skulk in the dark, and flee the light, who are mute in public, and full of chat in their private assemblies. They slight the dignities of the priesthood, and contemn the sacred purple, &c." Octavius answered; "As for our feasts, they are chaste and sober. With respect to honors, it doth not follow, that because we decline your purple and dignities, that we are the dregs of the people; nor are we to be accounted factious, if aspiring after the same happiness, we all meet together in peace, and retirement."

Such was the humiliating condition of the churches in Italy, at the period mentioned. Instead of power and dignity, liberty of conscience had no public protection, and the true worshippers met, only, under the clouds of the night, in sequestered corners.

Hippolytus, probably an inhabitant of Arabia, was contemporary with Minucius Felix; but if a resident of Portus, the mouths of the Tiber only divided him from the scene of the Octavius. Some fragments only are his, in the volume which bears his name.

The "Chronicon" was the work of another Hippolytus. The tract "De Consummatione Mundi," which treats of Antichrist, is the production of a later age. The confidence and ignorance, which it displays, agree not with the character given by Photius and others, of this father. "The commentary on the story of Susannah" is equally unworthy. "The accounts of the Apostles and Disciples," if his, have been interpolated with fictions of later times. The nameless monumental statue, now in the Vatican, rescued from the ground in 1551, bearing an engraving of the Cycle attributed to Hippolytus, is supposed to have been of him; but four-fifths of the titles of the works, appearing on the engraved representation of it, are not those ascribed to him by Eusebius, Jerom, Photius, and the rest; and no one of them is certain. The forms of some of the Greek letters are later and so must the statue be, than the sixth century. "The apostolic tradition" which is now published in his name, rests upon no other evidence than this stone. Being indeed a modification

from the eighth book of the apostolical constitutions, it merits equal contempt, and carries its obvious grounds of condemnation on its face. Yet was it written when bishops were parochial, commissioned without imposition of hands, when a presbytery was in every church, when the presbyters were all preachers, and the deacons served. "The demonstration against the Jews," seems to be a commentary on the 69th Psalm. Neither in it, nor in any of the fragments of his commentaries, has any thing been found relative to the government of the church.

The tract "Against the heresy of a certain Notus," the patripassian, contains much good sense and has claims of genuineness. In the first paragraph Notus is said to have affirmed, that Christ was the Father, and that the Father himself suffered; that Notus was Moses; and his brother, Aaron; and that "the presbyters having heard these things, and cited him, яęɛơβύτεροι προςκαλεσαμένοι, they examined him before the church." He denied, but afterwards, defended openly his opinions. "The presbyters summoned him a second time, condemned" and "cast him out of the church." If this be a part of the writings of Hippolytus against heretics, mentioned by Eusebius, Jerom, and Photius, and quoted without name by Epiphanius, it accords with all antecedent evidence, and evinces, that the presbytery in a church, then, had the power of citing, trying, and excommunicating heretics. The presbyters in this case acted unquestionably as a presbytery, which must have had its president, or in the language of some in that day, bishop. The whole proceedings are described as they should have been, upon the supposition, that this had all the officers heretofore found in any regularly constituted church. The trial and sentence against a heretic, here had by presbyters, well accords with their clerical ordination. Hippolytus says, Notus was of Smyrna. Epiphanius makes Ephesus, the birth place of this heresy, but he is a loose writer, and was born more than a century after.

Origen, who was honoured with the name Adamantius, was born some time before the end of the second and lived unto the middle of the third century. Having taught successfully a philosophic and catechetic school in Alexandria, he was at length irregularly ordained in Palestine, a presbyter. His expositions of the Scriptures are often refined and visionary; and his doctrines on some points unsound. But as his powers of discrimination have justly demanded high respect, so his piety was of the purest water. Speaking of the angels in the Apocalypse, he says; "That certain ruling presbyters in the churches were called angels, by John in the Apocalypse."b The same term, goo7ws, was used by Paul; and continually by Justin Martyr, for that presbyter, who presided in worship, and blessed the sacramental elements. This head of the elders must have been, for there was no higher ordinary officer in any Christian church, the angel in each of the churches in the Apocalypse. Here is the learned Origen, a cotemporary for many years with Irenæus, Clemens Al. and Tertullian, another decisive witness, that the ruling, was not a lay, presbyter, He observes also, "With us, reasonings are mild towards those, who receive instruction; but it becomes him, who has been promoted to the work of teaching, προισταμενον του λόγου, to be able to convince such as oppose the Gospel." The word galaμevov here used for any person, who has been elevated to the office of a teacher, is used in the same sense, in 1 Thess. v. 12. where, following, without the article, it is another characteristic of those, who had been described as "labouring in the word." If it be the duty of a goolaμevos president to be

