Part III, Chapter XLII, 5

What might seem to give the New Testament the force of law for those who had embraced Christian doctrine in times and places of persecution is the decrees they made among themselves in synods. For in (Acts 15.28.) we read the declaration of the council of the Apostles, elders, and whole Church: “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, &c.” This language suggests a power to impose a burden on those who had received their doctrine. Now “to lay a burden on another” seems to mean the same as “to oblige”; and thus the acts of that council would be laws for Christians of the time. Nevertheless, they were no more laws than these other precepts: “Repent; be baptized; keep the commandments; believe the Gospel; come to me; sell all you have; give it to the poor”; and “follow me.” These are not commands but invitations and calls to Christianity, like that in Esay 55.1.: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; come, buy wine and milk without money.” First, the Apostles' power was no other than our Savior's: to invite people to embrace the Kingdom of God, which they themselves acknowledged was not a present Kingdom but one to come; and those who have no Kingdom can make no laws. Second, if the acts of their council were laws, they could not be disobeyed without sin. But nowhere do we read that those who did not receive Christ's doctrine thereby sinned; rather, they died in their sins—that is, their offenses against laws they were obliged to obey were not pardoned. Those laws were the Laws of Nature and the civil laws of the state, to which every Christian had submitted by Covenant. Hence the burden the Apostles might place on their converts must be understood not as laws, but as conditions proposed to those seeking salvation. They might accept or reject these at their own peril, without a new sin, though not without the risk of condemnation and exclusion from the Kingdom of God for past sins. Accordingly, St. John does not say of unbelievers that the wrath of God “will come” upon them, but that “the wrath of God remains upon them”; nor that they will be condemned, but that “they are condemned already” (John 3.36, 3.18). Nor can we conceive that the benefit of faith “is forgiveness of sins” unless we also conceive that the harm of unbelief is the retention of those same sins.

But why, someone may ask, should the Apostles and later pastors of the Church meet to agree what doctrine of faith and conduct should be taught if nobody was obliged to follow their decrees? The answer is that the Apostles and elders at that council, simply by joining it, bound themselves to teach the doctrine agreed and decreed there, insofar as it conflicted with no earlier law they were bound to obey. But this did not oblige every other Christian to observe what they taught. Though they could deliberate about what each of them should teach, they could not deliberate about what others must do, unless their assembly possessed legislative power; and only civil Soveraigns could possess that power. For although God is Soveraigne of the whole world, we are not bound to accept as his law everything anyone puts forward in his name, nor anything contrary to the civil law, which God has expressly commanded us to obey.

Since, then, the acts of the Apostles' council were not laws but counsels, still less are the acts of any later teachers or councils laws if they meet without the civil Soveraigne's authority. Consequently, although the books of the New Testament are the most perfect rules of Christian doctrine, only the authority of kings or sovereign assemblies could make them laws.

No record survives of the first council that made the Scriptures we now possess canonical. For the collection attributed to the first bishop of Rome after St. Peter is open to question: although it lists the canonical books, its words “Sint vobis omnibus Clericis & Laicis Libris venerandi, &c.” distinguish clergy from laity, a distinction not in use so close to St. Peter's time. The first surviving council to settle the canonical Scriptures was that of Laodicea, Can. 59. It forbids the reading of other books in churches, but its command is addressed not to every Christian, only to those authorized to read anything publicly in church—that is, to church officers alone.

Among church officers in the Apostles' time, some held teaching offices and others serving offices. The teaching offices included preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to unbelievers, administering the sacraments and divine service, and teaching rules of faith and conduct to converts. The serving office belonged to deacons, appointed to administer the Church's material needs when its members lived from a common fund raised by the faithful's voluntary contributions.

Among the teaching officers, the first and chief were the Apostles. At first there were only twelve, chosen and appointed by our Savior himself. Their office was not only to preach, teach, and baptize, but also to be martyrs—that is, witnesses of our Savior's resurrection. This testimony was the specific and essential mark distinguishing apostleship from other church offices: an Apostle had to have seen our Savior after his resurrection or have lived with him before it, witnessed his works, and seen other evidence of his divinity, so that he could be accepted as a sufficient witness. Accordingly, at the election of a new Apostle to replace Judas Iscariot, St. Peter says (Acts 1.21,22.): “From the men who accompanied us all the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, from the baptism of John to the day he was taken up from us, one must be appointed to witness his resurrection with us.” The word “must” implies that accompanying the first and foremost Apostles while our Savior appeared in the flesh was a necessary qualification for an Apostle.

