Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.13

 Charles Gore noted that Clement of Alexandria made adistinction between “bishops” and “presbyters”:

 

‘The grades in the Church here of bishops, presbyters, deacons I believe to be imitations of the angelic glory’ (Strom. Vi. 13. 107: αι ενταυθα κατα την εκκλησιαν προκοπαι επισκοπων, διακονων, μιμηματα οιμαι αγγελικης δοξης.) (Charles Gore, The Church and the Ministry [5th ed.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1902], 122 n. 6)

 

The entire passage from Stromata 6.13 reads thusly:

 

He, then, who has first moderated his passions and trained himself for impassibility, and developed to the beneficence of gnostic perfection, is here equal to the angels. Luminous already, and like the sun shining in the exercise of beneficence, he speeds by righteous knowledge through the love of God to the sacred abode, like as the apostles. Not that they became apostles through being chosen for some distinguished peculiarity of nature, since also Judas was chosen along with them. But they were capable of becoming apostles on being chosen by Him who foresees even ultimate issues. Matthias, accordingly, who was not chosen along with them, on showing himself worthy of becoming an apostle, is substituted for Judas.

 

Those, then, also now, who have exercised themselves in the Lord’s commandments, and lived perfectly and gnostically according to the Gospel, may be enrolled in the chosen body of the apostles. Such an one is in reality a presbyter of the Church, and a true minister (deacon) of the will of God, if he do and teach what is the Lord’s; not as being ordained by men, nor regarded righteous because a presbyter, but enrolled in the presbyterate8 because righteous. And although here upon earth he be not honoured with the chief seat, he will sit down on the four-and-twenty thrones, judging the people, as John says in the Apocalypse.

 

For, in truth, the covenant of salvation, reaching down to us from the foundation of the world, through different generations and times, is one, though conceived as different in respect of gift. For it follows that there is one unchangeable gift of salvation given by one God, through one Lord, benefiting in many ways. For which cause the middle wall which separated the Greek from the Jew is taken away, in order that there might be a peculiar people. And so both meet in the one unity of faith; and the selection out of both is one. And the chosen of the chosen are those who by reason of perfect knowledge are called [as the best] from the Church itself, and honoured with the most august glory—the judges and rulers—four-and-twenty (the grace being doubled) equally from Jews and Greeks. Since, according to my opinion, the grades here in the Church, of bishops, presbyters, deacons, are imitations of the angelic glory, and of that economy which, the Scriptures say, awaits those who, following the footsteps of the apostles, have lived in perfection of righteousness according to the Gospel. For these taken up in the clouds, the apostle writes, will first minister [as deacons], then be classed in the presbyterate, by promotion in glory (for glory differs from glory) till they grow into “a perfect man.”

 

Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson on Glass in Ancient Egypt

  

glass

 

Although the glazing of stones such as quarts and steatite, as well as the making of faience, had been known since Predynastic times (c. 5500-3100 BC), glass is extremely rare before c. 1500 BC, and not certainly attested in Egypt before the late Middle Kingdom.

 

It is possible that the craft of glass-making was first introduced into Egypt following the campaigns of Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC), when captive glass-makers may have been brought to Egypt from Mitanni, where the technology was already available. Glass is certainly one of the materials mentioned in lists of tribute in the Annals of Thutmose III at Karnak, and even by the time of Akhenaten (1352-1336 BC) glass was still of sufficient importance to merit inclusion in diplomatic correspondence. In the Amarna Letters the Hurrian and Akkadian terms ehlipakku and mekku were used, and these loan-words perhaps point to the eastern origins of the earliest glass. (Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt [New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995], 122)

 

Further Reading:

Ether 3:1 and Ancient Knowledge of Glass

"Aha" as an Egyptian name (c. 3100 BC)

  

Aha (c. 3100 BC)

 

One of the earliest 1st-Dynasty rulers of a unified Egypt whose name means ‘the fighter’. His reign is attested primarily by funerary remains at Abydos, Saqqara and Naqada. When Flinders Petrie excavated at Umm el-Qa’ab (the Early Dynastic cemetery at Abydos) in 1899-1900, he discovered Tomb B1915, which contained objects bearing the name of Aha. However, the earliest of the 1st-Dyndasty and 2nd-Dynasty élite tombs at north Saqqara (no. 3357), excavated in the 1930s, was also dated by jar-sealings to the reign of Aha. (Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt [New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995], 17)

 

 Further Reading

Book of Mormon Onomasticon entry for "Aha"

Ian Shaw and Pual Nicholson: Naukratis was Settled by Greeks by at least 630 BC

  

Naukratis (Kom Gi’eif)

 

Site of a Greek settlement on the canopic branch of the Nile in the Western Delta. It was located only about 16 km from Sais, the capital of the 26th-Dynasty rulers, under whom Naukratis was reorganized. The modern name of the site itself is Kom Gi’eif, although the ancient name appears to have survived in the name of the nearby village of el-Niqrash.

