This article owes its genesis to a summer seminar on the Social World of Early Christianity conducted by Wayne Meeks under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am grateful to roy colleagues of that Seminar and also of the midwest Patristics Seminar for their helpful criticism.

1. Even in the Pastorals, the bishop is to be “an apt teacher” (1 Tim. 3:3), but he is overshadowed by the apostolic delegate.

2. On episcopal succession as a defense of orthodoxy, see von Campenhausen, Hans, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries, trans. Baker, J. A. (London, 1969), pp. 163–172.Google Scholar

3. Cyprian, , Epistles 53–58Google Scholar (Hartel's numbering; in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, these are numbered 69–75).

4. It is interesting, in this regard, that Origen compared the Christian ministry not to the Jewish rabbinate, but to the priesthood of the Temple in Jerusalem. “The analogy between the Christian and the Mosaic hierarchy is constantly in his mind, and if he does not draw from it all the consequences that have been supposed, it is no less true that in his view the priest is no longer the minister of the congregation, but the vicar of God.” Harris, Carl Vernon, Origen of Alexandria's Interpretation of the Teacher's Function in the Early Christian Hierarchy and Community (New York, 1966), p. 204.Google Scholar

5. The archciynagōgos presided over the services and sometimes built or maintained the building Out of his own pocket; Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, s.vv. “συναγωγή, έπρισυναγωγή, άρχισυνάγωγος, άγοσυνάγωγος.” The rabbi became “teacher, preacher, and spiritual head of the Jewish congregation or community” only in the Middle Ages: Rabinowitz, Louis Isaac, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1971Google Scholar ed., s.v. “Rabbi, Rabbinate.”

6. There were organized guilds of lay worshippers who participated in the festivals of Isis, but their relationship to the priests is unclear. One Stoic author of the first century A.D., Chaeremon, described the Isiac priests as contemplative ascetics who had few dealings with the laity. Witt, Reginald Eldred, Isis in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca, 1971), pp. 95–97.Google Scholar

7. The orthodox polemicist Apollonius scorned the “hired” clergy of the Montanists (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 5.18.2).Google Scholar Such salaried clergy must have been subordinate to whoever paid them. It is no accident that it was the Catholic bishops who led the counterattack against Montanism.

8. Origen was brought to Arabia on one occasion to refute an erring bishop, but at the invitation of the other bishops of the province who thus used Origen as their instrument (Eusebius H.E. 6.33); see Origen, , Dialogue with Heracleides, ed. Scherer, J., Texies et Documents, vol. 9 (Cairo, 1949).Google Scholar Origen's own attitude seems to have been that intellectual qualifications were more important for expounding doctrine than institutional ones; see Harris, , Teacher's Function, p. 181.Google Scholar

9. Christian writers often declared that there was also a clear moral distinction between Christians and non-Christians. There may have been such a difference in practice between the two groups, although there was no such great distinction between the ideas of Christian and of Jewish or pagan moralists. In any case, most apologetic works seem to me to concentrate on questions of belief rather than of morality. Thus, Justin's First Apology includes a long argument from prophecy (30–53) which easily balances his description of Christian morality (9–20). Tatian devotes about half of his Discourse to the Greeks (2–21) to the issue of belief; the remainder is divided between ethics (22–26, 32–34), personal testimony (27–30, 35), and historical arguments (31, 36–41). Similarly, Athenagoras, in his Embassy, devotes most space (4–30) to a refutation of the charge of atheism; the claim of superior Christian morality (12) is only a subordinate argument in rebuttal of this charge against Christian belief. Clement of Alexandria's Exhortation to the Heathen is occupied almost entirely with issues of faith. A full study of the apologists from this perspective would be instructive.

10. Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, New York, 1967).Google Scholar See especially pp. 85–88.

