founded in apostolic times. Nor is there any reason to doubt the
Christian brotherhoods in this country. It is true we do not meet with any earlier bishop than the immediate predecessor of Irenaeus at Lyons, the aged Pothinus, of whose martyrdom an account is given in the letter of the Gallican Churches. But this is also the first distinct historical notice of any kind relating to Christianity in Gaul. 10. AFRICA again was evangelized from Rome at a comparatively late date. Of the African Church before the close of the second century, when a flood of light is suddenly thrown upon it by the writings of Tertullian, we know absolutely nothing. But we need not doubt that this father represents the traditions and sentiments of his church, when he lays stress on episcopacy as an apostolic institution and on the episcopate as the depositary of pure Christian doctrine. If we may judge by the large number of prelates assembled in the African councils of a later generation, it would appear that the extension of the episcopate was far more rapid here than in most parts of Christendom. 11. The Church of ALEXANDRIA, on the other hand, was probably founded in apostolic times. Nor is there any reason to doubt the tradition which connects it with the name of St Mark, though the authorities for the statement are comparatively recent. Nevertheless of its early history we have no authentic record. Eusebius indeed gives a list of bishops beginning with St Mark, which here, as in the case of the Roman see, is accompanied by dates; but from what source he derived his information, is unknown. The first con temporary notice of church officers in Alexandria is found in a heathen writer. The emperor Hadrian, writing to the consul Servianus, thus describes the state of religion in this city: 'I have become perfectly familiar with Egypt, which you praised to me; it is fickle, uncertain, blown about by every gust of rumour. Those who worship Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to Serapis who call themselves bishops of Christ. There is no ruler of a synagogue there, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, a quack. The patriarch himself whenever he comes to Egypt is compelled by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ.' In this letter, which seems to have been written in the year 134, Hadrian shows more knowledge of Jewish ecclesiastical polity than of Christian: but,
apparently without knowing the exact value of terms, he seems to distinguish the bishop and the presbyter in the Christian community. From the age of Hadrian to the age of Clement no contemporary or nearly contemporary notices are found, bearing on the government of the Alexandrian Church. The language of Clement is significant; he speaks sometimes of two orders of the ministry, the presbyters and deacons; sometimes of three, the bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Thus it would appear that even as late as the close of the second century the bishop of Alexandria was regarded as distinct and yet not distinct from the presbytery. And the language of Clement is further illustrated by the fact, which will have to be considered at length presently, that at Alexandria the bishop was nominated and apparently ordained by the twelve presbyters out of their own number. The episcopal office in this Church during the second century gives no presage of the worldwide influence to which under the prouder name of patriarchate it was destined in later ages to attain. The Alexandrian succession, in which history is hitherto most interested, is not the succession of the bishops but of the heads of the catechetical school. The first bishop of Alexandria, of whom any distinct incident is recorded on trustworthy authority, was a contemporary of Origen. The notices thus collected present a large body of evidence establishing the fact of the early and extensive adoption of episcopacy in the Christian Church. The investigation however would not be complete, unless attention were called to such indirect testimony as is furnished by the tacit assumptions of writers living towards and at the close of the second century. Episcopacy is so inseparably interwoven with all the traditions and beliefs of men like Irenaeus and Tertullian, that they betray no knowledge of a time when it was not. Even Irenaeus, the earlier of these, who was certainly born and probably had grown up before the middle of the century, seems to be wholly ignorant that the word bishop had passed from a lower to a higher value since the apostolic times. Nor is it important only to observe the positive though indirect testimony which they afford. Their silence suggests a strong negative presumption, that while every other point of doctrine or practice was eagerly canvassed, the form of Church government alone scarcely came under discussion.
