Acts 20:28

προσέχετε … ἑαυτοῖς (cf. 1 Timothy 4:16), Luke 17:3; Luke 21:34; Acts 5:35; Acts 8:6. In LXX with ἐμαυτῷ, Genesis 24:6; Exodus 10:28; Deuteronomy 4:9. “Non tantum jubet eos gregi attendere, sed primum sibi ipsis; neque enim aliorum salutem sedulo unquam curabit, qui suam negliget … cum sit ipse pars gregis,” Calvin, in loco, and also Chrys. (Bethge, p. 144). ποιμνίῳ : the figure was common in the O.T. and it is found in St.Luke, Luke 12:32, in St. John, in St. Peter, but it is said that St. Paul does not use it, cf. however Ephesians 4:11, where, and nowhere else, he writes καὶ αὐτὸς ἔδωκε … τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας. ἐνᾧ : “in the which,” R.V., not “over which”. ὑμᾶς is again emphatic, but the presbyters were still part of the flock, see Calvin, u. s. ἔθετο, cf. 1 Corinthians 12:28; 1 Timothy 1:12; 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11. There is no ground whatever for supposing that the ἐπισκόποι here mentioned were not ordained, as the words τὸ Π. τὸ Ἅγ. ἔθετο may be used without any reference whatever to the actual mode of appointment. Dr. Hort allows that here the precedent of Acts 6:3-6 may have been followed, and the appointment of the elders may have been sealed, so to speak, by the Apostle's prayers and laying-on-of-hands, Ecclesia, pp. 99, 100. The thought of appointment by the Holy Spirit, although not excluding the ordination of Apostles, may well be emphasised here for the sake of solemnly reminding the Presbyters of their responsibility to a divine Person, and that they stand in danger of losing the divine gifts imparted to them in so far as they are unfaithful to their office. ποιμαίνειν : “to tend” as distinct from βόσκειν “to feed,” although the act of feeding as well as of governing is associated also with the former word; see on John 21:16. The figurative pastoral language in this passage was probably not unknown as applied to Jewish elders, Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 282; Hort, Ecclesia, p. 101. ἐπισκόπους : the word, which occurs five times in the N.T., is applied four times to officers of the Christian Church: in this passage, again at Ephesus in 1 Timothy 3:2, at Philippi in Philippians 1:1, at Crete in Titus 1:7; and once to our Lord Himself, 1 Peter 2:25 (cf. the significant passage, Wis 1:6, where it is applied to God). In the LXX it is used in various senses, e.g., of the overseers of Josiah, 2 Chronicles 34:12; 2 Chronicles 34:17; of task-masters or exactors, Isaiah 60:17; of minor officers, Nehemiah 11:9; Nehemiah 11:14; of officers over the house of the Lord, 2 Kings 11:18; and in 1Ma 1:51 of overseers or local commissioners of Antiochus Epiphanes to enforce idolatry, cf. Jos., Ant., xii., 5, 4. In classical Greek the word is also used with varied associations. Thus in Attic Greek it was used of a commissioner sent to regulate a new colony or subject city like a Spartan “harmost,” cf. Arist., Av., 1032, and Boeckh, Inscr., 73 (in the Roman period ἐπίμεληταί); but it was by no means confined to Attic usage. In another inscription found at Thera in the Macedonian period mention is made of two ἐπίσκοποι receiving money and putting it out at interest, and again at Rhodes, in the second century B.C., ἐπίσ. are mentioned in inscriptions, but we do not know their functions, although Deissmann claims that in one inscription, I. M. A. e., 731, the title is used of a sacred office in the Temple of Apollo, but he declines to commit himself to any statement as to the duties of the office: cf. also Loening, Die Gemeindeverfassung des Urchristenthums, pp. 21, 22; Gibson, “Bishop,” B.D. 2; Gwatkin, “Bishop,” Hastings' B.D.; Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 57; Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 95. M. Waddington has collected several instances of the title in inscriptions found in the Haurân, i.e., the south-eastern district of the ancient Bashan (see the references to Le Bas Waddington in Loening, u. s., p. 22, note, and Gore, Church and the Ministry, p. 402), but none of these give us precise and definite information as to the functions of the ἐπίσκοποι. But it is important to note that M. Waddington is of opinion that the comparative frequency of the title in the Haurân points to the derivation of the Christian use of the word from Syria or Palestine rather than from the organisation of the Greek municipality (Expositor, p. 99, 1887). It has been urged that the officers of administration and finance in the contemporary non-Christian associations, the clubs and guilds so common in the Roman empire, were chiefly known by one or other of two names, ἐπιμελητής or ἐπίσκοπος, Hatch, B.L., p. 36, and hence the inference has been drawn that the primary function of the primitive ἐπίσκοποι in the Christian Church was the administration of finance; but Dr. Hatch himself has denied that he laid any special stress upon the financial character of the ἐπίσκοποι, although he still apparently retained the description of them as “officers of administration and finance,” see Expositor, u. s., p. 99, note, thus adopting a position like that of Professor Harnack, who would extend the administration duties beyond finance to all the functions of the community. But however this may be (see below), there is certainly