Chapter II: The Apostolic Age (1)

A.D. 30-70.

§ 14. THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLES BEFORE PAUL.

After the Apostolate had been again by means of the lot raised to the significant number of twelve, amid miraculous manifestations, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the waiting disciples as they were assembled together on the day of Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension of the Lord. It was the birthday of the church, and its first members were won by the preaching of Peter to the wondering multitude. By means of the ministry of the Apostles, who at first restricted themselves to Jerusalem, the church grew daily. A keen persecution, however, on the part of the Jews, beginning with the execution of the deacon Stephen, scattered them apart, so that the knowledge of the gospel was carried throughout all Palestine, and down into Phœnicia and Syria. Philip preached with peculiarly happy results in Samaria. Peter soon began a course of visitation through the land of Jews, and at Cæsarea received into the church by baptism the first Gentile family, that of Cornelius, having been prepared for this beforehand by a vision. At the same time there arose independently at Antioch in Syria a Christian congregation, composed of Jews and Gentiles, through the great eagerness of the Gentiles for salvation. The Levite Barnabas, a man of strong faith, was sent down from Jerusalem, took upon himself the care of this church, and strengthened his own ministry by securing Paul, the converted Pharisee, as his colleague. This great man, some years before, by the appearing of Christ to him on the way to Damascus, had been changed from a fanatical persecutor into a zealous friend and promoter of the interests of the church. Thus it came about that the Apostolic mission broke up into two different sections, one of which was purely Jewish and had for its centre and starting point the mother church at Jerusalem, while the other, issuing from Antioch, addressed itself to a mixed audience, and preeminently to the Gentiles.

It is difficult to determine with chronological exactness
either the =beginning= (§ 13, 1) or the =close of the Apostolic
Age=. Still we cannot be far wrong in taking A.D. 30 as the
beginning and A.D. 70 as the close of that period. The last
perfectly certain and uncontested date of the Apostolic Age is
the martyrdom of the Apostle Paul in A.D. 64, or perhaps A.D. 67,
see § 15, 1. We have it on good evidence that James the elder
died about A.D. 44, and James the Just about A.D. 63 (§ 16, 3),
that Peter suffered martyrdom contemporaneously with Paul
(§ 16, 1), that about the same time or not long after the most of
the other Apostles had been in all probability already taken home,
at least in regard to their life and work after the days of Paul,
we have not the slightest information that can lay any claim
to be regarded as historical. The Apostle John forms the only
exception to this statement. According to important witnesses
from the middle and end of the second century (§ 16, 2), he
entered upon his special field of labour in Asia Minor after
the death of Paul, and continued to live and labour there, with
the temporary interruption of an exile in Patmos, down to the
time of Trajan, A.D. 98-117. But the insufficient data which
we possess regarding the nature, character, extent, success,
and consequences of his Apostolic activity there are partly,
if not in themselves altogether incredible, interesting only
as anecdotes, and partly wholly fabulous, and therefore little
fitted to justify us, simply on their account, in assigning the
end of the first or the beginning of the second century as the
close of the Apostolic Age. We are thus brought back again to
the year of Paul’s death as indicating approximately the close of
that period. But seeing that the precise year of this occurrence
is matter of discussion, the adoption of the round number 70 may
be recommended, all the more as with this year, in which the last
remnant of Jewish national independence was lost, the opposition
between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, which had prevailed
throughout the Apostolic Age, makes its appearance under a new
phase (§ 28).

§ 15. THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

Set apart to the work by the church by prayer and laying on of hands, Paul and Barnabas started from Antioch on their =first= missionary journey to Asia Minor, A.D. 48-50. Notwithstanding much opposition and actual persecution on the part of the enraged Jews, he founded mixed churches, composed principally of Gentile Christians, comprising congregations at Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. When Paul undertook his =second= missionary journey, A.D. 52-55, Barnabas separated himself from him because of his refusal to accept the company of his nephew John Mark, who had deserted them during their first journey, and along with Mark embarked upon an independent mission, beginning with his native country Cyprus; of the success of this mission nothing is known. Paul, on the other hand, accompanied by Silas and Luke, with whom at a later period Timothy also was associated, passed through Asia Minor, and would thereafter have returned to Antioch had not a vision by night at Troas led him to take ship for Europe. There he founded churches at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth, and then returned through Asia Minor to Syria. Without any lengthened interval he entered upon his =third= missionary journey, A.D. 55-58, accompanied by Luke, Titus, and Timothy. The centre of his ministerial activity during this period was Ephesus, where he founded a church with a large membership. His success was extraordinary, so that the very existence of heathenism in Asia Minor was seriously imperilled. Driven away by the uprising of a heathen mob, he travelled through Macedonia, pressed on to Illyricum, visited the churches of Greece, and then went to Jerusalem, for the performance of a vow. Here his life, threatened by the excited Jews, was saved by his being put in prison by the Roman captain, and then sent down to Cæsarea, A.D. 58. An appeal to Cæsar, to which as a Roman citizen he was entitled, resulted in his being sent to Rome, where he, beginning with the spring of A.D. 61, lived and preached for several years, enduring a mild form of imprisonment. The further course of his life and ministry remains singularly uncertain. Of the later labours and fortunes of Paul’s fellow-workers we know absolutely nothing.

