De Ecclesia Christi

« Although it is certain that the three grades of Bishops, presbyters, and ministers were distinguished by divine ordination, and therefore already in the Apostolic time, it must nevertheless be conceded without doubt that in that most ancient age the name of presbyters was sometimes also applied to Bishops; yet we think it more probable that the name of Bishop was always proper to the priests of the first order alone, who were each ordained to govern individual Churches, and never common to the priests of the second order, or presbyters. »

I. It is established from what has been demonstrated that, besides deacons, there are two wholly distinct grades of the hierarchy: the higher, of Bishops, who are each set over an individual Church, and the lower, of presbyters, who can be several in one Church and are subject to the Bishops; and this hierarchy (as the Council of Trent speaks, sess. 23, can. 6) is « instituted by divine ordination. » For we see it from the Apostolic times onward in full vigour in all Churches, however far apart from one another: Bishops, regarded in their order as they constitute the episcopate of the Church, are always and everywhere believed to be instituted by Christ in the Apostles themselves, as successors in their predecessors; always and everywhere presbyters exercise the priesthood under their power; and finally, deacons appear distinct from both, as a third grade. Apart from the other functions proper to the episcopal order, only Bishops have the power, by the imposition of hands, to propagate the priesthood; presbyters have no such power. This property of power can be only from divine institution, by which Bishops are distinguished in the fullness of the priesthood from the inferior priests, that is, from the presbyters. Against this divinely constituted distinction of the two orders, when Aërius first devised in the fourth century « a dogma (as Epiphanius speaks) furious beyond human grasp, » he was condemned by all as a heretic. « It is manifest to all who use reason (Epiphanius adds there) that it is wholly full of madness to say that Bishop and presbyter are equal. For one order (of Bishops) belongs to begetting fathers, for it begets the fathers of the Church. The other order (of presbyters), since it cannot be fathers, begets sons of the Church through the laver of regeneration, but not fathers or masters. But how can it happen that he constitutes a presbyter who has no right of laying on hands for ordination? Or how can he be said to be equal to a Bishop? » Epiphanius, Haer. 75, nn. 3, 4. The same distinction is handed down, among other Fathers (cf. Petavius, Hierarchia Ecclesiastica, bk. IV, ch. 2), by St. Jerome, in those very places where, comparing the order of presbyters on one side with the higher order of Bishops and on the other with the lower order of deacons, he shows that presbyters are nearer to Bishops, as priests to priests, than deacons, who lack the priesthood, are to presbyters. Nevertheless he professes that the distinction between the priests of the first and second order is wholly preserved by the divinely conferred power of ordination. « For what (he says) does a Bishop do, apart from ordination, that a presbyter does not? » Jerome, ep. ad Evangelum (cf. Petavius, Dissertationes Ecclesiasticae, bk. I, ch. 3).

From the universal tradition, faith, and practice of the Church it is therefore certain that the participated priesthood of the New Testament was so arranged by Christ, the supreme priest according to the order of Melchisedech, that its fullness, which was instituted in the Apostles and their successors the Bishops, is not indivisible; rather, a part of the power can be conferred separately from the fullness (namely the power of consecrating the real body of Christ, of remitting sins, and of conferring most of the other sacraments in the mystical body of Christ), and this part constitutes the lower and distinct order of the presbyterate. Although, therefore (as the Council of Trent defined, sess. 23, can. 6), « in the Catholic Church there is a hierarchy instituted by divine ordination, which consists of Bishops, presbyters, and ministers, » and without these (Bishops, presbyters, deacons) « the Church is not named », as we have seen Ignatius write at the beginning of the second century (ep. to the Trallians, n. 3); nevertheless one must prudently take note of what St. Epiphanius warned: namely, that in the first times (the proclamation being new, νέου ὄντος τοῦ κηρύγματος) a complete arrangement could not at once be made by the Apostles, nor a full hierarchy set up everywhere; but in some places presbyters were ordained without a Bishop, and in others a Bishop without presbyters, « who cannot be without a deacon » (Epiphanius, loc. cit., n. 5). If therefore there are passages in the Apostolic writings in which the distinction between Bishops and presbyters does not sufficiently appear, it must remain beyond doubt that this obscurity arises not from a lack of right, as if the Apostles had not recognized the distinction, of which it is manifestly established from elsewhere, but from an imperfection of fact, that is, from a hierarchy not yet everywhere complete.

