which could have been used if there had been an appeal in the matter to any ancient tradition of the Church. Moreover, it appears from another document quoted by Athanasius that Colluthus did not profess to ordain as a presbyter, but pretended to be a bishop.1

monised

with Origen's

The language and silence of Origen are also sig- () is not nificant. Origen was thirty-eight years old when y Heraclas became bishop, in whose time the gradual witness; exaltation of the episcopate is supposed to have begun. Origen, besides giving us to understand that the method of ordaining bishops was by laying on of hands,2 also speaks of them frequently as occupying a quite different grade to presbyters, and he uses language which implies that the position of bishops was one of immemorial antiquity. It must τίνος καταστήσαντος; ἆρα Κολλούθου; τοῦτο γὰρ λοιπόν. ἀλλ ̓ ὅτι Κόλλουθος πρεσβύτερος ὢν ἐτελεύτησε, και πᾶσα χεὶρ αὐτοῦ γέγονεν ἄκυρος καὶ πάντες οἱ παρ' αὐτοῦ κατασταθέντες ἐν τῷ σχίσματι λαικοὶ γεγόνασι καὶ οὕτω συνάγονται, δῆλον, καὶ οὐδενὶ καθέστηκεν ἀμφίβολον. Cf. 74 (and 76): οὐδέποτε λειτουργὸς τῆς ἐκκλησίας γέγονεν . ἐκπεσὼν καὶ τῆς ψευδοῦς ὑπονοίας τοῦ πρεσβυτερίου.

1 See Apol. c. Ari. c. 76 (quoting Letter of Mareotic clergy, A.D. 335, to civil authorities): ὑπὸ γὰρ Κολλούθου τοῦ πρεσβυτέρου φαντασθέντος ἐπισκοπὴν, καὶ ὕστερον ὑπὸ κοινῆς συνόδου Οσίου καὶ τῶν σὺν αὐτῷ ἐπισκόπων κελευθέντος πρεσβυτέρον εἶναι καθὸ καὶ πρότερον ἦν, κατεστάθη.

2 When Origen (in Num. xxii. 4) is rebuking the 'principes ecclesiae' (i.e bishops) for appointing their own relations or even their sons to succeed them in their sees, he quotes Num. xxvii. 18-20 (where Moses is directed to choose Joshua and lay hands upon him, etc.) and continues: 'audis evidenter ordinationem principis populi tam manifeste descriptam, ut paene expositione non egeat.' Just above he had distinguished the 'princeps populi' from the 'presbyteri' of Num. xi. 16. Cf. also in Exod. xi. 6.

3 Origen's language about church offices is of this nature:

(1) Bishops and presbyters are classed together as τὰς πρωτοκαθεδρίας πεπιστευμένοι or év ékkλnolaσtiký dokoûvtes elvaɩ vñepoxy (in Matt. xvi. 22, in Ioann. xxxii. 7). But it should be noticed that deacons also are included under these phrases in in Matt. xiv. 22. (So later Bp. Dionysius Alex. speaks of 'my fellow-presbyter' ap. Euseb. H.E. vii. 11).

(2) Much more frequently they are spoken of as constituting distinct classes; cf. in Luc. xx: 'Si Iesus subiicitur Ioseph et Mariae, ego non subiiciar episcopo qui mihi a Deo ordinatus est pater? Non subiiciar presbytero qui mihi Domini dignatione praepositus est?' Again, in the beautiful contrast which he draws (c. Cels. iii. 30) between the Christian and the pagan ékkλŋσía, he distinguishes the apxwv of the Christian community from the Sovλevraí-the bishop from the presbyters-in several

