Sarx

Continuing our series from Worship At St Gregory’s by Rick Fabian…

Christian institutions developed independently of these scriptural images, however, and reshaped them. At first Jesus’ followers at Jerusalem made his brother James their leader, much as Muslims would one day vest authority in a succession of Mohammed’s blood relatives, called caliphs.(*) There James presided over “the Twelve,” a body Jesus had chosen to symbolize a restored laos of twelve tribes: together these decided institutional questions for the growing churches. And from there the gospel spread among Jewish synagogues throughout the Roman empire, carried by countless APOSTLES. (Unlike later ages, the New Testament period did not reserve this name for “the Twelve,” but simply continued here the familiar Greek Old Testament translation for the Hebrew shaliach, meaning anyone on an authorized errand.) At the same time the apostle Paul and his fellow-apostle helpers added new gentile synagogues to their number. Suddenly, however, the Christian caliphate with its council of the Twelve vanished, after James’ murder and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d., leaving Christian synagogues elsewhere to work in conventional synagogue ways. Hence the Christian liturgical ministers we know spring from Jewish synagogues, and not from any distinctive creation by Jesus or the early Church.

Recent research shows that Jewish synagogue organization varied more than was recently believed; yet some widespread features shaped the classic Christian pattern. Luke’s gospel describes Jesus’ sermon at Nazareth in the course of a typical synagogue service: the rabbi Jesus — a layman — found the text he wished to preach on, read it aloud, closed the book, handed it to the minister (leitourgos), and sat down to preach. (Luke 4) This minister, called sheliach tsibbûr (“apostle of the people”) in Hebrew, tended scrolls and paraphernalia, marshalled readers, chanted and led congregational singing.(*) The book of Acts, by the same author, mentions another ministry (diakonia, hence DEACONS in English) of those who served food at Christian eucharistic banquets and cared for the poor. (Acts 6) It seems Christian synagogues soon joined these two ministries, as virtually all other early sources depict the deacons doing both jobs. And like at least some Jewish communities, early Christians put women as well as men to deacons’ work, a usage which many protestants — including Anglicansv — and Greek and Armenian Orthodox have now revived. If Jesus attended a church service today, the deacon is the one minister he would surely recognize.

New Testament language suggests a local council somehow presided at many synagogues, and were called interchangeably elders (presbyteroi, hence the English PRESBYTER) or supervisors (episkopoi, hence the English BISHOP). These often taught, preached, led prayers, and officiated as hosts at the eucharistic banquet. Archaeological evidence implies women may sometimes have filled this role; but that possibility did not long survive, and women eventually disappeared even from the diaconate. Significantly, in the Roman province of Syria, where Jerusalem and its Christian caliphate had stood, one male presbyter/bishop dominated the council; and this Syrian monarchical arrangement spread through the Church during the late first century. Rome, ever conservative, resisted this novelty until a personal visit from the condemned Syrian martyr Ignatius of Antioch won that church over in 107 a.d., and the Roman papacy began.(*)

Since coastal cities housed 80% of the Roman Empire’s population(*) — a proportion Europe would see again only after World War II — urban Christianity naturally drove institutional development for the first five centuries. Urban churches grew fast: by the second century many cities’ Christians could not hope to gather where their sovereign presbyter/bishop and his council presided, so a “metropolitan” system evolved. The sovereign presided at the main church, while his delegates, called “field supervisors” (chôrepiskopoi) presided at simultaneous liturgies in outlying neighborhoods, their worship linked by couriers (acolytes) carrying bread from the sovereign’s table to mix in every chalice before communion, and so visibly unite all these feasts. It is not clear whether the chôrepiskopoi were members of the old presbyteral council, or a new group chosen by the sovereign to represent him; but they are the ancestors of today’s parish clergy, presiding at local liturgies while — among Episcopalians and many others — a monarchical bishop upholds the unity of all local congregations with each other and with churches elsewhere.