II. The more obscure passages of this kind are the following. a) The same men who are called Bishops are called presbyters. Paul, sending from Miletus to Ephesus, called « the presbyters of the Church » (τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους τῆς ἐκκλησίας), whom he then admonishes: « take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit has placed you Bishops to rule the Church of God, which he acquired with his own blood » Acts XX. 17, 28. Likewise he writes to Titus: « I left you in Crete... that you might establish presbyters in each city (κατὰ πόλιν πρεσβυτέρους); if anyone is without crime... For a Bishop must be without crime, as God's steward » (ὡς θεοῦ οἰκονόμον) Tit. I. 5–7. Peter, himself a fellow-presbyter, exhorts the presbyters, whose office he then calls episcopal: « the elders who are among you (πρεσβυτέρους τοὺς ἐν ὑμῖν) I beseech, as a fellow-elder (συμπρεσβύτερος)... shepherd the flock of God that is among you, overseeing (ἐπισκοποῦντες) not under compulsion » 1 Pet. V. 1, 2. Further, b) where it seems to be the purpose to enumerate the grades of the hierarchy¹, only Bishops and deacons are named, with no mention of presbyters: Phil. I. 1; 1 Tim. III. 1–10. c) The difficulty is increased because, from the cited places of Acts and Philippians, in one and the same city and particular Church there seem to have been not one but several such Bishops.

In the interpretation of these passages some points are certain to all Catholics. 1°. It is certain from the contexts, in the cited places of Acts XX, 1 Tim. III, Tit. I, and 1 Pet. V, that they are to be understood, if not solely and to the exclusion of the priests of the second order, at least directly and principally of the priests of the first order. For they are bidden to attend to the whole flock in which they are placed by the Holy Spirit, and their episcopal office is said to be to rule the Church of God, which he acquired with his own blood. Peter himself, the Apostle and prince of the Apostles, calls himself fellow-presbyter of these presbyters, who are bidden each to shepherd the flock of God and to oversee (ἐπισκοπεῖν) it as the office of a Bishop requires. Moreover, and this excludes all controversy among Catholics, the Tridentine synod expressly interprets the passage of Acts XX about Bishops as opposed to presbyters (sess. 23, ch. 4). Whence the Bishops named in 1 Tim. III and Tit. I are to be understood in the same way, since in the former passage the Bishop is said to have care of the Church of God, just as the householder presides over his house. Indeed, in those very words Paul there designates the singularity of the Bishop: « a Bishop (with the article τὸν ἐπίσκοπον) must be irreproachable », while immediately after he names deacons in the plural (διακόνους ὡσαύτως σεμνούς). In the second place Titus is bidden to establish κατὰ πόλιν, one in each city, the presbyters who are afterwards called Bishops ²; and finally, in nearly the same words in this Epistle to Titus as in the one to Timothy, the virtues of the Bishop are described. 2°. From this it is further certain that the priests of the first order, who are and are called Bishops, also had the name of presbyters; so that this name presbyter, like the other name priest, by which Bishops are designated more frequently in the Fathers of the fourth century and later, though presbyters also at other times, by itself is by no means sufficient to distinguish the first and second order: « presbyter and Bishop: the one is a name of age, the other of dignity... in a Bishop a presbyter is included » Jerome, ep. 146, n. 2, to Evangelus. And not only in the Scriptures, but also after the Apostolic times, among the more ancient Fathers, Bishops are sometimes called by this name presbyters, as is manifest from many places in Irenaeus. « To the presbyters who are in the Church one must be obedient, those who have succession from the Apostles, who with the succession of the episcopate have received the sure charism of truth » Irenaeus, bk. IV, ch. 26, n. 2; cf. nn. 4, 5. Writing to Victor, the Roman Pontiff, about the difference in celebrating Easter, Irenaeus says: « But also those presbyters, he says, who before Soter presided over the Church which you now govern, I mean Anicetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus, did not themselves observe it (the manner of the Asians of celebrating Easter and the fast)... Anicetus said that the custom of the presbyters who had been before him was to be retained by himself » (cited in Eusebius, H. E., bk. V, ch. 24). Cf. Irenaeus, bk. III, ch. 2, n. 2; and the letter to Florinus (cited in Eusebius, H. E., bk. V, ch. 20).

