The evolution of Episcopacy and organic Methodism

Front matter

djjap, — ffiopjrigJji !f o.~. ... ..

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. !

r

Preface

ROM the seed evolved the plant, from ism, and from simple beginnings have been evolved great ecclesiastical organizations.

Some of these ecclesiastical evolutions invite our investigation. In this study of history we will consider the evolution of the later episcopacy from the simple forms of the early Christian Church, the modification of views in the Church of England after the Protestant Reformation, the change of Wesley's views in regard to Church government, the gradual evolution of organic Methodism, the growth of Methodism in America, the validity of Methodist ordinations, and the propriety and legitimacy of the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In treating the latter point, we will take a view of the ecclesiastical conditions existing in evolved the complex organ-

Preface.

America after the Revolutionary War, and give a sketch of the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The evolution of organic Methodism is one of the marvelous facts of modern times, and is worthy the study of the general reader as well as of the ecclesiastical student, and one of the most striking features of this organism is its system of supervision.

The episcopacy of the Methodist Episcopal Church is an important part of its polity. It is therefore necessary that it be properly understood.

As the episcopate is denned the polity of the denomination will be molded, and the regard of those who are not members will depend largely upon their having, in some measure, a correct view of this great office.

From 1784, when the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America was organized, there have been a number of discussions of great interest concerning this high office, but the generation familiar with the old controversies has passed away, and a new generation, not familiar with those discussions

Preface. 7

and the opinions of the founders of the Church, has come upon the stage of action.

That the results of those controversies should not be lost sight of, and that the new generation should understand the status of the episcopate in the Methodist Episcopal Church, it has been deemed wise to collate the views of the founders of the Church, and to formulate the doctrine of the episcopacy as held by the representative men and the councils of the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1784 to 1884, thus covering the first century of the history of the organization.

As the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church claimed that their episcopacy was in harmony with the episcopate of the early Christian Church in New Testament times, the work will open with a brief presentation of the nature of the bishopric in that period of the Church.

As Methodism sprang from the Church of England, a portion of the work will be devoted to views of the episcopacy as held in that body.

As the Eev. John Wesley, M.A., of Oxford University, was the founder of Methodism and s

Preface.

was looked upon as the head of Methodism in America, a summary of his opinions will very properly have a place.

In this inquiry the effort will be to bring forth things both " new and old ;" for the old may be as valuable as the new, and the new and the old together may add to each other's force. In stating facts as recorded by others, and in citing opinions, we will, in many instances, prefer to quote the very words rather than to give a digest in our own language. In this way the reader will not only have the fact, but, with the verbatim quotation before him, will be better able to form his own judgment as to the force of the citation.

The history involved touches various Churches in Europe and America, and may, therefore, interest various classes of readers.

T. B. Neely.

Philadelphia, February 6, ] 888.

Contents

Chapter Page I. The Bishopric in the Early Christian Church 11

II. Episcopacy in the Church op England 52

III. Wesley's Views op Episcopacy, Ordination, and

Chapter I. The Bishopric In The Early Christian Church

IT HE question of the bishopric in the early Chris- . tian Church is largely a question as to the relative status of bishops and presbyters. Were they the same, or different ? If they were different, what was the nature of that difference ? It is, therefore, at the beginning, a matter of definition, and, consequently, a brief reference to derivation and definition will not be out of place.

The Greek emoKonoq, epishopos (Latin episcopus), meaning an overseer or superintendent, is from emotco- Treu), episkopeo, to look upon, to inspect, or watch over, and this is compounded from em, epi, upon, and ofconeo), skopeOy to look. From episcopus comes the Anglo-Saxon biscop, and, so, our English word bishop.

The word presbyter is from the Greek npecPvTepog, presbuteros, which means elder, or older. In ecclesiastical usage, therefore, the word elder, which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and the word presbyter, which comes from the Greek, mean the same thing. From the literal meaning of the words it must appear that one might be a npeopvrepog, or presbyter, and an emaicoTToc;, or bishop, at the same time. That is to say, one might be an elder and, at the same time, an overseer. Literally, one might be an older person and at the same time be a superintendent, having the oversight of something.

