in the first documents we possess from the pens of Christian
bishops, such as the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Kee 1995).
It is likely that the emergence of a church hierarchy was a
gradual, even haphazard process. At first, leadership in Christian
communities devolved on Jesus’ surviving disciples (such as Peter
and James) and the apostles associated with them (such as Paul).
As this living link with the ministry of Jesus began to die out,
however, there was an apparent need to appoint certain individ-
uals to positions of authority. We can see this in some of the later
New Testament writings, such as the deutero-Pauline First Letter
to TimothyandLetter to Titus, where persons in leadership posi-
tions are described as episkopoiandpresbuteroi. By the early
second century we find a quite highly developed sense of hierar-
chical leadership, especially of the episkopos, in Ignatius of
Antioch’s letters. Again, this authority is conceived of in sacred
terms: ‘Be subject to the episkoposand to one another, as Jesus
Christ was subject to the Father and the apostles were to Christ
and the Father, so that there may be unity of both flesh and spirit’
(Letter to the Magnesians14.1). In Ignatius’ view, such struc-
tures were inseparable from the very notion of a Christian ekkle ̄sia
(Letter to the Trallians3.1). It is, perhaps, with Ignatius that we
can begin to talk of ‘bishops’ and ‘the church’.
How early and how firmly ecclesiastical authority was estab-
lished is difficult to ascertain. It is possible that the situation was
fluid for some considerable time. The First Epistle of Clement
implies considerable dissension within the Christian community
at Corinth over issues of leadership some time around the year
- About a decade later, Ignatius of Antioch’s letters repeatedly
insisted that the Christians of Asia Minor should obey their clergy,
especially their bishops – but this might be special pleading on
Ignatius’ part for a hierarchical structure that was not yet firmly
established (Campbell 1994: 216–22). Recent studies of doctrinal
disputes at Rome suggest that there was no bishop in overall
control of the city’s Christians even by the middle of the second
century, and that Rome’s Christians were caught between, on
the one hand, centralizing tendencies enshrined in notions that the
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