All right, so we'll have copyies in just a few minutes.
I asked Ray to go make a copy of my copies, but as for notes for those of you at home, I'll just be continuing on with what I sent out last week.
That's why I didn't send any out today.
But last week, in talking about primarily elders and bishops, we didn't really talk about deacons.
We made it from. We sort of traced the development from the New Testament model up through around the year 115 or so, when we have people like Ignatius and Polycarp, who are representing representing their visions of or experiences of church leadership which Ignatius
frequently gets held up, and I don't think it's entirely wrong to do so.
Ignatius is frequently held up as the first example of what's called a monarchical bishop.
A single bishop rolling over the church. I think, though, that there comes some misconception along with that description, because we think, when we hear that we think of sort of a bishop over a diocese with lots of churches in it, the kinds, of bishops that you would see
today, in, you know, Catholic or Episcopal Churches.
But really Ignatius is more representing something along the lines of a solo pastor in a local church he is the bishop over one congregation.
Most of the time. There was one church, one meeting in a city at this point, and so he is.
He is not a bishop who's ruling over, you know, a dozen churches.
He's essentially a pastor over one church. That's about how far about how far the the idea had developed.
What he does do very strongly, as he distinguishes between the bishop and the elders or the presbyters, as it frequently gets translated, he distinguishes between those 2 groups, and then the deacons as a third group, and so we are seeing that distinction come
in and like I, said Polycarp, who's a good friend of his.
They're not exactly age contemporary. I think Ignatius is somewhat older than Polycarp, but they are.
Friends, both probably disciples of the Apostle John, and they had different.
They seemed to have had different views on church leadership.
Ignatius very much is setting up the bishop as separate from the elders or presbyters.
Polycarp describes himself when he writes to somebody he describes himself.
It seems like as being among the elders, so he could be describing himself.
As you know, a separate group with the elders with him, but he certainly doesn't make the the hard distinctions that Ignatius was making.
At the same time.
So what I want to do today, then, is move on from that.
About oh, 50 or 60 years, to a point where the you definitely have in almost all churches the model where there is a single bishop who is distinct from the the presbyters, or sometimes they're starting to call them priests.
At this point, but distinct from the presbyters or the elders, and and at least in some places starting to rule over a wider area, serve as bishop for a wider area, and we'll be looking at a man named Irenaeus, who is on your list actually as there are copy left of
that of the handout for me. Can I have one?
No problem. It just helps me to be able to refer to to what everybody has out there.
So as it says on there, from 175, and following is the time period that he is most prominently serving.
He's originally. He's the Bishop of Lyon in France.
Wasn't called Leon at the time. It was luck.
Dunham would have been the the Roman name for it, but there was a colony essentially that was sent there.
Not to found the city, but to sort of establish a community within it.
From Asia Minor, and that's where Irenaeus is.
Actually he is from Smyrna. He was a student of Polycarp.
Early on in his life, or at least New Polycarp.
I don't know how much of a student he was at the time.
Actually he was probably pretty young when Polycarp was executed.
But Irenaeus goes to France or Gaul, as he would have thought of it.
He goes to Gaul in order to serve the Church.
That's there, and while he's on a journey at 1 point there's a persecution there.
The man who was the bishop, whose name slips my mind.
Now, but the person who had been Bishop and Lyon is martyred along with several other people in that in Lyon and another town nearby, and when Irenaeus returns, he is by whatever means and I don't know exactly and I'm not going to be committed to what their method
was at this time he becomes Bishop of Lyon.
At that point he is most famous for a couple of things, and since since this week is me continuing what was originally supposed to be last week, go into a little bit more of stories about people, but he's most famous for writing a work called against heresies, one thing that's happened in
this time is that Christians are not having to be as concerned with basic survival.
The church is still illegal. We're in the year you know, 177, and following.
But the Church. So the church is not yet written as legal, but most of the time you don't get a lot of persecutions.
The previous bishop had been killed during a wave of persecution, but it's by no means constant.
