of the body of Christ." Such are the views of Rothe,41 one of the latest writers on this subject, who has set forth his sentiments with great clearness, and supported them with unequalled learning and ability. Such also are the sentiments of Chrysostom, an ancient and learned bishop. "The apostles were constituted of God rulers, not over a separate nation or city, but all were entrusted with the world."42

(B) Timothy at Ephesus was not a bishop.

Timothy was one of a class of religious teachers who acted as the assistants and fellow-laborers of the apostle. Their assistance was employed as a necessary expedient, to enable the apostles to exercise their supervision over the infant churches which sprang up in the different and distant countries through which Christianity was propagated. Over churches, widely separated, the apostles could personally exercise but little supervision. The great apostle of the Gentiles, had been instrumental in planting many churches in distant countries. He saw the necessity of employing suitable and competent men, who might supply his lack of service to those churches which lay beyond the range of his immediate inspection. They were neither permanent officers in the church, nor restricted to any specific circuit, but temporary residents, to assist in setting in order the churches, and giving needful instructions, as the occasion might require, and then to pass away to any other station, where their services might be required.

. Such assistants and delegates of the apostles are of frequent occurrence in the Scriptures. And this view of their office affords, at once, a natural and easy explanation of the peculiar and somewhat anomalous rank which they seem to have held. Bishops they certainly were not, in the Episco

41 Anfänge, Christ. Kirch. I. S. 297–310.

42 Εισὶν ὑπὸ θεοῦ χειροτονηθέντες ἀπόστολοι ἄρχοντες, οὐκ ἔθνη καὶ πόλεις διαφόρους λαμβάνοντες, ἀλλὰ πάντες κοινῇ τὴν οἰκουμέ vyv ¿uπiotevdévtes.—Cited by Campbell, Lectures, p. 77.

copal sense of that term.43 Neither were they merely presbyters; for, though in many respects their office was analogous to that of presbyters, in others it was widely different. Such was Timothy, whom Paul styles his fellow-laborer, ovvagrós. Rom. 16: 21. 1 Thess. 3: 2. In the salutations of his epistles, also, he often couples the name of Timothy with his own. Phil. 1: 1. 1 Thess. 1: 1. 2 Thess. 1: 1, etc. Accordingly, Timothy appears to have been the travelling companion of the apostle.

He seems, indeed, at different times, to have had the superintendence of several churches in various places. Comp. 1 Cor. 4: 17. 1 Tim. 1: 3, and 1 Thess. 3: 2, from which it appears that he was sent to Corinth, to Ephesus, and to Thessalonica, as a fellow-laborer and assistant of the apostle. From what is said of his influence at Corinth, it would seem that he might, with almost equal propriety, be styled the bishop of that city as of Ephesus. In the first epistle, he is reputed to have been sent to them, as the representative of the apostle, to bring them into remembrance of his ways and doctrines; and, in the second, he unites with Paul as his brother in the salutation of that church. The whole history of the Acts of the Apostles, and indeed the language of the epistles proves that, like the other fellow-travellers of St. Paul, Timothy had no settled abode, no fixed station; but assisted him, as an evangelist, in setting the churches in order, and in the accomplishment of any special object which the apostle had in view, and to which he could not personally attend. The apostle, often coupling the name of Timothy with his own, presents him to us as his companion and assistant. This itinerating life of Timothy sufficiently proves that he was not the bishop of Ephesus. When both the epistles to the Thessalonians were written, A. D. 62, Timothy was with Paul at Corinth, having lately returned from

43 Bishop Onderdonk only claims this distinction for Timothy, and many others of that communion give up this point,

Thessalonica, where he had spent some time in ministering to that church.

When Paul wrote the first epistle to the Corinthians, A. D. 57, from Ephesus, Timothy was absent again, on a mission to Macedonia and Achaia, from whence he was expected soon to return. 1 Cor. 16: 10. Titus also went about this time on a mission to Corinth.

The year following, when Paul wrote his second epistle from Macedonia, Timothy was with him there, and Titus, whom Paul had met in Macedonia, was again one of the messengers by whom the letter was forwarded to the church. Some months later, A. D. 58, when he wrote his epistle to the Romans from Corinth, Timothy was with him there.

The epistle to the Ephesians was written from Rome, A. D. 61, subsequently to the time when Timothy is alleged to have been made bishop of Ephesus; yet he is not named in it, nor is there any allusion in it to any head of the church there. The address is only to " the saints and faithful brethren." Indeed, it is certain, from the epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, written about the same time from Rome, that Timothy was, at this time, in that city; so that he could scarcely have been in his supposed diocese at all.

