The Didache

P. 26, 1.277—“Now appoint for yourselves,” χειροτονήσατε οὖν ἑαυτοῖς] Χειροτονέω occurs only twice in the New Testament (Acts xiv.23; 2 Cor. viii.19), and, in both places, means simply to “appoint.” Josephus uses the word in the same sense in Ant. xiii.2, 2, where Alexander Balas, the pretended son of Antiochus Epiphanes, “appoints” Jonathan High Priest. The same meaning appears in Ant. vii 9, 3; vii. 11, 1. In ant. vi. 5, 4, however, the noun χειπροτονία is used of the coronation of Saul. In Josephus, accordingly, the prevailing sense of χειροτονέω is to “appoint.” This is the meaning of the word also in the Epistles of Ignatius (about 115 a.d.). See Philadelphians, Chap. 10; Smyrnæns, Chap. 11; Polycarp, Chap. 7.

But in the “Apostolic Canons,” I. and II., and in the “Apostolic Constitutions,” viii. 4, 5, χειροτονέω means to “ordain.” This represents the usage of the third century, as the New Testament, Josephus, and Ignatius represent the usage of the first and second centuries.

Now, it is noteworthy, that in the “Apostolic Constitutions,” vii. 31 (the section corresponding to the passage before us), the word employed is not χειροτονέω, which then meant “ordain,” but προχειρίζομαι, a new usage having obtained. In this fifteenth chapter of the “Teaching,” χειροτονέω is employed, evidently, in its original sense of “appoint.” This indicates the high antiquity of the document, antedating by decades, if not by a whole century, the “Apostolic Canons” and the “Apostolic Constitutions.”

As for the officers to be “appointed,” only Bishops and Deacons are mentioned. By Bishops must, of course, be meant Presbyters, or Elders. There is no sign of a Bishop as distinguished from a Presbyter; nor of a Ruling Elder as distinguished from a Teaching Elder; and, apparently, there was in each congregation a plurality both of Bishops (or Elders) and Deacons.