Raymond E. Brown, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind.
Chapter 2: The Sub-Apostolic Era in the New Testament: Church Structure, p. 31-46

(Detailed summary)

In our study of sub-apostolic continuity in the New Testament, let us begin with Paul's legacy through the two letters written to Timothy and the letter to Titus, as the context suggests that Paul is nearing death: "The time of my departure has come; I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race " (2 Tim 4:6-7). Consequently, his thoughts turn to the Christians he is leaving behind. How will they survive, especially since a huge danger threatens them in the form of false teachers who could lead them astray (Titus 1:10; 1 Tim 4:1-2; 2 Tim 3:6; 4:3)? In other words, Paul's interests are no longer primarily missionary, but pastoral; he is concerned with caring for the existing flock.

1. The answer to the Church's survival: structuring the community

   The advice given by Paul on his deathbed to Timothy and Titus on how to survive: establish an ecclesiastical structure. For some Pauline communities have shortcomings in that they lack local authorities, but this situation must now be remedied and presbyter-bishops appointed in each city (Titus 1:5, 7). The authority of these men will preserve the local ecclesial communities from disintegration.

   1. Appointing presbyters/bishops

      What is a presbyter? The Greek word presbyteros is the comparative form of presbys, “old,” so it literally means “older than,” and thus refers to the elders of a community. Although the term refers to age, the custom of seeking advice from the older men of a community meant that “elder” or “presbyter” came to refer to an official chosen ideally for his wisdom, often older, but not necessarily so. Jewish synagogues had groups of elders or presbyters who set the policy of the synagogue. Christian presbyters, however, had a pastoral role of supervision that went beyond that of their Jewish counterparts; this is why they are designated by a second title, episkopos, “overseer, supervisor, bishop.” It should be noted that during the century and a half preceding Christianity, the Essenes described in the Dead Sea Scrolls had, in addition to presbyters, officials called “overseers” who had teaching, warning, and administrative roles almost identical to those of the bishops in the pastoral epistles. Essene religious overseers were figuratively described as “shepherds,” just like Christian bishops (Acts 20:28-29; 1 Peter 5:1-3). It is therefore plausible that Christians borrowed from the synagogue a model of groups of presbyters for each church, while the role of pastoral supervisor (episkopos) assigned to all or most of these presbyters came from the organizational model of close-knit Jewish sectarian groups such as the Dead Sea Essenes.

      It should be emphasized that nothing in the pastoral epistles suggests that presbyter-bishops were involved in the Eucharist or baptism. Nor do we know how presbyter-bishops were appointed, although at the time the Acts were written (in the 80s or 90s), Barnabas and Paul could be described as having appointed presbyters in each church (Acts 14:23). The fact that this image was simplified to the extreme is indicated in Titus 1:5, where it is clear that there were cities in Paul's mission without presbyters. According to the Didache 15:1 (circa 100?), Christians were invited to appoint their own bishops and deacons.

   2. The role of presbyters/episcopes

      But how do these functions of presbyter-bishops answer the question of the survival of Paul's communities after his death?

      1. First, in the pastoral epistles, presbyter-bishops must be the official teachers of the community, adhering to the sound doctrine they received from Paul through Titus and Timothy and rejecting any new or different teaching. They can protect the community from false doctrines because they can silence bad teachers (Titus 1:9-2:1; 1 Tim 4:1-11; 5:17).

      2. Second, since the Church is “the house of God” (1 Tim 3:15: a comparison reinforced by the fact that the Church met in a house), presbyter-bishops must be like fathers assuming responsibility for a household, administering its affairs and setting an example and providing discipline. Stability and close relationships, similar to those of a family home, will enable the Church to remain united in the face of the forces of disintegration that surround or invade it.

   3. Requirements for this role

      These requirements are suitable for any institution with a family atmosphere.