Matthias made Apostle by the congregation.

The first Apostle not appointed by Christ during his life on earth was Matthias, chosen as follows. About 120 Christians were assembled at Jerusalem (Acts 1.15.). They nominated two, Joseph the Just and Matthias (verse 23.), and had lots drawn; “and (verse 26.) the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the Apostles.” We thus see that this Apostle's ordination was the act of the congregation, not of St. Peter or the eleven except as members of the assembly.

After Matthias, no others were ordained Apostles except Paul and Barnabas. This took place, as we read in Acts 13.1,2,3., in this way: “In the church at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ And after they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands upon them, they sent them away.”

It is clear from this that, although the Holy Ghost called them, their calling was declared to them and their mission authorized by the particular Church of Antioch. Their calling was to the apostleship, as is evident from the fact that both are called Apostles in Acts 14.14. St. Paul makes clear (Rom. 1.1.) that it was by this act of the Church of Antioch that they became Apostles, since he uses the word the Holy Ghost used at his calling: he calls himself “an Apostle set apart for the Gospel of God,” echoing “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, &c.” But since an Apostle's work was to witness Christ's resurrection, someone may ask how St. Paul, who had not lived with our Savior before his Passion, could know that he had risen. The answer is simple: after his Ascension, our Savior himself appeared to Paul from Heaven on the road to Damascus and “chose him as a vessel to bear his name before the Gentiles, kings, and children of Israel.” Having seen the Lord after his Passion, Paul was therefore a competent witness of his resurrection. Barnabas, for his part, was a disciple before the Passion. It is therefore evident that Paul and Barnabas were Apostles, yet chosen and authorized not by the first Apostles alone but by the Church of Antioch, just as Matthias was chosen and authorized by the Church of Jerusalem.

Bishop, a word formed in our language from the Greek Episcopus, means an overseer or superintendent of any activity, and particularly a pastor or shepherd. From there it was used metaphorically, not only among the Jews, who were originally shepherds, but also among the heathen, to signify the office of a king or any other ruler or guide of a people, whether he ruled by laws or by doctrine. So the Apostles were the first Christian bishops, instituted by Christ himself; in this sense the apostleship of Judas is called his bishopric (Acts 1.20.). Later, when elders were appointed in Christian churches to guide Christ's flock through their doctrine and advice, these elders were also called bishops. Timothy was an elder—the word “elder” in the New Testament names an office as well as an age—yet he was also a bishop. Bishops, moreover, were content with the title of elder. Even St. John himself, the Apostle beloved of our Lord, opens his Second Epistle with the words, “The elder to the elect lady.” It is clear, then, that in the Apostles' time bishop, pastor, elder, and doctor—that is, teacher—were different names for the same office. For there was as yet no government by coercion, only by doctrine and persuasion. The Kingdom of God was yet to come, in a new world; there could therefore be no authority to compel within any church until the Common-wealth embraced the Christian faith. Consequently, although their duties differed, their authority did not.

Apart from these teaching employments in the Church—Apostles, bishops, elders, pastors, and doctors—whose calling was to proclaim Christ to Jews and unbelievers, and to direct and teach believers, we read of no others in the New Testament. The names “evangelists” and “prophets” signify not offices but distinct gifts by which different people served the Church. Evangelists served by writing about our Savior's life and acts, as did the Apostles St. Matthew and St. John, the disciples St. Mark and St. Luke, and whoever else wrote on the subject (as St. Thomas and St. Barnabas are said to have done, though the Church has not accepted the books circulated under their names). Prophets served through their gift of interpreting the Old Testament, and sometimes by reporting their particular revelations to the Church. Neither these gifts, nor the gift of languages, of casting out devils, of curing other diseases, or any other gift made anyone an officer of the Church. Only a proper calling and election to the charge of teaching could do that.