It may be accepted as a well authenticated and incontestable
fact that =Paul= suffered =martyrdom= at Rome under Nero. This
is established by the testimony of Clement of Rome--μαρτυρήσας
ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων οὕτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κοσμοῦ,--and is further
explained and confirmed by Dionysius of Corinth, quoted in
Eusebius, and by Irenæus, Tertullian, Caius of Rome (§ 16, 1). On
the other hand it is disputed whether it may have happened during
the imprisonment spoken about in the Acts of the Apostles, or
during a subsequent imprisonment. According to the tradition of
the church given currency to by Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, ii. 22),
which even in our own time has been maintained by many capable
scholars, Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment
shortly before the outburst of Nero’s persecution of the
Christians in A.D. 64 (§ 22, 1), and made a fourth missionary
journey which was brought to a close by his being a second
time arrested and subsequently beheaded at Rome in A.D. 67. The
proofs, however, that are offered in support of this assertion
are of a very doubtful character. Paul certainly in A.D. 58
had the intention (Rom. xv. 24, 28) after a short visit to Rome
to proceed to Spain; and when from his prison in Rome he wrote
to Philemon (v. 22) and to the Philippians (i. 25; ii. 24), he
believed that his cherished hope of yet regaining his liberty
would be realised; but there is no further mention of a journey
into Spain, for apparently other altogether different plans of
travel are in his mind. And indeed circumstances may easily be
conceived as arising to blast such hopes and produce in him that
spirit of hopeless resignation, which he gives expression to
in 2 Tim. iv. 6 ff. But the words of Clement of Rome, chap. 5:
δικαιοσύνην διδάξας ὅλον τὸν κόσμον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως
ἐλθών, etc., are too indefinite and rhetorical to be taken as
a certain testimony on behalf of a Spanish missionary journey.
The incomplete reference in the Muratorian Fragment (§ 36, 8)
to a _profectio Pauli ab Urbe ad Spaniam proficiscentis_ may
be thought to afford more direct testimony, but probably it is
nothing more than a reminiscence of Rom. xv. 24, 28. Much more
important, nay almost conclusive, in the opposite direction, is
the entire absence, not only from all the patristic, but also
from all the apocryphal, literature of the second and third
centuries, of any allusion to a fourth missionary journey or a
second imprisonment of the Apostle. The assertion of Eusebius
introduced by a vague λόγος ἔχει can scarcely be regarded as
outweighing this objection. Consequently the majority of modern
investigators have decided in favour of the theory of one
imprisonment. But then the important question arises as to
whether the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, claiming to be Pauline,
with the journeys referred to or presupposed in them, and the
residences of the Apostle and his two assistants, can find
a place in the framework of the narrative in the Acts of the
Apostles, and if so, what that place may be. In answering this
question those investigators take diverse views. Of those who
cannot surrender their conviction that the Pastoral Epistles
are genuine, some assign them to the Apostle’s residence of
almost three years in Ephesus, others to the imprisonment in
Cæsarea which lasted two years and a half, and others to the
Roman imprisonment of almost three years. Others again, looking
upon such expedients as inadmissible, deny the authenticity of
the Pastoral Epistles, these having appeared to them worthy of
suspicion on other grounds.

§ 16. THE OTHER APOSTLES AFTER THE APPEARANCE
OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

Only in reference to the most distinguished of the Apostles have any trustworthy accounts reached us. James the brother of John, at an early period, in A.D. 44, suffered a martyr’s death at Jerusalem. Peter was obliged by this persecution to quit Jerusalem for a time. Inclination and his special calling marked him out as the Apostle of the Jews (Gal. ii. 7-9). His ministry outside of Palestine was exercised, according to 1 Pet. i. 1, in the countries round about the Black Sea, and, according to chap. v. 13, extended to Babylon. The legend that, contemporaneously with the beheading of Paul, he suffered death by crucifixion under Nero at Rome (John xxi. 18, 19), is doubtful; and it is also questionable whether he ever went to Rome, while the story of his having down to the time of his death been Bishop of Rome for twenty-five years is wholly fabulous. John, according to the tradition of the church, took up Asia Minor as his special field of labour after it had been deprived of its first Apostle by the martyr death of Paul, fixing his residence at Ephesus. At the head of the mother church of Jerusalem stood James the Just, the brother of the Lord. He seems never to have left Jerusalem, and was stoned by the Jews between A.D. 63-69. Regarding the rest of the Apostles and their fellow-workers we have only legendary traditions of an extremely untrustworthy description, and even these have come down to us in very imperfect and corrupt forms.