      • The leader must be blameless, upright, and holy; he must be self-controlled and not arrogant or quick-tempered (Titus 1:7-9).
      • He must be able to manage his own household well and control his children (1 Tim 3:4).
      • He must be able to manage his own household's budget; in particular, he must not be greedy (1 Tim 3:3, 5), because he administers the common money of the Christian community.
      • He cannot be a drunkard (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3).
      • He cannot have been married more than once.
      • He cannot be a recent convert.
      • His children must be Christians (Titus 1:6; 1 Tim 3:2, 6).

   4. Requirements that deviate from Jesus' attitude

      Do these requirements not differ from the attitude of Jesus, who welcomed sinners and marginalized people, tax collectors and zealots? It must be acknowledged that Jesus was not structuring a society; he did not live in an organized Church; the Twelve were chosen not as administrators but as eschatological judges of a renewed Israel (Mt 19:28; Lk 22:30). But once the movement associated with Christ was sufficiently organized to become a society called “Church,” it began to decide that certain standards of religious respectability were very important for the common good. Individuals, however talented, who did not meet these standards had to be sacrificed. For example, the exclusion of new converts:

      • For the presbyter had to serve as a model as a father of a family. A man who converted after his children had grown up could be a natural leader, but if he did not meet the requirement of having believing children, he could not be appointed a presbyter-bishop.
      • Sometimes new converts lack confidence or are not mature in their Christian judgment.
      • Other times, they are driven by an extraordinary zeal that can galvanize a community. The pastoral epistles did not allow any recent convert, talented or not, to exercise the function of presbyter, because he did not possess the desired wisdom.

      There is something ironic about these requirements when we consider the figure of Paul himself, who would probably not have been able to meet several of the requirements that the pastoral epistles imposed on presbyter-bishops. “Not quick-tempered” (Titus 1:7) hardly describes Paul, who called the Galatians “foolish” “ (Gal 3:1). ”Prudent and of good behavior“ (1 Tim 3:2) would not correspond to Paul, who wished that his circumcised opponents would slip with the knife and castrate themselves (Gal 5:12) and who could utter insults such as ”Their god is their belly " (Phil 3:19). Raw vitality and a willingness to fight barehanded for the Gospel were part of what made Paul a great missionary, but these characteristics could have made him a poor supervisor of a residential community.

   5. The Church's right to set standards

      Against the right to set standards, one could argue that the Twelve were not residential clergy and that Jesus never lived in a structured Church. Similarly, one could question the idea that the requirements imposed by the Pastoral Epistles are eternally valid. On the contrary, since these requirements sometimes relate to public respectability, they can and must evolve over time. The early Church had prejudices against the remarriage of widowers (1 Tim 5:9, 11; 1 Cor 7:8), reluctantly allowing it only for ordinary people. Consequently, the Pastoral Epistles did not tolerate remarried presbyter-bishops (1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:6); they had to live up to the ideal. Today, few Protestant churches would refuse ordination to remarried widowers. On the other hand, the requirement to be “the husband of one wife” is echoed in many Protestant churches, which require their clergy not to remarry after divorce (even though they allow remarriage for lay people). Roman Catholicism has imposed Paul's personal standard (“It is good for them to remain single as I am”: 1 Cor 7:8) on all its priests. One may still question the wisdom of the individual requirements that different churches have imposed on their clergy, but the right to impose such requirements seems to have been assumed from the outset.

   6. "Early Catholicizing" of the Church

      The institutionalization of the Christian movement was one aspect of what scholars call “early Catholicization,” referring to the ecclesiastical characteristics that were later found in Roman Catholicism. But it must be admitted that, if the Church is a society, regulations, whether constitutive or otherwise, are an inevitable sociological development that is in the very nature of the Church.

2. Strengths and Weaknesses of this Response

   All answers to a theological problem, necessarily partial and conditioned by time, come at a price. An insistence, however necessary it may be at a given moment, will inevitably lead to neglecting the truth contained in another answer or insistence. What, then, are the strengths and weaknesses of this answer centered on the ecclesial structure in the pastoral epistles?