 

According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the site was given to the Greeks by Ahmose II (570-526 BC), along with a monopoly on seaborn trade to Egypt, although it is more likely that Ahmose II simply reorganized an existing settlement of foreigners, giving them new trading privileges. It is clear from such finds as Corinthian ‘transitional’ pottery that the Greek settlement at the site dates back to c. 630 BC. (Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt [New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995], 197, emphasis in bold added)

 

Further Reading:

 

Pre-exilic Pottery Fragments from Naukratis

Spencer W. Kimball Changing his Mind About Having a High-Risk Surgery (October 9, 1971)

  

On October 9, 1971, Dr. Nelson performed a selective coronary arteriogram and found that President Kimball’s heart was being overworked because of severe aortic valve disease. The overworked heart was being undersupplied with blood because of an obstruction in the main arterial supply line to the cardiac muscle.

 

“Five months later, the hour of decision approached,” Russell solemnly recalled. “Neither Dr. Wilkinson nor I recommended a surgical approach because of the complex nature of the heart operation that would be needed and because of President Kimball’s being congestive heart failure at seventy-seven years of age. So President Kimball called a special meeting with the First Presidency. Invited to the meeting in addition to the First Presidency and Sister Kimball were Dr. Ernest L. Wilkinson and myself. President Kimball began the meeting by saying, ‘I am a dying man. I can feel my life slipping. At the present rate of deterioration, it is my belief that I can live only about two more months. Now I’d like my medical cardiologist, Dr. Ernest L. Wilkinson, to present his views about my health.’”

 

Dr. Wilkinson reaffirmed President Kimball’s statement, explaining that “because of congestive failure, occasioned by the extra workload on the heart, strained with an incompetent aortic valve and a high-grade obstruction in the most important artery in the heart, spontaneous recovery would be unlikely and death would ensue in the not-too-distant future.”

 

Then President Kimball called on Dr. Nelson to speak, asking, “What can cardiac surgery offer?”

 

Dr. Nelson said, “I indicated that the operation, if it were to be done, would be a compound surgical procedure consisting of two components. First, the defective aorist valve would require removal and replacement with a prosthetic aortic valve. Second, the left anterior descending coronary artery would have to be revascularized with a bypass graft.”

 

President Lee asked, “What would the risks be with such procedures?”

 

Dr. Nelson replied, “We have no experience doing both operations on patients in this age group. Therefore, I cannot give you any risk data based on experience. All I can say is, it would entail extremely high risk.”

 

Then a weary President Kimball said, “I’m an old man and ready to die. It is well for a younger man to come to the Quorum and do the work I can no longer do.”

 

Elder Nelson described the dramatic reaction of President Lee: “At that point President Harold B. Lee, speaking for the First Presidency, rose to his feet, pounded his fist to the desk, and said, ‘Spencer, you have been called! You are not to die! You are to do everything that you need to do in order to care for yourself and continue to live.’”

 

President Kimball responded, “Then I will have the operation performed.” (Spencer Condie, Russell M. Nelson: Father, Surgeon, Apostle [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003], 153-55)

 

Charles Gore on Prophecy in Early Christianity

  

