SECTION 3

FALSE IDEAS AS TO A PRETENDED DISMEMBERMENT OF THE APOSTOLATE.
In order to show the progress of the Church, the author of the " Examination " constructs a history of ministry of which the result is precisely, as the " Archives " remark, " to find for each flock a monarchical government, concentrated in the person of the pastor alone," etc., and it is precisely this historical result, which is still, according to the judgment of the " Archives," founded on " a more than doubtful interpretation of some scripture passages." And, in fact, all this pretended history is full of inexactitudes. True as it is that there exists a point of contact between gifts and offices, and that, historically, gifts have become lost in offices, equally untrue is it to present, as does the " Examination," this absorption of gifts by offices as a dismemberment of the apostolate effected by the apostles themselves, and as a progress of the Church.
The " Examination " marks out a first phase of ministry, a phase specially apostolic. On account of the external growth of the Church, " the apostles soon feel the necessity of relieving themselves of a part of their functions... of the least important, the distribution of alms. Hence the institution of deacons.... This help does not seem to have long sufficed. The continual growth of the Church, above all, its propagation outside Jerusalem, and the duty... of carrying out their special mission and the proper duty of their office, oblige the apostles to abandon by degrees the pastoral position which they had taken... in relation to the church of Jerusalem, and to take the apostolic position to which they are called in relation to the entire Church. The void thus formed (at Jerusalem) is filled up by a new office, that of elder, or bishop, the institution of which is not recounted to us.... The office of elder was naturally superior to that of deacon: its later origin indicates this to us; for it is only in proportion as the apostolate retires, if I may venture so to speak, from a lower to a higher place, into the sphere of action which is proper to it, that offices successively arise."
This false principle of the dismemberment of the apostolate, a principle which serves also as the basis of the system of the " Esperance," has no foundation in the word of God. Quite the contrary; it is in contradiction with the origin and the very nature of ministry. This principle, which makes the apostles the source of ministry, in the place of Christ, Head of the body, is as abominable as can be. It is on Christ immediately that each ministry depended in its function. There was a diversity of gifts, but one Spirit; diversity of administrations, but one Lord; (1 Cor. 13:4, etc.) Christ is the "head of the body " (Eph. 4:15, 16); and it is from Him that " the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edification of itself in love." It is Christ ascended on high, who gave pastors, just as He gave apostles, grace being given to each according to the measure of the gift of Christ. " He gave some apostles, some," etc. (Eph. 4:1; 1). " To one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit; etc.... but all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every one severally as he will," 1 Cor. 12. The apostles might be the means by which the Holy Spirit was received; but the communication of the Spirit by their means was not a dismemberment of the apostolate. The apostles would have had no right to carry out such a dismemberment. They were bound to keep themselves in the position of servants, according to the talents which had been imparted to them. And this is what they did. Far from dismembering the apostolate, it is precisely because they would not abandon, for another work, that of apostleship, that, according to the will of God, they confided a work, which was being carried on without order to persons specially marked out for it.
Nothing is more unfounded than to assert that the apostles relieve themselves of a part of their functions, to form, of that part of it which they put aside, the office of deacon. Was it the apostles who, by partiality, preferred the Hebrew widows? And what confusion of ideas to say that the gift of wisdom, formed into an office, became the diaconate! Besides, it is entirely false to suppose that a word (as here that of wisdom), which has a general meaning, and which also designates a gift, always signifies this gift. Nothing of the kind is true.