The Church and Its Organization in Primitive and Catholic Times Volume 1; The Primitive Age

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1904 Excerpt: ... sembly: neither election, ordination, nor any sort of commission from the part of the assembly could confer the apostolic gift of teaching; it was the gift of God, and it denoted a divine commission. Hence the question arises, who shall celebrate the Eucharist and administer the Church property when there is no apostle, prophet, or teacher in the assembly, no one who is called to the preaching of the Gospel as his life profession? The Eucharist might be celebrated wherever there was a Church of the disciples, that is, wherever two or three were gathered together: it could not and need not be deferred for lack of a gifted teacher. Add to this the fact that the distribution of the gifts, which was associated at least with the principal Eucharistic v assembly, constituted a regularly recurring local interest which was of too pressing and practical a character to admit of postponement. This presents the sphere in which we find the conditions which first prompted the development of a local organization, the congregational organization as we now understand it. This local organization found its first expression in the episcopal office. 21, BISHOPS1 To supply the defect of charismatic teachers, bishops were elected, whose distinctive function it was to preside at the Eucharist and administer the Church property.) The earliest mention of such officers we find in Phil. 1: 1, --St. Paul addresses the saints which art at Philippi with bishops and deacons. The contents of the epistle, 1 Much of the material of this section is drawn from Soli in, 9, --though with some important differences of view. in which St. Paul thanks the Philippians for the gifts he had received from them at various times (4:10-19), make it seem likely that the bishops and deacons ...