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 allow a layman to preach, if he be skilful and reverent, and the language of St Ignatius (Ad Smyrn. 8), “Let that be esteemed a valid Eucharist which is celebrated in the presence of the bishop or of some one commissioned by him,” is really inconsistent with any firmly established principle that celebration by a layman was in itself absolutely null (see also ).

When we go on to inquire what special offices the church from the beginning, or almost from the beginning, adopted and recognized, two points claim preliminary attention. In the first place, much would be done in practical administration by persons who held no definite position formally assigned to them, although they wielded great influence on account of their age, talents and character. Next, it must be carefully remembered that the early church was, in a sense hard for us even to understand, ruled and edified by the direct action of the Holy Spirit. St Paul (1 Cor. xii. 28) furnishes us with a list of church offices very different from those which obtain in any church at the present day. “God,” he says, “hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, (divers) kinds of tongues.” Ministry of this sort is not to be confounded with “order,” of which this article treats. It died out very gradually, and the Didache or Teaching of the Apostles, compiled probably between 130 and 160, gives clear information on the nature of this prophetic or charismatic ministry. The title of “apostle” was not limited to the immediate disciples of our Lord, but was given to missionaries or evangelists who went about founding new churches; the prophets spoke by revelation; the teachers were enabled by supernatural illumination to instruct others. All of these men were called to their work by the internal voice of the Holy Spirit: none of them was appointed or elected by their fellows: none of them, and this is an important feature, was necessarily confined to a local church. Nevertheless, side by side with this prophetic ministry there was another, mediately at least of human appointment, and local in its character. Here we have the germ of orders in the technical sense. At first this local ministry was twofold, consisting of presbyters or bishops and deacons. Christian presbyters first appear (Acts xi. 30) in the church of Jerusalem, and most likely the name and office were adopted from the Jewish municipalities, perhaps from the Jewish synagogues (see ). Afterwards St Paul and St Barnabas in their first missionary journey “appointed (Acts xiv. 23) presbyters in every church.” Further, we find St Paul about 62 addressing the “saints” at Philippi “with the bishops and deacons.” The word  or overseer may be of Gentile origin, just as presbyter may have been borrowed from the Jews. There is strong proof that presbyter and episcopus are two names for the same office. It has indeed been maintained by eminent scholars, chiefly by Hatch and Harnack, that the word episcopus was given originally to the chief officer of a club or a confraternity, so that the episcopus was a financial officer, whereas the presbyters regulated the discipline. To this it may be objected that presbyters and bishops are never mentioned together, and that the names were interchangeable (Acts xx. 17 and 28; 1 Pet. v. 1, 2; 1 Tim. iii. 1-7 and v. 17-19; Tit. i. 5-7). The work of the presbyter or bishop was concerned at first with discipline rather than with teaching, which was largely in the hands of the charismatic ministry; nevertheless, the Pastoral Epistles (1 Tim. iii. 2) insist that an episcopus must be “apt to teach,” and some presbyters (1 Tim. v. 17) not only ruled but also “laboured in the word and in teaching.” They also “offered the gifts” (1 Clem. 44), i.e. to adopt Bishop Lightfoot’s interpretation, “they led the prayers and thanksgivings of the congregation, presented the alms and contributions to God and asked His blessing on them in the name of the whole body.” Under the bishops or presbyters stood the deacons or “helpers” (Philipp. i. 1, 1 Tim. iii. 8-13). Whether they were the successors, as most of the Fathers believed, of the seven chosen by the church of Jerusalem to relieve the apostles in the administration of alms (Acts vi.) is a question still disputed and uncertain. Be that as it may, the deacon was long considered to be the “servant of the widows and the poor” (Jerome, Ep. 146), and the archdeacon, who first appears towards the end of the 4th century, owes the greatness of his position to the fact that he was the chief administrator of church funds (see ). This ancient idea of the diaconate, ignored in the Roman Pontifical, has been restored in the English ordinal. The growth of sacerdotal theories, which were fully developed in Cyprian’s time, fixed attention on the bishop as a sacrificing priest, and on the deacon as his assistant at the altar.

Out of the twofold grew the threefold ministry, so that each local church was governed by one episcopus surrounded by a council of presbyters. James, the Lord’s brother, who, partly because of his relationship to Christ, stood supreme in the church at Jerusalem, as also Timothy and Titus, who acted as temporary delegates of St Paul at Ephesus and in Crete, are justly considered to have been forerunners of the monarchical episcopate. The episcopal rule in this new sense probably arose in the lifetime of St John, and may have had his sanction. At all events the rights of the monarchical bishop are strongly asserted in the Ignatian epistles (about 110), and were already recognized in the contemporary churches of Asia Minor. We may attribute the origin of the episcopate to the need felt of a single official to preside at the Eucharist, to represent the church before the heathen state and in the face of rising heresy, and to carry on correspondence with sister churches. The change of constitution occurred at different times in different places. Thus St Ignatius in writing to the Romans never refers to any presiding bishop, and somewhat earlier Clement of Rome in his epistles to the Corinthians uses the terms presbyter and episcopus interchangeably. Hermas (about 140) confirms the impression that the Roman Church of his day was under presbyteral rule. Even when introduced, the monarchical episcopate was not thought necessary for the ordination of other bishops or presbyters. St Jerome (Ep. 146) tells us that as late as the middle of the 3rd century the presbyters of Alexandria, when the see was vacant, used to elect one of their own number and without any further ordination set him in the episcopal office. So the canons of Hippolytus (about 250) decree that a confessor who has suffered torment for his adherence to the Christian faith should merit and obtain the rank of presbyter forthwith—“Immo confessio est ordination ejus.” Likewise in 314 the thirteenth canon of Ancyra (for the true reading see Bishop Wordsworth’s Ministry of Grace, p. 140) assumes that city presbyters may with the bishop’s leave ordain other presbyters. Even among the medieval schoolmen, some (Gore, Church and Ministry, p. 377) maintained that a priest might be empowered by the pope to ordain other priests.

The threefold ministry was developed in the 2nd, a sevenfold ministry in the middle of the 3rd century. There must, says Cornelius (apud Euseb., H.E. vi. 43), be one bishop in the Catholic Church; and he then enumerates the church officers subject to himself as bishop of Rome. These are 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists and readers, together with doorkeepers. The subdeacons, no doubt, became a necessity when the deacons, whose number was limited to seven in memory of their original institution, were no longer equal to their duties in the “regions” of the imperial city, and left their lower work, such as preparation of the sacred vessels, to their subordinates. The office of acolyte may have been suggested by the attendant assigned to heathen priests. The office of doorkeeper explains itself, though it must be remembered that it was the special duty of the Christian ostiarius to exclude the unbaptized and persons undergoing penance from the more solemn part of the Eucharistic service. But readers and exorcists claim