And so people are starting to deal with some of these other theological issues that come up the big one that Irenaeus is dealing with is Gnosticism.
If you've heard of Gnosticism, it is fully formed at this point.
Some people try to push it back all the way to the New Testament period, and you get some some seeds of it, some of the ideas that develop into it.
There, but but by this point it really is a fully formed problem that people in the the the true Church, the real Church, actual believers.
That we would recognize have to start dealing with, because these false teachers are coming with ideas that sound good.
And they're drawing people a strike. So you Renaeus, makes one of his big missions to write this this five-part book that is exposing the heresies that are out there primarily, Gnostic heresies and exposing what's wrong with them and
then correcting them so that people will understand the truth.
In the course of doing that. This is how he comes into.
In the course of doing that he describes something that's along the lines of what we would call apostolic succession.
It isn't exactly the same as apostolic succession.
The way the Catholic Church today, or the Episcopal Church, or I think the Methodist Church also places some emphasis on it.
Lutherans do, too. Is that right? Down?
I can't remember. I can't remember with Lutherans, but I know that Methodists and a postcalpillans.
Anglicans more broadly and Catholicism does, but it's not the same thing where it is, you know.
Some sort of blessing that has passed on the from one to the next.
But the way he uses it is primarily as a way to show that, hey?
The church still has the truth. He's saying, as one of his reasons for saying that these other guys are not to be relied on, you should rely on what I'm saying and what I'm trying to think of some kind of what just.
You know his side of this debate is that there is an unbroken succession of teachers.
Bishops, is, going to be the term that he's going to use.
He's a little bit little bit a historical, because for a lot of those lists that he makes he has to randomly choose somebody.
He finds a name, and assigns that person as like.
We talked about Clement of Rome last week. Who is the secretary who would have sent the letter that we know as first Clement?
Well in Irenaeus calculus climate would have been the Bishop of Rome, equivalent to the Pope.
Later. But what's important for him about that is that since that is unbroken, since the apostles told well in Irenaeus case, for example, since John, who learned from Jesus, told Polycarp things taught Polycarp that means that you should be able to Rely
on Polycarp. He learned from John and Irenaeus, says in the same way you should be able to rely on me.
You can believe me. I learned from Polycarp.
I know that what I'm learning is true, because it goes all the way back, whereas these other people are coming up with ideas on their own.
Their ideas start. You know, a 100 years after Jesus our ideas go all the way back to Christ.
This is the logic that he's using. So it's not.
It's not some sort of charismatic blessing.
It's more along lines of evidence that he's using the the succession of bishops.
A bishop. There has been someone comes into that role, and when they die someone else succeeds them.
It's not that in order, you know, presently, and it comes along relatively soon.
There's the notion that the for the ordination to be valid, they have to be ordained by a bishop who was ordained by a bishop, and and it's those things Irenaeus doesn't have anything like that.
Yet it's just an evidence chain like, you know.
I I guess in the same way that when the police have to have a chain of custody for any evidence that they're collecting, and if they don't have it, then you can't trust it.
That's pretty much what you're a Aeus doing.
He's trying to show a chain of custody for theological truth.
He's doing the same. He's using the same logic in arguing for the Scriptures.
He's saying that we know these are are valid Scriptures because we know where they come from, and we know that we have this succession of people who have, who have placed faith in them and trusted in them.
And so, you know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time.
Ok, so that's Irenaeus. And like, I say, he is operating in present-day Leon, France.
So you relatively Southern. It's not right on the Mediterranean, but it's sort of Southern France I can't remember which river it's on.
But everything was on a river, you know, had to be any questions about Irenaeus before we go.
You know another another 75 years or so.
Okay. So moving on, then to a man named, and we're we're going across the Metiterranean Sea now.
Cyprian is in North Africa, in a city of, in the city of Carthage, which you've probably heard of at some point.
It was a very major city in North Africa. For a long, long time, and with Ciprian we get sort of an advance in the importance of the Bishop.