The question, however, is as to the ecclesiastical, or, at this particular moment, the New Testament, use of the terms. The elders were originally what the word primarily meant — namely, he older persons ; but afterward the word was technically applied to those who were elevated to the position of dignity formerly occupied by those of advanced years, or because of their headship of families. .

The Eev. Edwin Hatch, M.A., in the Bampton Lectures of 1880, traces the gradual change of application in a very ingenious manner. He says : " The patriarchal state of society, in which families lived apart, and the head of the family was its administrator and judge, was succeeded in many parts of the world by the communal system, in which the government of an aggregation of families was in the hands of a council of heads of families — the elders of the commune. And just as the patriarchal system survived through many modifications of social circumstances as an underlying theory of domestic government which has not wholly passed away even from modern society, so the communal system survived through many varieties of political organization as a system of local administration.

"It is found, for example, on the banks of the Nile : long after Egypt had been so far Hellenized that official documents were drawn up in Greek, w T e find from an extant papyrus that the presence of the elder of a village is necessary to the validity of an administrative act. It is found also in Palestine, and its presence there had so important a bearing upon the early organization of the Christian Churches as to render some account of it a necessary preliminary to the further consideration of that organization. It is recognized both in the Mosaic legislation and throughout the Old Testament history. . . . The elders of those early times were probably like the sheykhs who have continued to the present day both among the Bedouins of the desert and in the settled villages of the Arabian peninsula. Their tenure of office rested rather upon the general consent than upon formal appointment, and the limits of their authority were but loosely defined. But in the interval between the close of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New, a more definite form seems to have been given to this primitive institution. It may be gathered from the Talmud that out of the elders or chief men of ever} 7 community a certain number had come to be officially recognized, and that definite rules were laid down for their action. Side by side with the synagogue of a town, but distinct from it, was the ovvedpiov, or local court.. The former was the general assembly or ' congregation ' of the people ; the latter was the ' seat ' of the elders. The two institutions were so far in harmony with one another that the meetings of the local court were held in the synagogue, and that in the meetings of the synagogue for its own proper purposes the elders of the local courts had seats of honor, the nporoicadedplag, which our Lord describes the Pharisees as: coveting: and hence the word synagogue is sometimes used where the word synedrion would be more exact : but the distinction between the two is clearly established, and is of great importance.

" So firm was the hold which this system obtained upon the Jews that they carried it with them into the countries of the dispersion. ... It seems certain upon the evidence that in these communities, to which in the first instance the Apostles naturally addressed themselves, there existed a governing body of elders whose functions were partly administrative and partly, disciplinary. . . . Consequently, when the majority of the members of a Jewish community were convinced that Jesus was the Christ, there was nothing to interrupt the current of their former common life. There was no need for secession, for schism, for a change in the organization. . . . There is no trace of a break in the continuity : and there is con-

The Bishopric in the Early Church.

lo sequently a strong presumption, which subsequent history confirms, that the officers who continued to bear the same names in the same community exercised functions closely analogous to those which they exercised before ; in other words, that the elders of the Jewish community which had become Christian were, like the elders of the Jewish communities which remained Jewish, officers of administration and of discipline." *

As the first Christians were Jews, and hence were familiar with the forms of the synagogue worship and government, it was quite natural that the primary idea of Christian ecclesiasticism would grow out of, or at least bear some similarity to, the customs of Judaism or of the Jewish synagogue ; and, therefore, as in the synagogue government there were elders, it was to be expected that the same people would have elders when they were formed into Christian churches.

Mr. Hatch undertakes also to show that the origin of the presbyterate " in those communities of which the members were Gentiles is equally natural, though rather more complex." f He maintains, first, " that government by a council or committee was all but universal in the organizations with which Christianity came into contact."

