Chapter 2
Ministry in the Earliest Christian Communities
Nearly all of the older scholarship on the origins of Christian ministry presumed a high degree of uniformity of practice between different communities of believers and tried with considerable difficulty to reconcile the various allusions in the New Testament to ministries and offices. Unfortunately, even some recent studies tend in a similar direction and seek to force the evidence for every early Christian community to fit the same blueprint, be it of synagogue or household. Modern research on Christian origins in general, however, has recognized the basic diversity and pluriformity of the earliest groups of believers, not only in their theology but also in their liturgical and other practices. Hence there is no reason to suppose that their structures of ministry must have been identical to one another or that one particular pattern of ministry must always have changed over time into another, as some older theories did in presuming that charismatic leadership must have come first in all Christian communities and then eventually replaced by an institutional structure. Indeed, there are no grounds to expect that the concept of a wide variety of different gifts of the Spirit being exercised by different members of the congregation (see 1 Cor 12–14) was ever operative outside the churches that came under Pauline influence, and perhaps not even fully operative within them. Just because Paul believed that certain things should be so does not necessarily mean that they were so.1
AMBIGUOUS TERMINOLOGY
Besides the tendency to presume a greater uniformity than seems to have been the case, there is a further problem facing those trying to understand the practice of ministry in New Testament times: the basic ambiguity of the terms used. Thus, the Greek words diakonos and diakonia are obviously employed in some places in a general, seemingly nontechnical sense to refer to a “minister” (e.g., 1 Cor 3:5; 1 Tim 4:6) and to “ministry” (e.g., Acts 6:1; Rom 15:31).2 This makes it difficult to be confident that a specific office of a deacon is meant in other places. When Paul speaks of diakonia in Romans 12:7, is he referring to service in general or to a specific ministry of service? Indeed, when in the same verse he speaks of “one who teaches,” does he mean a designated official or just someone who engages in teaching? Similarly, when Phoebe is called a diakonos in Romans 16:1, and Tychicus a diakonos in Ephesians 6:21 and Colossians 4:7, are they simply those who serve in a general sense (as seems to be true of Epaphras in Col 1:7) or the holders of the office of deacon? Even Philippians 1:1, where at first sight episkopoi and diakonoi do look like the titles of two distinct sorts of office holders, could simply be referring generically to leaders who also serve.3 In short, the only place in the New Testament where we can be reasonably sure that a particular office holder called a deacon is intended is in 1 Timothy 3:8-13.
In the same way, the word presbyteros seems capable of different meanings. The normal Greek sense is “an older person,” to whom societal norms would expect that respect should be paid because of their age, as seems to be the meaning in 1 Timothy 5:1, 1 Peter 5:5, and Titus 2:2 (where the word presbytēs is used instead). The possibility has been suggested that there could also have been a more specifically Christian sense of “one senior in the faith”—a member of a loosely defined group within the community of believers who had been converted longer than the rest (but not necessarily the oldest)—and therefore looked to for guidance and leadership for that reason, like the household of Stephanas in 1 Corinthians 16:15, which is described as being “the first-fruits of Achaia” (i.e., the earliest converts there).4 This would not be the same as an “elder” in the third, more technical sense in which we find it in later sources, as someone formally appointed as a leader of a Christian community or member of a council of such leaders, although one would expect such people to have been drawn from the other two categories.