He is in the course of in the course of his life.
He's, and in the course of his.
I don't know what to call it, but the course of time, while he is bishop in Carthage, he's involved in several different controversies.
Oh, controversies! Full stop! Wait! I have to go back to Irenaeus and give you one more story with Aranaeus, Irenaeus is somewhat involved he's sort of tangentially involved in a controversy that was going on, and and from that we can see that
he's exercising influence over other, not not official influence, but he feels that he has an opportunity to sort of use.
His influence with other bishops, in order to maintain peace and stability.
There was a controversy that's called the Quartet quarto decimen.
Sometimes I mix up some of those letters.
It's called the quarter-dessum, and Controversy.
I guess, and it has to do with the right day to celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.
I would say the right day to celebrate Easter, but technically saying Easter tips it into the camp that we are all now familiar with, because that's the side that won.
The 2 sides were, whether to celebrate it on a Sunday, in order to to commemorate primarily focusing on the resurrection, or whether it should particularly or specifically be celebrated on the fourteenth of Nissan the the day on which the people who were on that side at least believed Christ was
crucified as the Passover lamb should it primarily, should it not so much should it focus on one or the other?
But should it take its dating? Should we decide when to celebrate this, based on the day of his death, or based on the day of His resurrection?
And there were 2 sides to this. Some people preferred whatever day of the week it was didn't matter.
On the fourteenth of Nissan. You use. That's when you would celebrate this, and then on the other side, it's like no, it should always be on a Sunday.
So you have people that are, you know, and usually it breaks down regional regions would agree with each other, and somewhere else would be different, and for a long time, long time we're talking 100 years or so that just goes on and nobody's you know, nobody gets bent out of shape about what
some other church chooses to do, but of course, late second century people do start to get bent out of shape about this.
I suppose they had too much free time, or too much freedom, or I don't know, and the Bishop of Rome at the time was very strongly of the opinion that it should be a Sunday commemoration, and there were people in Ephesus who felt very strongly that it should
be a celebrated on the fourteenth, and through one thing or another, a bishop from Ephesus traveled to Rome in and in the first.
The first time this happens the first time that Ephesus and Rome come into any conflict about this.
These 2 men meat. They discuss it, and from what I understand, essentially agree to disagree that you know they they both give their blessings to the other one.
After all, we're all celebrating the same thing. We're just celebrating on different days, and they conclude that you know the other one's not in heresy over this.
So the Ephesian bishop goes back home during Irenaeus life, so late second century, like, I think I think, in the 100 eightys, maybe even 100 ninetys.
This issue comes up again. But now Rome is, is talking about breaking fellowship or excommunicating the Ephesians, and all the other quarta decimals in Asia Minor, who are celebrating that way, and Irenaeus.
This is why I'm telling the story. Ireneus gets involved, writes a letter to Rome, urgent, reminding the Bishop of Rome of what his predecessor had done, and how they had peacefully agreed to just let this go, and encouraging the Bishop of
Rome that this was not something to break fellowship over, and saying, After all, you know, this is, I grew up like that, Polycarp, Polycarp does this, or did this Polycarp is not alive anymore.
But Polycarp did this and actually Polycarps, it wasn't a bishop from Ephesus.
It was Polycarp who had gone to Rome from Smyrna, and he's the one who was meeting with the the the Bishop in Rome, and they come to an agreement.
But he says Polycarp did this Polycarp learned it from John.
I've come to the West now I'll do it.
Your way, but it's really something that we should keep peace about, and he's able to work out peace between these 2 disagreeing bishops.
So at this point we don't have Rome. We have Rome starting to think it should assert something, but willing to listen to reason from from other parts of the Church.
There's a whole lot of that going on in these centuries.
So now we can move on to Cyprian, who I was talking about earlier, he's Bishop of Carthage, and he's involved in some controversies.
He's heavily involved in one that I'm actually intending to be what we talk about next week, which is the conflict between like rigor and laxity, as far as who to admit and who to readmit to the Lord's Supper Cyprian is involved in some
of these controversies, and he hears about what's going on in Rome.