III. These matters are beyond controversy. But it is doubtful, and has been brought into dispute both among the ancient writers and holy Fathers and among more recent interpreters, whether in the cited places of the New Testament, and in one or another of the most ancient Fathers (perhaps Clement of Rome, Ep. I to the Corinthians, n. 42, cf. nn. 44, 47, 57), presbyters, namely priests of the second order, also have the appellation Bishop. If this were so, the name Bishop itself would not suffice to demonstrate, against the heretical Presbyterians and the other Protestants, the distinction of the first and second grade of the priestly hierarchy; the matter would have to be settled from the contexts alone, in which they are accustomed to seek an escape through winding burrows. If, on the contrary, it could be shown that only the leaders (προεστῶτας), who each governed individual Churches and had presbyters subject to them, as the hierarchy is already described in the letters of St. Ignatius, were ever called Bishops, and that these inferiors were never called so, all paths of escape would be closed. Therefore this dispute is not to be thought to be about the name alone, or to be of little use.

It must be wholly conceded that Chrysostom and those who depend on him, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact (if it were permitted to count him among the Fathers), as well as Jerome and the commentator whom they usually call Ambrosiaster, thought that in the first times the name Bishop was common even to simple presbyters. Their reason was that they rightly held as firm and fixed that in individual Churches there never were more than one leader of the first order, to whom alone the episcopal name was afterwards claimed; but on the other hand they did not see how it could be denied that in the particular Church of Philippi (Phil. I. 1) several are named Bishops. Where the Apostle writes to all the saints who are at Philippi, with the Bishops and deacons (σὺν ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις) ³, Chrysostom comments thus: « What is this? Were there many Bishops of one city? By no means; but he called the presbyters so. For then the names were still common... In antiquity, therefore, as I was saying, even presbyters were called Bishops... But as time went on, the name Bishop and presbyter was distributed to each as a proper name » In Phil., hom. 1, n. 1. Jerome speaks in the same sense: he thinks that also in Acts XX, and in other places, 1 Pet. V. 1, 2, and Heb. XIII. 17 (where they are called leaders, ἡγούμενοι), the discourse is about presbyters, « by whose common counsel the Churches were governed. » He says, of course: « Philippi is one city of Macedonia, and certainly in one city there could not be several, as they are called, Bishops; but because at that time they called the same men Bishops who were also called presbyters, therefore he spoke indifferently of Bishops (Paul writing to the Bishops and deacons) as if of presbyters. » Then, citing the passage of Acts XX: « and here observe more carefully, he says, how, calling the presbyters of the one city of Ephesus, he afterwards called the same men Bishops » Jerome, on Titus I. 5.

Without doubt those Fathers acknowledged and plainly demonstrated the distinct orders, first and second; but the Presbyterians seize on this opinion about the community of the name in order to confuse the things themselves.

Petavius thought indeed that it should be conceded that several in one city were called by the name both of presbyters and of Bishops, and nevertheless that it can and must be denied that the name Bishop was ever common to simple presbyters. To reconcile these things he himself first contended, and other Catholics afterwards willingly assented; and, having collated what is said in the books of the New Testament, he seemed to himself to have sufficiently proved that in the Apostolic age several in one city were wont to be marked with the episcopal character, « because (as he says) it was necessary that a ready supply of Bishops should be at hand, who would be sent to the cities and provinces won for the Christian name, so that they might be able to perform what was administered only by Bishops » (Dissertationes Ecclesiasticae, bk. I, ch. 2). He thinks these were true Bishops, although several at the same time governed each Church; and with this opinion admitted, all that is read in the New Testament about presbyters, the same men being Bishops, would be plain and clear.

I confess that this hypothesis has always seemed to me, and still seems, less probable. For it cannot easily be conceded that in primitive times the Churches were governed in any other way than that in which the seven Churches of Asia are described under the Apostle John. All the less can this be conceded because at the beginning of the second century, in the time of Polycarp and Ignatius and Hegesippus, it appears not only that individual Bishops were set over individual Churches everywhere, but we see this institution presented as more ancient, and as having come from the Apostles. Nor, on the Petavian hypothesis, can the appeal of the ancients to the continuous succession in the episcopal chair of the individual Churches, from the Apostles who instituted them onward, be sufficiently understood. Then, moreover, the difficulty is increased because among the ancient Fathers and ecclesiastical writers no trace of that interpretation can be found; but all the ancients held as settled and fixed that several true Bishops (that is, priests of the first order) neither were nor could be in one city ⁴. Hence those among the ancients who thought that several Bishops of one city⁵ were named in the books of the New Testament, by that very fact thought that the name Bishop was also common to presbyters, as we have seen in Chrysostom and Jerome and the others a little before. But those who maintain that the name Bishop, as most certainly among the apostolic men Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius, so also among the Apostles themselves, was proper to the priests of the first order alone, set over individual Churches, by that very fact deny that the New Testament ever records several Bishops of one city ⁶.