The collective noun presbyterion in 1 Timothy 4:14 might seem to suggest this latter sense, but it could be one of the others. Other cases are ambiguous too. Are the elders mentioned along with the apostles of the church at Jerusalem (see Acts 15) in this third category or one of the other two, and what was their relationship to the apostles?5 Likewise, do the elders in 1 Peter 5:1 (and the alleged apostolic author too, who styles himself there as a “fellow-elder”) belong in the same category as the older people mentioned in verse 5, or are they different? And the elders who pray over and anoint the sick in James 5:14, the elder who is the author of 2 John and 3 John, and the elders in the heavenly scenes in Revelation, to which group or groups do they belong? The only two passages that explicitly mention elders being appointed are Acts 14:23, “having appointed elders for them in every church…,” and Titus 1:5, “you would appoint elders in every city.” Although one might not unreasonably presume from the Acts 14 passage that the elders of the church at Ephesus mentioned in Acts 20:17ff., who are said to have been made episkopoi by the Holy Spirit to shepherd the church of God (Acts 20:28), were also appointed officials, that does not necessarily follow. Similarly are the elders “who have led well” (kalōs proestōtes) in 1 Timothy 5:17, of whom only some labor in preaching and teaching, the same as the episkopoi and diakonoi mentioned earlier in the letter, or some other broader group?6
This brings us to the term episkopos and its relation to presbyteros. In the ancient Greek-speaking world, episkopos was a recognized title for a public official appointed by the ruling power, and the service such officials performed might be called a leitourgia. It could also be used of officers of a club or association (known in Latin as a collegium7). It is not necessary, therefore, to look specifically, as some have, to the Hebrew term mebaqqer used for an overseer in some of the Qumran texts, to find a precedent for its adoption by some early Christian communities to denote their appointed officials. Its use in Acts 20:28, however, looks less like an already established name and more like a simile (“the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you episkopous”), although in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 it has clearly become a customary title. Similarly, the terms “pastor” and “evangelist,” occurring in Ephesians 4:11, Acts 21:8 (where Philip, one of the Seven, is designated as “the evangelist”), and 2 Timothy 4:5 (where the recipient is admonished to do the work of an evangelist), seem to be descriptions of what certain people do rather than titles of specific offices held.
Noting that in the Pastoral Epistles episkopos occurs in the singular and diakonoi in the plural, Frances Young proposed that these were the only appointed officers of a congregation in a pattern that had been modeled on the household (see 1 Tim 3:15), the episkopos being the equivalent of the steward of the household (to whom he is compared in Titus 1:7) and the diakonoi the equivalent of the servants, while the elders mentioned in 1 Timothy 5:17 and Titus 1:5 would have been a natural grouping of leading Christians acting as an advisory council to the episkopos. She argued that a similar pattern can also be seen both in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch and in the Didascalia apostolorum, where the bishop and the deacons are the ministers of the congregation and the presbyters an advisory council, and she tentatively suggested that increasing conformity to the model of the synagogue may have encouraged this development, with its ruler (archisynagogos), attendants, and council of elders, a movement from being God’s household to being God’s people.8
This is an interesting idea, but it leaves some questions unanswered. While in 1 Timothy 4:14 the elders seem to have appointed the recipient (as episkopos?), in Titus 1:5 the recipient is instructed to appoint elders in every city, who are then apparently equated with the episkopos (1:7). We also need to remember that houses, even of the very richest Christians, would only have been able to accommodate relatively small congregations to dine there, probably too small to justify a bishop, several deacons, and a whole circle of “elders,” leaving few members who did not fall into one or other of these categories. It seems much more likely therefore that the presbyteroi in these letters and other texts are not a third group of people at all, and we may note that while the qualities requisite in episkopoi and diakonoi are listed in the Pastoral Epistles, there is no separate list of equivalent qualities needed in presbyteroi. Instead, because older men and/or the first converts in a city were looked to for leadership in the earliest communities, the word had now come to be used simply an inclusive generic title for church leaders—such as episkopoi, any prophets and teachers who were there, and possibly the diakonoi too—in a similar way that it had been used in the Old Testament and in Judaism.9 Thus, in 1 Timothy 4:14, the whole leadership in that place laid hands on the recipient, while in Titus 1:5 the recipient was to appoint leaders in every city, each of whom will become an episkopos in his own congregation. Since in very large cities, unless the number of believers there was very small, there would presumably have been several house churches, the leaders of each might naturally be called collectively presbyteroi, especially if some of them were prophets or patrons, while in other congregations there was an appointed episkopos.
