The Role of the Presbyter: an Investigation into the Adversus Haereses of Saint Irenaeus

1974 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey G. Sobosan
Keyword(s):  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Pastoral Epistles ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Long Line ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Apostolic Succession ◽  
The Church ◽  
Local Leaders ◽  
Or Task

Irenaeus constantly spoke of the presbyters who possess the succession from the Apostles; those who, together with the succession of the Episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth. For him the importance of the presbyter was based on apostolic succession: the presbyter was a teacher, and teaching determines faith; it is the means by which the faith is preserved and transmitted. The presbyter is a link in the long line of tradition; tradition which disciplines the faithful and determines the future of the church. For this reason alone the presbyter is important for Irenaeus. And this is the basis for the distinct way in which Irenaeus treats him. The presbyter is the primary minister, yet not necessarily a bishop. He is a leader of the Christian community assigned the task of preserving the faith, teaching it and making sure to defend it against error. He holds the chief seat in the administration of the Christian community, and is always associated with the episcopos or bishop. In the writings of Irenaeus there is no clear distinction made between these two terms.We must keep in mind that Christianity began as a movement, not as an established system or institution. The early Christians were all Jews and the authorised Jewish minister was the rabbi (presbyter). From the very beginning the apostles founded new communities and directed them. After particular communities were founded a need arose to select local leaders or administrators for each of these communities. We know from the New Testament that in the various local communities different names were given to these men: in Rome they were called presidents, in Corinth they were called governors, in Ephesus the name given to them was shepherds and in Phillipi they were known as caretakers and ministers. It is only in the Pastoral Epistles and in the Acts of the Apostles that we find these administrators called presbyters, episcopoi. Irenaeus adds further information to the development to the Christian hierarchy by expressing his views on the presbyter as servant of the community. In short the role or task of the presbyter was one of service to the Christian community.

The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and the Church Fathers

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Gilles Dorival
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Hapax Legomenon ◽  
Creation Of Matter ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The role of the Septuagint in the building of the Christian identity during the first Christian centuries is more important than it is generally said. The word ‘testament’ or ‘covenant’, for example, comes from the Septuagint, via the New Testament. The Greek and Latin liturgies are filled with references to the Septuagint. The same is true in the case of the Christian spirituality: for instance, the concept of the Christian life as a migration comes from the Septuagint. The Christian hermeneutics is indebted to the Greek Bible: even if knowledge of the allegorical method comes from the Greek philosophers (and Philo), support could be found for it in the verses of the Greek Bible. Finally, the theological vocabulary of the Christians was founded upon the Greek Bible. For instance, in the case of the doctrine of the Trinity, the word ‘person’ comes from the Septuagint. Furthermore, some passages of the Greek translation gave rise to theological interpretations which are not possible on the grounds of the Hebrew text. In Gen 1:2, the Septuagint reads ‘the earth was invisible and unorganized’ and this came to be quoted both in support of the creation of matter ex nihilo. In Exod 17:16, where the Hebrew has a difficult hapax legomenon, the Greek speaks about the ‘hidden hand’ with which the Lord makes war against Amalek; this ‘hidden hand’ played a role in the Christian doctrine of the Logos, which is hidden in the Old Testament.

Colleagues of Apostles, Presbyters, and Bishops

2021 ◽  
pp. 26-58
Author(s):  
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Pastoral Epistles ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Church

This chapter points out and examines evidence for the role of female ‘colleagues’ or ‘partners’ (syzygoi) in the early churches. It focuses initially on the meaning(s) of syzygos, literally ‘yokefellow’, and the patristic debate about it. The chapter takes into consideration iconographic and archaeological evidence, and literary material, from Paul to patristic writings, including the Acts of Philip and its portrait of the apostolic couple of Philip and Mariamme. The chapter also points to the suggestion of a pairing in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and includes assessment of Clement, Origen, Theodoret, and Gregory Nazianzen. Nazianzen testifies to the existence of a woman presbyter, colleague of a male presbyter and bishop, and highly respected in Cappadocia in the late fourth century, Theosebia, who was most likely the sister of Gregory Nyssen. It also notes that the women syzygoi need to be seen in the context of other women office holders in the Church, and provides a detailed overview of the key evidence, ending with Origen, who could even use passages of the Pastoral Epistles as a means of acknowledging them.