Rome's got a conflict over these kinds of issues, and and Rome is inserting himself the the Roman bishop is inserting himself into conflicts about this question in other parts of the Christian world, and Cyprian is writing and in fact, he agrees with the Bishop
of Rome. So he writes, sort of a 2 sided argument here in his letter, because he agrees with the Bishop of Rome.
He thinks that that the Bishop of Rome is right on the merits of what to do, but where he disagrees, and he tells tells the Bishop of Rome, and tells everyone else who can read it that Rome is wrong about the notion that they that the Roman Church and the
Roman bishop has the authority to tell others what to do.
He is very insistent that every bishop has that authority, so he does have a very high view of the Bishop at this point.
He thinks that the Bishop is acting, you know, with the authority of Peter, but within his church, and he thinks that that shared that authority, the authority of the bishop is a shared authority among all the bishops, and therefore you nobody can tell anybody else what to do within
that essentially he has autonomous local churches, but autonomous local churches that are governed by a single and a powerful bishop.
So he is telling them that he tells Rome that every bishop is Peter's successor, and one place where it's kind of been coming along seems to be assumed.
But one thing that he makes clear is a distinction that I didn't really understand.
In talking about and thinking about where Roman Catholicism, and where the whole, you know, so Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, I suppose, technically Methodism as well.
Hmm, although they well, I won't roll them into it.
I know that it's Anglican and Catholic.
In, the way that we typically think of it in the New Testament.
The word for elder Prince Buteros, and the word for Bishop Episcopal.
Yeah, Episcopal are almost synonymous. Right?
The there elders is one way of talking about them overseers is just way of talking about what they do.
But we're not talking about 2 different people. It's like saying that somebody is a husband and he's a dad.
It's not quite that, but maybe that he's, you know, a man and a dad.
So we think of these as interchangeable, and I never was able to understand how they got broken apart, and why, you know, our bishops, what they think of as elders.
But in in Ciprian there is an association of elders with the priests, with the presbyters, but the bishop, the the bishop, 8.
I don't know the the role of the Bishop is not related to elders in the New Testament.
Is related more to the apostles, they are more successors to the apostles.
Than they are to New Testament elders and Ciprian makes this clear that this is how he thinks about it, and this becomes a pretty standard way of talking about the source of the bishop's authority, and the the model for the bishop's authority for at least several
100 years. What happens during and after the Middle Ages is outside of my my area of expertise, so I don't know exactly.
But I know that this becomes a very influential way of talking about it.
Another thing. That's very prominent in Ciprian, and it has been true for a while.
Is that the thing that the Bishop is most connected with the biggest thing that that a lot of these people would would show as a difference between the presbyters, the elders, and the bishop is their role in communion and Ciprian believes very strongly that the bishop is absolutely necessary
for communion you cannot have the Eucharist without the Bishop, and this gets, you know, this is right down right down the line.
For a long time, some of the scholarly debate A is of the opinion that that's pretty much why the Bishop is separated off and elevated above the other presbyters.
The other elders is because there's one at least in something like Ignatius and Ignatius.
Doesn't you know Ignatius is back about a 100 years before Ciprian, maybe a little more than that yeah, a little more than that, Ignatius doesn't explicitly say that you know the the thing that's different about the Bishop.
Is the Eucharist, but he does make that he does have a very close association between the 2.
He says, don't have any of those kinds of things without the Bishop, you know you you need, and he's telling other bishops it's like you need to make sure that you're there for that to make sure that it's right.
That's the the main place where he sees an important role, and by the time you get to Cyprian scholars say, you know that that single function that was different has ended up making this one person much much more powerful, much much more important within the life of the church the presbyters, get sort of you
know, pushed to the side and given other kinds of tasks to do.
Okay, that's what I wanted to say about Cyprian.
I have one more, one more person to talk about. But let me just throw it open again, and ask if there's any questions.
