the church's property. For this property consisted not, as in later times, of grounds and buildings, but of regularly contributed supplies for the needy-that is to say, of the freewill offerings of food that were brought to the Lord's table. These, together with one or more books of Scripture-which, in some cases, were doubtless owned by a congregation-seem to have been the whole of the Church's "wealth" in those earliest days. There it lay-brought to the meeting-room, placed upon the Lord's table, to be distributed among the poor, whether these were officers or simply members of the church.1

Again, the presidency at the Lord's Supper would tend to carry with it the exercise of discipline. For the most commonly inflicted penalty was exclusion from the Lord's table; and it might easily become the custom (and in due course of time the law) that this penalty should be both adjudged and executed by the presiding officer of the eucharistic assembly.

Now the combination of these three functions, the liturgic, the financial, and the judicial-leadership in worship, the treasureship of the church, the exercise of discipline-constituted the

"When the reader of the Scriptures has ceased," says Justin in a classic passage, "the president orally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgiving according to his ability, and the people assent by saying Amen. And there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well-to-do and willing give what each thinks fit, and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows and those in sickness or want, the prisoners and strangers among us."

Somewhat later, references are made to contributions in money as well as in kind: "We have our treasure-chest. . . On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund." (Tertullian, Apol. XXXIX.)

"If thou art not able to cast anything considerable into the Corban [offering], yet at least bestow upon the strangers one, or two, or five mites." (Const. Apost. II. v. 36.)

This development may be regarded as inevitable. Compare the Jews' offerings at the altar and at the treasury of the Temple.

highest office in the congregation. Shall it be filled by several office-bearers in rotation? Rather let one of them, the most highly gifted and trustworthy, be regularly charged with this responsibility. Let the office be made permanent. At all events, it seems to have become so, as a matter of fact, in the middle of the second century.

Now, then, what was the situation, as thus conceived? In the first place, there was needed a presiding officer of the presbyters, "to remedy schism" (as Jerome says), and to secure a more efficient executive. In the second place, there was needed a presiding officer of the congregation in time of worship, to take charge of the administration of the Lord's Supper and of the people's offerings (as Justin Martyr shows). But these two little presidencies were similar in their requirements, and might be filled by the same man. Accordingly the same man was appointed to both, either by the presbyters or by presbyters and people conjointly; and thus he became the single pastoral overseer of the congregation. So the two needs, we may imagine, called unitedly for the one congregational bishop.

Shall we listen to still another attempted solution of the question-namely, that the original Apostles ordained the first bishops, conferring upon them the exclusive power of ordaining others, and thus constituting a line of ordinations for all bishops throughout the subsequent ages?

This is the theory of "apostolic succession," which will form the subject of the next two chapters.

18

XI.

UNITY: APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.

THE phrase "apostolic succession" is used in two principal senses. It may mean that from the days of the Apostles there has been a threefold ministry in the Church-deacons, presbyters, and bishops; that the bishops occupy the office of general oversight to which the original Apostles were appointed by the Lord; that they have been ordained to their office in a line of descent reaching back to the Apostles themselves, with authority to ordain their successors even unto the end of time; and that this therefore is the only regular and orderly mode of church government, and ought to be universally followed.

The advocate of this theory will not necessarily assert that there have been no breaks in the line of episcopal ordinations. He may regard it as in the highest degree probable that such irregularities have occurred. But this does not invalidate the claim of the apostolic succession, as he understands it. Because this succession is essentially not tactual but corporate, not personal but institutional. That is to say, if he can show that it has been uniformly maintained in any church from the beginning, despite temporary irregularities, actual or possible, in the matter of ordination to the episcopate, such a church is truly regular, catholic, apostolic.'