ORIGINS
Can we therefore go back behind all this and tentatively reconstruct how these ministries might have emerged? It has long been acknowledged that the earliest Christians commonly met in houses (see, e.g., Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; Phlm 1–2), but connections were not often made between the pattern of hospitality that this would have called for and the pattern of leadership to which it is likely to have given rise. It is only in recent decades that this has come to the fore, and it has begun to be recognized that the natural leader of these emerging congregations would often, though not necessarily always, have been the one in whose house they met.10 As some of these houses were owned by women (see Acts 12:12; Col 4:15), it is probable that in those cases they would have exercised leadership.11 At the same time we must also bear in mind that not all Christian communities would have had a wealthy patron in whose house they could gather, and hence not only their meeting place but also the patterns of leadership they adopted might well have been different from those of a household.12
Others who would have assumed prominent roles within those communities would doubtless have been those who were regarded as possessing the gifts of prophecy and teaching, where such existed in the congregation,13 and it is surely significant that prophets are consistently mentioned second after apostles in lists of God’s gifts to the church (1 Cor 12:28; Eph 2:20; 3:5; 4:11). It seems unlikely that any of these would have been formally appointed, but would simply be people whose gifts were given recognition by their fellow Christians.14 Nor would there necessarily have been any conflict between a host or patron of the church and these charismatic figures, where both existed in the same congregation. The one would have assumed administrative leadership, presided over its common meals and meetings and its charitable works, the others would have taken a leading role in the interpretation of the scriptures and in the revelation of God’s will within the community. Even in the Pauline churches, where those with such gifts seem to have been particularly valued, there appear to have been others exercising leadership alongside them: Romans 12:8 mentions “one who leads” (proistamenos) and the same word is found in the plural in a phrase in 1 Thessalonians 5:12, “those presiding over you in the Lord and admonishing you,” while in 1 Corinthians 16:15-16 the readers are urged to be subject to those like the household of Stephanas, the “first fruits of Achaia.” But, as R. Alistair Campbell has remarked, “Paul’s failure to say more about the leaders there were, is more likely to be because their role as household heads was largely unquestioned than because Paul thought them unimportant.”15
It should not be a particular cause for surprise that the patron or host of the local church, man or woman, would have presided at their regular communal meals. That would have been the natural arrangement within Greco-Roman culture, and we have no evidence to suggest that the Christians thought it necessary to do otherwise. For previous generations of scholars who conceived of the earliest Eucharist as a religious rite composed of specific actions and words instituted by Jesus within the Last Supper (and still today for some), then it naturally followed that they expected its presidency to have been restricted to particular individuals authoritatively designated for that purpose and for it to have been strictly separated from normal eating and drinking at a very early date. But the trend in more recent scholarship is to view the roots of later eucharistic practice as lying within the regular meal customs of the ancient world, in which the householder would naturally preside at table.16 He or she might on occasion have ceded that right to an honored guest, and especially to one of the prophets because of their particular gift of utterance,17 and such people would certainly have been encouraged to address the assembly after the meal with any words of insight and wisdom that they might have. Some of these prophets were women (see Acts 21:9; 1 Cor 11:5).
At some point in the second or third generation of Christians (we do not know exactly when), some congregations, but probably not yet all, began the practice of formally appointing officers (apparently exclusively, or at least normally, male18) to provide specific services for the congregation. To these they gave the names episkopoi and diakonoi, words that seem already to have been used occasionally in a more general sense, and not as official titles, for those serving the congregation by leading it, as in Acts 20:28 and Philippians 1:1 and probably other instances too. It appears that the practice of formal appointment may have been known to the author of Luke-Acts, because of his reference in Acts 14:23 to Paul “appointing” elders in every city. Although anachronistic for Paul’s own communities, it may well reflect the practice of the author’s own day, especially as the verb used here, cheirotoneo, normally means “to elect by raising the hand”19 and would more naturally refer to the action of the community (as it does in 2 Cor 8:19) than to that of an individual, differing from the parallel mention of appointing elders in Titus 1:5, where the verb kathistēmi is used. Possibly the custom began when some patrons wished to delegate certain responsibilities to others, perhaps especially the management of the community’s resources and its charitable work, and they may first have employed their own steward and slaves to do this.