   1. The idea of preserving the apostolic heritage against radical ideas and teachers
      1. What this means

         This emphasis on preserving the apostolic heritage leads to impressive stability and solid continuity in the institutional structure (presbyters-bishops and deacons). It highlights the unique character of the apostle, especially Paul, and at the same time extends his influence beyond his lifetime by passing on his legacy to the presbyter-bishops under the supervision of Timothy and Titus. Paul is clearly a teacher, “a teacher of the nations” (1 Tim 2:7; see also 2 Tim 1:11); and the main function of his heirs is to teach “sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1), continuing the teaching given by the apostle to his converts. The bishop must “hold fast the sure word as he has been taught” (Titus 1:9). Timothy, who had observed Paul's teaching (2 Tim 3:10), is exhorted: “Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Tim 3:14).

         This role demonstrates his effectiveness in the face of teachers who introduce new ideas, a group described as rebellious, talkative, and seductive men who love “controversies” (1 Tim 6:4-5; Titus 3:9). The apostle of the pastoral epistles would like these propagators of new and different ideas to be prevented from teaching (1 Tim 1:3): “They must be silenced, for they are upsetting whole families by teaching what they have no right to teach, for dishonest gain” (Titus 1:11). . The faithful are reminded to submit to leaders and authorities, both secular and religious (Titus 3:1). We thus find here the ancestor of the theology of the deposit of doctrine and ecclesiastical developments such as the approval of professors, imprimatur, an index of prohibited books, and supervision of ecclesiastical presses—features that are by no means unique to Roman Catholicism, even if the same names are not used in other churches and control is not as obvious.

      2. The value of this idea

         The historical circumstances in which the Pastoral Epistles were written were fraught with danger due to the spread of Gnosticism, which had gained followers among Christians (1 Tim 6:20). The deadly struggle that would culminate around 180 in Irenaeus's Adversus haereses had now begun. The “Paul” of the Pastoral Epistles had already guessed that the best response to a plethora of opinions claiming to be revealed and even traditional was an authentic tradition, implying a link between the apostolic era and approved church leaders. Irenaeus would only refine the argument when he appealed to a chain of bishops from major Christian centers in his refutation of Gnostic doctrines. This approach enabled the Roman Catholic Church to survive the tumultuous days of the Reformation; it enabled Luther's movement to survive an anarchic Protestant left spawned by its own protest against Rome; today, it should enable the traditional churches to survive the Bible sectarians. The Church has a right not to be destroyed from within.

      3. The risks of this idea

         The great danger of an exclusive emphasis on officially controlled teaching, however, lies in the fact that once introduced in times of crisis, it becomes a permanent way of life. A true pastoral policy requires instead a relaxation of these strict controls once the crisis has passed. This is what Vatican II did by abolishing some of its negative doctrinal controls.

         Moreover, the fear of new ideas that is evident in the pastoral epistles can become endemic in the structured Church. We forget that Jesus challenged the religious authorities of his day. At times, the greatest danger facing a well-ordered institutional Church is not that of new ideas, but that of a lack of ideas. It could fall under the condemnation of the Gospel parable of the talents against the third servant who was perfectly happy to return what he had received, but who was considered by Jesus to be wicked and lazy because he had added nothing new (Matthew 25:24-30).

      In short, this idea, translated as “deposit of faith” (2 Tim 2:14), has severe limitations if it projects the image of a safe that sterile protects what was deposited in it in the first century. Each generation must enrich this deposit with its unique experience of Christ in its own time. The presbyter-bishops of the Church must “hold fast to the faithful word as taught” (Titus 1:9), and woe to them if any part of the deposit of faith is lost under their administration. But woe also to them if they do not encourage constructive ideas that enrich and nuance the sound doctrine they are required to teach. A weakness of the Pastoral Epistles is that this latter duty is never mentioned.