The

But a like claim must not be made for any other church. lack of this kind of episcopate leaves other religious bodies sim

"They declare that 'it is evident to all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church-Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.' While they do not assert that this arrangement is the result of a categorical command of Christ, still they hold it to be of so potent obligation that it may not be changed except for weightier reasons than have as yet been offered." (McConnell, "History of the American Episcopal Church," pp. 174, 175.)

ply "religious bodies," or at best "societies of Christians." Only through a distressing misnomer can they be called churches. Hence their ministers are not invited to preach or to take any part in the conduct of worship and the administration of sacraments in an episcopal church. This theory, laying supreme emphasis upon the antiquity and continuity of the bishop's office, and not upon his personal derivation of authority through an absolutely unbroken tactual line of descent from the Apostles, is preferably known by the newer and less definite name of the "historic episcopate."

The other theory is purely personal, derivative, and sacerdotal. The Twelve Apostles possessed within themselves all ministerial powers and offices, as a bestowment direct from Christ; and by detaching these in different measures, as rays of light from the sun or streams from a fountain, they created three classes of officers in the Church-namely, deacons, priests, and bishops; to the bishops only they gave the power of ordination; bishops of the present day have come down in an unbroken line from the Apostles, and through them from Christ himself; they are thereby invested with supreme governing power and with exclusive ordaining power in the Church; and the highest significance of their successional standing is, that it constitutes them a channel of actual divine grace received through the original Apostles and their successors, and by these Apostles immediately from Christ. Accordingly by the laying on of hands in confirmation they can impart "that gift of the Holy Ghost which is the essence of the

"The bishops at Chicago and at Lambeth spoke of the 'historic episcopate.' That phrase has room enough for all varieties of opinion. It is the assertion of a fact. There is such a form of ecclesiastical government, which exists to-day and has existed from the beginning of the Christian Church, as the historic episcopate. There is an institutional theory about it, which they may hold who will. There is also a successional theory about it, which they may hold who will. Each of these theories can quote texts out of the Bible and out of the Prayer Book. But neither the doctrine of apostolic evolution nor the doctrine of apostolic succession is set forth by authority. The Church, instead of asserting that our way is either the best way or the only way, is content to affirm the simple fact, easily tested by history, that ours is the old way." (Hodges, "The Episcopal Church,” p. 35.)

Christian life." Also, by the laying on of hands in ordination, they can impart that gift of the Holy Ghost, that "grace of Holy Orders," which makes men not simply ministers but priests, empowered to offer up the Lord's Supper as a sacrifice, and in their turn to impart grace to those who receive this sacrament at their hands. In a word, the Christian ministry is, in the literal sense of the word, a priesthood, and there is a divinely ordained order of bishop-priests by whom only it can be perpetuated and governed.

Without this form of the episcopate, then, there can be no valid Christian ministry nor Lord's Supper, no covenanted grace, no Church. Imagine all the bishop-priests to die-say, by the hand of violence, in time of persecution—and though all the rest of the officers and all the laity should survive and be perpetuated through the coming years, the Church of Christ would be extinct on earth. There would only remain "bodies of Christians," with no valid ministry or sacrament of the Lord's Supper or covenanted grace, and capable therefore of doing only such service for the coming of the kingdom of God as-mere bodies of Christians are doing to-day!

This is the theory of apostolic succession that is held by the Ritualists of the Church of England and of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It includes the whole claim of the historic epis

"The Apostles, thus invested with the plenitude of ministerial power, detached from themselves in the form of distinct grades or orders of ministry, so much as was needed, at successive epochs, for building up and supporting the Church." (Liddon, "Clerical Life and Work," p. 293.)

"That the special priestly powers descend by due imposition of hands. from the Apostles, and may not be invaded without sacrilege, we hold as one of the chief pillars of the constitution of the Church of Christ." berly, "The Administration of the Holy Spirit," pp. 201, 202.)

"Under the Christian dispensation the succession to the ministry is

(Mo

a succession communicated from Christ through the Apostles by the gift of the Holy Ghost, in connection with an external individual call given by those who have themselves received it." (Seabury, "Introduction to the Study of Ecclesiastical Polity," p. 87.)

"What man receives in Christ is the very life of God. Here, again, each Christian receives the gift as an endowment of his own personal life. But the individual life can receive this fellowship with God only through