# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1858_S57
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On Lay Elders or Congregational Overseers. 57

...original church there were two kinds of presbyters, whom one calls in Latin "seniors," as is concluded from 1 Timothy 5:17. For some administered the preaching office, or, as the apostle says there, labored in word and in doctrine, and these were called bishops, pastors, etc.; others, however, were set only over the censure of morals and the maintenance of church discipline, since the still-heathen government did not support those who taught in the church in this matter;*) these were called rulers and overseers, as is concluded from 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Romans 12:8. Ambrose writes on 1 Timothy 5, at the beginning: "Also the synagogue, and afterward the church, had seniors, without whose counsel nothing was undertaken in the church, and I do not know through what negligence this has fallen away, unless perhaps through the sloth, or rather through the pride, of the teachers, in that they alone wish to count for something." Both kinds together bore the common name overseers (Vorsteher), 1 Timothy 5:17, and superiors (Vorgesetzte), Acts 15:22, Hebrews 13:7, 17, 21. From both together that holy college was gathered which Paul calls the presbytery: 1 Timothy 4:14, "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the eldership" (of the presbytery). From this passage it is concluded that at the ordination of church ministers, not the pastors alone but also the elders chosen from among the people, in the name of the whole church, laid their hands on the one to be ordained,*) just as, according to Numbers 8:10, not Aaron alone but also the elders of Israel laid their hand on the Levites at their ordination. (Some, however, hold that here, under the name of the presbytery, is to be understood in a special sense the assembly of those elders who were pastors and bishops.) To the presbytery there corresponds today the consistory, or the ecclesiastical senate (church council), in which ecclesiastical and political persons preside, and are chiefly concerned with the care of church discipline." (Loc. de ministerio §. 232.)

(To be continued.)

*) From this remark it appears why it is precisely in the Lutheran church, where the government was of the Lutheran confession, that the institution of congregational overseers is found only as an exception. At the same time, however, there lies in this also a hint for us here in America, where the government is not of our confession, that here the need for co-governing overseers stands out all the more.

*) Although we leave the historical correctness of this remark of Gerhard's undecided, we nevertheless call attention here to the fact that, according to this, a wholly different conception of ordination must indeed have hovered before a Gerhard than the one that now again seems to wish to become dominant.