Authority and Apostolic Teaching in the Nascent Church

[rest_in_thee]

In this present series on the early Church and the development of certain fundamental doctrines and practices I believe the first idea that we should examine is the issue of authority and apostolic teaching. There are certain issues and teachings that we see touched upon in the New Testament writings but whose interpretations are not immediately

Comments

[chaeri]

thank you for explaining, you definitely have a gift of teaching. this is the first time i have heard about any of this, so i am sure i will have lots of silly sounding questions.

my first question: what is the difference between a presbyter and a bishop in practicality? what can one do that the other can't? or, can they all do the same things but one is supposed to do one thing (like baptizing) and another do another thing (like preaching)?

i will be interested to see how this evolves into the Catholic set up we see today.

[rest_in_thee]

In the NT there is very little perceived difference between the bishop and the presbyter, except one primarily that becomes much more fleshed out very soon, including in another letter of Ignatius that I will reference in the next post. That is, the bishop is responsible for anointing new ministers to office, meaning he alone can consecrate a deacon, presbyter, or another bishop.

Bishop comes from the Greek word eposkopos, which means overseer, and so from the beginning the bishop was the leader and overseer of a local Christian community. Interestingly, regarding your last point/question, there isn't really much of an evolution into the modern Catholic set up we see today. It is still the same insofar as there is a local community (which we now call a diocese) headed by a bishop (the Church still refers to the ministry of the bishop as the episcopacy), who appoints and anoints presbyters and deacons to minister to the greater community. The main evolution, and the foundations of this are clearly found in Scripture as well as in

[martiancyclist]

"The main evolution, and the foundations of this are clearly found in Scripture as well as in practical reason, is that as the Church grew it became more and more apparent that in order to ensure doctrinal and praxical (I may have made that word up - I mean in it in reference to form of worship) consistency throughout the greater Church, it was important to have a centralized leader, a head of the Church, which became the bishop of Rome, the Pope."

Aha! So you admit that it was a change, however justified! That means it wasn't a matter of us "not remain[ing] faithful", but of us rejecting Western innovations.

Ha! I win! Pthbbbb! Nyah nyah!

Maturely yours,
Peter

[rest_in_thee]

Pshaw! Of course I recognize it was a development, just not a change of doctrine. That's why I was sure to differentiate in another comment between Tradition and tradition. Things certainly may change, but doctrinal teachings never can, and never have.