F. \V. N.
(7) Opinion of Harnftek. Harnack thinks that while bishops and deacons had the care of public worship and the poor, elders rather formed a court attached to the church, and as such were occupied with government and discipline. The apparent identity of the offices would then be no more than an identity of persons. The weightiest members of the church would naturally hold both offices, and give the tone to both. This theory explains points like the difference of names and the marked separation between the two classes. It may con tain more than a germ of the truth; but it cannot be accepted without important reservations. (a) It is not likely that ditties were quite so definitely separated. If the elders began with discipline and general oversight, they would be likely soon to take up more spiritual duties, as the Seven did. Those who had gifts to minister the word and teaching, would rather he honored than hindered; so that many of them might easily be doing pas toral work (especially if they were bishops also) before the end of the apostolic age. In any case (b) bishops and elders are identical in the Pas toral Epistles, so that the distinction must by that time have been nearly lost. This, however, de pends on their date. Harnack (Chronologie. 1897, p. 484) still places the relevant passages in the middle of the second century. (H. M. Gwatkin, Hastings' Bib. Diet.). (See EPISCOPACY.) (8) Specific Duties and Support. Prof. E. H. Plumptre says: "Their duty was to feed the dock, teaching publicly (Tit. i:9), opposing errors, admonishing privately (i Thess. v. 12). The work
of visiting the sick appears in Jam. v:14, as assigned to the elders of the church. There, in deed, it is connected with the practice of anointing as a means of healing, hut this office of Christian sympathy would not, we may believe, he confined to the exercise of tire e extraordinry xapfcrp.ara /aAdrtev, and it is probably to this, and to acts of a like kind, that we are to refer the passage in Acts xx:35, and the 'helps' mentioned in t for. xii:28. Among these acts of charity that of receiv ing strangers occupied a conspicuous place I t Tim. ill 2: Tit. i:8). 'Flue bishop elder's house was to he the house of the Christian who arrived in a strange city and found himself without a friend. t )1* the part taken by them in the liturgical meetings of the church we have no distinct evidence. Reason ing from the language oft Cur. x, xii, and from the practices of the post-apostolic age, we may believe that they would preside at such meetings, that it would belong to them to bless and to give thanks when the church met to break bread. The mode in which these officers of the church were support«I or remunerated varied probably in different t ides. At NI Hews St. Paul exhorts the elders of the church to follow his example and work lor their own live lihood (Acts xx:3t.. In I Cor. ix I I, and vi lie asserts the right of the ministers of the churali to be supported by it. In t Tim. v t7. be give s special application of the principle in the assign ment of a double allowance to those who have been conspicuous for their activity." Smith, Bib. Diet.