   2. The sound institutional virtues required of pastors
      1. The value of this profile

         With an emphasis on prudence, sobriety, and balance, these requirements ensured a benevolent, holy, and effective administration of the community. The “clergy” appointed by Timothy and Titus were to be composed of good, sound, and easygoing individuals who would serve as resident pastors.

      2. The risks of this profile

         Such a professional profile was probably not likely to attract dynamic “drivers” who would change the world. Someone like the historical Paul would not have qualified for such a profile, he who had new and risky ideas about Christ as the end of the Law and an indomitable restlessness that enabled him to successfully open new frontiers for Christ, but which aroused much opposition; according to his opponents, Paul did not adhere to the sound doctrine taught by Jesus (in the tradition of Matthew 5:18), namely that not even the smallest stroke of a letter, not even the smallest part of a letter, of the Law would pass away. But Paul was a missionary, not a resident pastor.

         Furthermore, by forgetting that the pastoral epistles established criteria for dealing with a particular situation, we make the mistake of seeing them as an ideal ecclesiastical order suitable for all ages. And the tendency to favor very cautious leaders, attached to the past, creates an orientation that does not favor the innovations necessary for a dynamic mission, especially in times of change. Thus, ecclesiastical authorities rejected pastors who were disruptive because they saw that new things needed to be done, and those who were impatient with the inertia they encountered, in favor of the blandness of continuity.

   3. The clear distinction between those who teach and those who are taught
      1. What this means

         Only carefully selected presbyter-bishops can safely transmit doctrine, with the result that other teachers arouse suspicion. Here is what 2 Timothy 3:1-9 says:

         1 But understand this: in the last days there will come times of stress. 2 For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 inhuman, unforgiving, slanderers, profligate, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Have nothing to do with such people. 6 For among them are those who make their way into households and gain control over weak women burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses, 7 who will listen to anybody and never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these oppose the truth—these people of depraved mind and counterfeit faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

         There is a clear distinction in the pastoral epistles between the ecclesia docens (the teaching Church) and the ecclesia discens (the learning Church). And among the “taught,” the author explicitly names women, who are ungraciously portrayed as “weak” and examples of ignorant and impulsive people who are easily led astray. This reflects the conservative Greco-Roman milieu, which often attributed the proliferation of esoteric cults and superstitions to irresponsible women who felt emancipated by them. The New Testament is not immune to the limitations of the perceptions of its time.

      2. The value of this idea

         This distinction between teacher and learner is valid as long as we recognize that membership in both groups is fluid: at one time or another, every Christian is or should be part of the teaching Church, and everyone should be part of the learning Church. Furthermore, considering the situation described in the pastoral epistles, the Gnostic teachers who were attacked may have deserved some of the adjectives used to describe them. Therefore, deviating from standard teaching may indeed be a sign of false teachers who must be opposed.

      3. The risks of this idea

         Unfortunately, it is not uncommon that, where only approved teachers thrive, those who ask probing questions about standard doctrine are portrayed as adversaries of God's truth. In other words, driven by struggle, the pastoral epistles present a dualistic view of true and false, whereas ordinary church life is rarely dualistic. For example, deviating from standard teaching can be a sign of constructive thinkers whose ideas, surprising at first glance, can lead designated teachers to perceive more clearly what has been entrusted to them to guard with the help of the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 1:14). One need only think of the Galileo case.

         The pastoral epistles suggest that, with the exception of presbyters, all others belong to a fixed class of learners who, if not taught by official teachers, will be misled by false teachers. There is then a danger that little creative thinking or intellectual contribution will be expected from learners, who constitute the majority of the community. The fact that the author disregards ideas “from below,” as if all insight came from above in the structure, does not prepare ordinary readers of the pastoral epistles to play an active role in teaching. Such a one-sided situation will become increasingly disastrous in all parts of the world where lay people are highly educated and quite capable of making a significant contribution to the overall religious growth of the community. Some lay people, once educated, are quite capable of being teachers themselves, not only passing on what they have received, but also making their own contributions. This is a weakness of the pastoral epistles.