The particular issue lying behind the Pastoral Epistles, probably dating from around the end of the first century, appears to have been that Timothy was apparently rather young to have been given a position of seniority and so potentially liable not to be respected (1 Tim 4:12), especially as here the episkopos seems already to have taken over wider functions than administration. In 1 Timothy 4:13 he is to give attention to “reading, exhortation, teaching,” and in Titus 1:9 he is expected “to exhort with sound teaching and to refute those who oppose it,” while in 1 Timothy 5:17 some of the presbyteroi are said to “labor in preaching and teaching.” Thus, although “prophecy” is said to have played a part in Timothy’s appointment (presumably because either a prophetic voice selected him or a prophet prayed over him), it does not look as if either prophets or other teachers were regular members of the congregation and so able to give this lead in the ministry of the word instead of the bishop. Hence it was thought necessary for Timothy to have received a spiritual gift to do this through his appointment (1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6), which is said to have been effected through the laying on (epithesis) of hands, by the whole “eldership” in the first passage, and by the alleged apostolic author of the letter in the second (see also 1 Tim 5:22). This gesture of commissioning for a particular purpose is recorded as having been accompanied by prayer in Acts 6:6 and by prayer and fasting in Acts 13:3 (see also Acts 14:23), and might be presumed to be so here too.
THE DIDACHE
The date when this church order was composed has been heavily debated, but there is a growing consensus that it may have reached its final form around the end of the first century, even if some of the material in it may be considerably older. Just as in 2 Peter 2:1 and 1 John 4:1, the communities addressed by the Didache seem at one time to have experienced the need to distinguish between true and false itinerant apostles and prophets.20 Tests such as the length of their stay, whether they asked for money, and the congruence of their lifestyle with their teaching are proposed (chapter 11), but it is also anticipated that some prophets and teachers may wish to settle permanently, and if genuine, they can be supported financially (chapter 13). Chapter 15 then directs the whole Christian community to “elect for yourselves bishops and deacons.” The verb used is cheirotoneo, no further details of the process are given, the candidates are said to be male, and there is no mention of presbyters. It continues: “they, too, minister (leitourgousi) to you the ministry (leitourgian) of the prophets and teachers. Therefore do not despise them, for they are to be honored among you with the prophets and teachers.”
The general consensus of scholars has been to see this as evidence for a situation where charismatic leaders were being gradually replaced by elected bishops and deacons because of a decline in the number of the former or because of the difficulty of distinguishing true from false prophets, and where this transition involved something of a struggle to persuade people to give equal respect to these less obviously gifted replacements. André de Halleux, however, argued that (a) prophets and teachers in the Didache constituted one category and not two, (b) they were usually resident and not itinerant, (c) they existed alongside bishops and deacons rather than being replaced by them, and (d) there is no need to view chapter 15 as a later addition to the rest of the text, as many scholars do.21 While this may be going a little too far, it is possible that the Didache does reflect a situation where both charismatic and elected officials had formerly shared together in the leadership of the community, with different responsibilities, but that with the decline of the former, the latter were now being called upon to fulfill a wider role and take upon themselves functions once exercised by the charismatic leaders, apparently including praying at the community’s meals. This would explain the existence of prayer-texts in Didache 9–10, an unusual feature in Christianity as in early Judaism, where prayers were not normally written. While prophets were to be free to use their own words (10.7), less gifted leaders might need some written help to prevent them from appearing liturgically incompetent. Nothing, however, is said about these men receiving any financial support from their community (where there are no prophets, the first-fruits that would have been given to them are to be donated to the poor22), nor is it completely clear from the text whether each community would have several bishops as well as deacons, or whether there would be only one bishop together with several deacons in each place.
THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS
This work is believed to have originated in Rome and is usually dated around the middle of the second century, although several scholars have contended that it was written much earlier, near the end of the first century.23 Whatever the truth of this claim, the document certainly reflects a very primitive stage of ministry development. It is not entirely clear whether the diakonoi who are mentioned in Similitude 9.26.2 as having “ministered badly” and embezzled funds intended for the relief of widows and orphans are “deacons” as such or whether the term is being used in a more general sense, as diakonia is in Similitude 9.27.2; but because diakonoi are listed along with apostles, teachers, and bishops in Vision 3.5.1, it seems more likely that specific officials are intended. The author addresses his remarks “to those who are leaders [proēgoumenois] of the church” and “to those in the first seats [protokathedritais]” (Vision 2.2.6; 3.9.7). Elsewhere there is mention of presbyteroi “who preside [proistamenōn] in the church” (Vision 2.4.2-3) and of episkopoi (Vision 3.5.1) who have a ministry (diakonia) of hospitality (Similitude 9.27.2).24 The question that arises, therefore, is whether episkopoi and presbyteroi here are alternative designations for the same group of people, or whether distinctions should be made between them. Harry Maier believed that certain elders out of a larger presbyteral body acted as bishops, each one representing a house church, although there was not as yet a full distinction between episkopoi and presbyteroi.25 This is a plausible explanation, but not the only possible one.