* Tfie Organization of the Early Christian Churches, by Edwin Hatch, M.A., Vice-Principal of St. Mary Hall and Grinfield Lecturer in the Septuagint, Oxford. Second Edition Revised, London, 1882, pp. 56-62. f Ibid., p. 62.

" Every municipality of the empire was managed by its curia or senate. Every one of the associations, political or religions, with which the empire swarmed had its committee of officers. It was, therefore, antecedently probable, even apart from Jewish influence, that when the Gentiles who had embraced Christianity began to be sufficiently numerous in a city to require some kind of organization, that organization should take the prevailing form. . . . The names of the governing body varied, but they all imply presidency or government, and they are always used in the plural." *

Then he undertakes to account for " the fact that the members of such council or committee were known by a name which implies seniority." He finds " the idea of respect for seniority in many places and in many forms. So strong was this idea that the terms which were relative to it were often used as terms of respect without reference to age. In the philosophical schools the professor was sometimes called 6 Trpea(3vrepog. In the ascetic communities of Egypt and Palestine respect for seniority was strongly marked, not only in the common usages of life, but also and especially in the assemblies, where the members sat in ranks, the younger beneath the elder, and where it was the task of the eldest and most experienced to discourse about divine things. . . . There was thus an antecedent probability, apart from

* Hatcli : Organization of the Early Christian Churches, pp. 62, 63.

The Bishopric in the Early Church.

Jewish influence, not only that the Christian communities, when organized, would be governed by a council, but also that in the appointment of the members of such a council seniority would be a prime qualification. And this we find to have been the fact in the case. Out of the several names which the members of the Christian councils bore, one ultimately survived the rest : they continue to be known to modern times as ' presbyters.' " *

The fact, however, that the apostles were Jews and that the early Christian churches were made up largely from Jewish converts would be sufficient of itself to account for the creation or continuance of the eldership. We find that the early Christian Church had its elders, without much if any delay. Thus we read in Acts xi, 30, of the elders of the church in Jerusalem, and in Acts xiv, 23, we read of Paul and Barnabas appointing " elders in every church."

Mr. Hatch also undertakes to show that the idea and name of the episcopate came from facts and conditions which existed outside of the Christian Cnurch. He shows that during the first centuries of the Christian era there was a common tendency toward the formation of associations. The most important were religious associations and associations for the purpose of almsgiving, and Hatch remarks that " it is clear from the nature of the case that in

* Hatch: Organization of the EarVy Christian Chwches, pp. 63-65. 2

IS

The Episcopacy of Methodism.

communities which grew up under such circumstances, and in which the eleemosynary element was so prominent, the officer of administration and finance must have had an important place." He further observes that " if we turn to the contemporary non-Christian associations of Asia Minor and Syria — to the nearest neighbors, that is to say, of the Christian organizations — we find that the officers of administration and finance were chiefly known by one or other of two names, not far distant from one another in either form or meaning. The one was km\Lz\r\Tr\(;, which has this additional interest, that it was the designation of the chief officers of the Essenes : the other was the name which became so strongly impressed on the officers of the Christian societies as to have held its place until modern times, and which in almost all countries of both East and West has preserved its form through all the vicissitudes of its meaning — in the Greek Enlononog, the English bishop. There is this further point to be noted in reference to these names, that they were used not only in private associations but also in municipalities : and that they were applied not only to permanent or quasi-permanent officers, but also to the governing body, or a committee of the governing body, when intrusted with administration of funds for any special purpose.

