Letter 146: To Evangelus

I

INTRODUCTION

I

T IS NOW GENERALLY TAKEN AS AN ESTABLISHED

fact that the author of the earliest Latin commentary on the Epistles of Paul, once attributed to Ambrose, and the author of the Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, once ascribed to Augustine, was one and the same person; and that person is commonly spoken of as "Ambrosiaster." Who he was we do not know, though he certainly lived in Rome under Pope Damasus (366-384). The identification of him with Isaac the Jew, an opponent of Damasus, is no more than a clever guess, with not much to be said for it.

When Jerome wrote his commentaries on some of the Pauline epistles, including Titus (not later than 392, and probably about 388), he showed no knowledge of Ambrosiaster's work. But in his Letter 73 (which can fortunately be dated to A.D. 398) he is replying to one of the Quaestiones (109), sent to him for comment by the same Evangelus who received the present letter. It is a brief tract suggesting that Melchizedek should be thought of as the Holy Spirit, sent to bless Abraham. Jerome dismisses this anonymous pamphlet with extracts from "standard commentators". He is obliged to admit that Origen and Didymus of Alexandria had taken the same line; but Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Eusebius, Eustathius of Antioch and others had agreed in believing Melchizedek to have been a real man.

1 For the Commentaries see A. Souter, The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul, 1927; the Quaestiones were edited by Souter for the Vienna Corpus (C.S.E.L., 50, 1908, called Pseudo-Augustinus); and on Ambrosiaster see Souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster (Texts and Studies, vol. VII, 4), 1905. I have not seen C. Martini, Ambrosiaster, Rome, 1944.

There is nothing to determine the date of Letter 146, except that it must be later than the Pauline commentaries, nor to explain what Evangelus had to do with the issue under discussion. It is evidently based on another of the Quaestiones, no. IOI, and this time Jerome finds Ambrosiaster more to his taste. Ambrosiaster is refuting the folly which supposes that deacons -particularly at Rome-are equal to presbyters. It was true, as a matter of fact, that the deacons in many dioceses were more prominent and, in a sense, more important than the presbyters, and this was notably the case at Rome where the deacons administered large funds and great estates. Ambrosiaster insists on their lower rank in the Church in that they are not priests, cannot celebrate the eucharist, and must serve those who do, whether bishops or presbyters; for these are both sacerdotes. He goes on to support his point by showing that in the New Testament (he argues from I Timothy 3) presbyter and episcopus, "bishop," mean the same thing. With this Quaestio may be compared his commentaries on I Timothy and Ephesians.

II

Jerome uses many of the same instances and arguments. But he very much develops the scriptural proofs of the equivalence of presbyter and bishop. Thus he appears to change the emphasis from an attack on diaconal pride, vis-à-vis the presbyter, to an assertion of presbyteral dignity, vis-à-vis the bishop. One remembers that he wanted to be as independent as possible of Bishop John of Jerusalem. The points of New Testament scholarship were not new to him; they appear in his Commentary on Titus. Today the original equivalence of presbyter and episcopus is widely accepted on much the same evidence. The wider implications of Jerome's remarks cannot be discussed here. Briefly, while he maintains their original equivalence, he does not deny that, by later church order, ordination is reserved to the bishop. Otherwise, he seems to think, the presbyter is as good as the bishop. Nor does he deny that there is some sense in which the bishops are successors of the apostles. But he does hold that individual presbyters were elevated to rule over others at a date subsequent to the New Testament documents which he quotes. There is a fairly full discussion of Jerome's views and some similar ones by Dr. T. G. Jalland in The Apostolic Ministry, ed. K. E. Kirk, pp. 314-340.

III

The passage about Alexandria has to be linked with the different, but related, assertion of Ambrosiaster: "In Alexandria and throughout Egypt, in the absence of a bishop, the presbyter seals" (consignat, part of baptism), and with a few other well-known statements regarding special traditions at Alexandria. These have been studied recently by Dr. W. Telfer in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. III, (1952), pp. 1–2. He goes so far as to say that "It is probable that a majority of scholars hold the opinion that the early bishops of Alexandria received their episcopal office at the hands of their fellowpresbyters." The question of the Alexandrian succession, and in particular Origen's evidence, is carefully examined by Dr. A. Ehrhardt in his book, The Apostolic Succession (1953), chapter 6.

25-E.L.T.

Letter 146: To Evangelus

THE TEXT

I. We read in Isaiah the words: "the fool will speak folly,' and I am told that some one has been mad enough to put deacons before 2 presbyters, that is, before bishops. For when the Apostle clearly teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops, must not a mere server of tables and of widows be insane to set himself up arrogantly over men through whose prayers the body and blood of Christ are made?3 Do you ask for proof of what I say? Listen to this passage: "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." Do you wish for another instance? In the Acts of the Apostles Paul thus speaks to the priests of a single church: "Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to rule the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood". And lest any should in a spirit of contention argue that there must then have been more bishops than one in a single church, there is the following passage which clearly proves a bishop and a presbyter to be the same. Writing to Titus the Apostle says: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and appoint presybters in every city, as I had instructed thee: if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having believing children not accused of wantonness or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God." And to Timothy he says: "Neglect not the gift of prophecy that is in thee, which was given thee through the laying on of the hands of the presbytery."4 Peter also

1 Isa. 32:6.

2 Anteferret. Ambrosiaster says coaequare, non dicam praeferre (Quaestio, 2). 3 Conficitur.

4 Phil. 1:1; Acts 20:28; Titus 1:5-7; I Tim. 4:14.

says in his first epistle: "The presbyters which are among you I exhort, who am your fellow-presbyter and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: rule the flock of Christ, inspecting it not by constraint but willingly, according unto God." 5 In the Greek the meaning is still plainer, for the word used is étɩokoñeúovtes, that is to say, "overseeing", and this is the origin of the name "bishop". But perhaps the testimony of these great men seems to you insufficient. If so, then listen to the blast of the Gospel trumpet, that son of thunder, the disciple whom Jesus loved and who, reclining on the Saviour's breast, drank in the waters of sound doctrine. "The presbyter unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth;" and in another letter: "The presbyter unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth." When subsequently one was chosen to preside over the rest, this was done to remedy schism and to prevent each individual from rending the Church of Christ by drawing it to himself. For even at Alexandria, from the time of Mark the Evangelist until the episcopates of Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters always used to choose one of their own number and set him in a more exalted rank and call him "bishop", like an army making an emperor, or deacons choosing one of themselves whom they know to be diligent and calling him archdeacon. For what function, excepting ordination, belongs to a bishop that does not also belong to a presbyter? It is not the case that there is one church at Rome and another in all the world beside. Gaul and Britain, Africa and Persia, India and the East, and all the barbarian tribes worship one Christ and observe one rule of truth. If you ask for authority, the world outweighs its capital. Wherever there is a bishop, whether it be at Rome or at Eugubium, whether it be at Constantinople or at Rhegium, whether it be at Alexandria or at Tanis, his dignity is the same and his priesthood is the same. Neither the command of wealth nor the lowliness of poverty

5 I Peter 5:1-2, with inspicere as a literal rendering of episkopein, oversee. 6 II John 1:1; III John 1:1.

7 The passage is very close to his commentary on Titus.

8 Heraclas, 231-246; Dionysius, 246–264. The Latin is presbyteri . . . electum . . . conlocatum episcopum nominabant, which naturally means "they elected and they set and they called him bishop." The word translated rank is gradus. For the implications see the literature quoted in the introduction to this letter, and in general the books on the Ministry of the Church. Jerome obscures his argument by accepting the tradition about St. Mark!