§ 16.1. =The Roman Episcopate of Peter.=--The tradition that
Peter, after having for some years held the office of bishop
at Antioch, became first Bishop of Rome, holding the office for
twenty-five years (A.D. 42-67), and suffered martyrdom at the
same time with Paul, had its origin in the series of heretical
apocryphal writings, out of which sprang, both the romance of the
Clementine Homilies and Recognitions (§ 28, 3), and the Ebionite
Acts of Peter; but it attained its complete form only at the end
of the fourth century, after it had been transplanted into the
soil of the church tradition through the _Acta Petri et Pauli_
(§ 32, 6). What chiefly secured currency and development to this
tradition was the endeavour, ever growing in strength in Rome,
to vindicate on behalf of the Roman Episcopate as the legitimate
successor and heir to all the prerogatives alleged to have been
conferred on Peter in Matt. xvi. 18, a title to primacy over all
the churches (§ 34, 8; 46, 3 ff.). But that Peter had not really
been in Rome as a preacher of the gospel previous to the year
A.D. 61, when Paul came to Rome as a prisoner, is evident from the
absence of any reference to the fact in the Epistle to the Romans,
written in A.D. 58, as well as in the concluding chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles. According to the Acts, Peter in A.D. 44
lay in prison at Jerusalem, and according to Gal. ii., he was
still there in A.D. 51. Besides, according to the unanimous
verdict of tradition, as expressed by Irenæus, Eusebius, Rufinus,
and the Apostolic Constitutions, not Peter, but Linus, was the
first Bishop of Rome, and it is only in regard to the order of
his successors, Anacletus and Clement, that any real uncertainty
or discrepancy occurs. This, indeed, by no means prevents us
from admitting an appearance of Peter at Rome resulting in his
martyrdom. But the testimonies in favour thereof are not of such
a kind as to render its historical reality unquestionable. That
Babylon is mentioned in 1 Pet. v. 13 as the place where this
Epistle was composed, can scarcely be used as a serious argument,
since the supposition that Babylon is a symbolical designation
of Rome as the centre of anti-Christian heathenism, though quite
conceivable and widely current in the early church, is not by any
means demonstrable. Toward the end of the first century, Clement
of Rome relates the martyrdom of Peter as well as of Paul, but
he does not even say that it took place at Rome. On the other
hand, clear and unmistakable statements are found in Dionysius
of Corinth, about A.D. 170, then in Caius of Rome, in Irenæus
and Tertullian, to the effect that Peter and Paul exercised
their ministry together and suffered martyrdom together at Rome.
These statements, however, are interwoven with obviously false
and fabulous dates to such a degree that their credibility is
rendered extremely doubtful. Nevertheless they prove this much,
that already about the end of the second century, the story
of the two Apostles suffering martyrdom together at Rome was
believed, and that some, of whom Caius tells us, professed to
know their graves and to have their bones in their possession.

§ 16.2. =The Apostle John.=--Soon after the death of Paul, the
Apostle John settled in Ephesus, and there, with the temporary
break caused by his exile to Patmos (Rev. i. 9), he continued
to preside over the church of Asia Minor down to his death in
the time of Trajan (A.D. 98-117). This rests upon the church
tradition which, according to Polycrates of Ephesus (Eus., _Hist.
Eccl._, v. 24) and Irenæus, a scholar of Polycarp’s (Eus., iv. 14),
was first set forth during the Easter controversies (§ 37, 2)
in the middle of the second century by Polycarp of Smyrna, and
has been accepted as unquestionable through all ages down to our
own. According to Irenæus (Eus., iii. 18), his exile occurred
under Domitian; the Syrian translation of the Apocalypse, which
was made in the sixth century, assigned it to the time of Nero.
But seeing that, except in Rev. i. 11, neither in the New
Testament scriptures, nor in the extant writings and fragments
of the Church Fathers of the second century before Irenæus, is
a residence of the Apostle John at Ephesus asserted or assumed,
whereas Papias (§ 30, 6), according to Georgius Hamartolus, a
chronicler of the 9th cent., who had read the now lost work of
Papias, expressly declares that the Apostle John was slain “by
Jews” (comp. Matt. xx. 23), which points to Palestine rather
than to Asia Minor, modern critics have denied the credibility
of that ecclesiastical tradition, and have attributed its origin
to a confusion between the Apostle John and a certain John the
Presbyter, with whom we first meet in the Papias-Fragment quoted
in Eusebius as μαθητὴς τοῦ κυρίου. Others again, while regarding
the residence of the Apostle at Ephesus as well established, have
sought, on account of differences in style standpoint and general
mode of thought in the Johannine Apocalypse on the one hand, and
the Johannine Gospel and Epistles on the other hand, to assign
them to two distinct μαθηταὶ τοῦ κυρίου of the same name, and
by assigning the Apocalypse to the Presbyter and the Gospel and
Epistles to the Apostle, they would in this way account for the
residence at Ephesus. This is the course generally taken by the
Mediation theologians of Schleiermacher’s school. The advanced
liberal critics of the school of Baur assign the Apocalypse to
the Apostle and the Gospel and Epistles to the Presbyter, or else
instead of the Apostle assume a third John otherwise unknown.
Conservative orthodox theology again maintains the unity of
authorship of all the Johannean writings, explains the diversity
of character discernible in the different works by a change on
the part of the Apostle from the early Judæo-Christian standpoint
(Gal. ii. 9), which is still maintained in the Apocalypse, to
the ideal universalistic standpoint assumed in the Gospel and
the Epistles, and is inclined to identify the Presbyter of Papias
with the Apostle. Even in Tertullian we meet with the tradition
that under Nero the Apostle had been thrown into a vat of boiling
oil, and in Augustine we are told how he emptied a poisoned cup
without suffering harm. It is a charming story at least that
Clement of Alexandria tells of the faithful pastoral care which
the aged Apostle took in a youth who had fallen so far as to
become a bandit chief. Of such a kind, too, is the story told of
the Apostle by Jerome, how in the extreme weakness of old age he
had to be carried into the assemblies of the congregation, and
with feeble accents could only whisper, Little children, love one
another. According to Irenæus, when by accident he met with the
heretic Cerinthus (§ 27, 1) in the bath, he immediately rushed
out to avoid any contact with him.

