more and more to the preaching of the gospel even outside of Jerusalem, and thus the need became urgent of an authoritative court for the conducting of the affairs of the church even during their absence. In these circumstances it would seem, according to Acts xi. 30, that those who ministered to the poor, chosen probably from among the most honourable of the first believers (Acts ii. 41), passed over into a self-constituted college of presbyters. At the head of this college or board stood James, the brother of the Lord (Gal. i. 19; ii. 9; Acts xii. 17; xv. 13; xxi. 15), and after his death, according to Hegesippus, a near relation of the Lord, Simeon, son of Clopas, as a descendant of David, was unanimously chosen as his successor. The episcopal title, however, just like that of Deacon, is first met with in the New Testament in the region of the Pauline missions, and in the terminology of the Palestinian churches we only hear of presbyters as officers of the church (Acts xv. 4, 6, 22; xxi. 18; James v. 14). In 1 Peter v. 2, however, although ἐπίσκοπος does not yet appear as an official title, the official duty of the ἐπισκοπεῖν is assigned to presbyters (see § 17, 6). It is Hegesippus, about A.D. 180, who first gives the title Bishop of Jerusalem to James, after the Clementines (§ 28, 3) had already ten years previously designated him ἐπισκόπων ἐπίσκοπος.

§ 17.3. =The Constitution of the Pauline Churches.= Founding upon the works of Mommsen and Foucart, first of all Heinrici and soon afterwards the English theologian Hatch[7] has wrought out the theory that the constitution of the churches that were wholly or mainly composed of Gentile Christians was modelled on those convenient, open or elastic rules of associations under which the various Hellenistic guilds prospered so well (θίασοι, ἔρανοι),--associations for the naturalization and fostering of foreign, often oriental, modes of worship. In the same way, too, the Christian church at Rome, for social and sacred purposes, made use of the forms of association employed in the Collegia or Sodalicia, which were found there in large numbers, especially of the funeral societies in which both of those purposes were combined (_collegia funeraticia_). In both these cases, then, the church, by attaching itself to modes of association already existing, acknowledged by the state, or tolerated as harmless, assumed a form of existence which protected it from the suspicion of the government, and at the same time afforded it space and time for independent construction in accordance with its own special character and spirit. As in those Hellenic associations all ranks, even those which in civil society were separated from one another by impassable barriers, found admission, and then, in the framing of statutes, the reception of fellow members, the exercise of discipline, possessed equal rights; as, further, the full knowledge of their mysteries and sharing in their exercise were open only to the initiated (μεμυημένοι), yet in the exercise of exoteric worship the doors were hospitably flung open even to the ἀμυήτοι; as upon certain days those belonging to the narrow circle joining together in partaking of a common feast; so too all this is found in the Corinthian church, naturally inspired by a Christian spirit and enriched with Christian contents. The church also has its religious common feast in its Agape, its mystery in the Eucharist, its initiation in baptism, by the administration of which the divine service is divided into two parts, one esoteric, to be engaged in only by the baptized, the other exoteric, a service that is open to those who are not Christians. All ranks (Gal. iii. 28) have the same claim to admission to baptism, all the baptized have equal rights in the congregation (see § 17, 7). It is evident, however, that the connection between the Christian churches and those heathen associations is not so to be conceived as if, because in the one case distinctions of rank were abolished, so also they were in the other; or that, because in the one case religious festivals were observed, this gave the first hint as to the observance of the Christian Agape; or that, because and in the manner in which there a mysterious service was celebrated from which all outside were strictly excluded, so also here was introduced an exclusive eucharistic service. These observances are rather to be regarded as having grown up independently out of the inmost being of Christianity; but the church having found certain institutions existing inspired by a wholly different spirit, yet outwardly analogous and sanctioned by the state, it appropriated, as far as practicable, their forms of social organization, in order to secure for itself the advantages of civil protection. That even on the part of the pagans, down into the last half of the second century, the Christian congregational fellowship was regarded as a special kind of the mystery-communities, is shown by Lucian’s satire, _De morte Peregrini_ (§ 23, 1), where the description of Christian communities, in which its hero for a time played a part, is full of technical terms which were current in those associations. “It is also,” says Weingarten, “expressly acknowledged in Tertullian’s _Apologeticus_, c. 38, 39, written about A.D. 198, that even down to the close of the second century, the Christian church was organized in accordance with the rules of the _Collegia funeraticia_, so that it might claim from the state the privileges of the _Factiones licitæ_. The arrangements for burial and the Christian institutions connected therewith are shown to have been carefully subsumed under forms that were admitted to be legal.”