But these notices, besides establishing the general prevalence of episcopacy, also throw considerable light on its origin. They indicate that the solution suggested by the history of the word 'bishop' and its transference from the lower to the higher office is the true solution, and that the episcopate was created out of the presbytery. They show that this creation was not so much an isolated act as a progressive development, not advancing everywhere at an uniform rate but exhibiting at one and the same time different stages of growth in different churches. They seem to hint also that, so far as this development was affected at all by national temper and characteristics, it was slower where the prevailing influences were more purely Greek, as at Corinth and Philippi and Rome, and more rapid where an oriental spirit predominated, as at Jerusalem and Antioch and Ephesus. Above all, they establish this result clearly, that its maturer forms are seen first in those regions where the latest surviving Apostles (more especially St John) fixed their abode, and at a time when its prevalence cannot be dissociated from their influence or their sanction. The original relation of the bishop to the presbyter, which this investigation reveals, was not forgotten even after the lapse of centuries. Though set over the presbyters, he was still regarded as in some sense one of them. Irenaeus indicates this position of the episcopate very clearly. In his language a presbyter is never designated a bishop, while on the other hand he very frequently speaks of a bishop as a presbyter. In other words, though he views the episcopate as a distinct office from the presbytery, he does not regard it as a distinct order in the same sense in which the diaconate is a distinct order. Thus, arguing against the heretics he says, 'But when again we appeal against them to that tradition which is derived from the Apostles, which is preserved in the churches by successions of presbyters, they place themselves in opposition to it, saying that they, being wiser not only than the presbyters but even than the Apostles, have discovered the genuine truth.' Yet just below, after again mentioning the apostolic tradition, he adds, 'We are able to enumerate those who have been appointed by the Apostles bishops in the churches and their successors down to our own time;' and still further,
after saying that it would take up too much space if he were to trace the succession in all the churches, he declares that he will confound his opponents by singling out the ancient and renowned Church of Rome founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul and will point out the tradition handed down to his own time 'by the succession of bishops,' after which he gives a list from Linus to Eleutherus. So again in another passage he writes, 'Therefore obedience ought to be rendered to the presbyters who are in the churches, who have the succession from the Apostles as we have shown, who with the succession of the episcopate have also received the sure grace of truth according to the pleasure of the Father;' after which he mentions some 'who are believed by many to be presbyters, but serve their own lusts and are elated with the pomp of the chief seat' and bids his readers shun these and seek such as 'together with the rank of the presbytery show their speech sound and their conversation void of offence,' adding of these latter, 'Such presbyters the Church nurtures and rears, concerning whom also the prophet saith, "I will give thy rulers in peace and thy bishops in righteousness".' Thus also writing to Victor of Rome in the name of the Gallican churches, he says, 'It was not so observed by the presbyters before Soter, who ruled the Church which thou now guidest, we mean Anicetus and Pius, Hyginus and Telesphorus and Xystus.' And the same estimate of the office appears in Clement of Alexandria: for, while he speaks elsewhere of the offices in the ministry, mentioning them by name, he in one passage puts forward a twofold division, the presbyters whose duty it is to improve, and the deacons whose duty it is to serve, the Church. The functions of the bishop and presbyter are thus regarded as substantially the same in kind, though different in degree, while the functions of the diaconate are separate from both. More than a century and a half later, this view is put forward with the greatest distinctness by the most learned and most illustrious of the Latin fathers. 'There is one ordination,' writes the commentator Hilary, 'of the bishop and the presbyter; for either is a priest, but the bishop is first. Every bishop is a presbyter, but every presbyter is not a bishop: for he is bishop who is first among the presbyters.' The language of St Jerome to the same effect has been Jerome, quoted above. To the passages there given may be added the
following: 'This has been said to show that with the ancients presbyters were the same as bishops: but gradually all the responsibility was deferred to a single person, that the thickets of heresies might be rooted out. Therefore, as presbyters know that by the custom of the Church they are subject to him who shall have been set over them, so let bishops also be aware that they are superior to presbyters more owing to custom than to any actual ordinance of the Lord, etc.: Let us see therefore what sort of person ought to be ordained presbyter or bishop.' In the same spirit too the great Augustine writing to Jerome says, 'Although according to titles of honour which the practice of the Church has now made valid, the episcopate is greater than the presbytery, yet in many things Augustine is less than Jerome.' To these fathers this view seemed to be an obvious deduction from the identity of the terms 'bishop' and 'presbyter' in the apostolic writings; nor indeed, when they wrote, had usage entirely effaced the original connexion between the two offices. Even in the fourth and fifth centuries, when the independence and power of the episcopate had reached