§ 16.3. =James, the brother of the Lord.=--The name of James was
borne by two of the twelve disciples of Jesus: James, the son of
Zebedee and brother of John, who was put to death by the command
of Herod Agrippa I. (Acts xii. 2) about A.D. 44, and James,
son of Alphæus, about whom we have no further information. A
third James, designated in Gal. i. 19 the brother of the Lord,
who according to Hegesippus (Euseb., _Hist. Eccl._, ii. 23) on
account of his scrupulous fulfilment of the law received the
title of the Just, is met with in Acts xii. 17; xv. 13; xxi. 18,
and is recognised by Paul (Gal. i. 19; ii. 9-12) as the President
of the church in Jerusalem. According to Hegesippus (§ 31, 7),
he was from his childhood a Nazirite, and shortly before the
destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews at the Passover having desired
of him a testimony against Christ, and he having instead given
a powerful testimony on His behalf, he was hurled down from a
pinnacle of the temple, stoned, and at last, while praying for
his enemies, slain by the blows of a fuller’s club. According
to Josephus, however, Ananus, the high priest, after the recall
of the Proconsul Festus and before the arrival of his successor
Albinus, along with other men hostile to James, hastily condemned
him and had him stoned, about A.D. 63. In regard to the person of
this last-named James three different theories have been proposed.

a. In the ancient church, the brothers of Jesus, of whom besides
James other three, Joses, Simon, and Judas, are named, were
regarded undoubtedly as step-brothers of Jesus, sons of
Joseph and Mary (Matt. i. 25), and even Tertullian argues
from the existence of brothers of the Redeemer according to
the flesh against the Docetism of the Gnostics.

b. Soon, however, it came to be felt that the idea that Joseph
had conjugal intercourse with Mary after the birth of Jesus
was in conflict with the ascetic tendency now rising into
favour, and so to help themselves out of this embarrassment,
it was assumed that the brothers of Jesus were sons of
Joseph by a former wife.

c. The want of biblical foundation for this view was the
occasion of its being abandoned in favour of a theory,
first hinted at by Jerome, according to which the expression
brothers of Jesus is to be taken in a wider sense as meaning
cousins, and in this way James the brother of the Lord was
identified with James the son of Alphæus, one of the twelve
disciples, and the four or five Jameses named in the New
Testament were reduced to two, James the son of Zebedee
and James son of Alphæus. It was specially urged from
John xix. 25 that James the son of Alphæus was the sister’s
son of Jesus’ mother. This was done by a purely arbitrary
identification of the name Clopas or Cleophas with the
Alphæus of the Synoptists, the rendering of the words Μαρία
τοῦ Κλωπᾶ by the wife of Clopas, and also the assumption,
which is scarcely conceivable, that the sister of the mother
of Jesus was also called Mary. We should therefore in this
passage regard the sister of the mother of Jesus and Mary
wife of Clopas as two distinct persons. In that case the
wife of Alphæus may have been called Mary and have had two
sons who, like two of the four brothers of Jesus, were named
James and Joses (Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; Luke xxiv. 10);
but even then, in the James here mentioned, we should meet
with another James otherwise unknown, different from the
James son of Alphæus in the list of the Apostles, whose name
occurs in Luke xv. 16 and Acts i. 13 in the phrase Judas of
James, where the genitive undoubtedly means brother of James
son of Alphæus. And though in Gal. i. 19, James the brother
of the Lord seems to be called an Apostle, when this is
compared with Acts xiv. 14, it affords no proof that he
belonged to the number of the twelve.

But the fact that the brothers of Jesus are all and always
expressly distinguished from His twelve Apostles, and form a
group outwardly and inwardly apart from them (Matt. xii. 46;
Mark iii. 31; Luke viii. 19; John ii. 12), tells decidedly against
that idea. In John vii. 3, 5, they are, at a time when James
son of Alphæus and Judas brother of James were already in the
Apostolate, described as unbelieving, and only subsequently to
the departure of the Lord, who after His resurrection appeared
to James (1 Cor. xv. 7), do we meet them, though even then
distinguished from the twelve, standing in the closest fellowship
with the Christian believing community (Acts i. 14; 1 Cor. ix. 5).
Besides, in accordance with Matt. xxviii. 19, none of the twelve
could assume the permanent presidency of the mother church, and
Hegesippus not only knows of πολλοὶ Ἰάκωβοι, and so surely of
more than two, but makes James enter upon his office in Jerusalem
first μετὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων.

§ 16.4. =The Later Legends of the Apostles.=--The tradition that
after the Lord’s ascension His disciples, their number having
been again made up to twelve (Acts i. 13), in fulfilment of
their Lord’s command (Matt. xxviii. 18), had a special region
for missionary labour assigned by lot to each, and also the other
tradition, according to which, before their final departure from
Jerusalem, after a stay there for seven or twelve years, they
drew up by common agreement rules for worship, discipline and
constitution suited to the requirements of universal Christendom,
took shape about the middle of the second century, and gave
occasion to the origin of many apocryphal histories of the
Apostles (§ 32, 5, 6), as well as apocryphal books of church
order (§ 43, 4, 5). Whether any portion at all, and if so, how
much, of the various contradictory statements of the apocryphal
histories and legends of the Apostles about their mission
fields and several fortunes can be regarded as genuine tradition
descending from the Apostolic Age, must be left undecided. In any
case, the legendary drapery and embellishment of casual genuine
reminiscences are in the highest degree fantastic and fabulous.
Ancient at least, according to Eusebius, are the traditions
of Thomas having preached in Parthia, Andrew in Scythia, and
Bartholomew in India; while in later traditions Thomas figures
as the Apostle of India (§ 32, 5). The statement by Eusebius,
supported from many ancient authorities, that the Apostle Philip
exercised his ministry from Hierapolis in Phrygia to Asia Minor,
originated perhaps from the confounding of the Apostle with the
Evangelist of the same name (Acts xxi. 8, 9). A history of the
Apostle Barnabas, attributed to John Mark, but in reality dating
only from the fifth century, attaching itself to Acts xv. 39,
tells how he conducted his mission and suffered martyrdom in his
native country of Cyprus; while another set of legends, probably
belonging to the same period, makes him the founder of the church
of Milan. John Mark, sister’s son of Barnabas, who appears in
Col. iv. 10; 2 Tim. iv. 11; and Philem. 24, as the fellow-labourer
of the Apostle Paul, in 1 Pet. v. 13 as companion of Peter at
Babylon, and, according to Papias, wrote his gospel at Rome as
the amanuensis of Peter, is honoured, according to another very
widely received tradition, quoted by Eusebius from a Chronicle
belonging to the end of the second century, from which also
Julius Africanus drew information, as the founder and first
bishop of the church of Alexandria, etc., etc.

