Letter CXLVI
EDITOR'S NOTE: Needless to say, priests and bishops are not identical; St. Jerome is stressing the close connection of these two orders of clergy in order to make his point that deacons are lower ranking. At the time, the seven deacons of Rome were extremely powerful officials of the local church.
To Evangelus:
1. We read in Isaiah the words, "the fool will speak
folly," [Isa. xxxii. 6], and I am told that some
one has been
mad enough to put deacons before presbyters,
that is, before bishops. For when the apostle clearly
teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops,
must not a mere server of tables and of
widows [Acts vi. 1, 2] be insane to set himself up
arrogantly over men through whose prayers the body and
blood of Christ are produced
[ad quorum preces Christi corpus sanguisque conficitur] ?
Do you ask for proof of what I say? Listen to this
passage: "Paul
and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to
all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with
the bishops and deacons," [Ph. i. 1].
Do you wish for another instance? In the Acts of
the Apostles Paul
thus speaks to the priests [sacerdotes] of a single
church: "Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock, in
the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed
the church of God which He purchased
with His own blood," [Acts xx. 28].
And lest any should in a spirit of contention
argue that there must then
have been more bishops than one in a single church,
there is the following passage which clearly
proves a bishop and a presbyter to be the same.
Writing to Titus the apostle says: "For this cause
left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things
that are wanting, and ordain
presbyters in every city, as I had appointed thee: if any
be blameless, the husband of one wife,
having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
For a bishop must be blameless as the steward
of God," [Tit. i. 5-7 Vulgate].
And to Timothy he says: "Neglect
not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by
prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery,"
[Tim. iv. 14]. Peter also says in his first epistle:
"The presbyters which are among you I exhort,
who am your fellow-presbyter and a witness of the
sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory
that shall be revealed: feed the flock of
Christ [Vulgate and Greek NT 'of God']...taking the
oversight thereof not by constraint
but willingly, according unto God," [1 Pet. v. 1, 2]. In
the Greek the meaning is still plainer, for
the word used is episkopountes,
that is to say, overseeing,
and this is the origin of the name overseer or
bishop.
But perhaps the testimony of these great
men seems to you insufficient. If so, then listen
to the blast of the gospel trumpet, that son of
thunder, the disciple whom Jesus loved and who
reclining on the Saviour's breast drank in
the waters of sound doctrine. One of his
letters begins thus: "The presbyter unto the elect lady and
her children whom I love in the truth," [2 Joh. 1]; and
another thus: "The presbyter unto the well-beloved
Gaius whom I love in the truth," [3 Joh. 1]. When
subsequently one presbyter was chosen to preside over
the rest, this was done to remedy schism and to
prevent each individual from rending the church of
Christ by drawing it to himself. For even at
Alexandria from the time of Mark the Evangelist until the
episcopates of Heraclas and Dionysius the presbyters
always named as bishop one of their own
number chosen by themselves and set in a more exalted
position, just as an army elects a general, or
as deacons appoint one of themselves whom they
know to be diligent and call him archdeacon. For
what function, excepting ordination, belongs to a
bishop that does not also belong to a presbyter?
It
is not the case that there is one church at Rome and another
in all the world beside. Gaul and
Britain, Africa and Persia, India and the East worship one
Christ and observe one rule of truth. If
you ask for authority, the world outweighs its capital
[orbis major est urbe].
Wherever there is a bishop, whether it be
at Rome or at Engubium, whether it be at Constantinople or
at Rhegium, whether it be at Alexandria
or at Zoan, his dignity is one and his priesthood is one.
Neither the command of wealth nor the
lowliness of poverty makes him more a bishop or less a bishop.
All alike are successors of the
apostles.
2. But you will say, how comes it then that at Rome a
presbyter is only ordained on the
recommendation of a deacon? To which I reply as follows.
Why do you bring forward a custom
which exists in one city only? Why do you oppose to the
laws of the Church a paltry exception
which has given rise to arrogance and pride? The
rarer anything is the more it is sought after. In
India pennyroyal is more costly than pepper.
Their fewness makes deacons persons of
consequence while presbyters are less thought of owing
to their great numbers.
But even in the
church of Rome the deacons stand while the presbyters
seat themselves, although bad habits have
by degrees so far crept in that I have seen a
deacon, in the absence of the bishop, seat himself
among the presbyters and at social gatherings give his
blessing to them [contrary to the eighteenth canon of
Nicæa --trans.].
Those who act thus
must learn that they are wrong and must give heed to
the apostles' words: "it is not reason that we
should leave the word of God and serve tables," [Acts vi. 2].
They must consider the reasons which led to
the appointment of deacons at the beginning.
They must read the Acts of the Apostles and bear in
mind their true position.
Of the names presbyter and bishop the first denotes age,
the second rank. In writing both to Titus
and to Timothy the apostle speaks of the ordination
of bishops and of deacons, but says not a word
of the ordination of presbyters; for the fact is that the word
bishops includes presbyters also. Again
when a man is promoted it is from a lower place to a
higher. Either then a presbyter should be
ordained a deacon, from the lesser office, that is, to
the more important, to prove that a presbyter is
inferior to a deacon; or if on the other hand it is the
deacon that is ordained presbyter, this latter
should recognize that, although he may be less
highly paid than a deacon, he is superior to him in
virtue of his priesthood. In fact as if to tell us that the
traditions handed down by the apostles were
taken by them from the Old Testament, bishops,
presbyters and deacons occupy in the church the
same positions as those which were occupied by
Aaron, his sons, and the Levites in the temple.
[Cf. Clement, ad Cor. I. xl]
Have mercy, O Lord, upon Thy servant
the translator William and on Theresa and Richard.