Just as the Apostles Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas were not appointed by our Savior himself but elected by the Church—that is, the assembly of Christians: Matthias by the Church of Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas by the Church of Antioch—so presbyters and pastors in other cities were elected by the churches of those cities. For proof, let us first consider how St. Paul proceeded in ordaining presbyters in the cities where he had converted people to the Christian faith, soon after he and Barnabas received their apostleship. We read in Acts 14.23. that “they ordained elders in every church.” At first this may seem to mean that Paul and Barnabas themselves chose and authorized them. But the original text makes clear that they were chosen and authorized by the Christian assembly of each city. Its words are “cheirotonesantes autoispresbuterous kat ekklesian,” that is, “When they had ordained elders for them by the raising of hands in every congregation.” It is well known that in all these cities magistrates and officers were chosen by a plurality of votes; and because the ordinary way to distinguish affirmative from negative votes was by raised hands, ordaining an officer in any city meant no more than assembling the people to elect him by a plurality of votes. These might be raised hands, voices, balls, beans, or small stones, of which each person dropped one into a vessel marked affirmative or negative, for cities differed in their customs on this point. It was therefore the assembly that elected its elders. The Apostles merely presided, calling the assembly together for the election, announcing who had been elected, and giving the blessing now called consecration. For this reason the presiding officers of assemblies, as the elders were in the Apostles' absence, were called proestotes, or in Latin Antistities. These words mean the leading person of the assembly, whose office was to count votes and declare who was elected; and, if votes were equal, to settle the question by adding his own vote—the office of a president in council. Because all churches ordained presbyters in the same way, where Scripture says “appoint,” as in Titus 1.5., “ina katasteses kata polin presbuterous,” “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should appoint elders in every city,” we must understand the same procedure: he was to assemble the faithful and ordain presbyters by a plurality of votes. It would have been strange if, in a town where people perhaps had never seen a magistrate chosen except by an assembly, converts to Christianity had even thought of another way to elect their teachers and guides—that is, their presbyters, otherwise called bishops—rather than the plurality of votes implied by St. Paul's word Cheirotonesantes (Acts 14.23.). Nor, before emperors found it necessary to regulate bishops to preserve peace among them, were bishops ever chosen otherwise than by the assemblies of Christians in each individual town.

One thing that might seem to give the New Testament the force of law for Christians in times and places of persecution is the decrees they made together in their councils. We read in Acts 15.28. that the apostles, elders, and whole church used these words: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to place no greater burden on you than these necessary things, etc.” This language seems to claim the power to place a burden on people who had accepted their teaching. To “place a burden on another” seems to mean the same thing as “bind that person.” The council's decisions would therefore appear to have been laws for Christians at the time. Nevertheless, they were no more laws than these other instructions: “Repent; be baptized; keep the commandments; believe the Gospel; come to me; sell all you have; give it to the poor;” and “follow me.” These are not commands but invitations and calls to Christianity, like the words of Esay 55.1.: “Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; come and buy wine and milk without money.” First, the apostles had no power other than our Savior's power to invite people into the Kingdom of God. They themselves recognized that this Kingdom was to come, not already present, and people who have no kingdom cannot make laws. Second, if their council's decisions had been laws, no one could have disobeyed them without sinning. But nowhere do we read that people sinned by not accepting Christ's teaching. Instead, we read that they died in their sins: the sins they had committed against the laws they were obliged to obey had not been forgiven. These laws were the laws of Nature and the civil laws of the state to which each Christian had bound himself by agreement. Thus the “burden” the apostles could place on their converts did not consist of laws. It consisted of conditions offered to people seeking salvation. They could accept or refuse these conditions at their own risk, without committing a new sin by refusing, although they risked condemnation and exclusion from the Kingdom of God for their past sins. This is why St. John does not say of unbelievers that God's wrath “will come” upon them, but that “God's wrath remains upon them.” Nor does he say that they will be condemned, but that “they are condemned already” (John 3.36, 3.18). The benefit of faith can only be understood as “forgiveness of sins” if we also understand the harm of unbelief as “retention of those same sins.”

