appealing to their testimony. [547:2]
It is not improbable that they are Latin translations from Greek
originals, and we may thus account for a few words to be found in them
which were introduced at a later period. [547:3] Their tone and spirit,
which are entirely different from the spurious productions ascribed to
the same age, plead strongly in their favour as trustworthy witnesses.
The writer makes no lofty pretensions as a Roman bishop; he speaks of
himself simply as at the head of an humble presbytery; and it would be
difficult to divine the motive which could have tempted an impostor to
fabricate such unpretending compositions. Though given as the veritable
Epistles of Pius by the highest literary authorities of Borne, they are
certainly ill calculated to prop up the cause of the Papacy. If their
claims are admitted, they must be regarded as among the earliest
authentic records in which the distinction between the terms bishop and
presbyter is unequivocally recognized; and it is obvious that if
alterations in the ecclesiastical constitution were made under Hyginus,
they must have prepared the way for such a change in the terminology. In
one of these Epistles Pius gives the following piece of advice to his
correspondent:--"Let the elders and deacons respect you, _not as a
greater_, but as the servant of Christ." [548:1] This letter purports to
have been written when its author anticipated the approach of death; and
the individual to whom it is directed seems to have been just placed in
the episcopal chair. Had Pius believed that Justus had a divine right to
rule over the presbyters, would he have tendered such an admonition? A
hundred years afterwards, Cyprian of Carthage, when addressing a young
prelate, would certainly have expressed himself very differently. He
would, probably, have complained of the presumption of the presbyters,
have boasted of the majesty of the episcopate, and have exhorted the new
bishop to remember his apostolical dignity. But, in the middle of the
second century, such language would have been strangely out of place.
Pius is writing to an individual, just entering on an office lately
endowed with additional privileges, who could not yet afford to make an
arbitrary use of his new authority. He, therefore, counsels him to
moderation, and cautions him against presuming on his power. "Beware,"
says he, "in your intercourse with your presbyters and deacons, of
insisting too much on the duty of ob