§ 17.4. Confining ourselves meantime to the oldest and indisputably authentic epistles of the Apostle, we find that the autonomy of the church in respect of organization, government, discipline, and internal administration is made prominent as the very basis of the constitution. He never interferes in those matters, enjoining and prescribing by his own authority, but always, whether personally or in spirit, only as associated with their assemblies (1 Cor. v. 3), deliberating and deciding in common with them. Thus his Apostolic importance shows itself not in his assuming the attitude of a lord (2 Cor. i. 24), but that of a father (1 Cor. iv. 14 f.), who seeks to lead his children on to form for themselves independent and manly judgments (1 Cor. x. 15; xi. 13). Regular and fixed church officers do not seem to have existed in Corinth down to the time when the first Epistle was written, about A.D. 57. A diversity of functions (διαιρέσεις διακονιῶν, 1 Cor. xii. 4) is here, indeed, already found, but not yet definitely attached to distinct and regular offices (1 Cor. vi. 1-6). It is always yet a voluntary undertaking of such ministries on the one hand, and the recognition of peculiar piety and faithfulness, leading to willing submission on the other hand, out of which the idea of office took its rise, and from which it obtained its special character. This is especially true of a peculiar kind of ministry (Rom. xvi. 1, 2) which must soon have been developed as something indispensable to the Christian churches throughout the Hellenic and Roman regions. We mean the part played by the patron, which was so deeply grounded in the social life of classical antiquity. Freedmen, foreigners, proletarii, could not in themselves hold property and had no claim on the protection of the laws, but had to be associated as _Clientes_ with a _Patronus_ or _Patrona_ (προστάτης and προστάτις) who in difficult circumstances would afford them counsel, protection, support, and defence. As in the Greek and Roman associations for worship this relationship had long before taken root, and was one of the things that contributed most materially to their prosperity, so also in the Christian churches the need for recognising and giving effect to it became all the more urgent in proportion as the number of members increasing for whom such support was necessary (1 Cor. i. 26-29). Phœbe is warmly recommended in Rom. xvi. 1, 2, as such a Christian προστάτις, at Cenchrea, the port of Corinth, among whose numerous clients the Apostle himself is mentioned. Many inscriptions in the Roman catacombs testify to the deep impress which this social scheme made upon the organization, especially of the Roman church, down to the end of the first century, and to the help which it gave in rendering that church permanent. All the more are we justified in connecting therewith the προϊστάμενος ἐν σπουδῇ (Rom. xii. 8), and in giving this passage in connection with the preceding and succeeding context the meaning: whoever represents any one as patron let him do it with diligence.--The gradual development of stated or independent =congregational offices=, after privileges and duties were distinguished from one another, was thus brought about partly by the natural course of events, and partly by the endeavour to make the church organization correspond with the Greek and Roman religious associations countenanced by the state by the employment in it of the same or similar forms and names. In the older communities, especially those in capital cities, like Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome, etc., the heads of the families of the first believers attained an authoritative position altogether unique, as at Corinth those of the household of Stephanas, who, according to 1 Cor. xvi. 15, as the ἀπαρχὴ τῆς Ἀχαΐας εἰς διακονίαν τοῖς ἁγίοις ἔταξαν ἑαυτούς. Such honour, too, was given to the most serviceable of the chosen patrons and others, who evidently possessed the gifts of κυβερνήσεις and ἀντιλήψεις, and those who first in an informal way had discharged official duties had amends made them even after death by a formal election. On the other hand, the churches that sprang up at a later period were probably provided immediately with such offices under the direction and with the consent of the Apostle or his apostolic assistants (1 Tim. v. 9; Tit. i. 5).

