Who Qualifies as Final Authority?

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The Christian church needed a leader. A single someone who could serve as final authority on interpretation. That’s where the Pope eventually stepped in — but before the Pope was an “official” figure, a hierarchal structure began to develop within the Christian community. It’s purpose: to solve doctrinal disputes and maintain doctrinal unity.

You’ve heard the saying, “Anything with more than one head is a monster?” Well, the early church fathers might as well have come up with that saying — it was certainly their philosophy. What everyone seemed to be forgetting was that Christianity already had a head: Christ. But an invisible head is — well, invisible. Humans like to have power and authority that can be seen.

With the death of the last of the original Apostles, a people arose (that history has come to call the “Apostolic Fathers”) to guide the developing early church. These leaders included a number of teachers and bishops, including among the most famous: Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Origen, Polycarp, Tertullian.

A hierarchal organizational structure soon emerged called the “monarchial episcopate” — eventually developing into individual congregational leaders who were recognized as authority figures in matters of doctrine and faith.

Elders, Bishops and CEOs — Oh My!

Enter your typical CEO structure — heresy mongers would no longer rule — as the church was fast moving towards an “ordered” organization. This structure did not assemble overnight, but in steps of progression moving from a two-tier and finally three-tier system. I think it’s important to see that this “system” developed — it wasn’t something that was initially “in place” when the original Apostles were alive.

“In the Acts and later epistles elders (presbyters) and bishops are named as though the two titles were applied inter-changeably to the same persons. But by the close of the first century the tendency was growing to elevate one as bishop above his fellow-elders, leading later to an ecclesiastical system.”(1)

In early Christianity, “elders” and “bishops” were synonymous terms (2), however the church structure slowly evolved from a “presbyterian” type (led by elders — Greek: presbeteros) into a more developed hierarchical “episcopal” type (elders having higher “overseers” — Greek: episkopos or bishop) in the second century.

This became known as the “monarchial episcopate.”

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Next up: Monarchial Episcopate — Three is a Very Good Number
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Footnote References:
1  The Story of the Christian Church, Jesse Lyman Hurlbut, pg 36, emphasis mine.
2  Acts 20:17,28 uses both titles interchangeably; Early church father Clement (roughly 96 AD) in several writings uses the terms interchangeably (I Clement 44:4-5; I Clement 42:4; 54:2)

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