
There was a word ministry of apostles and inspired Associates, as well as the other ministerial orders; but elsewhere the Apostolic word ministry was not domiciled in the Episcope presided or were the presbyteries, The Apostolic Ministry being an occasional visitant and supervisor. By contrast with it the episcopal power was reckoned as Presbyteral: The presbytery, as access to the episcope, exercised and ruled or presided. This cleavage between the visiting word ministry in a subtle episcope could not persist. The Episcope exercised more and more teaching and pastoral functions, Under the direction of the disciples of the apostles, until the latter became the bishops of the apostolic sees and adopted the local Episcope as their sacred colleagues. Thus, the Apostolic Commission, with all that we have seen it to mean, devolved upon the episcopate except for the res powers of the original apostles which cannot devolved, but are expressed in the form of the Church, the Creed, in the scriptures of the New Testament. Such was the dynamism of events, something which naturally led to the development of ordination rites, set formula, in laying on of hands. These were the expression of the actual movement of the Apostolic Power; the expression, not originally the necessary means are the indispensable signs of it. The question is not, who laid hands on whom? But and to what channels did the divine instituted apostolic power flow? This was a river which no damn could stop and accident divert. Where did it go? And where is it now?
