Abstract
Alistair Stewart, a recognized authority on early Christianity, has produced what one reviewer calls “a ground-breaking work of seismic or Copernican significance.” The Original Bishops reevaluates the roles and personae of the earliest church bishops and their relation to deacons and elders. Stewart begins by distinguishing episkopos (commonly translated as “bishop”) and presbyteros (commonly translated as “elder”) and provides evidence that these terms were never synonymous, even in their earliest manifestations. His assertions disrupt a long-standing scholarly consensus on the matter. Admittedly, Stewart is the first to acknowledge the tentative nature of his findings, especially with the appearance of regional variations and the occasional overlap in usage of these terms within the first two centuries. Nevertheless, his thesis does potentially transform one’s understanding of the early church.
Stewart’s case is that Christian communities initially coalesced around households and that the head of the house inevitably took on responsibilities of leadership. The household patron, or episkopos, oversaw the provision of the Eucharistic meal with the help of one or more assistants, diakonoi (“deacons”). That is to say, the initial duties of the episkopos were not priestly in the traditional sense, but “charitable and administrative” (p. 58). Connecting “liturgy” (leitorgia) to the Greek and Roman context of public office or public work undertaken at one’s own expense, Stewart shows that the original liturgy of the bishops consisted of financing and overseeing the communal meal, which was as much an act of charity as a ritual of worship. It provided sustenance for the poor and needy, created fellowship for the community, and constituted the essence, or the essential observance, of the Eucharist. In other words, if the household was the locus of Christian association, then the “fundamental ritual of the household church was the sharing of food” (p. 100).
In the course of the second century, this communal meal, which consisted of a substantial evening supper, was downsized to a lighter and more symbolic morning ritual. At the same time, doctrinal disputes were causing churches to formalize and theologize their ritual observances and church offices. Thus, the Eucharistic patron and the serving stewards (the episkopos and diakonoi) began to assume more recognizably liturgical duties and dignities.
Where do the presbyteroi fit into this picture? To answer, Stewart develops a hypothesis first made by Edwin Hatch in 1880. In its Greek and Roman usage, the presbyteroi primarily denoted the assembled members of a regional federation, such as a gymnasium or trade association. In its ecclesial usage, the presbyteroi were gathered from the congregational episkopoi and the older male patrons of the churches. The presbyteroi kata polin, the “city elders,” as Titus 1:5 calls them, essentially function as a “collective noun to denote the individual leaders of Christian communities gathering from across a defined urban area” (p. 143). So, while the two terms, episkopos and presbyteros, were never synonymous, they might have referred to the same individual in different contexts; one used at the local, congregational level, and the other at the regional, associational level.
Stewart traces the subtle transformation of these loose federations of house churches into the recognizable ecclesial institutions of the third century. The institutionalized federation took on the following three functions: policing orthodoxy, sharing instructional and inspirational literature, and maintaining relationships with other churches. These functions required greater centralization under a chief agency—the monepiskopos (a single, head bishop). In addition, this individual began to oversee the increasingly distinct offices of presbyters and deacons. Stewart clarifies that this move was not “from multiple leaders to single leadership but a transition from small, independent communities through federation to centralization” (p. 302).
All of this discussion challenges the standard narrative that the earliest church congregations were led by their presbyters, that presbyters shared decision-making responsibilities collectively, that the model was adopted from Jewish synagogues, and that, under the pressures of growth and persecution, bishops were selected from among the presbyters to give overall direction in worship, teaching, and sacred rites.
Stewart presents a rigorous, detailed study, much of which is technical. He works through Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman evidence from Rome, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor. Although he avoids personal commentary and reiterates the provisional nature of his conclusions, the implications of his study are surprising and important. For example, “both the Protestant position of presbyteral leadership of churches and the Catholic position of apostolically ordained episcopal leadership are shown . . . to be dogmatic positions without foundation in history” (p. 354). It seems unlikely that the earliest congregations were led by councils of elders or by apostolically selected and ordained bishops, though these possibilities cannot be ruled out in all cases. Stewart likewise deflates attempts to establish traditions of female leadership: “beyond the first Christian generation, there is little evidence of women exercising leadership within Christian circles” (p. 351). As household leaders, some women served as episkopoi to the earliest churches, but rarely at the associational, that is presbyteral, level. Because of the importance of this particular topic, for Stewart to have devoted more time and attention to the leadership roles of women in the early church would have been helpful.
Scholars of early Christianity will want to pay close attention to this monograph. The years since its publication have only confirmed and reinforced its thesis.