§ 17. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, AND DISCIPLINE.[6]

Bound under Christ its one head into an articulated whole, the church ought by the co-operation of all its members conditioned and determined by position, talent, and calling, to build itself up and grow (1 Cor. xii. 12 ff.; Eph. i. 22 f.). Development will thus be secured to natural talent and the spiritual calling through the bestowment of special gifts of grace or charismata. The first form of Christian church fellowship, in the Jewish as well as the Gentile Christian churches, was of a thoroughly free character; modelled upon, and attached to, forms of organization already existing and legitimized, or, at least, tolerated by the state, but all the while inspired and leavened by a free Christian spirit. Compelled by the necessity which is felt in all social federations for the recognised ranking of superiority, inferiority, and equality, in which his own proper sphere and task would be assigned to each member, and encroachment and disorderliness prevented, a collegial church council was soon formed by a free compact, the members of which, all possessed of equal rights, were called πρεσβύτεροι in consideration of their personal character, and ἐπίσκοποι in consideration of their official duties. Upon them devolved especially attention and care in regard to all outward things that might affect the common interests of the church, management of the property which had to be realised and spent on the religious services, and of the means required for the support of the poor, as well as the administration of justice and of discipline. But alongside of these were other more independent offices, the holders of which did not go forth like the members of the eldership as the choice of the churches, but rather had the spiritual edification of the church assigned them as their life work by a special divine call and a charismatic endowment of the gift of teaching. To this class belong, besides Apostles and helpers of the Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, and Teachers.

§ 17.1. =The Charismata= of the Apostolic Age are presented to us
in 1 Cor. xii. 4 ff. as signs (φανερώσεις, v. 7) of the presence
of the Spirit of God working in the church, which, attaching
themselves to natural endowment and implying a free personal
surrender to their influence, and manifesting themselves in
various degrees of intensity from the natural to the supernatural,
qualified certain members of the church with the powers necessary
and desirable for the upbuilding and extension of the Christian
community. In verses 8-11, the Charismata are arranged in three
classes by means of the twice-repeated ἑτέρω.

1. Gifts of Teaching, embracing the λόγος σοφίας and the λόγος
γνώσεως.

2. Completeness of Faith, or πίστις with the possession of
supernatural powers for healing the sick, working miracles,
and prophesying, and alongside of the latter, for sifting
and proving it, διάκρισις πνευμάτων.

3. Ecstatic speaking with tongues, γένη γλωσσῶν, γλώσσαις
λαλεῖν, alongside of which is placed the interpretation of
tongues necessary for the understanding thereof ἑρμενεία
γλωσσῶν.

In addition to these three are mentioned, in verse 28, ἀντιλήψεις,
care of the poor, the sick and strangers, and κυβερνήσεις, church
government. The essential distinction between speaking with
tongues and prophesying consists, according to 1 Cor. xiv. 1-18,
in this, that whereas the latter is represented as an inspiration
by the Spirit of God, acting upon the consciousness, the νοῦς of
the prophet, and therefore requiring no further explanation to
render it applicable for the edification of the congregation,
the former is represented as an ecstatic utterance, wholly
uncontrolled by the νοῦς of the human instrument, yet employing
the human organs of speech, γλῶσσαι, which leaves the assembled
congregation out of view and addresses itself directly to God,
so that in ver. 13-15 it is called a προσεύχεσθαι, being made
intelligible to the audience only by means of the charismatic
interpretation of men immediately acted upon for the purpose by
the Spirit of God. In Rom. xii. 6-8, although there the charisms
are enumerated in even greater details, so as to include even
the showing of mercy with cheerfulness, the γλώσσαις λαλεῖν is
wanting. It would thus seem that this sort of spiritual display,
if not exclusively (Acts ii. 4; x. 46; xix. 6; Mark xvi. 17), yet
with peculiar fondness, which was by no means commended by the
Apostle, was fostered in the church of Corinth. The thoroughly
unique speaking with tongues which took place on the first
Pentecost (Acts ii. 6, 11) is certainly not to be understood
as implying that the Apostles had been either temporarily
or permanently qualified to speak in the several languages
and dialects of those present from all the countries of the
dispersion. It probably means simply that the power was conferred
upon the speakers of speaking with tongues and that at the same
time an analogous endowment of the interpretation of tongues
was conferred upon those who heard (Comp., Acts ii. 12, 15, with
1 Cor. xiv. 22 f. ).

