Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity. Claudia Rapp
for the existence of only one episkopos for each community comes from the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. On his way to be martyred in Rome during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98–117), Ignatius wrote seven letters that offer insight into the life and organization of the Christian communities at this time. Ignatius was the third bishop of Antioch, which was the foremost city in Syria and had a long and venerable Christian tradition reaching back to the days of the apostles Barnabas and Paul. This position, enhanced by the special grace that he held as a martyrto-be, gave him the authority to address the communities of Asia Minor—Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Philadelphia, and Smyrna—with words of encouragement and advice. Ignatius regarded the monarchic episcopate simultaneously as a reflection of the One God and as a guarantor of the doctrinal unity of the church. Harmony and cohesion within each community can be accomplished, he said, only if the congregation is united under the authority of the deacons, the presbyters, and the bishop.10 Nothing should be done without the bishop.11 The bishop is the sacral center of his congregation because of his liturgical functions. His presence ensures the validity of the celebration of the eucharist and of baptism.12 He represents the One God to his congregation, and hence he is owed the same obedience.13 In comparison to the Didache, Ignatius’s Letters reflect a new stage in the development of church organization. The ecclesiastical hierarchy now includes priests, and it is one episkopos who presides over the priests and deacons below him. From now on, it is appropriate to abandon the word episkopos, and to employ the word bishop with its connotation of the monepiscopate at the head of a structured ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Ignatius makes a bishop’s effective pastoral care dependent on his personal conduct. He should be constant in his prayer, asking especially for the gift of understanding.14 He must oppose heterodox teaching15 and win over the unruly elements in the congregation through his gentleness.16 In fact, the most distinguishing virtue of a bishop should be his meekness. He should constantly exercise his care for his congregation, he should look after the widows,17 and he should admonish the slaves18 and the married men and women to be content with their station in life.19 The bishop’s ability to serve as a model to his congregation was of great importance to Ignatius. In order to emphasize this point, he adopted the Greek neologism exemplarion, derived from the Latin exemplum or exemplarium. The Latin word was most commonly used in the context of book production, where it referred to the original from which a manuscript was copied. The word is very rare in Greek. It is attested in a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus, where it refers to a model pattern in textile production,20 and in a number of very peculiar pagan inscriptions from Phrygia, of the second and third centuries A.D., where it has the sense of negative example or deterrent. These inscriptions were set up by individuals who had been punished for offending the deity by blindness, paralysis, or in other concrete ways but were given the opportunity to redeem themselves through sacrifices and offerings. These inscriptions are now known as confession inscriptions. Their declared purpose was to warn others so that they might learn from the painful experience of their authors.21 The word exemplarion also appears in a spurious sermon of John Chrysostom.22 The only later author to use it is the seventh-century theologian Maximus Confessor, who refers to Christ as exemplarion and elsewhere talks about men who make their own life an exemplarion of virtue.23 Even though Ignatius’s use of the word exemplarion did not catch on among Greek authors after him, his insistence that the bishop be of such character that his conduct invite imitation by others would continue to be a major theme in Christian writing about the episcopate.
Ignatius also notes that the bishops’ ministry is bestowed on him in the love of God, not because others wanted to appoint him or because he sought this distinction for himself.24 For this reason, the selection of a bishop should not depend on external criteria such as seniority. Ignatius has high praise for Damas, for example, who had become bishop of Magnesia despite his youthful age.25 In this way, episcopal appointment is regarded as a gift from God that may sometimes be granted to unlikely candidates. Ignatius was the first to give voice to two ideas that would become the prevalent view in the centuries that followed: (1) the bishop’s tasks are not only administrative, but also pastoral and liturgical; (2) in order to maintain the respect and cooperation of his flock, the bishop must be an exemplar of Christian conduct.
It was not until a century after Ignatius that the process of episcopal appointment was described for the first time, in the Apostolic Tradition. This work is commonly ascribed to Hippolytus, the bishop of a schismatic community in Rome who died in exile, probably in 236. The Apostolic Tradition, which has to be pieced together from quotations in other works, is the earliest document for the liturgical practices in Rome. It declares that the bishop is elected by all the people and then consecrated in the presence of the laity, the presbyterate, and an unspecified number of other bishops, who all offer him the kiss of peace after the ordination. The involvement of these different groups of people affirms that the appointment of the bishop is based on a consensus of all. The actual ordination occurs through the imposition of hands by one or several bishops. The prayer accompanying this gesture contains, in a nutshell, an interpretation of the spiritual and practical aspects of the episcopal office. It calls down upon the new bishop the Holy Ghost whom God has delivered to Christ, who in turn passed it on to the apostles, thus asserting the continuity of the ecclesiastical tradition. In his new role as pastor of his flock and as archpriest, the bishop must minister to his community, and he must represent them to God through his prayers. He holds the same authority as the apostles to forgive sins. And he ought to lead a life pleasing to God, excelling in meekness and purity of heart. After the ordination, the new bishop receives the kiss of peace from all who are present and then celebrates the eucharist.26
In paying close attention to the process of ordination, the Apostolic Tradition gives voice to an idea that will become a powerful undercurrent to all later reflections on the episcopate: the bishop is a successor of the apostles and partakes of the same Spirit as they had. It is the apostolic succession of the bishop that bestows on him the Holy Spirit. As a consequence, spiritual authority can reside not just in the person of the bishop, but also in the episcopal office per se. According to the Apostolic Tradition, the Spirit is conferred on the bishop-elect by other bishops through the imposition of hands and the prayer of ordination. The apostolic succession is an external source of the Holy Spirit that is attached to the episcopal office. The institutional spiritual authority inherent in the episcopate is distinct from the personal spiritual authority held by the bishop and displayed in his conduct. Ideally, the former is bestowed as a confirmation of the latter. The relation of personal spiritual authority to spiritual authority acquired ex officio would remain a major concern, especially as the bishops grew in number and gained greater importance in civic life.
The Didascalia, a detailed church order that was composed in northern Syria, also dates from the first half of the third century. It was originally written in Greek but now survives only in a complete Syriac translation and in Latin fragments. The Didascalia purports to contain the teaching of the twelve apostles on the organization of Christian churches. It furnishes ample information on the preconditions for appointment to episcopal office, the duties of a bishop, and the personal traits required of a bishop to fulfill his role.27 The Didascalia reflects a new stage in the structural development of the Christian communities, competently mapped out in a recent book by Georg Schöllgen.28 By the time of the Didascalia, what had started as voluntary and spontaneous donations by the congregation to the communal chest had evolved into regular and fixed contributions, which were used in part to provide the clergy with salaries according to their rank. This development had several important consequences: it set the clergy apart from the laity, it transformed the members of the clergy from volunteering servants into salaried officials, and it created the economic conditions for treating ecclesiastical ministry as a career like any other. It is perhaps for this reason that the Didascalia takes great care to remind the lay members of the congregation of the spiritual and ascetic authority of the bishop, from which all other positive aspects of his administration will flow.
In appointing a bishop, the Didascalia notes, it is important to choose a candidate who enjoys a good reputation and who has no physical handicaps. The minimum age requirement is set at fifty years, although more important than the criterion of age is the candidate’s moral qualification. His character must correspond to