It seems that prophets also still exercised some influence on this community, as the need to distinguish between true and false prophets is discussed in Mandate 11 and the author is told to communicate his prophetic visions to the elders in Vision 2.4.2–3, even though prophets are not included in the list of ministers in Vision 3.5.1 (“apostles and teachers and bishops and deacons”), unless they are to be equated with the teachers. Although there is no explicit evidence for the existence of specific conflict between prophetic and presbyteral authority, there are many references to divisions between members, at least some of which were over prominence and involved leaders (Vision 3.9.9–10; Similitudes 8.7.4; 9.31.4–6), and in one place a false prophet is described as “coveting the first seat (protokathedria)” (Mandate 11.12), which certainly suggests a lack of harmonious leadership within the church. It is possible, therefore, that some house churches might have been under the leadership of a prophet or prophets26 and others under that of an episkopos. In that case, presbyteroi could be being used generically for all church leaders, and episkopoi for those of them who had been appointed as an individual head of a house church, just as we have suggested that it was in the Pastoral Epistles.
THE FIRST LETTER OF CLEMENT
Dispute over leadership is clearly manifested in 1 Clement, written on behalf of the church at Rome to the Christians in Corinth and usually dated ca. 96 CE, although both earlier and later dates have occasionally been suggested.27 The whole letter is a denunciation of those in Corinth who have removed from office some who have fulfilled their ministry blamelessly (44.6). Attempts have been made by various scholars to determine the cause of the dispute, whether it was, for example, charismatic or gnostic Christians who were rejecting the authority structures, a rebellion by the young against the old, a theological dispute, or merely a personality clash, but there is simply not enough evidence to draw any firm conclusions,28 and, in any case, the letter may reveal more about the situation in the Roman church than it does about the church at Corinth. Maier concluded that there had been “a division within one or two of the Corinthian house churches which has resulted in the creation of an alternative meeting place, the exodus of members who were sympathetic with these persons and, presumably, the exclusion of members who are opposed to them.”29 On the other hand, the author of the letter could have been trying to play down the seriousness and extent of the disruption, which may have involved more than just “a few reckless and arrogant individuals” (1.1; see also 47.6).
The author’s argument against removing people from office rests on the importance of not transgressing the respective orders established by God for different people. He asserts that God does not arrange things randomly, but in the Scriptures prescribed the particular times for sacrifices to be offered and where and by whom this should be done. “For to the high priest his proper services have been assigned, to the priests their proper office has been appointed, and on the Levites their proper ministries have been laid. The lay person is bound by the laity’s ordinances” (40.5). Although this comparison might seem to suggest that the author had in mind a threefold order of ordained Christian ministers, references to bishops and presbyters elsewhere in the letter have been treated by most scholars as synonyms for the same office: the corporate leadership of the church.30 On the other hand, it may be better to see presbyteroi once again as a general inclusive title for church leaders (44.4; 47.6; 54.2; 57.1), with episkopos and diakonos as the names of the specific offices.
