The Rise of Bishops

From Parish Leaders to Regional Governors

David W. T. Brattston

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781666709759
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

The Rise of Bishops reveals how Christian congregations, which were self-governing in the second and third centuries, became subject to the general supervision and direction of diocesan bishops and higher officeholders, thus ending their independence from outside the local parish. The New Testament says nothing about church government after the apostles. Thus, the question becomes "who replaced the apostles?" Local church congregations in the period between AD 100 to 300 appear to have been administered by bishops and deacons, and sometimes elders, all as congregational officeholders, with no superstructure above the congregation. Yet, the fourth century sees congregations governed in groups by a collective hierarchy, based on diocesan bishops. This book attributes most of the change to Constantine the Great and his immediate successors, motivated by desire for more efficient functioning and greater control by the emperors once the majority church was co-opted into the Roman state.Although bishops have long been key officials in the church, surprisingly little has been written in our time on how the framework for choosing and regulating them developed in early times. What little is available consists of journal articles rather than standalone publications. The Rise of Bishops helps close this gap.

Chapter 1

The New Testament Period

Christian Congregations mentioned in the New Testament were all directed by and in contact with apostles. Nothing is said about church government without apostles. In addition to the extensive directions in Paul’s epistles, the New Testament contains eight examples of some person or organization exercising a degree of control over a congregation, each of whom was an apostle.

First, according to Acts 13:1–3, Paul and companions were commissioned as missionaries by a group of prophets and teachers within the church at Antioch. Acts 14:23 records that Paul and Barnabas in turn ordained elders in every church of a missionary field, but does not comment on the purpose or the powers granted to these new church officers or why they were appointed. Elders/presbyters appear suddenly in the New Testament, without indications in the text of when their office was instituted, why they were appointed, qualifications required, or their duties and responsibilities, until the Pastoral Epistles, late in the development of the first-century church. From Acts 15 it appears they performed some deliberative or legislative role in conjunction with apostles, but the New Testament records them acting in other functions as well, always secondarily to apostles.

Secondly, Colossians is the only epistle of Paul that hints that a church in one town possessed jurisdiction over the congregation in another. It commands the Christians of Colossae: “when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea” (4:16). The variety of English meanings of the operative word here (ποιήσατε) neither confirm nor exclude the sense that Colossae held authority over Laodicea. Colossians 4:16 was not cited by any ante-Nicene Christian writing,1 unless we include the late and spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans, of which M. R. James comments, “It is not easy to imagine a more feebly constructed cento of Pauline phrases.”2

Thirdly, Acts 15:2 speaks of the Antiochenes as going to Jerusalem for the resolution of a dispute, instead of inviting representatives from Jerusalem to Antioch, or meeting in a third, neutral place. They appear to have treated Jerusalem as a mother church, or at least as having some higher status than themselves. In the same way, Colossae could have been the mother church exercising oversight over Laodicea, in the same manner as Rome later exercised over Western Christendom, and diocesan cathedrals over distant congregations. Yet the postbiblical evidence to the middle of the fourth century indicates that whatever oversight there was over congregations and clergy was by councils, where they existed, rather than one congregation subordinate to another.

Fourthly, it appears in Acts 15 that the Council of Jerusalem was held between only two congregations, presbyteries, or dioceses, one at Jerusalem and one at Antioch. Yet the decisions of the Council were distributed as binding on congregations in Syria and Anatolia (15:23–29). The Antiochene church may have represented them, or have been a mother church exercising binding jurisdiction over them, and the Jerusalem church over those in Judaea. Verse 16:4 speaks of the decision as that of “The apostles and elders and brethren” (15:23) or “of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem” (16:4). Nor did they consider it to be enough to entrust the Antiochene delegation with a copy of the decision, but sent leading members of the Jerusalem community to accompany them (15:22, 27). It was not apostles alone who made the decision, but the elders as well, with perhaps further ratification by the Jerusalem laity (brethren). It is unclear whether the elders in Acts 15 held powers approximate to those of later bishops, for we would expect nascent bishops as well as presbyters to be present at such an important conference, if the office of bishop had been instituted this early. Noteworthy here is the observation of Robert M. Grant: “In the New Testament itself the bishop is mentioned in the singular only three times (I Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:7; I Pet. 2:25, of Christ, cf. Ign. Rom. 9:1) and in the plural only twice (Acts 20:28; Phil. 1:1).”3

The Council of Acts 15 and the composition of 1 Clement took place in the time of the apostles, who had been directly commissioned by Christ and still received visions from him. They could write what later became Scripture, and issue instructions with divine authorization. Their authority was unique, and the postbiblical literature does not contemplate that apostles’ super-congregational authority or the office of apostles would continue. The apostles in the Didache exercised no legislative functions but were completely under the control of the host congregation, unlike those in the New Testament. It is anachronistic to project the institutions of the later church into the apostolic age, such as the writer of 1 Clement being in the position of the later bishops of Rome. In fact, 1 Clement may have been written by an apostle rather than, as is generally assumed, by some second-generation officer of the congregation at the city of Rome. It does not indicate what sanctions Rome could impose if the Corinthians failed to heed it. It contains no threat to excommunicate. It could not inflict any penalty, for any punishment or intervention would have come from one of the apostles, some of whom were alive when 1 Clement was written.

First Clement may have been written by the apostle John the Revelator. According to the church father Tertullian, John resided at Rome long enough to be detected as a Christian, escape death during a persecution, and then banished to Patmos. Speaking of City of Rome, Tertullian noted: “where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! where Paul wins his crown in a death like John’s [the Baptist’s]! where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile!”4 Tertullian wrote this somewhere between AD 198 and 207. This explains why someone in Rome became involved in the deposition of clergy at Corinth, which was much farther from Rome than John’s sometime habitation and ministry in Ephesus and the eastern shore of the Aegean. If John was permanently resident at Ephesus, it is odd that he is not mentioned in the Epistle to that church or those to Timothy.

The fifth is 3 John:

9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. 10 Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

It appears from this passage that the author’s authority was not universally recognized at this time, similar to the situation described in 1 Clement. Third John appears to indicate a nonresident overseer or diocesan bishop in the modern sense with only very limited powers, having authority to intervene in congregational affairs, yet all the author can do is to raise the issue with the congregation; it appears that he possessed no power of his own to excommunicate or depose Di...