If anybody wants to to clarify anything, correct, anything that I misspoke on.
Yeah, right? So I.
Supreme.
Less than 50.
So I don't. I think I think actually Ignatius is kind of making that that point.
Could you repeat the question?
He's making the connection. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Yeah. I forgot.
People at home can't hear Ray's asking if about Cyprian and and this idea that if the Bishop is not present, that the Eucharist would not be valid, and I'm saying that actually I think that idea goes all the way back to Ignatius by the time
of Cyprian. I think that that is almost assumed.
So it's not sense that.
Right. It wouldn't. It wouldn't. It wouldn't apply.
And to the degree, and I don't think they're all the way there to the point of sort of a medieval transubstantiation kind of idea.
But to the degree that they do have an idea that the Eucharist is in some way transformed.
That wouldn't happen without the Bishop, and so they would say, Hey, you know, you're just drink and wine and eating bread.
You're not actually taking the Eucharist.
If the Bishop wasn't there.
Yeah. No.
Sizable number of terms.
By like 250. Okay? So bills asking if there were any sizable number of churches that are kind of outside of this this model that I'm describing.
Probably not much, at least within the Roman world. Now things are going on farther to the east.
Things are going on in India. Things are going on in Persia.
Maybe even Western China. At this point.
Yeah, Western, I get confused with East and West. Once I get to a different continent.
But there are other places. The Syrian Church well, no, the Syrian church.
Actually, from what we know, follows this model pretty closely.
But there are some churches out there, and I can't really speak to what's going on in India.
But for the most part there aren't large numbers of churches.
There may be, you know, here and there some sort of separatists, but there aren't large numbers at this point.
Damn!
It's hard to say. Dan's asking when they stopped having a plurality of elders.
It's hard to say exactly when that happens. It seems like in the middle of so in in Asia, and a lot of the world by the beginning of the second century.
So around the time of Ignatius things are moving very much that direction.
Wrong still seems to have had something like a plurality of elders, or at least a plurality of bishops.
And I'll explain that in a second they seem to have still had that around the time of Justin, which is 150.
I think he dies 160,165.
Something like that. But then, by the end of the second century, so the the 100 ninetys, or up to 200 Rome, has also moved over to the point where there is a single bishop for Rome, who is recognized as important important enough that Hippolytus who we talked about a couple of weeks
ago, which is around 2 30 when he's he's prosper, or a priest within the church in Rome, and he has a problem with the Bishop of Rome, and he's you know, he's not afraid to say so he canemns the Bishop of Rome because
he thinks that he's in theological error, but that is like that one guy is important enough that he feels like he needs to go after him and correct that.
And when that guy dies, and one of his, you know, one of his followers is elected as the Bishop of Rome.
It temporarily splits the Roman Church and there's a minority faction that chooses Hippolytus to be the Bishop of Rome.
And so you have rival rival Roman bishops.
So by that point, you know by 2 30. Certainly that job is important enough that people fight over it which I don't think it would be if if you know if he was just one of 5 or 6 elders in a church.
So I made a distinction between Rome still being ruled by a plurality of elders, and possibly actually a plurality of bishops at some point.
So, first of all, the Church in Rome, not a single congregation, and that's from fairly early on the church in Rome has to, because it's wrong, because it's right at the heart of government.
Right there, near the place where they can throw you to the lions.
The church in Rome has to be a little more underground, and so they meet in in smaller groups, and they're not as prominent.
They're not as visible. And so each congregation within Rome, at some point.
And this is what I don't know if we can ever really figure out when it transitions.
I think each of those little congregations, first of all transitions to having a single bishop sort of along the ignition model.
Each congregation has a pastor to put it in contemporary terms, and the Church at Rome as a whole still thinks of itself as as the Church at Rome, not, as you know, the church at first and first in water in Rome and the church at 60 Seventh and Garfield in
Rome and the Church, you know they don't think of themselves that way.
They do still think of themselves as the Church in Rome, and all of those different bishops seem to have met together.
