History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325
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The substance of these epistles (with the exception of that to the Romans, in which, singularly enough, not a word is said about bishops 190 89), consists of earnest exhortations to obey the bishop and maintain the unity of the church against the Judaistic and docetic heresies. With the near prospect and the most ardent desire for martyrdom, the author has no more fervent wish than the perfect inward and outward unity of the faithful; and to this the episcopate seems to him indispensable. In his view Christ is the invisible supreme head, the one great universal bishop of all the churches scattered over the earth. The human bishop is the centre of unity for the single congregation, and stands in it as the vicar of Christ and even of God. 191 90
obey him, and do nothing without his will. Blessed are they who are one with the bishop, as the church is with Christ, and Christ with the Father, so that all harmonizes in unity. Apostasy from the bishop is apostasy from Christ, who acts in and through the bishops as his organs. We shall give passages from the shorter Greek text (as edited by Zahn): If any one is able to continue in purity (
i.e., in the state of celibacy), to the honor of the flesh of our Lord, let him continue so without boasting; if he boasts, he is lost (
) if he become known more than the bishop, 192
91 he is corrupt (
). It is becoming, therefore, to men and women who marry, that they marry by the counsel of the bishop, that the marriage may be in the Lord, and not in lust. Let ever thing be done for the honor of God. Look to the bishop, that God also [may look] upon you. I will be in harmony with those who are subject to the bishop, and the presbyters, and the deacons; with them may I have a portion near God!" This passage is one of the strongest, and occurs in the Syriac Epistle to Polycarp as well as in the shorter Greek recension. 193
92 It characteristically connected episcopacy with celibacy: the ascetic system of Catholicism starts in celibacy, as the hierarchical organization of Catholicism takes its rise in episcopacy. "It becomes you to be in harmony with the mind (or sentence, μ ) of the bishop, as also ye do. For your most estimable presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted to the bishop as the strings are to the harp." 194
93 "It is evident that we should look upon the bishop as we do upon the Lord himself." 195 94
that ye study to do all things with a divine concord: the bishop presiding in the place of God (
), and presbyters in the place of the college of the apostles, ( ), and the deacons, most dear to me, being intrusted with the ministry (
) of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before all ages, and in the end appeared to us." 196 95
as Christ [was subject] to the Father according to the flesh, and the apostles to Christ and to the Father and to the Spirit, in order that the union be carnal (
), as well as spiritual." 197 96 "It is 190 Except that Ignatius speaks of himself as "the bishop of Syria," who "has found favor with God, being sent from the East to the West" (ch. 2). The verb ἐπισκοπέω is also used, but of Christ (ch. 9). 191 Ἐπίσκοπος εἰς τόπον θεοῦ προκαθήμενος, each bisbop being thus a sort of pope. 192 Zahn reads, Ad Polyc. cap. 5: ἐὰν γνωσθῇ πλέον τοῦ ἐπισκόπου,i.e . if he be better known or more esteemed than the bishop. The other reading is, πλήν, beyond, or apart from. 193
Ad Polyc. cap. 5 and 6. The Greek text varies but little from the Syriac. 194
Ad Ephes. c. 4: Οὕτως συνήρμοσται τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ. ὡς χορδαὶ κιθάρᾳ. 195 Ad Ephes c. 6: Τὸν οὖν ἐπίσκοπον δῆλον ὅτι ὡς αὐτὸν τὸν κύριον δεῖ προβλέπειν. 196
Ad Magnes. c. 6. 197
Ibid. c. 13. The desire for "carnal" unity is significant, 92 Philip Schaff History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325. necessary, as is your habit, to do nothing without the bishop, and that ye should be subject also to the presbytery (
), as to the apostles of Jesus Christ." 198 97 "As many as are of God and of Jesus Christ, are also with their bishop." 199
98 "Let all of you follow the bishop, as Jesus Christ [follows] the Father; and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons as the ordinance of God. Without the bishop let no one do anything connected with the church. Let that eucharist be accounted valid which is [offered] under the bishop or by one he has appointed. Wherever the bishop is found, there let the people be; as wherever Christ is, there is the catholic church. Without the bishop it is not lawful either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast." 200
99 This is the first time that the term "catholic" is applied to the church, and that episcopacy is made a condition of catholicity. "He that honors the bishop, shall be honored by God; he that does anything without the knowledge of the bishop serves the devil." 201
00 This is making salvation pretty much depend upon obedience to the bishop; just as Leo I., three centuries later, in the controversy with Hilary of Arles, made salvation depend upon obedience to the pope by declaring every rebel against the pope to be a servant of the devil! Such daring superabundance of episcopalianism clearly betrays some special design and raises the suspicion of forgery or large interpolations. But it may also be explained as a special pleading for a novelty which to the mind of the writer was essential to the very existence of the church. The peculiarity in this Ignatian view is that the bishop appears in it as the head and centre of a single congregation, and not as equally the representative of the whole church; also, that (as in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies) he is the vicar of Christ, and not, as in the later view, merely the successor of the apostles,—the presbyters and deacons around him being represented as those successors; and finally, that there are no distinctions of order among the bishops, no trace of a primacy; all are fully coordinate vicars of Christ, who provides for himself in them, as it were, a sensible, perceptible omnipresence in the church. The Ignatian episcopacy, in short, is congregational, not diocesan; a new and growing institution, not a settled policy of apostolic origin.
In all these points the idea of the episcopate in Irenaeus, the great opponent of Gnosticism (about 180), is either lower or higher. This father represents the institution as a diocesan office, and as the continuation of the apostolate, the vehicle of the catholic tradition, and the support of doctrinal unity in opposition to heretical vagaries. He exalts the bishops of the original apostolic churches, above all the church of Rome, and speaks with great emphasis of an unbroken episcopal succession as a test of apostolic teaching and a bulwark against heresy. 202
01 198
Ad Trallian. c. 2: Ἀναγκαῖον ἐστὶν, ὥσπερ ποιεῖτε, ἄνευ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου μηδὲν πράσσειν ὑμᾶς κτλ. 199 Ad Philad. c. 3. 200 Ad. Smyrn. c. 8: Ὄπου ἄν φανῇ ὁ ἐπίσκοπος, εκεῖ τὸ πλῆθος ἒστω, ὥσπερ α;̓̀ν ἦ Χριστὸσ Ἰησοῦς , ἐκεῖ ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία. 201
Ad Smyrn. c. 9: Ὁ τιμῶν ἐπίσκοπον ὑπὸ θεοῦ τετίμηται· ὁ λάθρα ἐπισκόπου τι πράσσων τῷ διαβόλῳ λατρεύει.. 202 Comp. Adv. Haer. III. 3, §1, 2; 4, 1; IV. 33, §8. I remember what great stress the late Dr. Posey, when I saw him at Oxford in 1844, laid on the testimony of Irenaeus for the doctrine of an unbroken episcopal succession, as the indispensable mark of a genuine Catholic church; while he ignored the simultaneous growth of the primacy, which a year afterwards carried his friend, 93 Philip Schaff History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325. Yüklə 5,76 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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