" JSTow, in the Christian communities there appears to have been from the very early times a body of officers : it must be inferred from the identity of the

The Bishopric in the Early Church.

names which were employed that those officers were in relation to the Christian communities what the seriate was in relation to a municipality, and what the committee was in reference to an association. They were known collectively by a name which is common in both relations, that of ordo ; they were known individually as well as collectively by a name which was common to the members of the Jewish avvkdpiob and to the members of the Greek yepovaiai of Asia Minor — that of npe^vrepoc : they were also known — for I shall here assume what the weight of evidence has rendered practically indisputable — by the name kmano^oi. In their general capacity as a governing body they were known by names which were in current use for a governing body : in their special capacity as administrators of Church funds they were known by a name which was in current use for such administrators."*

Here is the opinion of this scholar, who has lately made the question a special study, that the -npeofiv~epoi, or presbyters, and the ettlokottoi, or bishops, in the early Christian Church were the same persons, the one name referring to one thing and the other referring to another. That presbyters and bishops were not two different orders, but different names for the same order, he affirms the " weight of evidence has rendered practically indisputable," and in a foot-note he says : " The admissions of both mediaeval and modern writers

* Hatch: Organization of the Early Christian Churches, pp. 36-39.

of almost all schools of theological opinion have practically removed this from the list of disputed questions."

That in the early- Christian Church the words presbyter and bishop were titles given to the same men and to the same clerical order is admitted by the best authorities.

" In the New Testament the ordinary office bearers in the Christian community have a variety of designations. They are called TTpoiorafievoi, irpeo(3vrepoi, kmoKOTioi, noiiieveg, and fjyovfievoi ; but all these names are used evidently to express the same kind of officers, for they are continually used interchangeably the one for the other.

" The identity of the terms bishop and presbyter within the apostolic Church is now so universally admitted by scholars that the sole question really is, When did bishops begin to exist as separate and superior officers ? and the dispute becomes one of historical facts rather than dogmatic theories." *

Pope says : " The terms employed to denote the ordinary spiritual office-bearers of the Christian community are in their English equivalents presbyters or elders, and bishops or overseers or superintendents. These, however, constitute one order in the New Testament."t

*Ency. Brit, Ninth Edition, art. "Christianity." f Pope's Systematic Theology, vol. iii, p. 342.

The Bishopric in the Early Church.

Archdeacon Farrar declares that " tlie distinction between ' bishop ' and ' presbyter ' " " is not found in the New Testament." *

Dean Stanley says : " It is certain that throughout the first century and for the first years of the second — that is, through the latter chapters of the Acts, the Apostolical Epistles, and the writings of Clement and Hernias — bishop and presbyter were convertible terms. 1 ' f

Again, says Stanley : " In the first age there was no such marked distinction as we now find between the different orders of the clergy. It was only by slow degrees that the name bishop became appropriated to one chief pastor raised high in rank and station above the mass of the clergy.'' $

Turning from the testimony of the English scholars, we may add that of a distinguished prelate of the " Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America." The Eight Rev. H. U. Onderdonk, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, makes this admission : " The name 1 bishop ' which now designates the highest grade of the ministry, is not appropriated to this office in Scripture. That name is given to the middle order, or presbyters ; and all that we read in the New Testament concerning 'Bishops' (including, of course, the words ' overseers ' and i oversight,' which have the same

* Farrar: Early Days of Christianity, Appendix xiv.

derivation,) is to be regarded as pertaining to the middle grade." *

The confession of episcopal authorities like Hatch, Stanley, and Farrar, of the Church of England, and Bishop Onderdonk, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, is of very great value, and for the purposes of this inquiry may be held to be worth much more as evidence than the testimony of anti-episcopal scholars, though the declarations of scholars of non-episcopal denominations is equally clear, and, as to the thoroughness of scholarship, equally strong. That in churches where some claim that bishops are of higher clerical order than presbyters the leading scholars admit that, in New Testament times, bishops and presbyters were the same order stamps their confession with the presumption of conclusiveness.

The early Christian fathers show the original identity of bishops and presbyters as to ministerial order.

Irenseus, who died about A. D. 202, uses the words bishop and presbyter interchangeably. Thus he speaks of Polycarp as a bishop, and, in another place, as an apostolical presbyter, dnooTohinbg Trpeofivrepog.

Justin Martyr, the Christian philosopher who suffered martyrdom, A. D. 165, does not speak of bishops, but, referring to the service in the churches, make mention of deacons, and of the president of the brethren (jrpnsoTcbg r&v adeXty&v), who was evidently nothing more than the officiating presbyter.

