XII

THE EVOLUTION OF EPISCOPACY AND PAPACY

The confusion of the first two centuries.

The suggestion : The name, bishop, evolved; the office, devolved.

Under what other name was the "bishop" masquerading. Was it, "deacon," or "elder "?

The evolution of the name, bishop, indicates evolution of the office.

Episcopos is either superior deacon or elder.

No threefold order in the primitive church.

Hatch quoted; and Lightfoot.

The elements which demanded "government," Hatch.
The moment from which to date the Catholic church.
The bishop not successors of apostles, but of Christ.
The first appearance of apostolic, episcopal, succession.
The clerical class, and the influences producing it.
The consequences of the triumph of Christianity.
Catholic church authority and power.

Roman catholicism.

Papacy; its evolution.

XII

THE EVOLUTION OF EPISCOPACY AND PAPACY

BISHOP GORE echoes a complaint that going backward after we leave the middle of the second century, we enter into a tunnel in which very little can be discerned. But, tunnels can be made by closing one's eyes; darkness may be lack of vision. It is not that there is lack of light in the first two centuries that makes it hard to see clearly, but there is a confusion which reigns during that period. This confusion is itself the best of arguments that The Church knew no successors to the Apostles as having divine authority in The Church.

The inability to discern clearly any one line of officers bearing apostolic authority has led to the suggestion that the contention is not concerning a name but a fact that the name, bishop, may have been evolved, but the office devolved. This rather ingenious effort to dissociate the name from the office cannot be regarded as a success. If the diocesan bishop of the fourth century is not an evolution of the officer or servant who was called bishop in the first century, then he must have had during this period supremacy and apostolic authority under some other name. For, the supposition that the successor to the apostles, who for that reason would naturally be the superior in the church, was not

recognized under some name, is hardly worth the making; so that those (like Canon Gore) who imagine the office devolved and the name evolved must tell us what name the supposed successor bore before he was called bishop and why the title, which he had borne for two or three centuries, was later changed to that of bishop.

The names by which the servants or officers in the early Church were known are apostles, prophets, teachers, angels, elders, episcopoi, deacons, governors, presidents, shepherds, evangelists, and the like. Under which one of these names was the successor of the apostles masquerading? To which one of these named officers, we have a right to demand, did the Apostles transmit supreme authority?

The choice must be made between the elder and the deacon. There is certainly no evidence that the apostles transmitted any supreme authority to the deacons, even though the earlier deacon may have later become the bishop, as some maintain. That an elder may have later been called, in an exclusive and special sense, bishop, we have seen to be the most probable. But, there is no evidence whatever that the apostles made either the deacon or the elder their successor. The idea that the " angel of the church was successor to the apostles, is now abandoned.

The evolution of the name, bishop, is evidence of the evolution of the office, bishop. There was no officer permanent in the Church, nor in a church, to whom the name bishop was later given. The new name distinguished a new office. An elder, or possibly a

deacon, was called a bishop because a new service needed a distinguishing name. That new duties would appear in a growing society goes without saying, and that these new duties should give rise to new names, or to distinctive use of old names, is evident.

So the general name, episcopos, or overseer, agent, administrator, servant, became specific and designated either the superior deacon of the superior presbyter.

Harnack holds that the bishops were successors to the prophets and teachers and not to the apostles, who passed away earlier. Hatch thinks that the name of the most esteemed function, that of oversight, episcopein, would naturally be used to designate the single presbyter finally selected for this duty.

Thus the name bishop came with an evolved, not a devolved, duty, and the notion that the function was devolved from the apostles, as Gore and Moberly suggest, is found delusive. It is the failure of a last resort.

As was said at the close of the last chapter the bishop is not first of a threefold order. The threefold order: apostles, elders and deacons, was not established in any church. In Jerusalem, James, not an apostle, was head of the church, even when Peter and John were there. The " apostles and elders" form a kind of council or sanhedrin (see Acts 15; 6:22) which consults with the whole multitude. There is no mention of deacons. As we have seen the servants of Acts 6 are not so called and had no permanent office. There was no office in the Jewish church corresponding to the later deacon. (See Hastings' Dictionary, s. v.)