Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

the Church: as evangelists, by writing the life and acts of our
Saviour; such as were St. Matthew and St. John Apostles, and St.
Mark and St. Luke Disciples, and whosoever else wrote of that
subject (as St. Thomas and St. Barnabas are said to have done,
though the Church have not received the books that have gone under
their names); and as prophets, by the gift of interpreting the Old
Testament, and sometimes by declaring their special revelations to the
Church. For neither these gifts, nor the gifts of languages, nor the
gift of casting out devils, nor of curing other diseases, nor anything
else did make an officer in the save only the due calling and election
to the charge of teaching.
As the Apostles Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas were not made by our
Saviour himself, but were elected by the Church, that is, by the
assembly of Christians; namely, Matthias by the church of Jerusalem,
and Paul and Barnabas by the church of Antioch; so were also the
presbyters and pastors in other cities, elected by the churches of
those cities. For proof whereof, let us consider, first, how St.
Paul proceeded in the ordination of presbyters in the cities where
he had converted men to the Christian faith, immediately after he
and Barnabas had received their apostleship. We read that "they
ordained elders in every church";* which at first sight may be taken
for an argument that they themselves chose and gave them their
authority: but if we consider the original text, it will be manifest
that they were authorized and chosen by the assembly of the Christians
of each city. For the words there are cheirotonesantes autois
presbuterous kat ekklesian, that is, "when they had ordained them
elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation." Now it is
well enough known that in all those cities the manner of choosing
magistrates and officers was by plurality of suffrages; and, because
the ordinary way of distinguishing the affirmative votes from the
negatives was by holding up of hands, to ordain an officer in any of
the cities was no more but to bring the people together to elect
them by plurality of votes, whether it were by plurality of elevated
hands, or by plurality of voices, or plurality of balls, or beans,
or small stones, of which every man cast in one, into a vessel
marked for the affirmative or negative; for diverse cities had diverse
customs in that point. It was therefore the assembly that elected
their own elders: the Apostles were only presidents of the assembly to
call them together for such election, and to pronounce them elected,
and to give them the benediction, which now is called consecration.
And for this cause they that were presidents of the assemblies, as
in the absence of the Apostles the elders were, were called proestotes
and in Latin antistites; which words signify the principal person of
the assembly, whose office was to number the votes, and to declare
thereby who was chosen; and where the votes were equal, to decide
the matter in question by adding his own which is the office of a
president in council. And, because all the churches had their
presbyters ordained in the same manner, where the word is
constitute, as ina katasteses kata polin presbuterous, "For this cause
left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest constitute elders in every
city,"*(2) we are to understand the same thing; namely, that he should
call the faithful together, and ordain them presbyters by plurality of
suffrages. It had been a strange thing if in a town where men
perhaps had never seen any magistrate otherwise chosen than by an
assembly, those of the town, becoming Christians, should so much as
have thought on any other way of election of their teachers and
guides, that is to say, of their presbyters (otherwise called