no ground for believing that the title ἐπίσκοπος in the Christian Church was ever limited to the care of finance (see the judgment of Loening on this view, u. s., p. 22), or that such a limitation was justified by the secular use of the term. If indeed we can point to any definite influence which connects itself with the introduction of the title into the Christian Church, it is at least as likely, one might say more likely when we consider that the Apostles were above all things Jews, that the influence lies in the previous use in the LXX of ἐπίσκοπος and ἐπισκοπή, and the direct appeal of St. Clement of Rome, Cor [340], 42:5, to Isaiah (LXX) Isaiah 60:17 in support of the Christian offices of ἐπίσκοποι and διάκονοι may be fairly quoted as pointing to such an influence. But whatever influences were at work in the adoption of the term by the early believers, it became, as it were, baptised into the Christian Church, and received a Christian and a higher spiritual meaning. This one passage in Acts 20:28 is sufficient to show that those who bore the name were responsible for the spiritual care of the Church of Christ, and that they were to feed His flock with the bread of life (see the striking and impressive remarks of Dr. Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. 266). This one passage is also sufficient to show that the “presbyter” and “bishop” were at first practically identical, cf. Acts 20:17; Acts 20:28, Steinmetz, Die zweite römische Gefangenschaft des Apostels Paulus, p. 173, 1897, and that there is no room for the separation made by Harnack between the two, see his Analecta zu Hatch, p. 231, or for his division between the “patriarchal” office of the πρεσβύτεροι and the “administrative” office of the ἐπίσκοποι (Loening, u. s., pp. 23 27; Sanday, Expositor, u. s., pp. 12, 104; Gwatkin, u. s., p. 302). In the Pastoral Epistles the identity between the two is even more clearly marked, although Harnack cannot accept Titus 1:5-7 as a valid proof, because he believes that Acts 20:7-9 were interpolated into the received text by a redactor; cf. also for proof of the same 1 Timothy 3:1-13; 1Ti 5:17-19; 1 Peter 5:1-2, although in this last passage Harnack rejects the reading ἐπισκοποῦντες (and it must be admitted that it is not found in [341] [342], and that it is omitted by Tisch. and W. H.), whilst he still relegates the passages in the Pastoral Epistles relating to bishops, deacons and Church organisation to the second quarter of the second century, Chron., i., p. 483, note. In St. Clement of Rome, Cor [343], xlii., 4, xliv. 1, 4, 5, the terms are still synonymous, and by implication in Didaché, xv., 1 (Gwatkin, u. s., p. 302, and Gore, u. s., p. 409, note). But if we may say with Bishop Lightfoot that a new phraseology began with the opening of a new century, and that in St. Ignatius the two terms are used in their more modern sense, it should be borne in mind that the transition period between Acts and St. Ignatius is exactly marked by the Pastoral Epistles, and that this fact is in itself no small proof of their genuineness. In these Epistles Timothy and Titus exercise not only the functions of the ordinary presbyteral office, but also functions which are pre-eminent over those of the ordinary presbyter, although there is no trace of any special title for these Apostolic delegates, as they may be fairly called. The circumstances may have been temporary or tentative, but it is sufficiently plain that Timothy and Titus were to exercise not only a general discipline, but also a jurisdiction over the other ministers of the Church, and that to them was committed not only the selection, but also the ordination of presbyters (Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. 151 ff.; Bright, Some Aspects of Primitive Church Life, p. 28 ff., 1898; Church Quarterly Review, xlii., pp. 265 302). τὴν ἐκκ. τοῦ Θεοῦ, see critical note. περιεποιήσατο, cf. Psalms 74:2. It has been thought that St. Paul adopts and adapts the language of this Psalm; in comparing his language with that of the LXX we can see how by the use of the word ἐκκλησία instead of συναγωγή in the Psalm he connects the new Christian Society with the ancient ἐκκλησία of Israel, whilst in employing περιεποιήσατο instead of ἐκτήσω (LXX), and retaining the force of ἐλυτρώσω, LXX, by reference to the λύτρον of the new Covenant, a deeper significance is given to the Psalmist's language: a greater redemption than that of Israel from the old Egyptian bondage had been wrought for the Christian Ecclesia (Hort, Ecclesia, pp. 14 and 102). The verb περιποιεῖσθαι only in St. Luke and St. Paul in N.T., but in a different sense in the former, Luke 17:33. In 1 Timothy 3:13 (1Ma 6:44) it is found in the sense of “gaining for oneself,” so in classical Greek. But it is to be noted that the cognate noun περιποίησις is associated by St. Paul in his Ephesian letter with the thought of redemption, εἰς ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποίησεως “unto the redemption of God's own possession,” R.V. τοῦ ἰδ. τοῦ αἵμ., see critical note.

[340] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[341] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[342] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[343] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.