6. Janitors or sextons,
155
54
who took care of the religious meeting-rooms, and at a later
period also of the church-yards.
7. Besides these there were in the larger churches catechists, and, where the church language
in the worship was not understood, interpreters; but the interpreting was commonly done by
presbyters, deacons, or readers.
The bishop Cornelius of Rome (d. 252), in a letter on the Novatian schism,
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55 gives the
number of officers in his church as follows: Forty-six presbyters, probably corresponding to the
number of the meeting-houses of the Christians in the city; seven deacons, after the model of the
church at Jerusalem (Acts vi); seven sub-deacons; forty-two acolyths, and fifty-two exorcists,
readers, and janitors.
As to the ordines majores, the deacons during this period rose in importance. In addition to
their original duties of caring for the poor and sick, they baptized, distributed the sacramental cup,
said the church prayers, not seldom preached, and were confidential advisers, sometimes even
delegates and vicars of the bishops. This last is true especially of the "archdeacon," who does not
appear, however, till the fourth century. The presbyters, on the contrary, though above the deacons,
were now overtopped by the new office of bishop, in which the entire government of the church
became centred.
§ 44. Origin of the Episcopate.
Besides the works already cited, compare the special works and essays on the Ignatian controversy,
published since 1837, by Rothe (close of his Anfänge, etc.), Hefele (R.C.), Baur, Hilgenfeld,
Bunsen, Petermann, Cureton, Lipsius, Uhlhorn, Zahn, Lightfoot (I. 376 sqq). Also R. D.
Hitchcock on the Origin of Episcopacy, N. Y. 1867 (in the "Am. Presbyt. & Theol. Review"
for Jan. 1867, pp. 133–169); Lightfoot on the Christian Ministry (1873); Hatch on the
Organization of the Early Christian Church (1881); Renan,
L’Eglise chrétienne
(1879), ch. VI.
Progrés
de l’épiscopat;
and Gore, The Ministry of the Church (1889).
The most important and also the most difficult phenomenon of our period in the department of
church organization is the rise and development of the episcopate as distinct from the presbyterate.
This institution comes to view in the second century as the supreme spiritual office, and is retained
to this day by all Roman and Greek Christendom, and by a large part of the Evangelical church,
especially the Anglican communion. A form of government so ancient and so widely adopted, can
be satisfactorily accounted for only on the supposition of a religious need, namely, the need of a
tangible outward representation and centralization, to illustrate and embody to the people their
relation to Christ and to God, and the visible unity of the church. It is therefore inseparable from
the catholic principle of authority and mediation; while the protestant principle of freedom and
direct intercourse of the believer with Christ, consistently carried out, infringes the strict episcopal
constitution, and tends to ministerial equality. Episcopacy in the full sense of the term requires for
155
θυρωροί, πυλωροί, ostiarii janitores.
156
In Euseb. vi. 43.
84
Philip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene
Christianity. A.D. 100-325.
its base the idea of a real priesthood and real sacrifice, and an essential distinction between clergy
and laity. Divested of these associations, it resolves itself into a mere superintendency.
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56
During the lifetime of the apostles, those eye- and ear-witnesses of the divine-human life
of Jesus, and the inspired organs of the Holy Spirit, there was no room for proper bishops; and
those who were so called, must have held only a subordinate place. The church, too, in the first
century was as yet a strictly supernatural organization, a stranger in this world, standing with one
foot in eternity, and longing for the second coming of her heavenly bridegroom. But in the episcopal
constitution the church provided an extremely simple but compact and freely expansible organization,
planted foot firmly upon earth, became an institution for the education of her infant people, and,
as chiliastic hopes receded, fell into the path of quiet historical development; yet unquestionably
she thus incurred also the danger of a secularization which reached its height just when the hierarchy
became complete in the Roman church, and which finally necessitated a reformation on the basis
of apostolical Christianity. That this secularization began with the growing power of the bishops
even before Constantine and the Byzantine court orthodoxy, we perceive, for instance, in the lax
penitential discipline, the avarice, and the corruption with which Hippolytus, in the ninth book of
his Philosophumena, reproaches Zephyrinus and Callistus, the Roman bishops of his time (202–223);
also in the example of the bishop Paul of Samosata, who was deposed in 269 on almost incredible
charges, not only against his doctrine, but still more against his moral character.
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57
Origen
complains that there are, especially in the larger cities, overseers of the people of God, who seek
to outdo the pomp of heathen potentates, would surround themselves, like the emperors, with a
body-guard, and make themselves terrible and inaccessible to the poor.
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58
We consider, first, the origin of the episcopate. The unreliable character of our documents
and traditions from the transition period between the close of the apostolic church and the beginning
of the post-apostolic, leaves large room here for critical research and combination. First of all comes
the question: Was the episcopate directly or indirectly of apostolic (Johannean) origin?
160
59 Or did
it arise after the death of the apostles, and develope itself from the presidency of the congregational
presbytery?
161
60
In other words, was the episcopate a continuation and contraction of, and substitute
for, the apostolate, or was it an expansion and elevation of the presbyterate?
162
61 The later view is
more natural and better sustained by facts. Most of its advocates date the change from the time of
157
Such is the Swedish and Danish Lutheran, the American Methodist, and the Moravian episcopate, which recognizes the
validity of non-episcopal orders. The Anglican church harbors a high-church and a low-church theory of episcopacy, the one
derived from the mediaeval hierarchy, the other from the Reformation, but repudiates the primacy as an antichristian usurpation,
although it must be confessed to be almost as old as episcopacy, its roots going back to Clement of Rome, or at all events to the
age of Irenaeus.
158
Comp. Euseb. vii. 27-30
159
See the passages quoted by Gieseler, vol. I. 282 sq. (Harpers’ ed. of New York.)
160
This is the Greek, the Roman Catholic, and the high Anglican theory. It is advocated by a very few Continental Protestants
as Chevalier Bunsen, Rothe and Thiersch (an Irvingite), who trace episcopacy to John in Ephesus.
161
So the Lutheran, Presbyterian, and some eminent Episcopal writers. We mention Mosheim, Neander, Lightfoot, Stanley,
Hatch. Also Baur and Renan, who judge as mere critics.
162
Bishop Lightfoot (l.c. p. 194) thus states the question with his own answer: "The episcopate was formed, not out of the
apostolic order by localization, but out of
the presbyterial by elevation; and the title, which originally was common to all, came
at length to be appropriated to the chief among them."
85
Philip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene
Christianity. A.D. 100-325.