and yet their history, even in the worst of times, exhibits nothing equal to the frequency of the successions indicated by this ancient episcopal registry.* It would It would appear from it that there were more bishops in Jerusalem in the second century than there have been Archbishops of Canterbury for the last four hundred years! Such facts demonstrate that those who then stood at the head of the mother Church of Christendom, must have reached their position by means of some order of succession very different from that which is now established. Hilary furnishes at once a simple and an adequate explanation. The senior minister was the president, or bishop; and as, when placed in the episcopal chair, he had already reached old age, it was not to be expected that he could long retain a situation which required some exertion and involved much anxiety. Hence the startling amount of episcopal mortality. As the Church of Jerusalem may be said to have been founded by our Lord himself, it could lay claim to a higher antiquity than any other Christian community in existence; and it long continued to be regarded by the disciples all over the Empire with peculiar interest and veneration. When re-established about the close of the reign of Hadrian, it was properly a new society; but it still enjoyed the prestige of ancient associations. Its history has, therefore, been investigated by Eusebius with special care; he tells us that he derived a portion of his information from its own archives;§ and, though he enters into details respect *In the tenth century, the darkest and most revolting period in the history of the Popedom, there were twenty-four bishops of Rome. Some of these reigned only a few days; at least one of them was strangled; several of them died in prison; and several others were driven from the see or deposed. There have been only twenty-four Popes in the last two hundred and fifty years. + There have been only twenty-eight Archbishops of Canterbury since 1454. In the middle of the third century we find Firmilian appealing to it as a witness against the Church of Rome. Cyprian, Epist. lxxv. Opera, p. 303. § "Hist." vi. 20. 1 ing very few of the early Churches, he notices it with unusual frequency, and gives an accredited list of the names of its successive chief pastors.* About this period it was obviously considered a model which other Christian societies of less note might very safely imitate. It is, therefore, all the more important if we are able to ascertain its constitution, as we are thus prepared to speak with a measure of confidence respecting the form of ecclesiastical government which prevailed throughout the second century. The facts already stated, when coupled with the positive affirmation of the Roman Hilary, place the solution of the question, as nearly as possible, upon the basis of demonstration; for, if we reject the conclusion that, during a hundred years after the death of the Apostle John, the senior member of the presbytery of Jerusalem was the president or moderator, we may in vain attempt to explain, upon any sound statistical principles, how so many bishops passed away in succession within so limited periods, and how, at several points along the line, and exactly where they might have been expected,† we find individuals in occupation of the chair who had attained to extreme longevity. IV. The statement of Hilary illustrates the peculiar cogency of the argumentation employed by the defenders of the faith who flourished about the close of the second century. This century was pre-eminently the age of heresies, and the disseminators of error were most extravagant and unscrupulous in their assertions. The heresiarchs, among other things, affirmed that the inspired heralds of the gospel had not committed their whole system to written records; that they had entrusted certain higher revelations only to select or perfect disciples; and that the doctrine of Aeons, "Hist." iv. 5; v. 12. ↑ Such as, after the death of the aged Simeon, when Justus, at the age of fivescore and ten, was advanced to the presidential chair. which they so assiduously promulgated, was derived from this hidden treasure of ecclesiastical tradition.* To such assertions the champions of orthodoxy were prepared to furnish a triumphant reply, for they could shew that the Gnostic system was inconsistent with Scripture, and that its credentials, said to be derived from tradition, were utterly apocryphal. They could appeal, in proof of its falsehood, to the tradition which had come down to themselves from the apostles, and which was still preserved in the Churches" through the successions of the elders."