And it's very possible that that's what Clement was.
Clement may have been sort of the pastor of one of the congregations, met with all of the bishops at Rome to do you know, whole church kind of business, sort of multi-campus, hey?
They were way ahead of way ahead of time. We've got multic-campus megachurches now.
Rome was doing it already in the first and second century.
So. So that's why I say it's sort of a progression it changes over time.
Definitely by around the year 200. Even Rome is, is, you know, LED by a single bishop, and they have very different ideas than what we would see in the New Testament, at least on my reading.
Yeah. Jim.
That's an interesting question. So Jim's question is, who decides like when you've got that single bishop who decides who that is, who decides who's going to be the bishop of this church?
The bishop of this congregation, and it kind of well it 2 things.
It varies from place to place, and it sort of progresses over time.
By the time you get to the Council of Nicaea, which is in 325, there are a couple of developments that seem to be relatively solidified, and one of those is that the bishops choose the Bishop.
But even even at Nicaea, and even after Nicaea there's a certain amount of the the people get to at least give their voice, and in places where the bishops choose and install somebody, they really want to have the people sort of enthusiastically ratify that choice there
are other places where the people sort of nominate somebody, and and there's somebody that they are enthusiastic, and then the bishops surrounding they endorse that and ordain that person as bishop, they do by that point have very much the view that because by that time you do have
apostolic succession. More the way you would know it today.
Where, in the same way that the Eucharist wouldn't have been valid without the Bishop being involved.
The ordination they didn't think would be valid unless bishops were involved, and that would be ordination for deacons for priests or presbyters, and also for bishops as well.
You need a bishop to make any of those, but there are some places where they're old traditions die hard, and Nicaea actually makes exceptions for few places where the tradition think Alexandria is one of them, where the tradition of the people Choosing their
bishop is so strong that Niceaea says, you know.
Well, of course, there they have this tradition that goes all the way back to to Mark, because Mark, who wrote the Gospel as supposedly the founder of the church at Alexandria.
They have this tradition that goes all the way back to Mark.
So we'll let them keep doing it this way. But everybody else has to get in line except for this place, where it's a little bit different.
But except for them and them, everybody has to get in line now earlier than that, it varied.
It's very varied. Some places it is by public acclamation, and then there are other places where there's a tradition grows up that the the Bishop will be chosen from among the presbyters by the Presbyters.
Essentially the priests or the elders, whatever we want to call them, you know, probably depends on what year it is what's most appropriate to call them.
They will come together, and they will choose from among themselves who is best suited to that role.
And then when he dies or can't anymore, they will again gather and choose somebody.
So there are a couple of different methods. Last guy on the list is a guy named Dionysius, and he's there.
Yeah, I do have them on. There he's he's there.
I put him on here because he's a little bit later than Cyprian, but he provides sort of a little bit of a counterweight.
He's not, I think, in many ways he does still believe in that strong solo bishop who has the authority to do things, and everybody is supposed to follow him.
I think he believes in that but he recognizes that you can't operate that way.
So there's a a theological issue in his church.
He's bishop in Alexandria, and there's a theological issue that comes up in his church having to do with Scripture.
Having to do with interpretation of Scripture, and he, instead of just making some sort of declaration that the the rest of the clergy have to get in line behind, he calls a small counsel.
Essentially, you know, not nearly on the scale of Nicaea, but he calls a small council of other bishops from the area, and all the presbyters from the area, and you know probably any of the the you know the rest of the Christians.
The riffraff like me, who are able to get off work.
I suppose you probably couldn't all go because they didn't all work for the church, but any of the the congregation who was interested and wanted to be there.
They're all called together for this Theological Council to discuss this issue and to to hash through it until they come to an agreement rather than sort of making a proclamation from his authoritative bishop's chair.
And that's you know, that's he is. He's the bishop from 256 to 265.
So somewhere within that range, I think it was relatively late.
He is doing that still, whereas I, you're not.
By the time of Nicaea.