But someone may ask why the apostles and the church's later pastors should meet to agree on what to teach about faith and conduct if no one was obliged to follow their decisions. Here is the answer. By joining that council, its apostles and elders committed themselves to teaching the doctrine the council agreed should be taught, so far as it did not conflict with a law they were already obliged to obey. That did not mean all other Christians had to follow what they taught. They could deliberate about what each of them would teach, but not about what others had to do, unless their assembly had legislative power. Only civil Sovereigns could have that power. Though God is Sovereign of the whole world, we are not obliged to accept as his law everything any person proposes in his name, or anything contrary to civil law, which God has expressly commanded us to obey.

The decisions of the apostles' council were therefore advice, not laws. Decisions of any later teachers or councils assembled without the civil Sovereign's authority are even less likely to be laws. Consequently, although the New Testament books are excellent rules of Christian doctrine, only kings or sovereign assemblies could make them laws.

No record survives of the first council that made the Scriptures we now have canonical. The collection attributed to the first bishop of Rome after St. Peter is questionable. It lists the canonical books, but its words, “Sint vobis omnibus Clericis & Laicis Libris venerandi, &c.,” distinguish clergy from laypeople, a distinction not in use so close to St. Peter's time. The first council whose record survives that settled the canonical Scriptures is the Council of Laodicea. Its canon 59. forbids reading any other books in churches. This command is directed not to every Christian but only to people authorized to read books publicly in church, meaning church officers.

In the apostles' time, some church offices involved teaching and some involved service. The teaching offices involved preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to unbelievers, administering the sacraments and worship, and teaching converts the rules of faith and conduct. The service office was that of deacons. They were appointed to manage the church's material needs when it lived on a common fund supplied by believers' voluntary contributions.

Among those in teaching offices, the first and most important were the apostles. At first there were only twelve, chosen and appointed by our Savior himself. Their task was not just to preach, teach, and baptize. They were also to be witnesses to our Savior's resurrection. This testimony was the special and essential mark distinguishing an apostle from other church teachers. An apostle had either to have seen our Savior after his resurrection or to have known him before it and seen his works and other evidence of his divinity, so that the apostle would be a credible witness. This is why, when a new apostle was elected to replace Judas Iscariot, St. Peter said (Acts 1.21,22.), “One of the men who accompanied us all the time the Lord Jesus was among us, beginning with John's baptism and ending on the day he was taken up from us, must be appointed to join us as a witness of his resurrection.” The word “must” shows that an apostle had to have been with the first apostles during the time our Savior appeared in the flesh.

Matthias Was Made an Apostle by the Congregation.

Matthias was the first apostle not appointed by Christ while Christ was on earth. Here is how he was chosen. About 120 Christians had gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 1.15.). They put forward two men, Joseph the Just and Matthias (verse 23.), and drew lots. “The lot fell to Matthias, and he was counted among the apostles” (verse 26.). So the appointment of this apostle was the act of the congregation. It was not the act of St. Peter or the eleven, except as members of that assembly.

No other apostle was appointed after Matthias except Paul and Barnabas. According to Acts 13.1,2,3., this is what happened: “There were certain prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch: Barnabas; Simeon, called Niger; Lucius of Cyrene; Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch; and Saul. While they worshiped the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set Barnabas and Saul apart for me for the work to which I have called them.’ Then, after fasting and praying and placing their hands on them, they sent them away.”

This shows that, although the Holy Spirit called them, the particular church at Antioch made their call known to them and authorized their mission. That call was to be apostles, as we can see from Acts 14.14., which calls them both apostles. St. Paul makes clear in Rom. 1.1. that they became apostles through the church of Antioch's act. He uses the word the Holy Spirit used when calling him, describing himself as “an apostle set apart for the Gospel of God,” recalling the words “Set Barnabas and Saul apart for me, etc.” But since an apostle's task was to witness Christ's resurrection, someone may ask how St. Paul could know Christ had risen when he had not known our Savior before his suffering. The answer is simple. After our Savior ascended to heaven, he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus and “chose him as an instrument to carry his name before non-Jews, kings, and the children of Israel.” Because Paul had seen the Lord after his suffering, he was a qualified witness to his resurrection. As for Barnabas, he had been a disciple before the suffering. Paul and Barnabas were therefore clearly apostles, yet they were chosen and authorized by the church at Antioch, not just by the first apostles. Matthias was similarly chosen and authorized by the church at Jerusalem.