a Erasmus in his life of Origen, and others, have given too much credit to the relations of Eusebius: he was partial to Origen, and opposed Porphyry by stories instead of proofs.

Η Προεστώτας τινας των εκκλησιῶν αγγέλους λέγεσθαι παρά τη Iwavvy v Tharoxanuu." De Orat. S. 34.

e 1 Tim. v. 17.

d Contra Celsum, lib. vi. p. 279.

able to convince adversaries, it follows that the same ngocolauevos, ruling elder of a church was a teacher, The word denotes presidency or priority, and being associated with the authority to teach, but contrasted with the milder instructions of catechist, it sufficiently discovers the office to have been that of a presbyter; for although the term bishop was now often used for gosols, presiding elder; there were, as yet, but the two ordinations, one of presbyters, the other of dea

cons.

An argument for the identity of the orders of bishops and presbyters, has often been drawn from the first chapter of Titus, where the terms of office, and the personal qualifications are used so promiscuously, as to baffle all powers of discrimination. Origen has observed on the same passage, that, "It is evident, that in the designation of those denominated bishops, Paul delineating what kind of a man, it was fit, should be a bishop, has directed, that he be a teacher, saying, it becomes him to be able to confute gainsayers." Here the presbyters, whom Titus was left in Crete to ordain, are declared by Origen, to have been the persons, whom Paul immediately afterwards denominates bishops; and if these were all to be teachers, which is here also affirmed, they were of one kind only, and none of them laymen.

A passage has sometimes been quoted and unfairly translated, on prayer. "Besides those which are gen

eral, there is a certain debt to the widow, who has been received by the church, zus xngas--opɛian, and another to the deacon, και έτερα διακονον, and another to the presbyter, και αλλη πρεσβύτερον, but the debt to the bishop is the most weighty, και επισκοπου δε οφειλη βαζυλαλη εστιν, being required by the Saviour of the whole church, and avenged, unless it be paid." f

If the debt to the presbyter was thought by Origen, to be different from that due the bishop, he has not so ex

e Orig. contra Celsum. lib. iii. p. 140.

f Orig. Περι. ευχης.

pressed it. The translation, "another to presbyters, and another to bishops" is indefensible. Yet if we suppose Origen to have intended, that the debt due the bishop was weightiest, because of his care and responsibility, as the presiding presbyter, whose superintending anxiety for the whole church, laid a just foundation of a claim upon the people for proportional remuneration, the passage will be a just representation of facts, in the government of the churches at that time; and the adoption of the word bishop in the sense. of neoors, ruling elder would have been no more than a conformity to a mode of expression, which was beginning to be adopted in his day. But the debt to the bishop not being expressed to be another, may be taken to be that, which was before declared to be due to the presbyter, and what may be said of the bishop's claim may be grammatically viewed, as affirmed of the last of the three kinds of debts, which had been enumerated. This interpretation is supported also, by the circumstance, that he speaks of the officers of the church, sometimes as presbyters, and deacons, and at others as bishops, presbyters, and deacons. But upon any interpretation there is no ground to imagine, that he meant by the presbyter, a layman.

The Philocalia were collected more than a century after Origen's death. To quote this production in support of those writings from whence they are presumed to have been taken, may be proper. But they ought not to be deemed competent evidence of any thing, not found in his works. A mistaken passage has been brought from the Philocalia to prove "the succession Siadoxny of the apostles," but the writer is speaking of the handing down of the Scriptures by the apostles.

He censures those deacons, who coveted "the first seats of those, who are denominated presbyters, and such as laid schemes to be called presbyters; and alleges, that as Christ washed the feet of his disciples,

g Tract No. v. on Matt. and Hom. vii. on Jeremiah. h Tract 24, on Matt.