Jesus and Paul

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-170
Author(s):  
Donald Senior
Keyword(s):  
Literary Form ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Pastoral Letters ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Paul's Letters

The writings of Paul form a major part of the New Testament. This includes not only the so-called undisputed letters of Paul but also other letters attributed to him in antiquity that might have been written by later disciples of Paul citing him as author to evoke his apostolic authority. This chapter describes what we know of Paul’s life, beginning with his strong Jewish identity as well as his roots in the Greco-Roman world. Paul himself cites his inaugural visionary experience of the Risen Jesus as a decisive turning point in his life, leading him ultimately to be an ardent proclaimer of the gospel to the Gentile world. Paul’s letters to various early Christian communities in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world served as extensions of his missionary efforts. Although fashioned in a different literary form than the gospel narratives, Paul’s letters also portray Jesus’s identity as both rooted in Judaism and exhibiting a unique transcendent character and purpose. Paul’s Christology focuses intensely on the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. The so-called deutero-Pauline Letters extend Paul’s theological vision; in the case of Colossians and Ephesians, situating the redemptive and reconciling role of Christ within the cosmos, and, in the case of the Pastoral Letters, bringing Paul’s exhortations about the life of the Christian community to some of the developing challenges of the late first-century church.

The Role of Exorcism in Clinical Practice and Pastoral Care

1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydney H.T. Page
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Pastoral Care ◽  
New Testament ◽  
World View ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church ◽  
Valid Form

This article contends that there is a legitimate place for exorcism in the church today, but urges caution in its use. It begins with a survey of biblical, theological, historical, and practical considerations which favor the recognition of exorcism as a valid form of ministry. It then examines claims that the teaching and practice of Jesus are not normative because (a) his knowledge was limited by the incarnation, (b) he consciously accommodated himself to a prescientific world view, (c) exorcism is not mentioned in the New Testament epistles, and (d) genuine possession was limited to the ministry of Jesus. The next section discusses the following difficulties inherent in the ministry of exorcism: (a) the diagnosis of cases where exorcism is appropriate, (b) the risk of aggravating the condition of a disturbed person, and (c) the tendency to develop beliefs and practices which lack biblical support. Some guidelines for the practice of exorcism conclude the article.

Mary in the Hymnody of the East

2019 ◽  
pp. 105-121
Author(s):  
John Anthony McGuckin
Keyword(s):  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Unbroken Line ◽  
The Church

Beginning with a notice of the major Marian hymnal elements in the New Testament text, this study goes on to consider how the most ancient Christian tradition of celebrating the role of the Virgin Mary in the salvific events the Church commemorates at prayer runs on in an unbroken line into the earliest liturgical examples from the Byzantine Greek liturgy. The study exegetes some of the chief liturgical troparia addressed to the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox Church ritual books. It analyses some of the more famous and renowned poetic acclamations of the Virgin in Byzantine literary tradition, such as the Sub Tuum Praesidium, the Akathist, and the Nativity Kontakion of Romanos the Melodist, but also goes on to show how the minor Theotokia (or ritual verses in honour of the Virgin), taken from the Divine Liturgy and from the Eastern Church’s Hours of Prayer, all consistently celebrate the Mother of God’s role in the salvific work of Christ in the world.

scholarly journals The Doctrine of Apostolic Succession in the Church of England

1894 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 171-192
Author(s):  
Henry C. Vedder
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Apostolic Succession ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
Adequate Evidence

A definition of terms is essential at the outset of this investigation, but I am not aware of a definition of Apostolic Succession that would be accepted as authoritative by those who profess the doctrine, In this paper the term will be held to mean the doctrine that the order of bishops exists in the Church jure divino; that the first bishops were ordained by the Apostles as their successors, and that these orders have been transmitted by an unbroken succession to the present time; and furthermore, that without bishops there can be no valid orders, no valid sacraments, in short, no Church. It is not proposed in this paper to question the truth of this theory—to inquire whether there is adequate evidence in its favor either in the Scriptures of the New Testament, in the early Christian literature, or in the institutions of the Church of the first two centuries. Assuming that the doctrine rests on the sure foundations of Scripture teaching and institutional Christianity—or, at least, allowing that this may be the case—our task is to trace the effects of this doctrine upon the external history and internal life of the Church of England.