its maximum, it was still customary for a bishop in writing to a presbyter to address him as 'fellow-presbyter,' thus bearing testimony to a substantial identity of order. Nor does it appear that this view was ever questioned until the era of the Reformation. In the western Church at all events it carried the sanction of the highest ecclesiastical authorities and was maintained even by popes and councils. Nor was it only in the language of the later Church that the memory of this fact was preserved. Even in her practice indications might here and there be traced, which pointed to a time when the bishop was still only the chief member of the presbytery. The case of the Alexandrian Church, which has already been mentioned casually, deserves special notice. St Jerome, after denouncing the audacity of certain persons who 'would give to deacons the precedence over presbyters, that is over bishops' and alleging scriptural created by proofs of the identity of the two, gives the following fact in illustration: 'At Alexandria, from Mark the Evangelist down to the times of the bishops Heraclas (A.D. 233-249) and Dionysius (A.D. 249-265), the presbyters always nominated as bishop one chosen out of their own body and placed in a
higher grade: just as if an army were to appoint a general, or deacons were to choose from their own body one whom they knew to be diligent and call him archdeacon.' Though the direct statement of this father refers only to the appointment of the bishop, still it may be inferred that the function of the presbyters extended also to the consecration. And this inference is borne out by other evidence. 'In Egypt,' writes an older contemporary of St Jerome, the commentator Hilary, 'the presbyters seal (i.e. ordain or consecrate), if the bishop be not present.' This however might refer only to the ordination of presbyters, and not to the consecration of a bishop. But even the latter is supported by direct evidence, which though comparatively late deserves consideration, inasmuch as it comes from one who was him self a patriarch of Alexandria. Eutychius, who held the patriarchal see from A.D. 933 to A.D. 940, writes as follows: 'The Evangelist Mark appointed along with the patriarch Hananias twelve presbyters who should remain with the patriarch, to the end that, when the patriarchate was vacant, they might choose one of the twelve presbyters, on whose head the remaining eleven laying their hands should bless him and create him patriarch.' The vacant place in the presbytery was then to be filled up, that the number twelve might be constant. 'This custom,' adds this writer, 'did not cease till the time of Alexander (A.D. 313 326), patriarch of Alexandria. He however forbad that henceforth the presbyters should create the patriarch, and decreed that on the death of the patriarch the bishops should meet to ordain the (new) patriarch, etc.' It is clear from this passage that Eutychius considered the functions of nomination and ordination to rest with the same persons. If this view however be correct, the practice of the Alexandrian Church was exceptional; for at this time the formal act of the bishop was considered generally necessary to give validity to ordination. Nor is the exception difficult to account for. At the close of the second century, when every considerable church in Europe and Asia appears to have had its bishop, the only representative of the episcopal order in Egypt was the bishop of Alexandria. It was Demetrius first (A.D. 190-233), as Eutychius informs us, who appointed three other bishops, to which number his successor Heraclas (A.D. 233-249)
added twenty more. This extension of episcopacy to the provincial towns of Egypt paved the way for a change in the mode of appointing and ordaining the patriarch of Alexandria. But before this time it was a matter of convenience and almost of necessity that the Alexandrian presbyters should themselves ordain their chief. Nor is it only in Alexandria that we meet with this peculiarity. Where the same urgent reason existed, the same exceptional practice seems to have been tolerated. A decree of the Council of Ancyra (A.D. 314) ordains that 'it be not allowed to country-bishops to ordain presbyters or deacons, nor even to city-presbyters, except permission be given in each parish by the bishop in writing.' Thus while restraining the existing license, the framers of the decree still allow very considerable latitude. And it is especially important to observe that they lay more stress on episcopal sanction than on episcopal ordination. Provided that the former is secured, they are content to dispense with the latter. As a general rule however, even those writers who maintain a substantial identity in the offices of the bishop and presbyter reserve the power of ordaining to the former. This distinction in fact may be regarded as a settled maxim of Church polity in the fourth and later centuries. And when Aerius maintained the equality of the bishop and presbyter and denied the necessity of episcopal ordination, his opinion was condemned as heretical, and is stigmatized as 'frantic' by Epiphanius. It has been seen that the institution of an episcopate must be placed as far back as the closing years of the first century, and that it cannot, without violence to historical testimony, be dissevered from the name of St John. But it has been seen also that the earliest bishops did not hold the same independent position of supremacy which was and is occupied by their later representatives. It will therefore be instructive to trace the successive stages by which the power of the office was developed during the second and third centuries. Though something must be attributed to the frailty of human pride and love of power, it will nevertheless appear that the pressing needs of the Church were mainly instrumental in bringing about the result, and that this development of the episcopal office was a providential safeguard amid the confusion of speculative opinion, the distracting effects of