What is the bishop’s responsibility in discipling new generations of bishops and priests?

Origen says that the bishop should follow Moses’ example when he chose Joshua as his successor.¹⁶¹⁹ In addition, church history informs us how patriarchs used to prepare their disciples to become spiritual leaders in various capacities: patriarchs, bishops, and deans of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He also says, “Here is no popular acclamation, no thought given to consanguinity or kinship … the government of the people is handed over to him whom God has chosen, to a man who … has in him the Spirit of God and keeps the precepts of God in his sight. Moses knew from personal experience that he was preeminent in the law and in knowledge, so that the children of Israel should obey him. Since all these things are replete with mysteries, we cannot omit what is more precious.”¹⁶²⁰

“If the Scriptures are true, then the Lord speaks not only there, in the congregations of the Jews, but today too, in this congregation. And Jesus teaches not only in this congregation, but in other gatherings, and in the whole world. He seeks instruments through whom he can teach. Pray that he will find me, too, well tempered and fit for singing!”¹⁶²¹

J.W. Trigg says, “As with priests, the prime qualification of the apostles was their insight into the mysteries of the Bible. The ‘fields … white already to harvest’ which Jesus called upon the Apostles to reap were the books of the Old Testament.¹⁶²² When he called upon them to cross the Sea of Galilee, this symbolized his call to pass from the literal to the spiritual sense of Scripture.¹⁶²³ A prime characteristic of the Apostle’s function as an interpreter and teacher of the Bible was the duty to exercise discretion. Paul, the greatest of the Apostles, provided Origen with an example of apostolic discretion. When among spiritual Christians, Paul boldly imparted ‘a secret and hidden wisdom of God’ (1 Cor. 2:7), but among the simple he judged it expedient ‘to know nothing … except Jesus Christ and Him crucified’ (1 Cor. 2:2).¹⁶²⁴ Origen was careful in the case of Apostles, as with priests, to remove any suggestions that those who fulfilled the apostolic function in the church could be identified as the holders of particular positions. Apostles are those who perform the works of an Apostle, works such as restoring to sight those blinded by false doctrine and raising to life those dead in their

1618 Origen, Homilies on Exodus 9.3 (FOTC 71:339). 1619 Joseph W. Trigg, “The Charismatic Intellectual: Origen’s Understanding of Religious Leadership.” Church History 50, no. 1 (1981): 5–19: pp. 13.

1620 Origen, Homilies on Numbers 22:4; Joseph W. Trigg, “The Charismatic Intellectual: Origen’s Understanding of Religious Leadership.” Church History 50, no. 1 (1981): 5–19: pp. 13–14.

1621 Origen, Homilies on Luke 32.2 (FOTC 94:130).

1622 Origen, Commentary on John 13.47.

1623 Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 11.5 (ANF 10:434–435).

1624 See Origen, Commentary on John 13.18; and Homilies on Leviticus 4.6.

sins.¹⁶²⁵ Apostleship is verified in its fruits, or as Paul said: ‘If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord’ (1 Cor. 9:2).”¹⁶²⁶