also be remembered that Origen had suffered severely from specially episcopal authority at Alexandria. He had been ordained presbyter, as is well known, at Caesarea, without the consent of Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria. Now, while a mixed synod of Egyptian bishops and presbyters had consented only to banish him for this breach of canonical discipline, a synod of bishops alone had gone further and deposed him from his presbyterate, as he and his friends thought, unjustly.1 This severer treatment would make him quick, like Jerome, to notice the arrogance of bishops.2 If then Heraclas, Demetrius' successor, had deprived the presbyters of an ancient right, it would not have escaped his attention; yet, writing at the end of Heraclas' episcopate, he characterizes the Alexandrian Church among others as 'a mild typical Churches, of which Alexandria is one. Again, speaking (de Orat. 28) of the different 'debts' which different classes of the community have to pay, he specifies the distinct debt of widow, deacon, presbyter, and continues: Kaì èmσkónov dè ὀφειλὴ βαρυτάτη ἀπαιτουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ τῆς ὅλης ἐκκλησίας σωτῆρος καὶ ἐκδικουμένη εἰ μὴ ἀποδιδῳτο. And in a similar strain in lerem. xi. 3: οὐ πάντως ὁ κλῆρος σώζει πλεῖον ἐγὼ ἀπαιτοῦμαι παρὰ τὸν διάκονον (this was after he was ordained priest), πλεῖον ὁ διάκονος παρὰ τὸν λαικόν· ὁ δὲ τὴν πάντων ἡμῶν ἐγκεχειρισμένος ἀρχὴν αὐτὴν τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν ἐπὶ πλεῖον ἀπαιτεῖται. Cf. in Esech. v ; in Luc. xvii.

(3) He puts the bishops alone in a remarkable way, as the Church's rulers: 'per singulas ecclesias bini sunt episcopi, alius visibilis, alius invisibilis; ille visui carnis, hic sensui patens' (in Luc. xiii). He is alluding to the Angel of the Apocalypse, whom he conceives of as the spiritual guardian of the Church and counterpart of the earthly bishop. This leads to the remark that—

(4) He conceives the bishop of his day to be the bishop of whose qualifications St. Paul instructs us (in Matt. xi. 15, xiv. 22; c. Cels. iii. 48). Also he speaks of bishops as the immemorial tradition in the Church; he speaks of people who have to boast of fathers and ancestors προεδρίας ἠξιωμένοις ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐπισκοπικοῦ θρόνου ἢ πρεσβυτερίου τιμῆς ἢ διακονίας εἰς τὸν λαόν (in Matt. xv. 26). And as he singles out 'stability' as a note of the Church, when he is contrasting it with the pagan societies (c. Cels. iii. 30: #pacîá ris kai evoraons)—and this when Alexandria is specially mentioned among other Churches-he is clearly not conscious of any change in the Church's constitution which is going on. Nor does his language at all suggest that the episcopate of Alexandria was in a peculiar position.

1 See p. 328. Cf. Dict. Chr. Biog. s. v. ORIGEN iv. p. 100.

2 He does, as a fact, rebuke the bishops, especially those of great cities, for covetousness, secularity and pride, but not as if their order was at the moment exalting itself at the expense of the presbyters; cf. in Matt. xvi. 2, in Exod. xi. 6. (Bishops will hardly condescend to take counsel with the inferior priests.)

and stable' society, and speaks of want of zeal, not of rivalry, as the fault likely to be found in bishops and clergy. So far then as Jerome's theory postulates at Alexandria an original lack of clear distinction between the orders of bishop and presbyter, followed by a gradual exaltation of the episcopate, during the period of Origen's life, it has all the testimony of his language against it.2

not incon

sion.

It requires, then, a great effort of confidence to (c) if true, is trust Jerome's witness, especially when we consider sistent with the principle that it is the witness of Jerome in a temper, and that of succes under such circumstances he is not too careful with his facts; but it has been so generally accepted by western writers from the fourth to the twelfth century and by modern critics, that it will be the better course, as our object is not merely archaeological, to face what is at any rate the possibility of its being true. It should then be noticed that, when western church writers of the Middle Ages quote and accept Jerome's statement, it causes them no disquietude in view of the existing distinction of bishops and priests. They would maintain that no one can validly execute any ecclesiastical function which does not belong to him by the proper devolution of ecclesiastical authority. But this no one accuses the Alex

1 c. Cels. iii. 30.