+ They could farther refer to those who stood at the head of their respective presbyteries as the witnesses most competent to give evidence. "We are able," says Irenæus, “to enumerate those whom the apostles established as bishops in the Churches, together with their successors down to our own times, who neither taught any such doctrine as these men rave about, nor had any knowledge of it. For if the apostles had been acquainted with recondite mysteries which they were in the habit of teaching to the perfect disciples apart and without the knowledge of the rest, they would by all means have communicated them to those to whom they entrusted the care of the Church itself, since they wished that those whom they left behind them as their successors, and to whom they gave their own place of authority, should be quite perfect and irreproachable in all things." § Had the succession to the episcopal chair been regulated by the arrangements of modern times, there would have *Irenæus, iii. 2. Tertullian," De Præscrip. Hæret." § 25. + "Ad eam iterum traditionem, quæ est ab apostolis, quæ per successiones presbyterorum in ecclesiis custoditur, provocamus eos."-Irenæus, iii. 2. Irenæus here speaks in the language of his own times, and refers to the presidents, or senior ministers, of the presbyteries. In like manner Hilary says that the change in the mode of appointing the president of the presbytery was made by the decision of many priests (multorum sacerdotum judicio), though the title priest was not given to a Christian minister when the alteration was originally proposed. § Irenæus, iii. 3. been little weight in the reasoning of Irenæus. The declaration of the bishop respecting the tradition of the Church over which he happened to preside would have possessed no special value. But it was otherwise in the days of this pastor of Lyons. The bishop was generally one of the oldest members of the community with which he was connected, and had been longer conversant with its ecclesiastical affairs than any other minister. His testimony to its traditions was, therefore, of the highest importance. In a few of the great Churches, as we have elsewhere shewn,* the senior elder now no longer succeeded, as a matter of course, to the episcopate; but age continued to be univer-· sally regarded as an indispensable qualification for the office,t and, when Irenæus wrote, the law of seniority appears to have been still generally maintained. It was, therefore, with marked propriety that he appealed to the evidence of the bishops; as they, from their position, were most competent to expose the falsehood of the fables of Gnosticism. V. It is well known that, in some of the most ancient councils of which we have any record, the senior bishop officiated as moderator; and, long after age had ceased to determine the succession to the episcopal chair, the recognition of its claims, under various forms, may be traced in ecclesiastical history. In Spain, so late as the fourth century, the senior chief pastor acted as president when the bishops and presbyters assembled for deliberation.§ In Africa the same rule was observed until the Church of that * Period II. sec. i. chap. iv. ; and Period II. sect. iii. chap. vii. + According to a very ancient canon, no one under fifty years of age could be made a bishop. See Bunsen's "Hippolytus," iii. 56. Even in the time of Cyprian much stress was still laid upon age. See Cyprian, Epist. lii. p. 156. See Period II. sect. iii. chap. xi. See also Bingham, i. 198. § Münter's "Primordia Ecclesiæ Africanæ," p. 49. See also Bingham, vi. 377-379. country was overwhelmed by the northern barbarians. In Mauritania and Numidia, even in the fifth century, the senior bishop of the province, whoever he might be, was acknowledged as metropolitan.* In the usages of a still later age we may discover vestiges of the ancient regulation, for the bishops sat, in the order of their seniority, in the provincial synods. Still farther, where the bishop of the chief city of the province was the stated metropolitan, the ecclesiastical law still retained remembrancers of the primitive polity; as, when this dignitary died, the senior bishop of the district performed his functions until a successor was regularly appointed.‡ Though the senior presbyter presided in the meetings of his brethren, and was soon known by the name of bishop, it does not appear that he originally possessed any superior authority. He held his place for life, but as he was sinking under the weight of years when he succeeded to it, he could not venture to anticipate an extended career of official distinction. In all matters relating either to discipline, or the general interests of the brotherhood, he was expected to carry out the decisions of the eldership, so that, under his presidential rule, the Church was still substantially governed by "the common council of the presbyters." The allegation that presbyterial government existed in all its integrity towards the end of the second century does not rest on the foundation of obscure intimations or doubtful inferences. It can be established by direct and conclusive testimony. Evidence has already been adduced to shew that the senior presbyter of Smyrna continued to preside until the days of Irenæus, and there is also documentary proof that meanwhile he possessed no autocratical authority. The supreme power was still vested in the council of the elders. This point is attested by Hippolytus, * Bingham, i. 201. + Binius, i. 5. Fourth Council of Toledo, canon 4. Bingham, i. 204. |