11. The notion that the early Christians were all poor goes back to pagan detractors in the second century. Christian apologists admitted, in reply, that the majority of the faithful were indeed poor (see, for example, Felix, MinuciusOctavius 36).Google Scholar It became a kind of modern orthodoxy, however, to identify the early Christians invariably as poor. See, for example, Kautsky, Karl, Foundations of Christianity, trans. Mins, Henry F. (New York, 1953), pp. 272–274Google Scholar and Wallis, Louis, Sociological Study of the Bible (Chicago, 1912), pp. 241–242.Google Scholar More detailed and careful studies yield quite different results. Among the best are Bigelmair, Andreas, Die Beteiligung der Christen am öffentlichen Leben in vorconstantinischer Zeil: Em Beitrag zur ältesten Kirchengeschichte (Munich, 1902), pp. 202–224;Google ScholarKnopf, R., “Ueber die soziale Zusammensetzung der ältesten heidenchristlichen Gemeinden,” Zeitschroift für Theologie und Kirche 10 (1900):325–347;Google ScholarKreissig, Heinz, “Zur sozialen Zusammensetzung der frühchristlichen Gemeinden im ersten Jahrhundert u. Z.,” Eirene 6 (1967):91–100.Google Scholar Gerd Theissen has argued effectively that the original Corinthian Congregation included people from a variety of social positions; “Soziale Schichtung in der Korinthischen Gemeinde: Em Beitrag zur Soziologie des hellenistischen Urchristentums,” 65 (1974):232–272,Google Scholar and “Die Starken und Schwachen in Korinth: Soziologische Analyse eines theologischen Streites,” Evangelische Theologie 35 (1975)155–172.Google Scholar Abraham J. Maiherbe has reviewed the evidence of literary culture in his Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Baton Rouge, 1977) pp. 29–59.Google Scholar Perhaps the best summary of the entire discussion is Werner Eck's description of the early church as “ein fast getreues Spiegelbild der ailgemeinen sozialer Schichtung im römischen Reich,” in his “Das Emndringen des Christentums in den Senatorenstand bis zu Konstantin d. Gr.,” Chiron 1 (1971):382.Google Scholar

12. Berger, and Luckmann, , Social Construction, p. 126.Google Scholar

13. Grant, Robert M., ed., Theophilus of Antioch Ad Autolycum, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 1970), pp. ix–xii.Google Scholar

14. Grant, Robert M., Augustus to Constantine: The Thrust of the Christian Movement into the Roman World (New York, 1970), pp. 124–125,Google Scholar sums up the information dealing with Marcion and Valentinus. On Bardesanes' intellectual attainments, see p. 209.

15. On Gnosticism, see Kippenberg, Hans G., “Versuch einer soziologischen Verortung des antiken Gnostizismus,” Numen 17 (1970):211–231,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Munz, Peter, “The Problem of ‘Die soziologische Verortung des antiken Gnostizismus,'” Numen 19 (1972):41–51.Google Scholar For a revealing comparison of Gnostic and Catholic developments, see Green, Henry Alan, “Suggested Sociological Themes in the Study of Gnosticism,” Vigiliae Christianae 31 (1977): 169–180.Google Scholar Green argues that the Gnostic saw himself as part of something like a caste system (of pneumatics, psychics and choics), which is “ontologically determined and anthropologically present in the world” (p. 177).

16. Paul's position was quite different from that of the later Catholic clergy, in that he did not regard the apostolate as acontinuing ministerial “order” opposed to that of the laity. Indeed, he probably did not conceive of church or world as orders continuing much beyond his own generation. Also, the authority of the apostolate was not theologically different from that exercised by any other bearer of charisma, however humble. Yet, the functional gap between the apostle who commanded and the people who obeyed was a wide one.

17. Elaine H. Pagels has shown how congenial the later Gnostics found Paul in The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (Philadelphia, 1975).Google Scholar

18. On the Catholic efforts to reclaim and “tame” Paul, see Wiles, Maurice F., The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistles in the Early Church (London, 1967).Google Scholar