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IV

A third conception of the episcopal office is illustrated in the writings of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (A.D. 248): “The bishop is the indispensable channel of divine grace, the indispensable bond of Christian brotherhood. The episcopate is not so much the roof as the foundation-stone of the ecclesiastical edifice; not so much the legitimate development as the primary condition of a Church. The bishop is appointed directly by God, is responsible directly to God, is inspired directly from God. This last point deserves especial notice. Though in words he frequently defers to the established usage of consulting the presbyters, and even the laity, in the appointment of officers, and in other matters affecting the well-being of the community, yet he only makes the concession to nullify it immediately. He pleads a direct official inspiration, which enables him to dispense with ecclesiastical custom and to act on his own responsibility. Though the presbyters may still have retained the shadow of a controlling power over the acts of the bishop, though the courtesy of language by which they were recognised as fellow presbyters was not laid aside, yet for all practical ends the independent supremacy of the episcopate was completely established by the principles and the measures of Cyprian." 12

And further, the sacerdotal assumptions of the Christian ministry, which began to appear in Tertullian, forty years before, were put forward by Cyprian "without relief and without disguise . . . and so uncompromising was the tone in which he asserted them that nothing was left to his successors but to enforce his principles and reiterate his language." 13 With Cyprian the bishop is " the absolute vicegerent of Christ in things spiritual." 14

V

To suppose that the only cause of the rapid disappearance of the responsibilities and corresponding powers of the commonalty of the Church is to be found in the ambition of the

12 Lightfoot, Philippians, 241-242, and Dissertations, 208-209. 13 Idem, Philippians, 257; Dissertations, 226.

14 Idem, Philippians, 238; Dissertations, 204.

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rulers of the Church would be a grave error. That the passion for authority was strong in many of the bishops-and in some of the noblest of them-is indeed certain; but if the Christian people had retained the vigorous personal faith and the spiritual earnestness of the first generation of converts, they would not have surrendered their freedom; for their freedom was necessary for the discharge of their duties.

more.

But a great change had passed upon the members of the Church, and this affected its polity. Towards the end of the first century it is probable that a very considerable proportion of those who bore the Christian name were men and women whose parents were Christians before them. If of Jewish blood, they had been taught from their childhood that the authority of the institutions of Judaism had passed away, and that the supreme hope of their race had been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. If Gentiles, they had inherited a scorn of idolatry; they could never worship in the temples of paganism; the only religion possible to them was the religion of Christ; if they ceased to be Christians, they could only become atheists. Whether Jews or Gentiles, their faith was practically in very many cases a tradition and nothing But it was not easy for them to renounce it. They had grown up among Christians; had formed Christian habits of life and Christian associations: by apostasy they would lose their friends and gain no new ones; and they had been disciplined to regard apostasy as a shameful crime. They remained in the Church simply because they had been living among Christians from their childhood. It is probable, too, that as the Christian societies grew in strength, they drew into membership large numbers of heathen men whose religious life was hardly touched by the revelation of the infinite righteousness and love of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Church the lonely and desolate found a home, the sorrowful sympathy, the poor generous relief; and it gave to all whose lives were dreary and monotonous the interest and excitement of an animated society. It was a "club," as well as a "school" and a "temple." Speculative men were attracted by new and unfamiliar forms of religious thought; those of a noble moral temper by the beauty and dignity of the new Christian morality. These men had never seen the glory of Christ, and they knew nothing of the blessed

ness of the Christian redemption. They were, therefore, unconscious of any personal and direct responsibility to Christ for the manner in which the Church was governed, for its worship, for its faith. They were eager enough to take part in its business when questions arose which excited passion and provoked conflict; and when a bishop was to be elected, it is probable that Churches were often agitated with fierce dissensions. But they were indifferent to the grave responsibilities which had been imposed on the Christian commonalty by the apostolic polity, and were incapable of discharging them. The corresponding powers were therefore surrendered almost without a struggle. The people lost their rights because they had lost both the capacity and the disposition to perform their duties.15