2 So far again as Jerome's words postulate that the elective authority for the episcopate lay simply with the presbytery, it has against it the evidence that the ancient mode of episcopal election at Alexandria gave great power to the vote of the whole people. See Athan. Apol. c. Ar. 6 ñây tò ñàñßos kaì ñâs ò λaós and Greg. Naz. Orat. xxi. 8, who praises this as the ancient and apostolic method.

Liberatus (cir. 560) tells us of a curious custom in the episcopal succession at Alexandria (Breviar. 20): 'Consuetudo quidem est Alexandriae illum qui defuncto succedit excubias super defuncti corpus agere, manumque dexteram eius capiti suo imponere et, sepulto manibus suis, accipere collo suo beati Marci pallium et tunc legitime sedere.' But he cannot mean that this was a substitute for consecration by living bishops. We know that stress was laid in Athanasius' case (326) both on popular election and public episcopal consecration: and the latter could not have been abandoned later.

I

They were

andrian presbyters of having done. ordained, ex hypothesi, on the understanding that under certain circumstances they might be called, by simple election, to execute the bishop's office. They were not only presbyters with the ordinary commission of the presbyter, but also bishops in posse. Elsewhere there were two distinct ordinations, one making a man a bishop and another a presbyter; at Alexandria there was only one ordination, which made a man a presbyter and potential bishop. When this arrangement ceased and Alexandria was assimilated to other Churches, the presbyters began to be ordained as mere presbyters; and henceforward any assumption by one of them of episcopal powers, such as Colluthus was guilty of, was treated as a mere assumption, the results of which were simply invalid. It is unnecessary to do more than recall, in view of such an hypothetical situation, the contention of the last chapter, namely that the church principle of succession would never be violated by the existence in any Church of episcopal powers, whether free or conditional, in all the presbyters, supposing that those powers were not assumed by the individual for himself, but were understood to be conveyed to him by the ordination of the Church. The state of things, then, which is assumed to have existed at Alexandria violates the complete uniformity of the church ministry in the period we are considering-it requires us to introduce qualifications into our generalization of results-but it does not affect the principle.2

1 Their position would not have been very unlike that of the chorepiscopi, who could only ordain validly (in the mind of the early Church) where they had the sanction of the town bishop.

2 See Simcox Early Church History p. 359 n.1.

evidence as

ministry was

from

So far we have been going through the evidence Further supplied by the history of Eastern Christianity on to how the the existence of episcopal successions in every conceived Church. It remains to seek additional light on the conception entertained of the ministry; and that from three sources,

(1) writings which are concerned with worship and church order:

(2) the canons of councils:

(3) some representative Fathers.

etc.

(1) Besides the oriental offices of ordination, of (1) Liturgies, ancient though uncertain date,1 and some mediaeval commentaries on the ancient rites, such as that of Symeon of Thessalonica, we have older sources of evidence. There is the work of the Syrian pseudoDionysius, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, a work probably of the end of the fifth century, elaborating the mystical significance of the Church's orders; and more ancient are the recently discovered Prayers of Bishop Serapion of Thmuis (c. 350), a friend of St. Athanasius, among which are prayers for ordinations, or 'layings on of hands'; and the Syrian Apostolical Constitutions, a work which in its present form is probably contemporary with Serapion, but which, in the portion which concerns us, is based upon the earlier Egyptian Church Ordinances, and those again upon the so-called Canons of Hippolytus, which may perhaps be the work of the famous man whose name they bear, but at any rate must be held to be a body of canons not later than the beginning of the

2

1 Given in Morinus de S. Ord. p. ii. and see App. Note C.

2 See Texte u. Untersuch. ii. 3. b. (Leipzig) 1899, and Bishop Sarapion's Prayer Book, by John Wordsworth, D.D., Bishop of Salisbury S.P.C.K., 1899).

3 On their date and character see Lightfoot Ignatius i. p. 253, and Brightman Liturgies Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896) i. p. xvii.