§ 17.2. =The Constitution of the Mother Church at
Jerusalem.=--The notion which gained currency through Vitringa’s
learned work “_De synagoga vetere_,” publ. 1696, that the
constitution of the Apostolic church was moulded upon the pattern
of the synagogues, is now no longer seriously entertained. Not
only in regard to the Pauline churches wholly or chiefly composed
of Gentile Christians, but also in regard to the Palestinian
churches of purely Jewish Christians, no evidence in support
of such a theory can be found. There is no sort of analogy
between any office bearers in the church and the ἀρχισυνάγωγοι
who were essentially characteristic of all the synagogues
both in Palestine and among the dispersion (Mark v. 22;
Luke viii. 41, 49; Acts xiii. 15; xviii. 8, 17), nor do we find
anything to correspond to the ὑπήρεται or inferior officers of
the synagogue (Luke iv. 20). On the other hand, the office bearers
of the Christian churches, who, consisting, according to Acts vi.,
of deacons, and also afterwards, according to Acts xi. 30, of
πρεσβύτεροι, or elders of the church at Jerusalem, occupied a
place alongside of the Apostles in the government of the church,
are without any analogy in the synagogues. The Jewish πρεσβύτεροι
τοῦ λαοῦ mentioned in Matt. xxi. 23; xxvi. 3; Acts iv. 5; xxii. 5,
etc., did not exercise a ministry of teaching and edification in
the numerous synagogues of Jerusalem, but a legislatory, judicial
and civil authority over the whole Jewish commonwealth as members
of the Sanhedrim, of chief priest, scribes and elders. Between
even these, however, and the elders of the Christian church a
far-reaching difference exists. The Jewish elders are indeed
representatives of the people, and have as such a seat and vote
in the supreme council, but no voice is allowed to the people
themselves. In the council of the Christian church, on the other
hand, with reference to all important questions, the membership
of all believers is called together for consultation and
deliverance (Acts vi. 2-6; xv. 4, 22). A complaint on the part
of the Hellenistic members of the church that their poor were
being neglected led to the election of seven men who should care
for the poor, not by the Apostles, but by the church. This is
commonly but erroneously regarded as the first institution of
the deaconship. To those then chosen, for whom the Acts (xxi. 8)
has no other designation than that of “the seven,” the διακονεῖν
τραπέζαις is certainly assigned: but they were not and were not
called Deacons in the official sense any more than the Apostles,
who still continued, according to v. 4, to exercise the διακονία
τοῦ λόγου. When the bitter persecution that followed the stoning
of Stephen had scattered the church abroad over the neighbouring
countries, they also departed at the same time from Jerusalem
(Acts viii. 1), and Philip, who was now the most notable of their
number, officiated henceforth only as an evangelist, that is, as
an itinerant preacher of the gospel, in the region about his own
house in Cæsarea (Acts viii. 5; xxi. 8; comp. Eph. iv. 11; 2 Tim.
iv. 5). Upon the reorganization of the church at Jerusalem, the
Apostles beginning more clearly to appreciate their own special
calling (Matt. xxviii. 19), gave themselves more and more to the
preaching of the gospel even outside of Jerusalem, and thus the
need became urgent of an authoritative court for the conducting
of the affairs of the church even during their absence. In these
circumstances it would seem, according to Acts xi. 30, that those
who ministered to the poor, chosen probably from among the most
honourable of the first believers (Acts ii. 41), passed over into
a self-constituted college of presbyters. At the head of this
college or board stood James, the brother of the Lord (Gal. i. 19;
ii. 9; Acts xii. 17; xv. 13; xxi. 15), and after his death,
according to Hegesippus, a near relation of the Lord, Simeon,
son of Clopas, as a descendant of David, was unanimously chosen
as his successor. The episcopal title, however, just like that of
Deacon, is first met with in the New Testament in the region of
the Pauline missions, and in the terminology of the Palestinian
churches we only hear of presbyters as officers of the church
(Acts xv. 4, 6, 22; xxi. 18; James v. 14). In 1 Peter v. 2,
however, although ἐπίσκοπος does not yet appear as an official
title, the official duty of the ἐπισκοπεῖν is assigned to
presbyters (see § 17, 6). It is Hegesippus, about A.D. 180, who
first gives the title Bishop of Jerusalem to James, after the
Clementines (§ 28, 3) had already ten years previously designated
him ἐπισκόπων ἐπίσκοπος.

§ 17.3. =The Constitution of the Pauline Churches.= Founding upon
the works of Mommsen and Foucart, first of all Heinrici and soon
afterwards the English theologian Hatch[7] has wrought out the
theory that the constitution of the churches that were wholly
or mainly composed of Gentile Christians was modelled on those
convenient, open or elastic rules of associations under which
the various Hellenistic guilds prospered so well (θίασοι,
ἔρανοι),--associations for the naturalization and fostering of
foreign, often oriental, modes of worship. In the same way, too,
the Christian church at Rome, for social and sacred purposes,
made use of the forms of association employed in the Collegia or
Sodalicia, which were found there in large numbers, especially
of the funeral societies in which both of those purposes were
combined (_collegia funeraticia_). In both these cases, then,
the church, by attaching itself to modes of association already
existing, acknowledged by the state, or tolerated as harmless,
assumed a form of existence which protected it from the suspicion
of the government, and at the same time afforded it space and
time for independent construction in accordance with its own
special character and spirit. As in those Hellenic associations
all ranks, even those which in civil society were separated from
one another by impassable barriers, found admission, and then,
in the framing of statutes, the reception of fellow members, the
exercise of discipline, possessed equal rights; as, further, the
full knowledge of their mysteries and sharing in their exercise
were open only to the initiated (μεμυημένοι), yet in the exercise
of exoteric worship the doors were hospitably flung open even to
the ἀμυήτοι; as upon certain days those belonging to the narrow
circle joining together in partaking of a common feast; so too
all this is found in the Corinthian church, naturally inspired
by a Christian spirit and enriched with Christian contents. The
church also has its religious common feast in its Agape, its
mystery in the Eucharist, its initiation in baptism, by the
administration of which the divine service is divided into two
parts, one esoteric, to be engaged in only by the baptized,
the other exoteric, a service that is open to those who are
not Christians. All ranks (Gal. iii. 28) have the same claim
to admission to baptism, all the baptized have equal rights in
the congregation (see § 17, 7). It is evident, however, that
the connection between the Christian churches and those heathen
associations is not so to be conceived as if, because in the one
case distinctions of rank were abolished, so also they were in
the other; or that, because in the one case religious festivals
were observed, this gave the first hint as to the observance of
the Christian Agape; or that, because and in the manner in which
there a mysterious service was celebrated from which all outside
were strictly excluded, so also here was introduced an exclusive
eucharistic service. These observances are rather to be regarded
as having grown up independently out of the inmost being of
Christianity; but the church having found certain institutions
existing inspired by a wholly different spirit, yet outwardly
analogous and sanctioned by the state, it appropriated, as far
as practicable, their forms of social organization, in order to
secure for itself the advantages of civil protection. That even
on the part of the pagans, down into the last half of the second
century, the Christian congregational fellowship was regarded as
a special kind of the mystery-communities, is shown by Lucian’s
satire, _De morte Peregrini_ (§ 23, 1), where the description
of Christian communities, in which its hero for a time played
a part, is full of technical terms which were current in
those associations. “It is also,” says Weingarten, “expressly
acknowledged in Tertullian’s _Apologeticus_, c. 38, 39, written
about A.D. 198, that even down to the close of the second century,
the Christian church was organized in accordance with the rules
of the _Collegia funeraticia_, so that it might claim from the
state the privileges of the _Factiones licitæ_. The arrangements
for burial and the Christian institutions connected therewith are
shown to have been carefully subsumed under forms that were
admitted to be legal.”

