Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity. Claudia Rapp

Authority

      The average bishop of a large city in the later Roman Empire fulfilled a number of different roles: he was a preacher to his community; a teacher to the catechumens; administered baptism to neophytes; celebrated the eucharist and other liturgical occasions; and admonished and, if necessary, reprimanded Christians who had stumbled. He was responsible for the charitable works of his congregation, the care of consecrated virgins, widows and orphans, prisoners, travelers, and the poor. In addition, he was in charge of the discipline and proper discharge of office of the clergy under his authority, the priests, deacons, and perhaps chorepiskopoi, and—if he was metropolitan or patriarch—of the other bishops within his region. Once Christianity had gained a stronger foothold in society, beginning in the fourth century, bishops also gradually became involved on a hitherto unknown scale in the administration of their cities and in regional politics. As a consequence of the process of Christianization set in motion by Constantine, bishops would eventually enjoy unrivalled power in their cities in the European Middle Ages.

      It is all too easy to neglect the slow historical evolution of the episcopate and to project modern notions of the episcopal office onto the formative period of late antiquity, when definitions of the episcopate were just beginning to be formulated. The danger of such historical anachronism lies in treating the office of a bishop as if it consisted of a predetermined portfolio of tasks and obligations, and in assuming that the episcopal officeholder had to meet an unchanging set of personal requirements. But this was not the case. In this chapter, I wish to draw attention to the fluidity of the definition of the episcopal role in late antiquity by examining the normative texts that were generated within the church to describe and define ecclesiastical leadership. Of particular interest is the way in which these texts set spiritual, ascetic, and pragmatic authority in relation to one another.

      

      In the apostolic age, the episkopos was nothing more than an administrative officer. Beginning in the second century, as he increasingly took on teaching and preaching duties, he was also expected to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. This relation between pragmatic and spiritual authority is explained in the first part of this chapter. For the discharge of his pastoral obligations, the bishop needed to set an example of moral and virtuous conduct to his congregation. The development of this line of thought can be traced in the patristic comments on the passage in the First Letter to Timothy, which gives a catalog of episcopal virtues. This is the subject of the second part of this chapter. Beginning with Ambrose and John Chrysostom, separate treatises devoted to ecclesiastical leadership were composed; these are discussed in the third and last part of this chapter.

      THE EARLY CHURCH ORDERS

      The episcopal office, as it developed over the first three centuries, was in essence a hybrid creation the original administrative function of which was uncomfortably juxtaposed to the demand for spiritual leadership that was added to it by the second century.¹ These two components of the office could be held together only by adding a third: personal virtues (or, as I call it, ascetic authority).

      The bishop’s original administrative function is encapsulated in the history of the Greek word episkopos, whose Latinized adaptation episcopus is the root of the English word bishop. Derived from the Greek verb meaning “to oversee” (episkopein), the episkopos is literally an “overseer.” The word episkopos thus originally refers to an activity or a function that could be performed in various situations and by various people. It could then also denote the person who fulfilled this function on a regular basis within a group, and in this way became a title.² The Christians were not the first to employ this designation. In classical antiquity, the highest officers of corporations, including collegia of pagan priests, were also called episkopoi.³ The oscillation between the function and the title of episkopos could still give occasion for amusing puns in the early fifth century. A pious monk, who was also the cook for his monastery, was once told that he would one day become episkopos, that is, hold the office of a bishop. He rejected this prospect, cheerily announcing that he was already an episkopos: he held the function of overseer, over the pots and pans in his kitchen.⁴

      It is striking that the word episkopos and its cognates appear only rarely in the New Testament. It is entirely absent from the Gospels, surfaces in Acts only as a quotation from a psalm,⁵ and appears in the letters of the apostle Paul for a total of seven times. Paul met with the elders (presbyteroi) of the community of Ephesus and admonished them to fulfill their responsibility with zeal and watchfulness: “Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (episkopous), to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son” (Acts 20:28). The same image of the shepherd who, as an episkopos, watches over those entrusted to him is evoked in the First Letter of Peter (1 Pet. 2:25), but this time with reference to Christ, who has gathered the lost souls into his flock. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians begins with his greetings to the Christian community, including the episkopoi and deacons (Phil. 1:1).

      In the most significant passage, to which I will return below, Paul advised his disciple and close associate Timothy on how to regulate the internal structure of the Christian communities (1 Tim. 3:1–7). Paul’s lengthy exposition of the qualifications to be expected from an episkopos is followed by similar instructions regarding deacons. These words of Paul would become the yardstick of all subsequent pronouncements on the personal qualifications of bishops. Paul repeated several of these injunctions in his Letter to Titus, who was in the process of setting in order the affairs of the community in Crete. The context of this passage reveals the absence of any clear distinction between the presbyterate and the episcopate. Paul begins by encouraging the appointment of elders (presbyteroi) in every town and then recapitulates his list of moral qualifications by referring to the same men as episkopoi (Titus 1:5–9, esp. verse 7).

      These Pauline passages show that the earliest Christian communities were led by a group of elders or, in Greek, presbyteroi. In some, but not all, communities, the group of elders was headed by episkopoi. Their tasks were of an administrative nature: keeping an eye on the incoming gifts of food or money brought by the wealthier members of the community and watching over their distribution to the needy, especially the widows who depended on this kind of support. These early passages refer to episkopoi in the plural, indicating that more than one man was entrusted with these tasks. Diakonoi, or deacons, are frequently mentioned in the same context as their assistants.

      It is paramount to bear in mind that throughout the period that conrefers us here, the distinction between the priesthood and the episcopate remains blurry.⁶ The Greek term hierosyne or the Latin sacerdotium simply to higher ecclesiastical office, no matter whether it was held by a priest or by a bishop. This poses some problems in the interpretation of sources. Even after the monepiscopate is firmly established, the haze of indistinction between the episcopate and the presbyterate will remain well into the fourth century. Every episkopos is also a presbyter, but not every presbyter is an episkopos. As late as the fourth century, Pseudo-Augustine declares that the bishop is essentially, a priest, but that among the priests he holds the highest position:

      For what is the bishop, if not the first presbyter, that is, the highest priest? Indeed, he calls them nothing else but fellow presbyters and fellow priests. And does the bishop ever call the ministers his fellow deacons? Not so, for they are inferior by far, and it is foolish to call the judge a secretary.⁷

      The oldest surviving church order, the Didache, was probably compiled in Syria or Palestine at the beginning of the second century, but the individual regulations it contains may well reflect earlier stages in the development of the life of the church. The Didache encourages the Christian communities to appoint for themselves episkopoi and deacons. They are to be held in the same honor as the prophets and teachers who are visiting and sometimes taking up residence in the communities.⁸ With its omission of presbyters, the Didache reflects a time before the development of the tripartite hierarchy of deaconspresbyters-bishop. In mentioning deacons in the same breath as episkopoi, the Didache also draws attention to the administrative function that both fulfilled. The spiritual and pastoral care of the congregations, by contrast, fell to the prophets and teachers.⁹

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