III. Apostles and Bishops¶
Our blessed Lord is the fountain-head of the Christian ministry. In his sacred person, He summed up all the offices of the ministry. Thus, in the New Testament He is named:
A sovereign sums up in himself all the lower offices of the State. The greater includes the lesser. This is true of the apostolate, or apostolic office. In a secondary sense the apostles were founders of the ministry. St. Paul declares that the Church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.”[5] All ministerial authority was lodged in them, and in their hands all official power was centred. The lower orders or grades of the Christian ministry, which were to be developed as occasion arose, lay dormant in the apostles.
i¶
The first of these orders to be called out by the apostles was the lowest order, that of the ‘deacons.’ This was followed by the creation of a second order, named in the New Testament, ‘elders’ or ‘bishops.’ But though members of this second order were at first sometimes called ‘bishops,’ they were not bishops in the special sense in which the term afterwards came to be used. The word bishop means ‘overseer.’ These so-named bishops were members of the second order who had the oversight of congregations. Thus, in the days of the apostles, there were three orders in existence, viz.:
Apostles, sent by Christ.
Elders or Bishops, } sent by the apostles.
Deacons, } sent by the apostles.
But when the time drew near for the apostles to depart this life, they selected members of the second order to succeed them in the government of the Church, and in the ordaining of her ministers. Such were St. Timothy and St. Titus, who were raised by the apostle St. Paul from the second to the first order, and became heads of the Church at Ephesus and Crete respectively. Gradually the name ‘bishop’ ceased to be applied to the second order, and became restricted to the first order.
Upon the death of the apostles, these bishops took their place, and became chief ministers of the Church, possessing apostolic authority within particular spheres, to ordain and to bear rule over the presbyters or elders and the deacons.
ii¶
The apostolate contained the germ of the Christian ministry. At first the episcopate, or order of bishops, slept in the apostolate. During the closing years of the first century, the apostolate was merged in the episcopate. The order of apostles passed away, and that of bishops took its place as a permanent institution in the Church. The one order grew out of the other as a branch of the apostolic stem. In a special sense the bishops became successors of the apostles, inheriting the fulness of ministerial power. The three permanent orders were now:
Bishops.
Elders,[6] or Priest.
Deacon.
Whatever confusion appears to exist as to the names given to the various grades of the Christian ministry in the New Testament, it is quite clear that from the apostles of Jesus Christ sprang the threefold order known henceforth by the titles of ‘bishops,’ ‘priests,’ and ‘deacons.’ “Without these three orders,” says St. Ignatius (A.D. 110) “no Church has a title to the name.”[7]
This threefold order dates from New Testament times, and has been continued through the apostolic succession to our own days without break. Thus in the Preface to the services for ordaining the clergy of the Church, in the Prayer Book, we are taught,—“It is evident unto all men diligently reading the holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the apostles’ time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ’s Church; bishops, priests, and deacons. Which offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by public prayer, with imposition of hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful authority.”
iii¶
The subject of which we are treating is of such great importance, that it is well to quote the carefully weighed words of the late Dr. Liddon. In the course of a sermon preached at the consecration of two bishops[8] in St. Paul’s Cathedral on St. Mark’s Day, 1885, this great preacher said, “When we say that bishops are successors of the apostles we are not formulating a theory, but stating a fact of history. In one sense, indeed, every presbyter succeeds the apostles; like them he ministers the Word and Sacraments of Christ. In another the apostles have no successors; they alone were privileged to found the Church of Christ, and while founding it to wield a world-wide jurisdiction… If bishops do not singly share in the world-wide jurisdiction which belonged to the apostles, and which could only now be wielded by the universal episcopate acting together, they do in other respects reproduce from age to age among men the fulness of the apostolic authority.
“There are… two, and only two… theories of the origin and character of the Christian ministry. Of these one makes the minister the elected delegate of the congregation; in teaching and ministering he exerts an authority which he derives from his flock. The other traces ministerial authority to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, who deposited it in its fulness in the college of the apostles. ‘All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth; go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations.’ ‘As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.’ The apostles, thus invested with the plenitude of ministerial power, detached from themselves in the form of distinct grades or orders of ministry, so much as was needed, at successive epochs, for building up and supporting the Church. First, they created an order specially charged with the care of the poor and with the administration of Church funds, although also, empowered to preach, and to administer the sacrament of baptism. Next they bestowed on the Church a larger separate instalment of ministerial power-that of the presbyters or bishops-as in those first days the second order was called indifferently. To this order all ministerial capacity was committed, with the exception of that of transmitting the ministry. Lastly, St. Clement of Rome tells us, that, desiring to avoid controversy which they foresaw, the apostles ordained certain men to the end that, when they should have fallen asleep in death, others of approved character might succeed to their special office. Such were Timothy and Titus: not yet exclusively called bishops, but certainly bishops in the sense of the sub-apostolic and of our own age; men who, in addition to the fulness of ministerial capacity, had also the power of transmitting it. In Crete, Titus receives explicit authority from St. Paul to ordain presbyters; at Ephesus, Timothy has particular directions from St. Paul respecting the way in which charges against presbyters are to be received. Thus we see in Timothy and Titus the exercise of what is distinctive both in episcopal orders and episcopal jurisdiction; and unless the pastoral epistles are not of apostolic origin, the three orders existed in their completeness under the eyes of St. Paul. Within the compass of the New Testament, there are two other facts which point to the establishment of the episcopate in apostolic times. One is the position of St. James-the-less at Jerusalem; he seems to have been an apostle who already occupied the more localized and restricted position of a bishop. This appears in the place assigned to him at the Council of Jerusalem, and in the formal visit which St. Paul paid him at a later period, but especially in the unanimous testimony of the second century, which spoke of him as Bishop of Jerusalem. The other fact is the representation in the Apocalypse of the ‘angels’ of the seven churches. What were these angels? Guardian spirits of the churches they cannot have been, since some of them were guilty of grave faults. Nor can they have been the churches themselves, since St. John distinguishes the angels and the churches as having the distinct symbols of stars and candlesticks. Each angel represents a church, for the faith and practice of which he is responsible; and it would be difficult to express more exactly the position of a primitive bishop.”[9]