Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
from the beginning. After the idea of a distinct sacerdotal class had again found favour, the distribution of the clergy in the Old Testament into High priest, priests and Levites was supposed to afford an exact analogy to that of the episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate. To effect this the charismatic offices of teaching had to be ignored and their divinely ordained functions had to be set aside. It was even supposed that the relative ranks in the offices of the Christian church must be determined by the corresponding orders in the Old Testament. Then in the gospels, it seemed as if the relations of Christ to His disciples corresponded to that of the bishop to the presbyters; and from the Acts of the Apostles the preponderating authority of James at the head of the Jerusalem presbytery or eldership (§ 17, 2) might be used as a witness for the supremacy of the bishop. The oldest and most important contender for the monarchical rank of the bishop is the author of the Ignatian Epistles (§ 30, 5). In every bishop he sees the representative of Christ, and in the college of presbyters the representatives of the Apostles. In the Clementines too the bishop appears as ἐπὶ τῆς Χριστοῦ καθέδρας καθεσθείς. This view also finds expression in the Apostolic Constitutions (2, 26), and even in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite (§ 47, 11). Another theory, according to which the bishops are successors of the Apostles and as such heirs of the absolute dominion conferred in Matt. xiv. 18, 19 upon Peter and through him on all the Apostles, sprang up in the West and gained currency by means of Cyprian’s eloquent enunciation of it (§ 34, 7).
§ 34.3. The Regular Ecclesiastical Offices of the Old Catholic Age. The Ordines Majores embraced the Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons. Upon the Bishop, elected by the people and the clergy in common, there devolved in his monarchical position the supreme conduct of all the affairs of the church. The exclusively episcopal privileges were these: the ordination of presbyters and deacons, the absolving of the penitent, according to strict rule also the consecration of the eucharistic elements, in later times also the right of speaking at Synods, and in the West also the confirmation of the baptised. In large cities where a single church was no longer sufficient daughter churches were instituted. Country churches founded outside of the cities were supplied with presbyters and deacons from the city. If they increased in importance, they chose for themselves their own bishop, who remained, however, as Χωρεπίσκοπος dependent upon the city bishop. Thus distinctly official episcopal dioceses came to be formed. And just as the city bishops had a pre-eminence over the country bishops, so also the bishops of the chief cities of provinces soon came as metropolitans to have a pre-eminence over those of other cities. To them was granted the right of calling and presiding at the Synods, and of appointing and ordaining the bishops of their province. The name Metropolitan, however, was first used in the Acts of the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325.—The Presbyters were now only the advisers and assistants of the bishop, whose counsel and help he accepted just in such ways and at such times as seemed to him good. They were employed in the directing of the affairs of the church, in the administration of the sacrament, in preaching and in pastoral work, but only at the bidding or with the express permission of the bishop. During the following period for the first time, when demands had multiplied, and the episcopal authority was no longer in need of being jealously guarded, were their functions enlarged to embrace an independent pastoral care, preaching and dispensation of the sacraments for which they were personally responsible.—In regard to official position the Deacons had a career just the converse of this; for their importance increased just as the range of their official functions was enlarged. Seeing that in the earliest times they had occupied a position subordinate to the presbyter-bishops, they could not be regarded in this way as their rivals; and the development of the proto-presbyterate into a monarchical episcopate was too evidently in their own interests to awaken any opposition on their part. They therefore stood in a far closer relation to the bishops than did the presbyters. They were his confidants, his companions in travel, often also his deputies and representatives at the Synods. To them he committed the distribution of the church’s alms, for which their original charge of the poor qualified them. To these duties were added also many of the parts of divine service; they baptised under the commission of the bishop, obtained and prepared the sacramental elements, handed round the cup, at the close of the service carried to the sick and imprisoned the body and blood of the Lord, intimated the beginning and the close of the various parts of divine service, recited the public prayers, read the gospels, and kept order during worship. Often, too, they preached the sermon. In consequence of the preponderating position given to the Old Testament idea of the priesthood the bishop was compared to the high priest, the presbyters to the priests, and the deacons to the Levites, and so too did they already assume the name, from which the German word “Priester,” English “Priest,” French “Prêtre,” Italian “Prête,” is derived.
Among the Ordines Minores the oldest was the office of Reader, Ἀναγνώστης. In the time of Cyprian this place was heartily accorded to the Confessors. In later times it was usual to begin the clerical career with service in the readership. The duties of this office were the public reading of the longer scripture portions and the custody of the sacred books. Somewhat later than the readership the office of the Subdiaconi, ὑποδιάκονοι was instituted. They were assistants to the Deacons, and as such took first rank among the Ordines Minores, and of these were alone regarded as worthy of ordination. Toward the end of the 3rd century the office of the Cantores, ψαλταί, was instituted for the conducting of the public service of praise. The Acolytes, who are met with in Rome first about the middle of the 3rd century, were those who accompanied the bishop as his servants. The Exorcists discharged the spiritual function of dealing with those possessed of evil spirits, ἐνεργούμενοι, δαιμονιζόμενοι, over whom they had to repeat the public prayers and the formula of exorcism. As there was also an exorcism associated with baptism, the official functions of the exorcists extended to the catechumens. The Ostiarii or Janitores, θυρωροί, πυλωροί, occupied the lowest position.—In the larger churches for the instruction of the catechumens there were special Catechists appointed, Doctores audientium, and where the need was felt, especially in the churches of North Africa speaking the Punic tongue, there were also Interpreters whose duty it was to translate and interpret the scripture lessons. To the Deaconesses, for the most part widows or virgins, was committed the care of the poor and sick, the counselling of inexperienced women and maidens, the general oversight of the female catechumens. They had no clerical character.—The Ordination of the clergy was performed by the laying on of hands. Those were disqualified who had just recently been baptised or had received baptism only during severe illness (Neophyti, Clinici), also all who had been excommunicated and those who had mutilated themselves.—Continuation, § 45, 3.
§ 34.4. Clergy and Laity.—The idea that a priestly mediation between sinful men and a gracious deity was necessary had been so deeply implanted in the religious consciousness of pre-Christian antiquity, pagan as well as Jewish, that a form of public worship without a priesthood seemed almost as inconceivable as a religion without a god. And even though the inspired writings of the New Testament decidedly and expressly taught that the pre-Christian or Old Testament institution of a special human priesthood had been abolished and merged in the one eternal mediation of the exalted Son of God and Son of man, and that there was now a universal spiritual priesthood of all Christians with the right and privilege of drawing near even to the heavenly throne of grace (Heb. iv. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9; Rev. i. 6), yet, in consequence of the idea of the permanence of Old Testament institutions which prevailed, even in the Post-Apostolic Age, the sacerdotal theory came more and more into favour. This relapse to the Old Testament standpoint was moreover rendered almost inevitable by the contemporary metamorphosis of the ecclesiastical office which existed as the necessary basis of human organisation (§ 17, 4) into a hierarchical organisation resting upon an assumed divine institution. For clericalism, with its claims to be the sole divinely authorised channel for the communication of God’s grace, was the correlate and the indispensable support of hierarchism, with its exclusive claims to legislative, judicial, disciplinary and administrative precedence in the affairs