such a commission, given apparently on this occa- and St. John: sion, which is recorded by St. John.1 It is there described as given to the disciples'; but this expression at the end of St. John's Gospel commonly refers to the twelve, who are the subjects of His typical training. The words of the commission, moreover, and the analogy of that recorded in St. Matthew and St. Mark, seem to make it natural to conclude that, though others may have been present, it was addressed to the Apostles only. As the Father hath sent Me,' Christ said, 'even so send I you,' and when He had said this, He breathed on them and said: 'Receive ye holy spirit : 4 whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; whosesoever

1 St. John xx. 19-23.

So Dr. Westcott, on St. John xxi. 1, says that by the disciples' is meant 'in all probability the apostles, the disciples in the narrower sense, though "the Twelve " were not all assembled on this occasion, but at most "seven" only.' This use of the word 'disciples' may be illustrated by a passage closely parallel to that under discussion. Our Lord's prayer in St. John xvii. is spoken amongst the disciples' (xvi. 29, xviii. 1). Yet by this is meant the Twelve' (St. Matt. xxvi. 20): thus He prays for them as those whom the Father has given Him' (xvii. 6, 9, 11) and whom 'He guarded,' so that not one of them perished but the son of perdition' (ver. 12), and whom He 'has sent into the world,' as the Father sent Him into the world (ver. 18). These are clearly the definite body, the Twelve; and the expression As thou hast sent me, so have I sent them' (ver. 18) interprets that in xx. 21.

I am of course aware that I have Dr. Westcott against me (Revel. of the Risen Lord pp. 81-83 and Comm. in loc.), as well as many others. On the other hand I am following M. Godet, one of the best modern commentators on St. John; and the arguments which seem to me of determining force in the matter are

(1) The parallel commissions to the Eleven' in St. Matthew and St. Mark. (2) The obvious reference to the apostolate in the words of St. John xx. 21; cf. xvii. 18. (The use of #éμ in the former case hardly weakens the force of this.) (3) The habitual reference of the disciples' at the end of St. John's Gospel to the Apostles.

(4) The implication of the Acts (as bearing on all the commissions taken together); if the Acts is accepted as historical, undoubtedly the Apostles must have received a commission distinct from the Church as a whole to account for their position.

On the other hand (a) the presence of those with them' does not seem to be, in this case, more than in the case of any later ministerial commissions, an argument against the limitation to the Apostles; (b) the absence of St. Thomas is no hindrance to the commission having been given to the Apostles, as such. The narratives are fragmentary, and we cannot say but that St. Thomas may have had his loss by absence made good to him. He was present among the eleven to receive the commission recorded in the other Gospels.

• Λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον. St. John vii. 39 where rò

=3

Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 12, where πνεύματα = χαρίσματα, and vevμa = the Holy Ghost and vevua His inspiration (Westcott in loc.). The distinction of meaning between #veμa and tò ñvevμa was already pointed out by Didymus of Alexandria in his treatise on the Holy Spirit see Jerome's Latin version § 15 (Opera, ed. Vallarsi, ii. 123, 124).

(3) the commission restored to St. Peter.

Conclusion as to Christ's

of the

sins ye retain, they are retained.' Here the opening words contain a manifest reference to the apostolate, and the subsequent act of breathing, with the words accompanying, seems to be the actual bestowal in power and spirit of those 'keys of the kingdom' which Christ had formerly promised to the chief of the Apostles. What is bestowed is a judicial power with a supernatural sanction-the power, in pursuance of Christ's redemptive mission, to admit men into the new covenant of absolution, and to exclude them from it, according to considerations of their moral fitness.

(3) If the threefold pastoral commission to St. Peter1 represents, as seems most probable, simply a personal restoration of St. Peter to the position of trust which his threefold denial might be supposed to have lost him, then we shall only be justified in concluding from our Lord's words on that occasion that the pastoral care, to govern and to feed, was supposed to be involved in the apostolic commission.2

It may very well be maintained that it would be institution impossible to draw certain conclusions on the matter apostolate. Which has been under discussion from the four Gospels, if they existed as isolated documents with no history of the Church to interpret them; but from a mere examination of the narratives the conclusions arrived at above appear to be the most probable, and as a fact they are supported by all the evidence of church history from its beginning. It would appear, then, that Christ founded not only a Church but an apostolate in the Church, an apostolate moreover which was intended in some real sense to be permanent; this apostolic office included all that was

St. John xxi. 15-17.

* St. John xxi. 15, 17, βόσκε, 16 ποίμαινε.

necessary to perpetuate that mission on which the Father had sent the Son into the world: it involved the authority to teach in Christ's name, to govern, and to feed, and in this sense was described as a stewardship and pastorate: in order to its function of government, a supernatural sanction was attached to its legislative and judicial authority: and finally the two great sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist were committed to its administration.1

Whether, then, it be true or no to say that the Church began in a ministry,2 it appears certainly true to say taht the Church began with a ministry. Those who had received the commission of the apostolate, and those who had not, awaited side by side the same in discipleship but different in office and function-that Pentecostal gift which was to make all alike and for the first time, in the full sense, members of the Church of Christ.

1 Nothing is said to explain the sense in which baptism and the eucharist respectively were committed to the apostolate. As a matter of fact St. Paul regarded the actual administration of baptism as not specially characteristic of the apostolic office. On the other hand it should be noticed that there is no mention in the Gospels of the institution of that which in the Acts appears as the complement of baptism and as specially administered by the Apostles, the rite of laying-on of hands. Much would become clearer to us if we realized how entirely, in the early Church, baptism and the laying-on of hands were regarded as two parts of the same sacrament.

