EPISCOPACY. 1. After much discussion, standard writers on both sides of the question now admit that the term " episcopos," when it appears as a term of office in the New Testament, is synonymous with " presbyter, ' the same officers of the church being called by both names—the one with reference to their duties, and the other to their age. The "presbyters" or elders of the Ephesian church were called by Paul "bishops" or overseers of the flock. In the pastoral epistles, both words are used inter changeably. Peter, exhorting the "presbyters" as their brother "presbyter," speaks of their office as that of an overseer or " bishop." 2. In each church of the new testa,. went there seems to have been, at first, a plurality of presbyters or bishops. In the church of Ephesus (as has just been said), there were presbyters who were bishops. In the church at Philippi, there were bishops as well as deacons. Paul and Barnabas, in their journey, ordained presbyters in every church. 3. In each church, it may be taken for granted that some one of the officers was chosen to preside. This choice, the advocates of prelacy affirm, was made at first by apostolic authority or in imitation of apostolic example. Presbyterian and Congregational writers, on the other hand, regard it as only a wise human arrangement similar to that which convenience and order sug gest iu all associations of men. 4. Gradually the two synonymous names of office were divided; " bishop" being restricted to the president, and " presbyters" continued to the rest. This division, the prelatical theory of church government asserts, was made by apostolic agency in the accomplishment of a divine intention that the bishop, as a successor of the apostles, should be vested with authority over the presbyters and the church. The non-prelatical theory, on the contrary, affirming that the apostles, as such, had no successors, maintains that the division of title and of function was made without apostolic agency and contrary to the spirit of the Savior's command; that it was a result of the innate tendency in human nature to exercise and to yield authority, greatly stimulated and aided by imitation of the absolute control exercised by the civil government. 5. Even after this change had taken place, the episcopal office was regarded, theoretically, as possessing equal authority and honor. But gradations of rank began at once, practically, to arise similar to the gradations in civil government throughout the Roman empire. Bishops in the country and in the smaller towns or villages became subordinate to the bishop of the adjacent city. 6. As the chief city of each district had the civil rank of a " metropolis" or mother city, so the bishop of that city, styled metropolitan from his position, took the lead in the deliberations of the local synod as " primus inter pares," and acted as the representative of his brother bishops in their intercourse with other churches. Thus, though all bishops were
nominally equal, a superior dignity and authority came by general consent to be vested in the metropolitans. 7. A still higher dignity was assigned to the bishops of the chief seats of government—Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch; and among these the bishop of Rome, the capital of the empire, had precedence. 8. Convenience dictated that the ecclesiastical divisions should follow the civil divisions of the empire. Roman emperors saw with amazement Christianity copying their jurisdiction in every part of the land. As the struggle deepened, the Christian bishop and the Roman governor became two rival authorities, the representatives of warring kingdoms within the some domain. When Christianity, instead of being destroyed, became the established religion, and the two administrations were made one, the resemblance between them was perfected, and the gradations of ecclesiastical rank which had grown up by custom were ordained by law. The empire was divided, as to its secular government, into four prefectures; these were subdivided into dioceses, and the dioceses into provinces. The rulers of cities and districts were .subject to the governor of their province; the governors of provinces to the governor of their diocese; the governors of dioceses to their prefect; and the prefects to the emperor. In like manner, the bishops of cities and districts were subjected to the metropolitan of their province; the metropolitans of the provinces to the metropolitan Of the Metropolitans of the dioceses to the patriarch of one of the chief cities (of which there were now four), Rome, Constantinople, Alex andria, and Antioch; and the patriarchs of these cities, like the prefects, had, at first, no superior except the emperor. 9. Theoretically. all these primatial sees were co-ordinate in authority and mutually independent. But by degrees the bishops of the more important cities overshadowed their brethren, and exercised a supremacy which, though due rather to custom than to recognized claims, was increasingly acquiesced in from the manifest advantage of having a strong central power which could interfere in theological controversies or ecclesiastical disputes with an authority to which all would bow. 10. As the cities, Rome and Constantinople were both capitals of the empire, so their bishops were exalted above all others. And as these two cities became rivals for the supreme place, so the two bishops contended with each other for the first place as universal bishop. 11. At length the western and eastern churches were torn asunder. With the decline of the empire, the grandeur of the eastern church was obscured, until both empire and church were overwhelmed by the Ottoman power and the Moham medan faith. With the rise of new kingdoms and the conversion of new nations in the west, the bishop of Rome was lifted up as " the head of the universal church."