The word bishop comes into our language from the Greek Episcopus and means an overseer or supervisor of any work, especially a pastor or shepherd. This word was also used figuratively to describe the office of a king or any other ruler or guide of a people, whether that person governed by laws or by teaching. This use occurred among Jews, who had originally been shepherds, and among non-Jews. So the apostles were the first Christian bishops, appointed by Christ himself. In this sense Judas's apostleship is called his “bishopric” (Acts 1.20.). Later, when elders were appointed in Christian churches to guide Christ's flock by teaching and advice, they too were called bishops. Timothy was an elder—the word “elder” in the New Testament names an office as well as an age—but he was also a bishop. Bishops at that time were content to be called elders. Even St. John, the apostle our Lord loved, begins his second letter, “The elder to the chosen lady.” Clearly, in the apostles' time, bishop, pastor, elder, and doctor, meaning teacher, were different names for the same office. There was then no government through force, only through teaching and persuasion. The Kingdom of God was still to come in a new world. No church could have authority to compel until the Common-wealth adopted the Christian faith. Thus these people had different duties, but not different degrees of authority.

The New Testament names no teaching offices in the church besides apostles, bishops, elders, pastors, and doctors. Their task was to proclaim Christ to Jews and other unbelievers, and guide and teach believers. The names evangelists and prophets refer not to offices but to different gifts that made different people useful to the church. Evangelists wrote about our Savior's life and actions. They included the apostles St. Matthew and St. John and the disciples St. Mark and St. Luke. They also included anyone else who wrote on that subject, such as St. Thomas and St. Barnabas are said to have done, though the church has not accepted the books circulated under their names. Prophets had the gift of interpreting the Old Testament and sometimes of reporting their own special revelations to the church. Neither these gifts nor the gifts of languages, driving out devils, curing other diseases, or anything else made a person a church officer. Only a proper call and election to teach could do that.

The apostles Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas were not appointed by our Savior himself. They were elected by the church, meaning the assembly of Christians: Matthias by the church of Jerusalem, and Paul and Barnabas by the church of Antioch. In the same way, the churches in other cities elected their own elders and pastors. To see the proof, let us look first at how St. Paul appointed elders in cities where he had converted people to Christianity, just after he and Barnabas became apostles. Acts 14.23. says that “they appointed elders in every church.” At first this may suggest that Paul and Barnabas chose the elders themselves and gave them authority. But the original text makes clear that each city's assembly of Christians chose and authorized them. It reads, “cheirotonesantes autoispresbuterous kat ekklesian,” meaning, “When they had appointed elders for them by a show of hands in each congregation.” It is well known that in all those cities magistrates and officers were chosen by a majority of votes. The usual way to distinguish votes for from votes against was by raising hands. So to appoint an officer in any of these cities meant bringing people together to elect that person by a majority. Some cities counted raised hands, others voices, and others balls, beans, or small stones, with each person placing one in a container marked yes or no. Different cities had different customs for voting. The assembly therefore elected its own elders. The apostles merely presided: they called the assembly together for the election, announced who had been chosen, and gave the blessing now called consecration. That is why the people who presided at assemblies, such as the elders in the apostles' absence, were called proestotes, or Antistities in Latin. These words mean the leading person in the assembly. The president counted the votes and announced the choice. If the votes were equal, the president settled the question by adding his own vote. That is what a council president does. Since all churches appointed their elders in the same way, we should understand the word “constitute” in Titus 1.5. the same way: “ina katasteses kata polin presbuterous,” or “I left you in Crete for this reason: to constitute elders in every city.” It means Titus was to assemble the believers and appoint elders by a majority of votes. Imagine a town where people had perhaps never seen officials selected except by an assembly. It would have been strange if, on becoming Christians, those people had even thought of another way to elect their teachers and guides—their elders, also called bishops. St. Paul's word Cheirotonesantes in Acts 14.23. points to election by a majority of votes. And bishops were always chosen by each town's assembly of Christians until the emperors found it necessary to regulate them to keep peace among them.