The Rise of Bishops
From Parish Leaders to Regional Governors
Foreword by Manfred W. Kohl
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
The Rise of Bishops reveals how Christian congregations, which were self-governing in the second and third centuries, became subject to the general supervision and direction of diocesan bishops and higher officeholders, thus ending their independence from outside the local parish.
The New Testament says nothing about church government after the apostles. Thus, the question becomes "who replaced the apostles?" Local church congregations in the period between AD 100 to 300 appear to have been administered by bishops and deacons, and sometimes elders, all as congregational officeholders, with no superstructure above the congregation. Yet, the fourth century sees congregations governed in groups by a collective hierarchy, based on diocesan bishops. This book attributes most of the change to Constantine the Great and his immediate successors, motivated by desire for more efficient functioning and greater control by the emperors once the majority church was co-opted into the Roman state.
Although bishops have long been key officials in the church, surprisingly little has been written in our time on how the framework for choosing and regulating them developed in early times. What little is available consists of journal articles rather than standalone publications. The Rise of Bishops helps close this gap.
Author of fourteen books on early and modern Christianity, David W. T. Brattston is a retired lawyer in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada. His books most related to The Rise of Bishops are Papal Supremacy: Quotations and Commentaries and Apostolic Tradition: An Experiment that Failed. Over four hundred of his articles synthesizing early and modern Christianity have been published by a wide variety of denominations in every major English-language country.
“Brattston provides a valuable resource for the church . . . . He convincingly demonstrates that the hierarchical episcopate of the medieval era was not based upon clear directives handed down by apostolic authority to the Roman pontiff, but that it instead resulted gradually from particular historical circumstances that the church found itself in in the later patristic era. Brattston’s work presents a challenge to the simplistic narrative of episcopal continuity promoted by Roman Catholic apologists.”
—Jordan Cooper, Adjunct Professor of Systematic Theology, American Lutheran Theological Seminary
“Having known Dr. Brattston for many years, I have no doubt that he has exhaustively searched the world’s literature, resulting in the writing of his latest book: The Rise of Bishops. If there was or is any confusion regarding the role and evolution of bishops in the early church, Dr. Brattston has shed light on this particular history of the early church.”
—Gary Yemen, MD, Diagnostic Imaging Physician, retired