The Elders: Seniority within Earliest Christianity
Overview
This is a groundbreaking study of the origins of the Church’s ministry, which focuses on the significance and role of the elders in the social world of the New Testament. Alastair Campbell challenges the consensus view among Protestant scholars of this and the last century that the elders were the holders of a definite office derived from a similar office in the synagogue. As such, they have often been seen as the representatives of a system of government which was the antithesis of the charismatic order of the Pauline churches.
The Elders demonstrates that, throughout the ancient world, among the Greeks as well as the Jews, “the elder” was a title of honor, not of office. This impressive term, collective and representative, and rooted in the ancient family or household, is here traced from the Old Testament, through the life and institutions of Second Temple Judaism and the Graeco-Roman world of the first century and through the evidence of the New Testament. Campbell discovers and describes a compelling pattern of consistency, rather than diversity, in the development of the Church’s ministry.
This investigation not only clarifies many issues in the long-running debate about charisma and office in the early church, but contributes to the contemporary debates about charismatic gifts, the ordination of women, and the search for a mutual recognition of ministries within the ecumenical movement.
This resource is also available as part of the Church Origins Collection (10 vols.).
Top Highlights
“It will be shown that the term is exceedingly vague and flexible, connoting honour and leadership, but denoting no particular office that the churches might be thought to have ‘taken over’.” (Page 4)
“Where Hatch attributed the decline of primitive Christianity to its achieving the status of a State religion, and Harnack to the corruption of simple faith by Hellenistic speculation, Sohm placed the blame on church law: the tendency of religious people to prefer to operate by law, rather than grace. This, Sohn insisted, is the original sin of the Christian movement.” (Page 6)
“Baur, Ritschl, Lightfoot and Hatch. While they differed from one another on many points, they converged in the opinion that the increase of the church’s organization entailed the decrease in its spiritual power.” (Page 3)
“Two things stand out in all this. The word ‘elder’ never occurs in the singular, referring to an office-holder.23 Where a person is being considered in his capacity as the head of his house, clan or tribe, he is likely to be called ‘head’ or ‘prince’, but not ‘elder’. This confirms that ‘the elders’ is a collective term for the leadership of the tribe, or of the ruling class under the monarchy and thereafter, but that it was never the title of an office to which an individual might be appointed.” (Pages 25–26)
“When today we ask whether the New Testament church provides us with a precedent for ordaining women, we are effectively asking whether women enjoyed positions of oversight in the New Testament churches. The answer seems to be that they did in the early days when oversight meant oversight of a household church, but they did not (so far as we know) become ‘monepiskopoi’. Nor in the second century did they become presbyters, when presbyter came to mean the bishop’s deputy.” (Page 256)
Product Details
- Title: The Elders: Seniority within Earliest Christianity
- Editor: Alastair Campbell
- Publication Date: 2004
- Pages: 328
About Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell was formerly Tutor in New Testament at Spurgeon’s College, London.