Note 837 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The name was not always indicative of age, but of office, like the Jewish זְקֻנִים or elders, the Latin senatores, and the Saxon aldermen.
Rheinwal, Geisler, Neander, and other eminent German scholars, agree that the term bishop originally was merely the official title of the presbyter who was chosen to rule or oversee the church; and that the latter sat in consistory with the bishop, forming the ecclesiastical senate, in which the bishop was simply the presiding officer—primus inter pares.
It is worthy of note that the word ἱερεύς, “priest,” that is, one who offers sacrifice, is nowhere applied to any ecclesiastical rank in the Catacombs, or in the writings of the primitive Fathers. It has been left for Romanism, and a Romanizing sacerdotalism, to apply to the Christian minister this phrase, so opposed to the genius of the New Testament.