CHAPTER V.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH IN THE SECOND CENTURY.

Justin Martyr, who had travelled much, and who was probably as well acquainted with the state of the Church about the middle of the second century as most of his contemporaries, has left behind him an account of the manner in which its worship was then conducted.  This account, which has already been submitted to the reader, [499:1] represents one individual as presiding over each Christian community, whether in the city or the country.  Where the Church consisted of a single congregation, and where only one of the elders was competent to preach, it is easy to understand how the society was regulated.  In accordance with apostolic arrangement, the presbyter, who laboured in the Word and doctrine, was counted worthy of double honour, [499:2] and was recognized as the stated chairman of the solemn assembly.  His brother elders contributed in various ways to assist him in the supervision of the flock; but its prosperity greatly depended on his own zeal, piety, prudence, and ability.  Known at first as the president, and afterwards distinguished by the title of the bishop, he occupied very much the same position as the minister of a modern parish.

Where a congregation had more than one preaching elder, the case was different.  There, several individuals were in the habit of addressing the auditory, [500:1] and it was the duty of the president to preserve order; to interpose, perhaps, by occasional suggestions; and to close the exercise.  When several congregations with a plurality of preaching elders existed in the same city, the whole were affiliated; and a president, acknowledged by them all, superintended their united movements.

It must be admitted that much obscurity hangs over the general condition of the Christian commonwealth in the first half of the second century; but it so happens that two authentic and valuable documents which still remain, one of which was written about the beginning and the other about the close of this period, throw much light upon the question of Church government.  These documents are the “Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,” and the “Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians.”  As to the matters respecting which they bear testimony, we could not desire more competent witnesses than the authors of these two letters.  The one lived in the West; the other, in the East.  Clement, who is mentioned by the Apostle Paul, [500:2] was a presbyter of the Church of Rome; Polycarp, who, in his youth, had conversed with the Apostle John, was a presbyter of the Church of Smyrna.  Clement died about the close of the first century, and his letter to the Corinthians was written three or four years before, that is, immediately after the Domitian persecution; Polycarp survived until a somewhat advanced period of the second century, and his letter to the Philippians was probably written fifty or sixty years after the date of the Epistle of Clement. [500:3]