CHAP. XXII.

THAT THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PRESBYTER AND A BISHOP WAS THE OPINION

OF AERIUS, WHICH WAS CONSIDERED A HERESY BY THE FATHERS.

WE have now heard how it has been always held, that the authority of Bishops was an honour conferred by God, and resting on a divine law. It is further to be observed, that unless the orthodox Fathers had believed Episcopacy to have been sinctioned by the word of God, they never would have reckoned as a heresy the opinion of Aerius, who first asserted, three hundred years after the times of the Apostles, that there is no differ

ence between a Presbyter and a Bishop. Concerning whom Epiphanius writes, that his speech was that of a frantic person, rather than of a rational man; reporting that he was also wont to say, "What is a Bishop compared with a Presbyter? he in no way differs from him: for the Order is one and the same, the honour the same, the dignity the same. The Bishop as the laying on of hands, and sits in a throne; the Presbyter also sits in a throne." So spoke Aerius. Epiphanius shews on the contrary, first, that the Bishop makes the Presbyter, not the Presbyter the Bishop. "The Episcopal Order, says he, is the begotten of fathers, for it begets fathers to the Church; but the Order of Presbyters cannot beget fathers; it indeed begets sons to the Church, by the regeneration of the Bath, but not fathers and teachers. For how can he make a Presbyter, who has not the power of imposing hands for their appointment ?"

To the pretended reasons of Aerius he replies, that "that teacher had been misled

by his own trifling and contentious disposition, and by his i norance of ancient history, not knowing, that, when first the Gospel was preached, the Holy Apostle wrote only as emergencies required. Where Bishops had been already appointed, he wrote to the Bishops and Deacons, for the Apostles could not order every thing at once; both Presbyters and Deacons were requisite for the completion of a Church. Where however no one was to be found worthy of the office of Bishop, the place remained without one: where Bishops were necessary, and fit persons could be found, they were appointed. Since however the number of persons fit for sacred offices was not great, if none were to be found proper for the office of Presbyters, the Apostles were obliged to be content with merely a Bishop, and as a Bishop must not be without his Deacon, they took care that every Bishop should have his Deacons. Thus the constitution of every Church was completed gradually, as the circumstances of time and place might require. For every

thing was not complete from its first beginning, but in progress of time, those additions were gradually made which were necessary to perfection: &c."

All this Epiphanius confirms by the case of the people of Israel under Moses, who built up their polity not in one day, but gradually; and as he would have erred who, under the Jewish dispensation, should have attempted to reform the Church of Israel, by remodelling it after the plan in which it had existed, when as yet in an imperfect and unfinished state; so do they now err, who would place the Church on the footing on which it was in its commencement, and incomplete form. Epiphanius accordingly

concludes as follows:

"So was it with what we read in the Apostles, until the Church was extended, until it had attained its full proportions, until it came to be perfectly settled in its government, and fully furnished with wisdom, by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Epiphanius understood that many

things were as yet wanting, and that, after a time, a Presbyter differed from a Bishop, arguing from what St. Paul wrote to Timothy, who was a Bishop, "Against a Presbyter, receive not an accusation except before two or three witnesses;" whereas he never said to any Presbyter, Against a Bishop receive not an accusation, &c.

The opinion of Epiphanius is confirmed by St. Augustine, who reckons this error of Aerius among the heresies.

a There is a manifest inconsistency between this passage, and what the author had advanced in chap. xii. Beza, in his Reply to the Treatise, did not notice this inconsistency on our author's part, but asserted, that Epiphanius hal misapplied the text, and that he ought to have remarked, that in it gßúrigos means an elder in years only, not in office. "Animadvertere Epiphanium oportuit Presbyterum, id est Seniorem hìc dici, qui ætate sit provectior, non qui Pastoris, Doctoris, vel Presbyteri munere fungatur, quod manifestissimè ostendit τῶν νεωτέρων mox sequens antithesis.”

Saravia in his Defence, in answer to Beza's Reply, simply admits that Epiphanius was mistaken. Hic hallucinatum fuisse Epiphanium fateor, et deceptum ambiguitate vocis Presbyteri. [Trans.]