Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK

JERUSALEM THE MOTHER CHURCH

first centuries of church history, the Holy See was not in Rome, but in Jerusalem:

Now the throne of James, who was the first to receive from the Saviour and the apostles the episcopate of the church at Jerusalem, who also, as the divine books show, was called a brother of Christ, has been preserved to this day; and by the honour that the brethren in succession there pay to it, they show clearly to all the reverence in which the holy men were and still are held by the men of old time and those of our day, because of the love shown them by God (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History \II 19).

Nevertheless, we do not get the impression from the book of Acts that after the apostles’ departure, the leadership of the church narrowed to one person. In the company of James, a number of elders suddenly appears (Acts 11:30; 21:18). Already at the convent in Jerusalem, they are mentioned in the same breath as the apostles (Acts 13:2,4, 6, 22-23).

In contrast to the Seven (Acts 6:5-6), or the elders of the Pauline congregations, we do not read of a particular moment when these elders were chosen or appointed. It seems that these men were not elders in the sense that they had been put forward from within the churches. Their authority was self-evident. They derived it from the life experience that came with being an older member, in this case from their special first-hand experience of having known Jesus Christ personally, and of having been sent out by him (perhaps as one of the Seventy: Luke 10:1-20).

Hence, the almost automatic connection between these elders and the apostles. Van Bruggen compares their position in Jerusalem with that of the elders of Israel, the ones who had witnessed the entry into the land of Canaan, and who had outlived Joshua. After Joshua’s death, these men remained as living eyewitnesses of what God had done for Israel (Joshua 24:31; Judges 2:7).23 Similarly, the elders in Jerusalem were living eyewitnesses of what God had done in Israel through Jesus Christ, his own Son.

These eldest disciples of Jesus formed a college, of which, so to speak, James was the chairman. Within the church of Jerusalem, ‘James and the elders’ have a position of authority, as the Book of Acts shows. They direct the diaconal funds collected for the church (Acts 11:30). During the Jerusalem convent the elders, with James as their spokesman, stand beside the apostles. The decision of this convent, as described in Acts 15, has been of immeasurable value for the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians: one need not be a Jew in order to belong to the God of Israel. Later, the elders gathered around James to receive Paul and his companions. Indeed, their joint declaration is then expressed in the first person plural: ‘we’ (Acts 21:18- 25).24

If Bauckham is correct, the early Christian tradition has preserved the names

23 J. van Bruggen, Ambten in de apostolische kerk. Een exegetisch mozaiek (Kämpen: Kok, 1980), 78-91.

24 Several other interpretations of the role of James and the elders in the Jerusalem church have been proposed. Campbell believes that elders is another term for the apostles, used by Luke from the moment that they appear as witnesses less than as leaders of the church. How should one think of James? According to Campbell, James took over the role of Jesus. Bauckham thinks that the Twelve, when they fell apart after the death of James and the departure of Peter, gradually became included within the circle of elders. But at the convent of Jerusalem, the apostles are still a group besides the elders.

S Fi IZETEK 23