In these circumstances to increase the authority of the officers of the Church, and to restrict within narrower limits. the power of the people, was a policy likely to commend itself to the judgment of the wisest and most devout members of the community. It must have seemed not only expedient, but necessary. It appeared to be the only policy that could restrain popular turbulence, secure peace, hold the Churches together, and prevent them from breaking up into rival factions. The true and ideal unity of every Christian community was to be found in the union of all its members in Christ; but when there were large numbers of persons in the Church who were not "in Christ," the only method of securing unityor the appearance of it—was to strengthen the authority of the church rulers. There was a conflict for ascendency among the church rulers themselves; one faction in a Church supported the pretensions of one presbyter, and a rival faction supported the pretensions of another. The obvious remedy for these miserable and ruinous conflicts was to invest one of them with a definite supremacy over the rest, and to make the bishop the very centre and foundation of the whole life of the community.16

If the great conception of the Church which was illustrated in the apostolic polity, and which had its roots in the substance of the Christian Gospel, had been vividly present to the devout men of those early times, they would have seen that the policy which seemed so expedient and so necessary 16 See Note B, p. 13.

15 See Note A, pp. 12–13.

was full of peril. But it was by very slow processes that the Church appropriated even the principal contents of the Christian revelation; and the real nature of the Church itself lay very remote from the thought of the men who had to meet the dangers by which the new faith was confronted in the generation which immediately followed the apostolic age. They took the course to which they thought they were driven by the necessities of their times, and they were unable to foresee the immeasurable evils which they were entailing on future centuries. The fair ideal of the Church as a Christian brotherhood was lost, and was replaced by an institution in which the authority of church rulers became an object of ambition and an instrument of tyranny. The fair ideal of the Church as a society of saints, illuminated by the Holy Ghost, was lost; the tradition of apostolic teaching was henceforth to be in the keeping of the bishops; the defence and maintenance of the Christian faith were entrusted to official hands; and it was forgotten that according to the original Gospel the Christian commonalty are "taught of God." " The fair ideal of the Church as a community of men sharing the life and power and glory of Christ, and having immediate access to the Father because of their union with the Eternal Son, was lost; and henceforth a human priesthood was to be the channel of all divine grace. At first the Church was believed to be so perfectly one with Christ, that the prayers of the Christian assembly were the prayers of Christ, and its decisions the decisions of Christ; but in the course of the third century the bishop came to stand between the Church and God.

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NOTE A

Spiritual Indifference and Clerical Supremacy

Clerical despotism will be able to prevail only when the doors of the Church have been forced by a mixed multitude. These, being themselves indifferent to the true interests of the Christian life, are incapable of sharing the government of a religious body; they will, therefore, gladly free themselves from a burdensome responsibility by casting it on their leaders. The hierarchy gains 17 John vi. 45.

strength in proportion as living piety declines. On the other hand, a Church composed of earnest, active Christians, well instructed in divine things, is a self-governing Church; it does not surrender to any the conduct of its highest interests, which it regards as no less than sacred obligations; its rights and its duties go hand in hand, and the former are forfeited only as the latter are neglected."-E. de Pressensé, The Early Years of Christianity : Christian Life and Practice in the Early Church, iv. 7-8.

NOTE B

Jerome on Presbyters and Bishops

Commenting on Titus i. 5, Jerome says: "A presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop, and before factions were introduced into religion by the promptings of the devil, and it was said among the people, 'I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas,' churches were governed by the common council of their elders. But as soon as each man began to consider those whom he had baptized to belong to himself and not to Christ, it was decided throughout the world that one elected from among the elders should be placed over the rest, so that the care of the Church should devolve on him, and the seeds of schism be removed." In another passage, he writes: When afterwards one presbyter was elected that he might be set over the rest, this was done as a remedy against schism, that each man might not draw to himself and thus break up the Church of Christ."

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Ceillier's observations on these passages of Jerome's are extremely naïve: "To understand rightly this opinion of Saint Jerome's, it is necessary to remember that his only object in speaking so honourably of priests was to repress the pride of the deacons, who, deliberately ignoring the rank they really held, raised themselves above the priests, and measured their dignity, not by their merit, but by the riches of the Church which they held under their control. This Father was very glad to humble them by reminding them of their original function, which consisted in serving tables and relieving widows, and by showing them how much higher than the order of deacons was the order of priests." Yes, but this hardly touches Jerome's point: were the priests the equals of bishops? Jerome's object in his comment on the passage quoted by Ceillier, seems to have been to humble the bishops as well as to humble the deacons. [Ceillier, Histoire des Auteurs Sacrés et Ecclésiastiques, vii. 681(b), 682(a).]

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