§ 17.4. Confining ourselves meantime to the oldest and
indisputably authentic epistles of the Apostle, we find that
the autonomy of the church in respect of organization, government,
discipline, and internal administration is made prominent as
the very basis of the constitution. He never interferes in those
matters, enjoining and prescribing by his own authority, but
always, whether personally or in spirit, only as associated with
their assemblies (1 Cor. v. 3), deliberating and deciding in
common with them. Thus his Apostolic importance shows itself not
in his assuming the attitude of a lord (2 Cor. i. 24), but that
of a father (1 Cor. iv. 14 f.), who seeks to lead his children
on to form for themselves independent and manly judgments (1 Cor.
x. 15; xi. 13). Regular and fixed church officers do not seem to
have existed in Corinth down to the time when the first Epistle
was written, about A.D. 57. A diversity of functions (διαιρέσεις
διακονιῶν, 1 Cor. xii. 4) is here, indeed, already found, but
not yet definitely attached to distinct and regular offices
(1 Cor. vi. 1-6). It is always yet a voluntary undertaking of such
ministries on the one hand, and the recognition of peculiar piety
and faithfulness, leading to willing submission on the other hand,
out of which the idea of office took its rise, and from which
it obtained its special character. This is especially true of
a peculiar kind of ministry (Rom. xvi. 1, 2) which must soon
have been developed as something indispensable to the Christian
churches throughout the Hellenic and Roman regions. We mean
the part played by the patron, which was so deeply grounded in
the social life of classical antiquity. Freedmen, foreigners,
proletarii, could not in themselves hold property and had no
claim on the protection of the laws, but had to be associated
as _Clientes_ with a _Patronus_ or _Patrona_ (προστάτης and
προστάτις) who in difficult circumstances would afford them
counsel, protection, support, and defence. As in the Greek and
Roman associations for worship this relationship had long before
taken root, and was one of the things that contributed most
materially to their prosperity, so also in the Christian churches
the need for recognising and giving effect to it became all the
more urgent in proportion as the number of members increasing
for whom such support was necessary (1 Cor. i. 26-29). Phœbe
is warmly recommended in Rom. xvi. 1, 2, as such a Christian
προστάτις, at Cenchrea, the port of Corinth, among whose numerous
clients the Apostle himself is mentioned. Many inscriptions in
the Roman catacombs testify to the deep impress which this social
scheme made upon the organization, especially of the Roman church,
down to the end of the first century, and to the help which it
gave in rendering that church permanent. All the more are we
justified in connecting therewith the προϊστάμενος ἐν σπουδῇ
(Rom. xii. 8), and in giving this passage in connection with the
preceding and succeeding context the meaning: whoever represents
any one as patron let him do it with diligence.--The gradual
development of stated or independent =congregational offices=,
after privileges and duties were distinguished from one another,
was thus brought about partly by the natural course of events,
and partly by the endeavour to make the church organization
correspond with the Greek and Roman religious associations
countenanced by the state by the employment in it of the same
or similar forms and names. In the older communities, especially
those in capital cities, like Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome, etc.,
the heads of the families of the first believers attained an
authoritative position altogether unique, as at Corinth those of
the household of Stephanas, who, according to 1 Cor. xvi. 15, as
the ἀπαρχὴ τῆς Ἀχαΐας εἰς διακονίαν τοῖς ἁγίοις ἔταξαν ἑαυτούς.
Such honour, too, was given to the most serviceable of the
chosen patrons and others, who evidently possessed the gifts of
κυβερνήσεις and ἀντιλήψεις, and those who first in an informal
way had discharged official duties had amends made them even
after death by a formal election. On the other hand, the
churches that sprang up at a later period were probably provided
immediately with such offices under the direction and with the
consent of the Apostle or his apostolic assistants (1 Tim. v. 9;
Tit. i. 5).