* Bishop Onderdonk's Episcopacy Tested by Scripture, p. 12.

The Bishopric in the Early Church.

Polycarp, who wrote about A. D. 140, refers to two orders only. In his Epistle to the Philippians this Bishop of Smyrna opens with the words : " Polycarp, and the presbyters with him," or, as it is also rendered " Polycarp, and those who with him are presbyters." * He does not even mention the word bishop, but uses the words presbyters and deacons, and exhorts the Philippians to be " subject to the presbyters and deacons," showing that they were the governing bodies. If there had been a bishop of superior order at Philippi, doubtless Polycarp would have addressed or referred to him, and the inference, therefore, must be that there was no higher order than that of the presbyters, and it will be remembered that Paul in his salutation to the church at Philippi addresses the bishops and deacons, showing that bishops and presbyters were the same order.

Clement of Pome, who wrote about A. D. 96, recognizes, in his Epistles to the Corinthians, only two orders, under the titles of bishops and deacons. He says the apostles " appointed the first-fruits [of their labors], having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterward believe" (First Epistle of Clement, chap. xlii) ; and in another place (chap, xliv) he uses the title presbyters in reference to those in the episcopate, thus showing the identity of presbyters and bishops. -

The recently discovered Greek manuscript The * Clark's Edinburgh Edition of the Apostolic Fathers, p. 69.

Teaching of the Apostles also reveals that in the early days of the Christian Church there was no clerical order higher than the eldership. This is important evidence, for the Didache, or Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, belongs to a very early period. The best critics agree that it was of Jewish origin and that Palestine was the place of its composition, that it is older than the Shepherd of Hennas, older than the Epistle of Barnabas, and that it was in all probability known to and used by Justin Martyr and Ignatius, which makes it prior to A. D. 115, which the best critics fix as the time of the death of Ignatius.* Lightfoot puts it within from A. D. 80 to A. D. 110. Schaff puts it not later than between A. D. 90 and A. D. 100. Funk assigns it to the last quarter of the first century, and Saba tier dates it as early as A. D. 50, before St. Paul's great missionary journeys were undertaken, while the first editor, Bryennios, placed it from A. D. 120 to A. D. 160, and Harnack puts it in the period between A. D. 135 and A. D. 165.f But whether we accept the earliest date assigned by these critics or one of the later ones, this document is of great antiquity, and has great weight in determining the mntter under investigation, and it shows that in those early days there was no ministerial order higher than the eldership.

* Treatise on' the Teaming of the Apostles, by Dr. Charles Taylor, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, England.

\ Lightfoot on Philippians. Eighth Edition, London, 1885, p. 349.

The Greek address of the " Teaching " is the Teaching of the Lord, through the Twelve Apostles, to the Nations. The fifteenth chapter opens with the words : "Now appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord," " XeipoTovijoare ovv eavrolg emoKonovg Kai diatcovovg a^iovq rov Y^vpLov" This shows that at the time the Teaching was written the Church did not know more than two orders, and that the ztt'iokottqi, or bishops, to whom reference is made, were those who were also called npsoftvrepoi, or presbyters. It will also be noticed in passing that the matter of appointment was with the churches.*

* Note on chapter xv of TJie Teaching of the Apostles, by Professors Hitchcock and Brown: '"Now appoint for yourselves.' XELpoTovrjoare ovv eavroic'] Xsiporoveu occurs only twice in the New Testament (Acts xiv, 23; 2 Cor. viii, 19), and, in both places, means simply to 'appoint.' Josephus used the word in the same sense in Ant, xiii, 2, 2, where Alexander Balas, the pretended son of Antiochus Epiphanes, ' appoints ' Jonathan high-priest. The same meaning appears in Ant, vii, 9, 3 ; viii, 11, 1. In Ant., vi, 5, 4, however, the noun x EL P 0T0VLa is use( ^ of the coronation of Saul. In Josephus, accordingly, the prevailing sense of x £l P 0T0VE0) is to ' appoint.' This is the meaning of the word also in the epistles of Ignatius (about 115 A. D.) { See Philadelphians, chap. 10; Smyrnseans, chap. 11; Poly carp, chap. 7.