The author not only cites this scriptural precedent in defense of his position but also claims apostolic institution of the ministers. He asserts that the apostles themselves originally appointed (kathistamon) their “first fruits” as bishops and deacons—an arrangement that, he says, was no novelty but already prophesied in Isaiah 60:17, which he cites as naming episkopous and diakonous rather than the archontas and episkopous, “rulers and overseers,” of the Septuagint text (42.4–5). This may perhaps contain a kernel of genuine historical truth, even if those particular titles were not used at as early a date as that. But it is interesting to note that when it comes to maintaining that the apostles intended these offices to be held for life, he seems to speak somewhat more cautiously, saying only that they “afterwards added the codicil that if they should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministry [leitourgian].” The method of their appointment had been “by other men of repute”31 but “with the consent of the whole church,” and so it would be sinful to “eject those who have offered the gifts of the episcopate blamelessly and purely” (44.2–4). This expression, which can alternatively be rendered “eject from the episcopate those who have offered the gifts blamelessly and purely,” is usually treated by commentators as a reference to their offering of the eucharistic sacrifice, especially in the light of the author’s earlier use of the Old Testament priesthood as a “type” of Christian ministry, but Ulrich Volp has suggested that it could mean “bring donations” and so be referring, instead, to their economic and financial responsibilities.32
What is particularly interesting is that in the whole of this lengthy and impassioned plea for obedience to God’s will, the author never once plays what would surely have been a trump card: a reference to the fact that the expulsion of church leaders is unheard of, and contrary to the practice of all churches. Later Christian writers had no hesitation in making universalistic claims for various liturgical practices that were, in reality, far from being generally observed. Why then did our author draw back from using such an argument? Could it have been because he was well aware that such an assertion could easily be disproved?
POLYCARP’S LETTER TO THE PHILIPPIANS
This letter is usually thought to have been written somewhere between the years 110 and 140. It does not use the word episkopos anywhere, but is addressed from “Polycarp and the presbyters that are with him.” It speaks of the qualities required in deacons and in presbyters (5.2–6.1). Young men are admonished to submit themselves to the presbyters and deacons “as to God and Christ” (5.3), and the presbyters are charged with care of the sick, widows, orphans and the poor (6.1). There is no explicit mention of them presiding at worship or of exercising the ministry of the word.
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH
The problem we encountered in the Didache—the apparent reluctance of congregations to accept the authority of bishops and deacons as equal to that of prophets and teachers—seems to recur in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, together with a similar reluctance to surrender the independence of individual congregations to a wider oversight. These letters have conventionally been dated soon after the beginning in the second century, and thought to provide the earliest clear evidence for the existence of a threefold order of bishop, presbyters, and deacons, at least in some churches. More recently, however, this dating has been challenged by several scholars, and it has been suggested that the letters may in fact be forgeries, written in the 160s or even 170s.33 But even those who continue to champion their authenticity now tend to see Ignatius as trying to impose a new pattern on churches that hitherto had not been structured in that way, rather than simply reflecting what was already a well-established arrangement.34
Ignatius repeatedly insisted on the necessity of obedience to the bishop, presbyters, and deacons, apparently against opponents who seemingly did not share his position, and so the letters represent a particular view that ultimately came to triumph but which did not achieve supremacy without a considerable struggle against alternative positions and practices. Thus, Christine Trevett argued that Ignatius’ opponents, who were continuing to hold their own liturgical assemblies, were under the leadership of those displaying prophetic gifts,35 with the result that Ignatius himself is forced into the rather contradictory position of claiming that he too has received a charismatic revelation—people should respect episcopal rather than charismatic authority! “I cried out when I was among you; I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God: ‘Give heed to the bishop and to the presbytery and deacons.’… I did not learn it from human flesh, but the Spirit proclaimed this word: ‘Do nothing without the bishop”’ (Philadelphians 7).