Nicaea is a council of bishops only its let's see if that's 2, 65, Nicaa's.
I'm not good at math, but like 7 years later, it's it's 325, and maybe that's 60 years later.
But it's 3 25, and Nicaa is a council of bishops.
There are other people who are at the Council of Nicaea, but they don't get to say stuff.
They don't get to vote. They are there as assistants to their bishops.
That's the role. Athanasius, who you may have heard of.
Well, we mentioned when we were talking about Scripture.
I think Athanasius would later become Bishop of Alexandria.
But he was at the council of Nicaea as a deacon, who was providing assistance and support to his bishop, who was Alexander of Alexandria, and another thing that becomes official at Nicaea.
We talked about won already. But another thing that becomes official at Nicaea is this idea of sort of a the big city, big city bishop.
Right. You've got. You've got, you know, a bishop in Menominee Falls, and you've got a bishop in Wawatosa, and you've got Bishop in Kenosha.
Maybe I don't know and throw out any other towns around here but Milwaukee, as the big city in the area where the most people are, the Bishop of Milwaukee is going to be the one who has influence over all the others and that's where you get the term Metropolitan
from those metropolitan bishops, become more and more influential.
And there's a definite move toward sort of multi church.
Bishop bricks. You know, particularly way to the East, particularly right around Rome.
You do still have some that are very, very small, maybe even just one church.
But there is a move at that point to to larger, you know, sort of a diocesan model, not quite there yet, but moving in that direction.
Let me see if there was anything else I wanted to say about Nicaea.
No, I think that's I think that covers it for Nicaea, and brings us to point where.
Yeah, there's further development. But I think largely by the time we get to Ignatius we see a model that is fairly dominant in Evangelicalism, where there's a senior pastor who depends on the denomination has more or less authority on his own I knew somebody who used to refer
to to Baptist pastors, as being little Popes, because they had absolute authority within their own domain, and there was nobody, because Baptist churches are so congregationalally organized.
There's nobody outside of them that can tell them anything to do.
The Convention can't direct them, so they have nobody between them and God, and nobody to challenge them within.
That's kind of Ignatius as model, and to some degree runs up through Irenaeus, then, by the time you get to Nicaea it's essentially the model that you see in the the episcopal, not the episcopal denomination, but a
Episcopal governed churches, Catholicism, or orthodoxy, or Anglicanism, or all of that down.
Let me look at who I've got on here.
So I would. I think I would be confident, a pure gospel.
That's that's that's a mighty high book.
I would be confident in saying that I expect that when we all get to heaven, I that we'll be able to meet Clement Ignatius Polycarp.
Hermus, Irenaeus, Cyprian, and I think Dionysius, I don't know him as well.
But then there are also things about each of them that we wouldn't like the the controversy that Dnc.
Us was the scriptural controversy that Dnis Cis called his counsel about was because there were some people who.
The way he phrases it. They have a very, or the way it's it's phrased by somebody describing it was that they had a very crass and sensual understanding of revelation and of this millennium that was going to be.
But it's possible that they're just describing people who have a literal interpretation of an earthly millennial kingdom, because what he draws them over to and convinces them of is a very non literal interpretation of revelation.
He defends it as Scripture, but he has a non-literal interpretation of it, and so we might not like that very much that was Danesius. Yeah.
The last guy on the list.
So, and they all they all have things that that I don't like.
But I think that they do. At least this is, I think they have a clear enough understanding of the Gospel, and they are preaching a clear enough understanding of the gospel that I think people were coming to Christ.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Then I will close in prayer and turn it over.
Father, we thank you for this time together, to look at the history of the church, to look at the things that you have done in preserving it.
And keeping keeping a vehicle for the witness to the gospel, active and alive in the world, father, we thank you for your faithfulness, even when we or some of these people have been faithless in one area or another.
We thank you that you are always faithful, which is, pray that you will watch over us tonight.
Be with us, and and blessed the remaining time together. As we look to you in prayer. In Christ's name we pray Amen.