Presbyter

Few terms in the Christian lexicon better define the eventual grand schism that developed between the Catholic Christian Church and the Protestant Reformation insurgency in the wake of Martin Luther’s efforts to purify the church in the early sixteenth century and return it to what Luther and his followers regarded as the original precepts of Christ than the term presbyter. In its origins, presbyter was a term of empowerment used by the apostles of the early church interchangeably with the contemporary concept of a priest or parish pastor; but in the wake of Luther’s dramatic split with the Catholic Church, the term came to be applied by the newly established churches of the Reformation to elevate the laity itself within a given church to a position equivalent to the traditional priest, in effect dispensing with the special privilege of the priesthood and neatly doing away with the elaborate hierarchy that the Catholic Church had established over more than fifteen hundred years of self-empowerment. At the center of the conflict over the definition of the term presbyter, then, is the central tension that defined the church itself in the late Middle Ages and aggravated the tensions that would lead to the Reformation movement: what exactly is the role of the laity in the church?

Brief History

In the wake of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the early church, largely under the direction of the apostle Paul, faced an enormous organizational problem. Given the special place accorded to those few apostles who had been directly involved in the original mission of Christ, and given the missionary directive from Christ himself before his ascension to Heaven to proselytize the message of Christian redemption to nothing less than the entire world, the early Church was by definition of that mission statement, a missionary church. Without churches, established congregations, or any defined hierarchy of ministers as Judaism maintained at the time, how were the apostles to establish a place for this controversial new church? A church needed missionaries, yes, but a church required roots as well, established and defined centers of worship in order to both maintain its currency and provide for its evolution and growth.

The response initially was as strategic as it was successful. In the decades just after the crucifixion of Christ, Paul and the other apostles, most notably James, decided the church would maintain a two-tiered organizational structure in an effort to provide the nascent church with both order and purpose. Within this conception, the apostles would appoint a bishop, or episcopal, to serve as the spiritual head of a particular area or region. That bishop would offer spiritual guidance, and through the authoritative interpretation of the sacred wisdom literature left behind by Christ, direct the spiritual evolution of the new church by guarding against heresies, that is, those interpretations of that literature that ran counter to the accepted reading. But while the bishops would maintain the spiritual consensus of the church and preserve its doctrine intact, they would ably assisted by presbyters, a Greek word that means literally "old men," designated and anointed by the bishops to run the day-to-day business of the congregations that were springing up throughout the Mediterranean basin as the word of Christ began to circulate. These elders, answerable to the bishops, would maintain the church through performing the rituals of the Mass, administering the sacraments, and tirelessly preaching the message of Christian Catholicism. By the second century, this administrative division was firmly in place as the church expanded its dominance. While the bishops presided over matters of scriptural interpretation and saw to the coherent presentation of that message through their particular region (their commission, after all, could be traced back to the initial anointing of the apostles by Jesus Christ), the presbyters, appointed and in turn blessed by those same bishops, would see to the day-to-day operations of individual churches, or parishes. The presbyter would become over the next several centuries what contemporary church members would recognize as a parish priest—able to perform the rituals of the church, able to dispense the sacraments, directed to maintain the life of a parish church in accord with church teachings and to work diligently to spread the message of Catholic Christian salvation to nonbelievers within that area—but always answerable to the direct authority of the bishop.

Impact

It was exactly that overlay of bureaucratic structuring that came to be a central argument developed by Martin Luther as he championed a massive reform of a church he saw as overburdened with a hierarchy of bishops (one of which was the Bishop of Rome, or the Pope) and redundant layers of ministers that in effect denied the believer direct access to God. In doing so, the church had ignored the wider context and the root of the Greek word presbyteros, which meant not just an old man but an elder, that is one who had grown wise in years. Within that context, Luther and the wider Protestant Reformation argued that members of a congregation, versed in the faith and directed by a living and very hands-on God, really could help direct and administer the church, an idea that was radically in opposition to the concept of power residing only in those directly appointed by the church. It was the audacity of the Protestant Reformation to reject the structured hierarchy of faith the church had created over more than fifteen centuries and to suggest that a pastor of a congregation, appointed by a bishop, could rely on members of the church itself, or presbyters, elected, in turn, by the congregation at large, the ordinary members of a church, to help direct and administer the operations of their own church. The term presbyter, once used to designate the specially appointed head of a particular Church, had been appropriated now to describe any member of that Church, inspired by faith in the word of God, able to participate directly in its operations. It was a most dramatic turn.

While many Protestant churches maintained the basic hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church (for instance Methodists and Baptists), others, most notably the Presbyterians, embraced the concept of an active and empowered laity. All levels of church administration are duly elected by the other members who trust in God to direct the actions of these presbyters as they assist the minister in the work of maintaining a congregation while still maintaining their place in the secular world. Presbyters have professions, maintain families, and participate in the activities of the wider community while devoting enormous energy and passion into the workings of their church.

Bibliography

Anizor, Uche, and Voss, Hank. Representing Christ: A Vision for the Priesthood of All Believers. Downers Grove: IVP Academic Press, 2016. Print.

Didymus, Dou Ting. Presbyter Paul. Amazon Digital, 2011. Kindle file.

Howard, Thomas Albert. Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism. New York: Oxford UP, 2016. Print.

Lucas, Sean Michael. For a Continuing Church: The Roots of the Presbyterian Church in America. Phillipsburg: P + R Publishers, 2015. Print.

McKim, Donald K. Presbyterian Beliefs: A Brief Introduction. Louisville: Geneva Press, 2003. Print.

Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012. Print.

Shelley, Bruce. Church History in Plain Language.4th ed. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012. Print.

Sykes, Norman. Old Priest and New Presbyter. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. Print.