Church Order

Meaning of "Church order"

• A genre of early Christian literature, in which the author, assuming some kind of authority (such as the authority of the apostles), gives direction about church organization, worship, and discipline
• It can also therefore mean the substance of what "church orders" talk about, namely, church organization, worship, and discipline

Meanings of terms of offices

• "Bishop" is the English form of the Greek "episkopos" (episkopos -> piskopos -> biskopos -> bishop). It literally means "overseer" or "superintendent". In early Christian literature in Greek, it is very seldom possible to determine, even from context, whether the term is being used in its general sense or as a term for a specific, defined office of Christian ministry.
• "Presbyter" is the English form of the Greek "presbyteros" or "elder". Again, in early Christian literature in Greek, it is very seldom possible to know whether this term is being used generally or technically. (In English, the word "priest" was derived from this term: presbyter -> prester -> priest. But the English "priest" is usually the translation of the Greek "hiereus" or the Latin "sacerdos", and does not usually mean "elder".) (Since the nineteenth century, the scholarly consensus is that the terms "bishop" and "presbyter" are virtually interchangeable in the NT and early Church, like our terms "physician" and "medical doctor", or "pastor" and "minister".)
• "Deacon" is the English form of the Greek "diakonos" or "minister" or "servant". The same problem of interpretation exists here.

How historians have studied early church order

• Denominational historians dominated until the late nineteenth century. They sought to show that their own denominational church orders were patterned after early models (or at least justified by them). Thus Roman Catholic and catholic-minded Anglican writers tried to show the priority of bishops/priests/deacons; Presbyterians tried to show the priority of presbyterian government; congregationalists tried to show the priority of congregationalism; charismatics tried to show the priority of fluid, spirit-led structures; Lutherans and protestant-minded Anglicans tried to show that church order was a "thing indifferent" (adiaphoron), and that a variety of models were in use.
• History-of-religion theorists and liberal protestants were prominent from the late nineteenth century until, say, the 1930s. They sought to show that church order developed from early simple flexible models, appropriate to a new movement, to much more institutionally complex arrangements, under the influence of acculturation (especially hellenization)
• Liturgical Movement theorists were prominent from, say, the 1930s to the 1990s. They were much influenced by the document known as Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition, which was so identified after 1910. They claimed that this document represented the general pattern of Church order before Constantine. It was held that early Church order was focused on the weekly celebration of the Eucharist, and that church offices were connected to liturgical functions. (Their agenda was to support liturgical reform in the Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, by showing that modern practice had deviated from primitive example.)
• Voluntary association theorists have dominated since the 1990s. Canadian representatives include John Kloppenborg, on leave from St. Michael's College, and Richard Ascough, of Queen's Theological College, Kingston. suggest that from the very beginning (from the missionary work of Paul) churches were structured after the analogy of Roman voluntary associations (e.g., professional guilds, philosophical schools, religious associations). Such associations had historic founders, traditions of teaching and order, functionaries (sometimes called episkopoi or diakonoi), and egalitarian tendencies in governance.

The place of Hippolytus

• Textual tradition. As indicated in the Hayes text, the text now usually known as Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition was first published in 1848 from a text in a Coptic (Egyptian) dialect. Later manuscripts with strong similarities were found in Arabic, Ethiopic, Latin, and another Coptic dialect. It was reasoned that these were all descended from a common original and that differences were to be explained as redactions by different editors. Scholarly articles in 1906, 1910, and 1916 sought to demonstrate that the original was the "Apostolic Tradition" of Hippolytus, who claimed to be bishop of Rome but is not in the acknowledged succession (i.e., an anti-pope), around 215. This was the majority view until the 1990s.
• For the Liturgical Movement, Hippolytus was crucial. He offered two texts of the eucharistic prayer, the only two known before the fourth century. Liturgy seemed central to his understanding of Church. Church offices were connected to liturgical functions. Bishops and presbyters were distinguished for the first time. It came to be believed (quite without evidence) that his text represented the general Christian pattern of church order before Nicea. Because of the restorationist tendencies of the Liturgical Movement, it sought to make Hippolytus a model for twentieth-century liturgical reform. Martin Stringer of the University of Birmingham has an on-line outline for a course module in the history of liturgy, and makes some critical points on this approach.
• Recent revisions. In the 1990s, work by several scholars, notably Paul Bradshaw (of the University of Notre Dame) and Allen Brent (then of the University of North Queensland, now, I think, of St. Edmund College, Cambridge) challenged this view of Hippolytus. It seems quite possible that the document known as the "Apostolic Tradition" never had an original, but that the various translations we have are diverse works from a "hippolytan school" incorporating common elements. The first ordination prayer, from which comes the distinction between bishops and presbyters and the idea that Christian offices were connected with liturgical functions, now appears to be a much later addition.