§ 17.5. =Congregational and Spiritual Offices.=--While then, down to A.D. 57 no ecclesiastical offices properly so called as yet existed at Corinth, and no injunctions are given by the Apostle for their definite introduction, it is told us in Acts xiv. 23 that, so early as A.D. 50, when Paul was returning from his first missionary journey he ordained with prayer and fasting elders or presbyters in those churches of Asia Minor previously founded by him. Now it is indeed quite conceivable that in these cases he adhered more closely to the already existing presbyterial constitution of the mother church at Jerusalem (Acts xi. 30), than he did subsequently in founding and giving a constitution to the churches of the European cities where perhaps the circumstances and requirements were entirely different. But be this as it may, it is quite certain that the Apostle on his departure from lately formed churches took care to leave them in an organized condition, and the author of the Acts has given expression to the fact proleptically in terms with which he was himself conversant and which were current in his time.--Among the Pauline epistles which are scarcely, if at all, objected to by modern criticism the first to give certain information regarding distinct and independent congregational offices, together with the names that had been then assigned to these offices, is the Epistle to the Philippians, written during the Roman imprisonment of the Apostle. In chap. i. 1, he sends his apostolic greeting and blessing πᾶσι τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις σὺν ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις.[8] The =Episcopate= and the =Diaconate= make their appearance here as the two categories of congregational offices, of both of which there are several representatives in each congregation. It is in the so-called Pastoral Epistles that for the first time we find applied in the Gentile Christian communities the title of =Presbyter= which had been the usual designation of the president in the mother church at Jerusalem. This title, just as in Acts xx. 17, 28, is undoubtedly regarded as identical with that of bishop (ἐπίσκοπος) and is used as an alternative (Tit. i. 5, 7; 1 Tim. iii. 1; iv. 14; v. 17, 19). From the practical identity of the qualifications of bishops (1 Tim. iii. 1) or of deacons (_v._ 12 f.), it follows that their callings were essentially the same; and from the etymological signification of their names, it would seem that there was assigned to the bishops the duty of governing, administrating and superintending, to the deacons that of serving, assisting and carrying out details as subordinate auxiliaries. It is shown by Rom. xvi. 1, that even so early as A.D. 58, the need of a female order of helpers had been felt and was supplied. When this order had at a later period assumed the rank of a regular office, it became the rule that only widows above sixty years of age should be chosen (1 Tim. v. 9).--We are introduced to an altogether different order of ecclesiastical authorities in Eph. iv. 11, where we have named in the first rank =Apostles=, in the second =Prophets=, in the third =Evangelists=, and in the fourth =Pastors= and =Teachers=. What is here meant by Apostles and Prophets is quite evident (§ 34, 1). From 2 Tim. iv. 5 and Acts xxi. 8 (viii. 5), it follows that Evangelists are itinerant preachers of the gospel and assistants of the Apostles. It is more difficult to determine exactly the functions of Pastors and Teachers and their relation to the regular congregational offices. Their introduction in Eph. iv. 11, as together constituting a fourth class, as well as the absence of the term Pastor in the parallel passage, 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29, presupposes such a close connection of the two orders, the one having the care of souls, the other the duties of preaching and catechizing, that we unhesitatingly assume that both were, if not always, at least generally, united in the same person. They have been usually identified with the bishops or presbyters. In Acts xx. 17, 28, and in 1 Pet. v. 2-4, presbyters are expressly called pastors. The order of the ἡγούμενοι in Heb. xiii. 7, οἵτινες ἐλάλησαν ὑμῖν τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, has also been regarded as identical with that of bishops. In regard to the last named order a confusion already appears in Acts xv., where men, who in _v._ 22 are expressly distinguished from the elders (presbyters) and in _v._ 32 are ranked as prophets, are yet called ἡγούμενοι. We should also be led to conclude from 1 Cor. xii. 28, that those who had the qualifications of ἀντιλήψεις and κυβερνήσεις, functions certainly belonging to bishops or presbyters as administrative and diocesan officers, are yet personally distinguished from Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers. Now it is explicitly enjoined in Tit. i. 9 that in the choice of bishops special care should be taken to see that they have capacity for teaching. In 1 Tim. v. 17 double honour is demanded for the καλῶς προεστῶτες πρεσβύτεροι, if they also labour ἐν λόγῳ καὶ διδασκαλίᾳ. This passage, however, shows teaching did not always and in all circumstances, or even _ex professo_ belong to the special functions of the president of the congregation; that it was rather in special circumstances, where perhaps these gifts were not at all or not in sufficient abundance elsewhere to be found, that these duties of teaching were undertaken in addition to their own proper official work of presidency (προϊστάναι). The dividing line between the two orders, bishops and deacons on the one hand, and pastors and teachers on the other, consists in the fundamentally different nature of their calling. The former were congregational offices, the latter, like those of Apostles and Prophets, were spiritual offices. The former were chosen by the congregation, the latter had, like the Apostles and Prophets, a divine call, though according to James iii. 1 not without the consenting will of the individual, and the charismatic capacity for teaching, although not in the same absolute measure. The former were attached to a particular congregation, the latter were, like the Apostles and Prophets, first of all itinerant teachers and had, like them, the task of building up the churches (Eph. iv. 12, εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ). But, while the Apostles and Prophets laid the foundation of this building on Christ, the chief corner stone, preachers and teachers had to continue building on the foundation thus laid (Eph. ii. 20). A place and importance are undoubtedly secured for these three spiritual offices, in so far as continued itinerant offices, by the example of the Lord in His preliminary sending forth of the twelve in Matt. x., and of the seventy disciples in Luke x.--Continuation, § 34, 1.

§ 17.6. =The question about the original position of the Episcopate and Presbyterate=, as well as their relation to one another, has received three different answers. According to the =Roman Catholic= theory, which is also that of the Anglican Episcopal Church, the clerical, hierarchical arrangement of the third century, which gave to each of the larger communities a bishop as its president with a number of presbyters and deacons subject to him, existed as a divine institution from the beginning. It is unequivocally testified by the New Testament, and, as appears from the First Epistle of Clement of Rome (ch. 42, 44, 57), the fact had never been disputed down to the close of the first century, that bishops and presbyters are identical. The force of this objection, however, is sought to be obviated by the subterfuge that while all bishops were indeed presbyters, all presbyters were not bishops. The ineptitude of such an evasion is apparent. In Phil. i. 1 the Apostle, referring to this one

## particular church greeted not one but several bishops. According