This last opinion is supported by the gravest arguments: from the very nature and purpose of the episcopal office; from the catalogues of the Apostolic Churches; from the whole history of the episcopate, from at least the end of the first century and so from the Apostolic age itself; and from the analogy with the unity of the universal Church through one universal Bishop. This monarchy, as in the universal Church so also in particular Churches, is expressly claimed by the ancient Fathers, when they declare not only the fact but the right itself: « there cannot be several Bishops of one particular Church, » just as by Christ's institution there is one Bishop of the universal Church; « there must be unity of the Bishop », just as there is one sacrifice and one Eucharist.

The difficulty against this opinion can be brought forward from no other source except the double passage, Acts XX and Phil. I, where several Bishops of one city seem to be mentioned. For in the other texts it is clear that the name presbyters is indeed common even to priests of the first order, but in no way is the name Bishop attributed to priests even of the second order. If those two passages do not admit a convenient reconciliation, one must go over to the opinion of Petavius; for the first opinion, cited first from Jerome and Chrysostom, no Catholic will easily be brought to defend, at least for Acts XX, especially after the Council of Trent. Pope Celestine I also (ep. 18, n. 4, to the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus) testifies that Paul, in those words, « speaks properly (ἰδίως) with reference to Bishops. » But not only that first opinion, but also the Petavian one, seems entirely excluded by the sacred text itself of Apocalypse II–III, where John writes of the single Angels of the single cities of Asia, and names first among them « the Angel of the Church of Ephesus. » For it is not lawful to imagine, without foundation, that so great a change was introduced between the time of Paul and the writing of the Apocalypse. If, therefore, a prudent reconciliation can be made, all the more if such a reconciliation has already been proposed by some of the ancient Fathers, the arguments by which we have seen the third opinion fortified persuade that it is to be embraced. Now the reconciliation is obvious if it is borne in mind that Ephesus and Philippi were the cities in which the Churches were first founded for Asia and Macedonia, and that from there the gospel was propagated into other cities and regions, over each of which single Bishops were set.

As to the address of Acts XX, St. Irenaeus, born in Asia, a hearer of Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostles, attests that the Bishops had gathered not only from Ephesus but also from the neighboring cities: « at Miletus, the Bishops and presbyters who were there having been called together, from Ephesus and from the other neighboring cities » ⁷ Irenaeus, bk. III, ch. 14, n. 2. The foundation of this explanation lies in the speech itself, delivered by the Apostle to the assembled Bishops; for he says that they are themselves those among whom he passed preaching, and that he was for three years admonishing each one of them. These things, indeed, can hardly be understood of the presbyters of one single city alone as regards three years, and as regards passing even less: « you all, among whom I passed (ἐν οἷς διῆλθον) preaching the kingdom of God... since for three years night and day I have not ceased with tears admonishing each one of you » Acts XX. 25, 31.

That an entirely similar reconciliation is also possible in the other place, Phil. I. 1, if not certain, is at least probable, no one will deny. Paul destined the letter written to the Colossians not for this Church alone but also for the other Church of the Laodiceans, and in turn destined that of the Laodiceans, or (as the Greek has it) « from Laodicea », to be sent to the Colossians ⁸. Whence it becomes probable that the epistle to the Ephesians also was encyclical, not only for the Church of Ephesus but also for Laodicea and the other Churches of Asia. Then the second to the Corinthians, in express words, and therefore probably also the first, although this is not said in the inscription, was sent « to the Church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia » (τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ Ἀχαΐᾳ) 2 Cor. I. 1. From this analogy it is indeed rendered probable that the epistle under discussion was encyclical to the Churches of Macedonia, or (if names introduced later could be used) to the παροικία or ecclesiastical province of Philippi (τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις).⁹

One must say that this explanation of the place commended itself to St. Epiphanius. For when Aërius, to build up his heresy of the equality of Bishops and presbyters, relied also on this epistle, inscribed « to the Bishops and deacons », Epiphanius repeats the answer drawn from the still imperfect state of the hierarchy in those first times. « Where necessity demanded, and men were found worthy of the episcopate, Bishops were constituted; but when there was no supply, there were not found those who might be created presbyters, whence they were content with a Bishop alone in each place (ἐπὶ τῷ κατὰ τόπον μόνῳ ἐπισκόπῳ); but it is not fitting for a Bishop to be without a deacon » Epiphanius, Haer. 75, n. 5. Epiphanius therefore asserts two things explicitly, in which a third is evidently contained implicitly. a) In individual Churches (κατὰ τόπον) there were never more than single Bishops. b) In the primitive times sometimes Bishops only were constituted, with deacons, but no presbyters at all; and this less complete constitution of the Churches is to be understood in the case of Paul, when, silent about presbyters, he writes « to the Bishops and deacons » (Phil. I. 1). c) Therefore that epistle, inscribed in the plural number « to the Bishops », was addressed not to one particular Church only, but to several particular Churches.