The typology used for the three offices in the letters is not completely consistent and, in any case, does not portray a strictly hierarchical sequence. In Magnesians 6.1, the bishop is described as presiding in the place of God, the presbyters occupy the place of the college of the apostles, while the deacons are said to be entrusted with the ministry (diakonia) of Christ—a role clearly superior to that of the apostles! In Trallians 2–3.1, on the other hand, the people are to be subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ, and to the presbyters as to the apostles, leaving the deacons to be described as ministers of the mysteries of Christ who should be pleasing to all. A similar picture is painted in Smyrnaeans 8.1. Moreover, we need to recall that the term diakonos did not necessarily connote a position of inferiority but of a trusted representative.36
Ulrich Volp has gone further in questioning the status of the bishop in these letters, arguing that it was not until the third century that the episcopal office acquired any specifically liturgical functions and therefore prior to this time others would have presided at worship. He sees the bishop’s role here as being that of God’s oikonomos, “steward” (Polycarp 6.1), the person responsible for managing the community’s resources, and it is for that reason that he is said to be the one without whom an agape ought not to be held (Smyrneans 8.2). Volp maintains that Ignatius actually distinguishes the bishop from those who preside, tois prokathēmenois, in Magnesians 6.2.37
I believe he overstates the argument, for if the bishop is only functioning as an oikonomos in the Christian community, why is his presence also required for a valid baptism in Smyrnaeans 8.2? Volp’s answer that he was responsible for ensuring the use of the right kind of water and the correct environment is not very convincing, but he may be correct in discerning the activity of stewardship as constituting the origin of the bishop’s office, even if it had now grown beyond that function; and eucharistic presidency was certainly not the exclusive prerogative of the bishop: it is just that Ignatius wants it to be restricted to “one to whom he has entrusted it” (Smyrnaeans 8.1)—something that does not appear to be happening. Nor would all bishops necessarily have yet taken a prominent role in the ministry of the word. Although Ignatius’ references to “silent bishops” have been variously interpreted by scholars, one possibility is that they are to those who lacked the gift of preaching and teaching, and so ceded this function to others.38 Finally, we should note that the verb used for making ecclesiastical appointments is cheirotoneo, “elect” (Philadelphians 10.1; Smyrnaeans 11.2; Polycarp 7.2).
JUSTIN MARTYR
In the description of Christian worship contained in his First Apology written at Rome in the middle of the second century, Justin refers to “those called by us deacons,” who distribute the consecrated bread and wine to those present and take it to those who are absent (65.5; 67.5). He also mentions a “reader” (67.4), but it is not clear whether this is the title of a permanent official or just referring to a person who reads, and also a “president” (proestōs: 65.3, 5; 67.4–7), who in a discourse admonishes and exhorts the people to live according to what has been read, gives thanks over the bread and wine, and is responsible for receiving and distributing money that is given for the relief of those in need. It is unlikely that proestōs was an official title used in Justin’s community; instead, it is employed to be intelligible to his non-Christian readers, as it was normally used for the head of a philosophical school. Interestingly, it is the same word as in 1 Timothy 5:17, where some of the elders who have led well (kalōs proestōtes) are said to labor in preaching and teaching, but different from proistamenos used of a leader elsewhere in the New Testament (Rom 12:8; 1 Thess 5:12) and in Hermas (Vision 2.4.2–3) or prokathemenos in Ignatius (Magnesians 6.2). Justin may also have chosen it because he was aware that those occupying this role in Christian congregations might be an episkopos, presbyteros, or even a prophet, and so he needed a generic designation.
THE DIDASCALIA APOSTOLORUM
This church order has traditionally been regarded as an early third-century composition originating from Syria, but Alistair Stewart-Sykes has recently argued that it is more like the other church orders in early Christianity, being made up of different strata that were gradually put together over a period stretching from the late first century through to the early fourth century.39 Scholars have always thought that the presbyters mentioned in this text were rather inactive compared to the bishop and deacons, to whom specific functions are allotted, and Stewart-Sykes claims that mention of them was added in a later layer than that in which the activities of bishop and deacons were described, thus suggesting an evolution in the patterns of ministry from one historical period to another. He notes that there are directions for the appointment of bishops, deacons, and widows, but none for presbyters. The bishop here appears to be the head of a single congregation and not a group of churches, and to be primarily concerned with the administration of the church’s charity and the exercise of discipline. There is no trace of opposition from charismatic figures, unlike some of the other sources we have examined, but Stewart-Sykes suggests that the many injunctions given to the bishop not to show deference to persons imply that the office was still subject to pressure from wealthy lay patrons.40
The bishop should ideally be not less than fifty years of age and be learned, but if he is illiterate, he should be skillful with words and advanced in years. If in a small congregation it is not possible to find an older man who is suitable, but there is a younger man whose maturity and good conduct are attested by all, then he can receive the imposition of hands and be placed in the episcopal seat (Didascalia 2.2). All this suggests a quite early stage in the evolution of the ordained ministry. There is no sign that similar community approbation was required in the appointment to other ministries, but simply the nomination of the bishop (see 3.12). We shall return to other aspects of this church order in a later chapter.