CONFORMITY, NONCONFORMITY, AND CRITICAL SOLIDARITY: The Church-State Issue and the Use of the Bible

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 240-261
Author(s):  
Johannes Nissen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Nationalism And Identity ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe focus of this article is on the church-state issue, particularly in relation to the use of the Bible. The article has three parts. The first introductory part identifies four contemporary challenges: the attitude of Christians toward asylum-seekers and refugees, the question of civil disobedience, the role of the church in nation-building and the problem of nationalism and identity. Then follows some notes on the question of definition and methodology. The way we define the "state" influences our selection of relevant biblical texts. Any use of the Bible must face the risk of "proof texting." The second part offers some historical comments on selected texts. This includes the traditional "state" texts as well as other texts that reveal a critical perspective on the power issue. The third part points at a number of hermeneutical problems: (1) diversity and unity in the New Testament; (2) various levels of authority; (3) selective Bible reading and the method of correlation; (4) three different ways of perceiving the church-state issue: assimilation, alienation and critical solidarity. Both formation and malformation can be the result of the encounter of the churches with the public world. The article concludes with some reflections on the search for a just society in the biblical tradition.

scholarly journals Тајна врлине у Јермином Пастиру и њена улога у изграђивању Цркве и спасењу човека

2021 ◽  
Vol LIV (3) ◽  
pp. 393-410
Author(s):  
Његош Стикић
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Unique Identity ◽  
The Church ◽  
Multidimensional Process ◽  
Insight Into

The intention of the author is to provide a more systematic, not exhaustive, insight into the mystical meaning, place, and role of virtue in the economy of salvation, based on the revelation recorded in the early Christian writing of the New Testament prophet and apostle Hermas – The Shepherd. The author locates the place of virtue in the realism of simultaneous and interdependent building of salvation (of man) and building of the Church as a unique (multidimensional) process. Like very few paternal writings, the Shepherd gives us an explicit conclusion that the virtues are the ones that “hold” and build the Church, “dressing” the faithful in the “clothes,” “powers” and Name of the Son of God. By “dressing” in virtues, Christians achieve that “in the likeness,” they are likened to Christ, thus becoming similar and compatible to each other, thus gaining, as a new genus, a one unique identity. That is why the Church, which is being built as the Tower of Salvation, is composed of a multitude, by repentance and virtue shaped and ennobled elects (stones), manifesting itself, thus, in a „monolithic“ building, monochromatic white, as from one carved stone. For this reason, the paper aims to re– evaluate the ontological connection of virtue with the Church (ecclesiology).

Baptism in Martin Luther’s Theology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsi Stjerna
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Human Life ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

Baptism opens a window to the heart of Martin Luther’s 16th-century theology. It offers a perspective for how Luther understands the impact of grace and its channels, as well as the nature of justification in an individual’s life. In his teaching about baptism, Luther demonstrates the vital working of the Word and lays a foundation for a Word-centered and faith-oriented spirituality. With baptism, Luther articulates his vision for the purpose of the Church and the rationale for sacraments. Baptism reveals different sides of the theologian: one who argues with a zeal on the “necessity” of baptism and its meaningful God-mandated practice in Christian communities and another who imagines God’s saving grace too expansive to be limited to any ritual. The apparent tensions in Luther’s articulation can be understood from his overlapping agendas and different audiences: in his baptismal talk, Luther is both processing his own Angst about salvation and negotiating his developing position in relation to the medieval sacramental theology and other emerging reform solutions. While feistily refuting his opponents, he is also speaking from his personal religious experience of being as if reborn with the encounter of the Word of grace and passionately extrapolating his most foundational conviction: God’s unconditional promise of grace as the ground of being for human life, given to humanity in the Word. The matter of baptism leads to the roots of different Christian “confessional” traditions. The format of the ritual has generated less anxiety than differing theological opinions on (1) the role of faith in the validity of baptism, and (2) the effects of baptism in one’s life. Whether infant or adult baptism is favored depends on whether baptism is primarily understood as a sign of faith, a cause of forgiveness and transformation, or an initiation into the Christian community—or all of the above. Baptism is at the center of Luther’s theological nervous system; it connects with every other vital thread in the theological map. Baptism is a mystery and a matter of faith; it calls for a philosophical imagination and mystical willingness to grasp the questions of reality beyond what meets the eye. “I study it daily,” Luther admits in his “Large Catechism.” “In baptism, therefore, every Christian has enough to study and practice all his or her life. Christians always have enough to do to believe firmly what baptism promises and brings.”

Intellectual Humility and the Community of the Sacraments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Macaskill
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers the role that the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist play in fostering a proper attitude of intellectual humility within Christian community. The sacraments dramatically enact the union with Christ that we have argued in previous chapters to define Christian intellectual humility, embodying the truth that our intellectual identities are not autonomous, but are dependent upon the constitutive identity of Jesus Christ and are located within the community of the church. Both baptism and Eucharist are understood within the New Testament to communicate the eschatological identity of the church, and therefore the distinctive character of our relationship to the reality of evil. The chapter will pay particular attention to the way that Paul directs his readers to think differently in response to the significance of the sacraments. It will also consider the close connection of the command to ‘love one another’ to the sacraments.

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