2. From the Apostolic Church to the Reformation
R J Dickie
2. Ruling Elders between the Apostolic Church and the Reformation.
I shall now look at the history of the Early Church to ascertain the Church’s practice regarding the ruling elder. The evidence comes from uninspired written accounts and does appear to show that in part, anyway, the Early Church shared what we would understand as our [Presbyterian] interpretation of Scripture.
In the first two centuries after Christ, all the Church Fathers apart from Tertullian (c155 – c220), from the Roman province of Carthage, wrote in Greek. They generally used the Greek word presbyteros to designate an elder. Several authoritative Fathers wrote of a plurality of elders who ruled, and some of these writers distinguished the plurality of elders from the singular overseer (episkopos) of the congregation. The word, episkopos, was, of course, taken over by Prelacy and became “bishop” in English, with all the connotations of hierarchy. However, the “bishops” of the Early Church (and there were many in Italy and North Africa) were simply what we would mean by “minister”.
Continuing for the moment to look at the use of words, we find that the later Fathers, who wrote in Latin, used the Latin word senior – it means “elder” and is the equivalent of the Greek word presbyteros. Some of the older Scottish Reformed documents use the word “senior” to mean “elder”. In passing, the Latin word senior is derived from the word senex, Latin for an “old man”, and senex is the root of the word “senator” which was used by some of the Reformers – particularly the Continental Reformers – when they wrote about elders.
Without tracing the steps which took place, we can note that the post-Apostolic Church gradually changed the function of the different offices. Probably in accommodation to the prevailing heathen religions with their priesthood, the word “presbyter” (elder) became “priest”. “Deacons” gradually became preachers and assisted the “priests”. And the “overseer” – the episkopos, who had been the minister of an individual congregation – became a “bishop”, with a hierarchically superior authority over the “priests”. As the Church became more corrupt, further ecclesiastical positions were added – such as archdeacon, sub-deacon, archbishop, rector, canon, dean and sub-dean, for example – and none of these had any warrant from Scripture.
1Another part of a paper given at last year’s Theological Conference. Last month’s section outlined the scriptural basis for the office of the ruling elder.
As the scriptural “elder” had become a so-called “priest”, the concept of a ruling elder disappeared from the Roman Catholic Church and would not resurface until the Reformation.
3. The Continental Reformers and the Ruling Eldership. The centuries which followed the post-Apostolic Fathers have been well named the Dark Ages. Despite that, light was not totally extinguished. Roman Catholics and some Independents have repeatedly asserted that ruling elders were unknown in the Christian church until Calvin invented the office about the year 1541 and introduced it into the church of Geneva. This was not so, as there were ruling elders as well as ministers among the Hussites of Bohemia and the Waldensians of north-west Italy.
Let us now look briefly at the mainline Continental Reformers. I will restrict my comments to Luther and the Swiss Reformers. Although Martin Luther and the Lutheran Church did not incorporate ruling elders, he wrote about the meaning of the word. I mentioned that ‘elder’ is ambiguous in the Greek. Does it mean one who is older or an official? I take it to mean one who is generally an older person even though one may take it as a minister.
Let us turn our focus now from Luther to other Reformers, who were more directly relevant to the ecclesiology2 of the Scottish Reformation. Huldrych Zwingli of Zurich predated Calvin and indeed died several years before Calvin arrived in Geneva. Zwingli concluded from Acts 15 that the elders “are to be considered as senators or counsellors. It is evident that the presbyteroi mentioned in this place were not ministers of the word; but that they were aged, prudent, and venerable men, who, in directing and managing the affairs of the Church, were the same thing as the senators in our cities.” Oecolampadius of Basel, who also predated Calvin, expressed similar views, as did Martin Bucer of Germany, Peter Martyr of Italy, John à Lasco of Poland and Hungary, and many others.
Strasbourg is an important link for us in tracing the ruling elder. Certain laymen there were assigned powers of discipline and spiritual authority, and in 1534 Martin Bucer identified them with the elders of the New Testament. In 1536 Calvin settled in Geneva, already a Protestant town, but could not get his views accepted and was banished in 1538. For the next three years, Calvin lived in Strasbourg, where he learned a lot from Bucer and, in particular, was impressed with the eldership there. When Calvin was invited back to Geneva, he proceeded to shape the church of the city, and instituted the four offices within it – pastors, doctors, elders and deacons.
Calvin designated elders as “pastors and all those who are appointed for the government of the church. But they called them presbyters or elders, for honour’s sake, not because they were all old in age, but because they were principally chosen from the aged; for old age for the most part has more prudence, gravity, and experience.”
Calvin’s Institutes, book 4, chapter 3 is headed: ‘Of the teachers and ministers of the church, their election and office.” He deals with the Scriptural authority for elders and concludes: “From the beginning, therefore, each church had its senate, composed of pious, grave, and venerable men, in whom was lodged the power of correcting faults. . . . Moreover, experience shows that this arrangement was not confined to one age, and therefore we are to regard the office of government as necessary for all ages.” Calvin regarded the elder’s office to be “of perpetual duration” – that is, unlike the office of evangelists and prophets – and that the office of eldership was “necessary for all ages”. In Geneva, election of elders was annual, like in France and England.