In agreement with this explanation of the words of the Apostle (Acts XX; Phil. I), among Catholic theologians we have Mamachi (Origines et Antiquitates Christianae, T. IV, ch. 4, § 2, pp. 334 ff., 345 ff.); Bolgeni (L'Episcopato, ch. 6, art. 2, n. 223; cf. Zallinger, Ius Ecclesiasticum publicum, § 350, note 1); and Francesco Antonio Zaccaria (Dottrine del secolo illuminato XVIII paragonate etc., Append. I, art. 1).

From what has been said so far, the difficulty which the Presbyterians are wont to draw from St. Clement's first Epistle to the Corinthians, nn. 42 and 44, is also now resolved. They say, of course, that Clement there names only Bishops and deacons constituted by the Apostles; therefore by Apostolic institution there are no presbyters distinct from Bishops, and so there is only one grade of those who are called Bishops, and who by another name are called presbyters. Also many Catholics, with Cotelerius (in his notes on Clement's text), think that, not indeed this Aërian heresy, but nevertheless this much must be conceded: that presbyters, namely priests of the second order, in those first times, and in particular in Clement, also had the appellation Bishops.

But as to the matter itself: we have already seen in the preceding thesis that Clement, at n. 40, distinguishes three orders, « the high priest, priests, and Levites ». Nor is there in him the difficulty that occurs in Paul (Phil. I. 1; Acts XX. 28), that he seems to name several Bishops of one particular Church; for Clement (n. 42) speaks universally of the Churches founded by the Apostles: « preaching through regions and cities, they appointed their firstfruits... Bishops and deacons of those who were going to believe »; just as Paul ordered presbyters, that is Bishops, to be established « in each city » (Tit. I. 5). But that Clement, at n. 44, is said to name several presbyters of the Corinthians who are also called Bishops, is not true. For in this place, no less than at n. 42, he speaks universally of Bishops, and not of the Bishops of the Corinthians only ¹⁰. So the explanation of Bolgeni, who in the same work thinks that Clement's epistle, like Paul's second to the Corinthians, was an encyclical addressed to the Churches of Achaia, is in no way necessary.

The only difficulty left, then, is the same in Paul (Phil. I. 1; 1 Tim. III. 2, 8) as in Clement: how is it that both the Apostle and his disciple, in these places, mentioned only two grades, Bishops and deacons, with presbyters omitted? The explanation of Epiphanius, brought in above, could be fitted no less to the words of Clement than of Paul; yet it does not seem necessary and, to tell the truth, it is not probable, at least for the Corinthian Church. We therefore concede that Paul, in writing to the Bishops of Macedonia and, to Timothy, in declaring the virtues necessary for a Bishop, meant also to include the presbyters, who by reason of priesthood are closer to Bishops, as Chrysostom explains (hom. XI, n. 1, on 1 Tim.): « after (Paul) has spoken of Bishops, leaving the order of presbyters he passes to deacons, because these do not differ much from Bishops... For they excel only in the power of ordaining; and this alone (looking, namely, at the consecratory power of the priesthood, and setting aside magisterium and sacred governance) they seem to have over presbyters. » The reason is the same in St. Clement, who had in addition a particular cause for naming only Bishops and deacons: so that the text he introduces, slightly altered (from Is. LX. 17), might fit aptly for confirmation: « I will appoint their Bishops in justice, and their deacons in faith. » Now indeed anyone can see that it is far different for simple presbyters ever to have had the name of Bishops, which we deny, and that what is said of Bishops is sometimes extended also to presbyters without their being named distinctly, which we concede was done by Paul and by Clement ¹¹.

We shall therefore persevere in this opinion: that the name presbyter was indeed at times applied, both in the books of the New Testament and among some most ancient Fathers, to priests of the second as well as of the first order; but Bishops were never called other than the single pastors of the first order of individual Churches. And from at least the second and third century, as was customary in all later ages, these were distinguished from presbyters by this name, as is admitted by all.