" But in the ' Apostolic Canons,' i and ii, and in the ' Apostolic Constitutions,' viii. 4, 5, x El P 0T0V£Ld means to 'ordain.' This represents the usage of the third century, as the New Testament, Josephus, and Ignatius represent the usage of the first and second centuries.

" Now, it is noteworthy that in the 'Apostolic Constitutions,' vii, 31 (the section corresponding to the passage before us), the word em-

Turning to the Kew Testament, which is the ultimate and sufficient authority, the case is very clear. It will be necessary to cite only a few instances showing that the same persons were called bishops and presbyters.

Paul sends for the "elders," or presbyters, of the Church of Ephesus (Acts xx, 17) to meet him at Miletus, and in his address he thus charges them : " Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers." (Acts xx, 28.) Here the Greek word rendered overseers is eiTioKo-ovg, which means bishops, and, so, in the Revised Version, it is rendered bishops, and the equivalent word, overseers, is put in the margin. Kow Paul sends for the "elders" (and the Greek word is np£of3vTEpovg< or presbyters, as it is rendered in the margin of the Revised Version), but, when these elders, or TTpeofiv-Epoi, come, he addresses them as

ployed is not x ei P 0T0V ^ tJ ; which then meant to ' ordain,' but -n-poxetp'i- £o/iai, a new usage having obtained. In this fifteenth chapter of the ' Teaching,' x ei P°" 0V ^ u is employed, evidently, in its original sense of ' appoint.' This indicates the high antiquity of the document, antedating by decades, if not by a whole century, the 'Apostolic Canons,' and the ' Apostolic Constitutions.'

"As for the officers to be ' appointed,' only bishops and deacons are mentioned. By bishops must, of course, be meant presbyters, or elders. There is no sign of a bishop as distinguished from a presbyter, nor of a ruling elder as distinguished from a teaching elder; and, apparently, there was in eacli congregation a plurality both of bishops (or elders) and deacons."

enioftonoi, or bishops, showing that, as he called the presbyters bishops, he understood that the word presbyter and bishop meant the same ministerial order.*

It is also worthy of note that the apostles refer to themselves as elders. Thus in 1 Pet. v, 1, the apostle says : " The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder," or, as it is in the Revised Version, " a fellow-elder." Here Peter speaks of himself as an elder.

In the second verse of the same chapter the apostle says to these elders : " Feed the flock of Christ which is among you, taking the oversight thereof." Now, to take oversight is to be an overseer or bishop, and the Greek word rendered oversight in this place is emGKunovvTeg, which means acting the part of an episcopos or bishop ; so that the work of an elder was episcopal and these elders were bishops. Again, in the Second Epistle of John, the apostle says: " The elder unto the elect lady ; " so that John, the apostle, calls himself an elder or presbyter, and Archdeacon Farrar has a long dissertation proving that the " John the presbyter" referred to by some of the Christian fathers was " John the apostle." f Mosheim remarks : " That the terms bishops and presbyters are applied promiscuously, as synonymous, in the books of the New Testament, is

* See also Phil. i. 1 ; Titus 1, 1, etc.

f Farrar's Early Days of Christianity, Appendix.

The Episcopacy of Methodism.

most clearly manifest from Acts xx, 17, 2S ; Phil, i, 1 ; Tit. i, 5, 7." *

Thus the writings of the Christian fathers and the New Testament show that in the early days of the Christian Church bishops and elders were the same persons, and that the words represented the same clerical order. A better summary of the whole question cannot be found than that given by Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, and here it will be profitable to quote from him on this point. In his dissertation on " the synonyms 'bishop' and 'presbyter'" he says :