"The expression in 1 Tim. 1: 3, ' As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia,' seems to mark but a temporary purpose, and to bear little similitude to a settled appointment and establishment of him as head of the church there, i. e. bishop, in the modern acceptation of the term, resembling rather his previous mission to Thessalonica, referred to in the epistle to the Thessalonians (3:2); and this is confirmed by the undoubted fact, that when the second epistle to him was written, not only was Timothy not in his supposed diocese at Ephesus, but the apostle tells him that he had sent Tychicus there, who is spoken of by the apostle as being in like manner a fellow-servant, beloved brother, and fellow minister of the Lord (Ephes. 6: 21), as

Timothy himself was. This we know to have been shortly before the death of the apostle."44 The absurdity of supposing that this request was made to Timothy as bishop, is forcibly presented by Daillé. Why beseech a bishop to remain in his diocese? Is it not to beseech a man to stay in a place to which he is bound? I should not think it strange to beseech him to leave it, if his services were needed elsewhere. But to beseech him to abide in a place where his charge obliges him to be, and which he cannot forsake without offending God and neglecting his duty, is, to say the truth, not a very civil entreaty; as it plainly pre-supposes that he has not his duty much at heart, seeing one is under the necessity of beseeching him to do it."45

By the imposition of hands he was endowed with peculiar gifts, which qualified him to serve the churches as a fellowlaborer with the apostle, who accordingly charges him not to neglect this gift.46

But what need of many words on this subject? The apostle, just before his death, and long after he is supposed to have constituted Timothy bishop at Ephesus, gives him his true designation,-an Evangelist, "Do the work," not of bishop, but "of an evangelist." The work which he was exhorted to do was simply that of a "person who, being attached to no particular church, was sent by the apostle as was necessary, either for the purpose of founding new churches, or of confirming those which were already established."47

44 Bowdler's Letters on Apost. Succession, pp. 25, 26.

45 Daillé, ci-dessus, p. 23. Cited in Mason's Works, Vol. III. p.

197.

46 Comp. Neander, Apost. Kirch. 1. c. 10. Rothe, Anfänge, I. S. 160, 161, and 263; also, J. H. Böhmer, Diss. Jur. Eccl. Antiq. p. 424 seq., where is given an able discussion of the points under consideration, in relation to Timothy, Titus, and the angel of the churches. Barnes's Apost. Church, pp. 99-107, and Smyth's Presbytery and Prelacy, chap. 12. § 3.

47 Beausobre, quoted by Mant and d'Ogly, on Acts 21: 8.

(7) Titus was not bishop of Crete.

Like Timothy, Titus was an evangelist. He received similar instructions and performed similar labors. Like Timothy, he also travelled too much to be regarded as having been a stationary prelate. From Syria we trace him to Jerusalem; thence to Corinth; thence to Macedonia; back again to Corinth; thence to Crete; thence to Dalinatia; and whether he ever returned to Crete is wholly uncertain. He was left at Crete, therefore, not as bishop of that diocese, but as an assistant of the apostle, to establish the churches, and to continue the work which the apostle had begun. "After Paul had laid the foundation of the Christian church in Crete," says Neander, "he left Titus behind, to complete the organization of the churches, to confirm the new converts in purity of doctrine, and to counterwork the influence of the false teachers."48

From all this there appears to be no scriptural foundation for considering Timothy to have been established as bishop of Ephesus, or Titus as bishop of Crete. Dr. Whitby, himself a zealous advocate of Episcopacy, assures us that he could find nothing in any writer of the first three centuries concerning the Episcopate of Timothy and Titus; nor any intimation that they bore the name of bishops. "Certain it is," says Campbell, also, "that in the first three centuries, neither Timothy nor Titus is styled bishop by any writer." Titus journeyed much with Paul, and was left in Crete, like Timothy at Ephesus, to render in behalf of the apostles, a a similar service to the churches on that island.

Of the same general character, also, was Silvanus, 1 Thess. 1: 1. 2 Thess. 1: 1. Comp. 1 Pet. 5: 12; and Mark, Col. 4: 10. 1 Pet. 5: 13; and Clemens, Phil. 4: 3, and several others. Silas is first the companion of Paul and Barnabas in Asia Minor; then of Paul, in his second missionary tour through Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Achaia; and, at a

48 Apost. Kirch. Vol. I. p. 405.