§ 17.5. =Congregational and Spiritual Offices.=--While then, down
to A.D. 57 no ecclesiastical offices properly so called as yet
existed at Corinth, and no injunctions are given by the Apostle
for their definite introduction, it is told us in Acts xiv. 23
that, so early as A.D. 50, when Paul was returning from his first
missionary journey he ordained with prayer and fasting elders
or presbyters in those churches of Asia Minor previously founded
by him. Now it is indeed quite conceivable that in these cases
he adhered more closely to the already existing presbyterial
constitution of the mother church at Jerusalem (Acts xi. 30),
than he did subsequently in founding and giving a constitution
to the churches of the European cities where perhaps the
circumstances and requirements were entirely different. But
be this as it may, it is quite certain that the Apostle on his
departure from lately formed churches took care to leave them
in an organized condition, and the author of the Acts has given
expression to the fact proleptically in terms with which he was
himself conversant and which were current in his time.--Among the
Pauline epistles which are scarcely, if at all, objected to by
modern criticism the first to give certain information regarding
distinct and independent congregational offices, together
with the names that had been then assigned to these offices,
is the Epistle to the Philippians, written during the Roman
imprisonment of the Apostle. In chap. i. 1, he sends his apostolic
greeting and blessing πᾶσι τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις
σὺν ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις.[8] The =Episcopate= and the
=Diaconate= make their appearance here as the two categories
of congregational offices, of both of which there are several
representatives in each congregation. It is in the so-called
Pastoral Epistles that for the first time we find applied in
the Gentile Christian communities the title of =Presbyter= which
had been the usual designation of the president in the mother
church at Jerusalem. This title, just as in Acts xx. 17, 28, is
undoubtedly regarded as identical with that of bishop (ἐπίσκοπος)
and is used as an alternative (Tit. i. 5, 7; 1 Tim. iii. 1; iv. 14;
v. 17, 19). From the practical identity of the qualifications
of bishops (1 Tim. iii. 1) or of deacons (_v._ 12 f.), it follows
that their callings were essentially the same; and from the
etymological signification of their names, it would seem
that there was assigned to the bishops the duty of governing,
administrating and superintending, to the deacons that of serving,
assisting and carrying out details as subordinate auxiliaries. It
is shown by Rom. xvi. 1, that even so early as A.D. 58, the need
of a female order of helpers had been felt and was supplied. When
this order had at a later period assumed the rank of a regular
office, it became the rule that only widows above sixty years
of age should be chosen (1 Tim. v. 9).--We are introduced to
an altogether different order of ecclesiastical authorities in
Eph. iv. 11, where we have named in the first rank =Apostles=,
in the second =Prophets=, in the third =Evangelists=, and in the
fourth =Pastors= and =Teachers=. What is here meant by Apostles
and Prophets is quite evident (§ 34, 1). From 2 Tim. iv. 5 and
Acts xxi. 8 (viii. 5), it follows that Evangelists are itinerant
preachers of the gospel and assistants of the Apostles. It is
more difficult to determine exactly the functions of Pastors and
Teachers and their relation to the regular congregational offices.
Their introduction in Eph. iv. 11, as together constituting a
fourth class, as well as the absence of the term Pastor in the
parallel passage, 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29, presupposes such a close
connection of the two orders, the one having the care of souls,
the other the duties of preaching and catechizing, that we
unhesitatingly assume that both were, if not always, at least
generally, united in the same person. They have been usually
identified with the bishops or presbyters. In Acts xx. 17, 28,
and in 1 Pet. v. 2-4, presbyters are expressly called pastors.
The order of the ἡγούμενοι in Heb. xiii. 7, οἵτινες ἐλάλησαν ὑμῖν
τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, has also been regarded as identical with that
of bishops. In regard to the last named order a confusion already
appears in Acts xv., where men, who in _v._ 22 are expressly
distinguished from the elders (presbyters) and in _v._ 32 are
ranked as prophets, are yet called ἡγούμενοι. We should also
be led to conclude from 1 Cor. xii. 28, that those who had
the qualifications of ἀντιλήψεις and κυβερνήσεις, functions
certainly belonging to bishops or presbyters as administrative
and diocesan officers, are yet personally distinguished from
Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers. Now it is explicitly enjoined
in Tit. i. 9 that in the choice of bishops special care should be
taken to see that they have capacity for teaching. In 1 Tim. v. 17
double honour is demanded for the καλῶς προεστῶτες πρεσβύτεροι,
if they also labour ἐν λόγῳ καὶ διδασκαλίᾳ. This passage, however,
shows teaching did not always and in all circumstances, or even
_ex professo_ belong to the special functions of the president
of the congregation; that it was rather in special circumstances,
where perhaps these gifts were not at all or not in sufficient
abundance elsewhere to be found, that these duties of teaching
were undertaken in addition to their own proper official work of
presidency (προϊστάναι). The dividing line between the two orders,
bishops and deacons on the one hand, and pastors and teachers
on the other, consists in the fundamentally different nature of
their calling. The former were congregational offices, the latter,
like those of Apostles and Prophets, were spiritual offices. The
former were chosen by the congregation, the latter had, like the
Apostles and Prophets, a divine call, though according to James
iii. 1 not without the consenting will of the individual, and
the charismatic capacity for teaching, although not in the
same absolute measure. The former were attached to a particular
congregation, the latter were, like the Apostles and Prophets,
first of all itinerant teachers and had, like them, the task of
building up the churches (Eph. iv. 12, εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος
τοῦ Χριστοῦ). But, while the Apostles and Prophets laid the
foundation of this building on Christ, the chief corner stone,
preachers and teachers had to continue building on the foundation
thus laid (Eph. ii. 20). A place and importance are undoubtedly
secured for these three spiritual offices, in so far as continued
itinerant offices, by the example of the Lord in His preliminary
sending forth of the twelve in Matt. x., and of the seventy
disciples in Luke x.--Continuation, § 34, 1.