THE CHURCH AS AN INSTITUTION--THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Even a cursory glance at the institutional history of Christianity is instructive. Beginning as an essentially democratic brotherhood of fellow-believers in which wisdom and experience, rather than authority, guided affairs, the Christian community gradually adopted the political form of the society in which it found itself. The very names of the church officials of whom we read in the later canonical epistles are taken over from the municipal governments of the time. The presbyters, or elders, were old men selected by common consent from the members of the congregation as a sort of advisory council. They were committee-men, ripe in experience and capable of dealing sensibly with the various problems sure to arise from time to time in the social group. From among these elders, overseers, or bishops, were chosen who had administrative functions of an indefinite sort. Besides these officials, there were deacons, prophets and teachers, men who took a more or less conspicuous part in the life of the brotherhood.
As time elapsed, the Christian communities took on a more formal organization, an evolution which was due to the stress of problems which could not be met without a more centralized structure. New heresies were { 188} constantly arising and leading the members into confusion; moral disorders, like those against which Paul had to thunder, were continually appearing. It was only too easy for members of unorganized groups to miss that sense of a common outlook which is so important and yet so difficult to maintain in an age of intellectual and moral turmoil. This situation was grasped by leaders who had decided views of their own as to the proper doctrines to be taught and the proper mode of life to follow. Under their guidance, a centralization of authority was evolved. The bishop became the head of the community with power in matters of doctrine and morality. Naturally, the heads of the more important communities, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople, had a prestige which gave their opinions differential weight. Before long, councils of bishops were called to decide questions of doctrine. The period of fixed creeds had arrived. Once this direction was taken, it was no long step to the formation of a church organization comparable in complexity to that of the Roman Empire and as undemocratic in character. Such a development was most natural; and it would, indeed, have been surprising had it not occurred. Institutions always possess the imprint of their age. It is foolish, because unhistorical, to expect ideals out of their time.