THE SO-CALLED APOSTOLIC TRADITION OF HIPPOLYTUS
Although this church order was once thought to be the Apostolic Tradition by Hippolytus and to have originated in Rome in the early third century, it is now increasingly recognized as an anonymous work made up of layers from different places and again built up over the same sort of period as Stewart-Sykes has suggested for the Didascalia.41 Here, in a section that seems to be based on the oldest stratum of material in the work (dating perhaps from the middle of the second century) and that mentions a host or patron who invites the community to eat, the bishop is nonetheless expected to be the one who says the blessing over the food and drink (if absent, he can be replaced in this by a presbyter or a deacon, but not a layperson) and who controls the discourse that accompanies the meal—activities that in normal Greco-Roman society would have belonged to the host/patron. This seems to be an instance of a situation where an older pattern of leadership by the patron in a Christian community was giving way to one exercised by the bishop.42 Again, we shall return to the later layers of this work in a subsequent chapter.
IRENAEUS
Irenaeus, originally from Smyrna in Asia Minor, was Bishop of Lyons in France in the latter part of the second century. As is well known, his main contribution to the theology of ordained ministry was his development of the concept of apostolic succession, not in the later sense of the unbroken transmission of grace from ordainer to ordinand, but in terms of a line of authoritative teachers in the ancient sees stretching back to the apostles, who had received the “sure gift of truth” (Adversus haereses 4.26.2), which thereby guaranteed the orthodoxy of their doctrine against the claims of Gnosticism.43 But it is interesting to note that even at this date, Irenaeus continued to use the word presbyters in its older sense of church leaders in general, effectively employing it as a synonym for bishops (e.g., Adversus haereses 3.2.2; 3.3.1; 4.26.2, 5) and even speaking of the predecessors of Victor, Bishop of Rome, as “presbyters” (in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 5.24.14–16). There also existed some who were false presbyters (Adversus haereses 4.26.3). On the other hand, he was clearly aware of the more recent sense of the word, so that when paraphrasing Acts 20:17, where Paul sends to Ephesus for the elders of the church, he describes them instead as “bishops and presbyters” from Ephesus and other cities (Adversus haereses 3.14.2).
Irenaeus also provides us with the earliest instance of a connection being made between Stephen and his companions in Acts 6 and the diaconate (Adversus haereses 1.26.3; 3.12.10; 4.15.1). Nevertheless, the older typology that associated deacons with the diakonia of Christ still persisted in some later writings. He also implied the continuing existence of prophets, or at least of some whom he regards as “false prophets” (Adversus haereses 4.33.6), and we know from other sources that they continued to play a significant part in Montanist circles, even if they had by now lost their authority to bishops in more mainstream Christian communities.
CONCLUSION
The picture that emerges from all these early sources is of a gradual movement from communities in which leadership seems generally to have been very loosely structured, with the patron of the church, those displaying the gift of prophecy, and other senior converts all taking some part in its community meals, in the interpretation of God’s word and in the distribution of charity to the poor, to a later situation in which formally appointed episkopoi and diakonoi were added to the mix in some places, with the term presbyteroi generally being used more broadly to cover various kinds of leaders. The responsibility of these appointed officials gradually expanded, at speeds varying from place to place, from a primary concern with the administration of the community, and especially its charitable work, to a more dominant role in the ministry of the word and in other liturgical functions, as other leaders slowly faded from the picture or were challenged by the bishop in seeking to expand his own position.
With the letters of Ignatius, whenever they were written, however, we enter new territory in which the writer wants to reserve the term episkopos for the chief minister in a city and employ presbyteroi for all others who once would have shared that title, thereby seeking to subordinate them and their congregations to the authority of the bishop. His vision appears to have taken considerable time to catch on, and in some places, especially Rome, it does not seem to have established itself until the latter part of the second century, or even later still.44 In this process the structure became more clearly hierarchical, as we shall see in the next chapter. For this early period, there is little indication of the method by which the church officers were appointed. Some sort of election, or at least ratification by the community of the choice of candidate, appears to have been usual, and prayer with imposition of hands by other community leaders may perhaps be presumed, but our sources do not provide us with details. For that we must wait until a somewhat later era.
and 
,” JTS 45 (1994): 142–48.