⚫ See Gladstone Church Principles pp. 201-2: In the Apostles, then, the Christian Church, properly so called, potentially lay, at the moment when our Saviour uttered those sacred and momentous words, which St. Matthew has conveyed to us; but it had no other existence; and if we take that moment of time for our point of view, we see the heavenly gift arrested, as it were, on its passage from God to man, given from Him, but not yet arrived at its destination; not yet communicated to us; just as the loaves and the fishes were, after Jesus had given thanks and broken, and had given them to the twelve to distribute, but before they had actually served them to the multitude. . . . And so it was to remain until the day of Pentecost.' Cf. the same writer's Gleanings iii. p. 262: 'No doubt (as I for one believe) the Church began with a clergy; nay, began in a clergy.' I should have thought, however, that before the day of Pentecost there were others besides the apostolic clergy who were, in the same sense as they, members themselves of the Church. The number of names together were about an hundred and twenty.'

I. The evidences of St. Paul's Epistles. (a) The apostle

CHAPTER V

THE MINISTRY IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE

THE task now before us is to investigate the witness of the apostolic Epistles and of the Acts of the Apostles as to the origin and nature of the Christian ministry and its development in the first period of the life of the Church. The most convenient method will be first to marshal the evidence and then to draw the conclusions which it seems to warrant. Accordingly we begin with the evidence of St. Paul's Epistles.

I. First of all then, St. Paul gives us in each group of his Epistles 1 a vivid impression of what he understood by the ministry of an apostle.2 He is one

1 Except with regard to the Epistle to the Galatians, which many scholars are now inclined to place first in time of all the Epistles, there is fairly general agreement about the chronological order of the Epistles. The two Epistles to the Thessalonians constitute the earliest group. Then come the two Epistles to the Corinthians, with those to the Romans and (according to the ordinary view) the Galatians-all bound together by close connexions in subject and tone. Then follow the Epistles of the first captivity' to the Philippians, the Colossians, the Ephesians, and to Philemon. Last come the Pastoral Epistles. I endeavour above to indicate how natural and harmonious a result is derived from the evidence of all of them, taken as genuine, on the subject of the ministry.

I.e. in the narrower sense, so that a man could rank with the Twelve.' We find the term used also in a wider sense in 2 Cor. viii. 23: Rom. xvi. 7, where Andronicus and Junias, St. Paul's kinsmen, are spoken of as 'of note among the apostles': Phil. ii. 25, where Epaphroditus is spoken of as St. Paul's fellow-labourer and the apostle of the Philippian brethren, ὑμῶν δὲ ἀπόστολον καὶ λειτουργὸν τῆς χρείας μου. In the latter case the word probably means no more than the messenger sent by the Philippians to minister to St. Paul's need: see Lightfoot in loc., but cf. Clem. ad Cor. 44 oi à¤óσтoλoi nuov: Theodoret in loc. says: ámóσrodov δὲ αὐτὸν κέκληκεν αὐτῶν ὡς τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν αὐτῶν ἐμπεπιστευμένον. In the former cases however (and possibly in the latter) the term apostle is probably used much in the sense in which we find it in the Didache-perhaps as equivalent to 'evangelists.' For the idea that it included the seventy, see Salmasius de Episcop. p. 61: cf. p. 198 supra n.3.

who, having seen Christ after His resurrection and so become qualified to witness to that fundamental fact, has received by no mediating hands but personally from Christ a definite mission.2 An authoritative mission is indeed essential for all evangelistic work, for how shall men preach, except they be sent?'3-how, that is, can any one take upon himself so responsible an office? But for an apostle it is essential that this mission should be direct from Him who said: 'As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.' Such a direct mission, actual and unmistakable from Christ Himself, St. Paul believed himself to have received and was recognised as having received by his fellow-apostles, who had been appointed in the more normal way while Christ was still on earth. The function of the apostle was primarily a teacher that of proclaiming the Gospel.5 He had become a 'steward of the mysteries of God'—an administrator, that is, of the divine revelations, which, having been kept in the secret counsels of God through ages and generations, had, now that the fulness of the time was come, been declared through the Incarnate Son."

This office involved at once absoluté subordination and lofty authority. For on the one hand the apostle was 'the slave of Jesus Christ.' As he had no personal, arbitrary lordship over the faith of the disciples,

1 1 Cor. ix. 1, xv. 8.

• Gal. i. I: οὐκ ἀπ' ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι ̓ ἀνθρώπου. Timothy's mission on the other hand, though not an' àv@póñwv, was di' ȧvěpánov (2 Tim. i. 6). St. Paul cannot have regarded the event recorded in Acts xiii. 1-3 as more than a recognition by the Church of a mission which he had already received from Christ.

Rom. x. 15.

St. Paul was an ектрwμа (1 Cor. xv. 8); but he was recognised by his fellowapostles. See Gal. ii. 7-9.

1 Cor. i. 17: Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel' (for the reason of this see vv. 14, 15): 1 Cor. ix. 14 (Alford's comment here is quite beside the mark): 1 Thess. ii. 4-9 1 Tim. ii. 7. 'Preaching the Gospel' is the primary function of the apostolate, or of the general ministry, as distinguished from the local ministry, whose primary function was administration. Cf. in Clement of Alexandria Quis Dives 42 how St. John does not himself baptize the young man but hands him over to the local ἐπίσκοπος.

•r Cor. iv. I: oKOVO MOS MUST Pov beov. Cf. Eph. iii. r-13.