The words of Jesus Christ, ‘all the prophets and the law prophesied until John,’ are clearly not to be understood as excluding prophecy from His kingdom. If His own language is not without ambiguity, yet in the apostolic writings the evidence is abundant. There are prophets in the Church who rank only next to apostles: Eph. Vi. 11; iii. 5; ii. 20; 1 Cor. xii. 28; Acts xiii. 1, xiv. 4, and xv. 32. We should gather that not all persons who received at one moment or another the gift of prophecy, as in Acts xix. 6, would have ranked as prophets. The prophet would have been a person who habitually possessed the prophetic inspiration. There was an abundance of the prophetic gift in the Corinthian Church (1 Cor. xiv. 29-36), and the prophets appear here as members simply of the local community; but speaking generally they long to the general, as opposed to the local, ministry and rank with apostles and evangelists and teachers (see esp. Eph. iv. 11, iii. 5, ii. 20, and Acts xiii. 1, where Barnabas and Saul rank amongst prophets and teachers). . . . We should gather form the Acts that Christian prophets foretold, like Agabus; see Acts xi. 28, xxi. 11. So St. Peter exercises prophetic power (Acts v. 3-10) and the Spirit guides the Apostles on critical occasions by specially communicated directions of prohibitions (Acts x. 19, xiii. 2, xvi. 6, xx. 22, 23, xxiii. 11, xxvii. 23) . . . The gift of prophecy continued as a recognized endowment of the Church into the second or third centuries. Certain people were recognized as prophets, e.g. Ignatius, Polycarp, and Quadratus, already referred to (cf. Euseb. H. E. v. 1.49 on Alexander the Phrygian). As in the apostolic Church. As in the apostolic Church there had been prophetesses, so too they had their late representative in Ammia at Philadelphia (Euseb. H. E. v. 17). St. Irenaeus, besides denouncing false prophets (adv. Haer. iv.33.6) protests against those who would banish prophecy form the Church under pretense of exposing such pretenders (iii.11.9: ‘propheticam . . . gratiam repellent ab ecclesia’) and witnesses like Justin Martyr to the continuance of prophetic gifts in his day (ii.32, 4, v.6.1; Justin c. Tryph. 82). Even an opponent of the false prophets of Montanism recognizes that prophecy must continue in the whole Church to the end (ad. Euseb. H. E. v. 17). The Montanist prophets were rejected by the Church specially on account of the ecstatic and irrational character of their supposed gift. Their rejection involved no slight at all on the gift of prophecy and no denial of its claims. As a matter of fact, however, the genuine gift seems to have become exceedingly rare; Origen speaks of slight traces of it remaining to his time (c. Cels. i. 46, vii. 8). (Charles Gore, The Church and the Ministry [5th ed.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1902], 359-60, 361)

 

Charles Gore on the laying-on of hands for ordination in Early Christianity

  

Assuming the historical trustworthiness of the Acts and the Pastoral Epistles, we have evidence that the laying-on of apostolic hands was the method of imparting the gift of the Spirit. It was also, as a natural consequence, the method of ordination to church office. So the seven are ordained, Acts vi. 6 προσευξαμενοι επεθηκαν αυτοις τας χειρας. So Paul and Barnabas have hands laid on them by the prophets of Antioch, Acts xiii. 3—this however to send them on a special mission, rather than appoint them to an office. So St. Paul, in company with the presbytery ordained Timothy (1 Tim. vi. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6), and he writes to him that he ‘stir up the gift that is in him by the laying-on of hands.’ He also implies that Timothy will use the same ceremony in ordaining other clergy (1 Tim. v. 22). Thus, as in the case of baptism, the Church gave a new meaning, a new reality, to an old Jewish rite.

 

It was not likely that an apostolic practice would become disused. Ordination or appointment is, of course, constantly mentioned without any specification of the method, in the early Church as amongst ourselves. But we have in each century evidence to assure us of what the method was.

 

Thus in the second century the Ebionite Clementines represent St. Peter as ordaining bishops, and by implication priests and deacons, by laying-on of hands (Hom. iii. 72, with the prayer that God would give the bishop the authority to bind and loose aright; Recog. iii. 66; Ep. Clem. 2.19).

 

In the third century we have evidence that Origen was so ordained: επι την Ελλαδα στειλαμενος την δια Παλαιστινης, πρεσβυτεριου χειροθεσιαν εν Καισαρεια προς των τηδε επισκοπων αναλαμβανει (ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 23); and he implies that this was the method by which bishops were consecrated in his day . . . , as will be seen immediately, and the African author of de Aleatoribus, assure us that his was the method of episcopal ordination in Africa, and Novatian’s schismatical ordination lets us see that it was so also at Rome. The canons of Hippolytus give us  the same assurance in the case of all three orders. . . . When Chrysostom, still later, is explaining the expression επεθηκαν αυτοις τας χειρας in Acts vi. 6 (Hom. xiv. 3), he says: ‘This is the χειροντονια: the hand of the man is laid upon the other; but all the working is of God, and His hand it is which touches the head of him who is ordained, if he be ordained aright.’ Jerome too interpreters χειροτονια in Latin as ‘extentus digitus,’ and explains it as ‘ordinatio clericorum quae non solum ad imprecationem vocis sed ad impositonem impletur manus’ (in Isai. lviii. 10).

 

In one of these case is there any controversial stress laid on the rite. It is simply assumed as the Church’s method of ordination.(Charles Gore, The Church and the Ministry [5th ed.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1902], 349-50)