Excerpt from The Expositor, Vol. 5 The systematic investigation of the origin of the Christian Ministry, which has received a fresh impulse, and has been carried on with renewed activity in recent years, connects itself more particularly with three names: those of Bp. Lightfoot, Dr. Hatch, and Dr. A. Harnack. Each of these names seems to mark a distinct stage in the inquiry. And as a preliminary to attempting something of an estimate of the position in which the question w stands, we cant do better than look back over the course by which it has proceeded. The present paper will contain such a retrospect; it will be followed by a second, the object of which will be more directly critical. I. Bp. Lightfoot's views are developed in the Commentary on Philippians, partly in an additional te, On the Synymes, bishop and presbyter (pp. 93-97, ed. 1), and partly in the elaborate essay On the Christian Ministry. The te and the essay must be taken closely together. The te supplies the scientific foundation on which the main positions of the essay are built. It is for want of seeing this, that some of the criticisms on the essay, tably that by the Bishop of St. Andrews (Remarks on Dr. Lightfoot's Essay, etc.: Oxford and London, 1879), are really wide of the mark. They fail to go to the root of the position, and are aimed at detached points here and there, without observing how they mutually hang together and are related to each other in logical connexion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
