I think my question is whether it’s okay to not make that assumption. Basically, it sounds like an episcopal system to modern ears, but in the patristic context it could have been more Presbyterian. We just don’t know.
I.e could Ignatius have been describing Bishops as the modern equivalent of teaching elders and Presbyters as ruling elders?
Although I am no expert, this sounds far-fetched. Neither teaching nor ruling elders are typically referred to in distinction from their presbytery. I agree with Jacob, and Ploutos' most recent question is precisely where I am at in my thought process.
Maybe it's the late hour, but I'm having trouble following your train of thought here. What do you mean by a "blackout" view of early church ecclesiology, and what do you mean by it appearing rhetorically powerful?
Well, if an early church theologian (Ignatius) who may have known the apostles espoused an episcopalian polity which was not contested by his fellow theologians who read his epistles, how is this to be explained? If we say that Scripture does not teach an episcopalian ecclesiology, it will appear - as argued by EO and RC apologists - that we are suggesting these second generation theologians collectively "blacked out" on ecclesiology. It challenges many people's intuitions to suppose that a faulty, pervasive, ecclesiastical polity was divinely ordained to be finally corrected ~1,500 years later.
I suppose one might have an analogous question regarding baptismal regeneration - however one question is best answered is likely to provide the blueprint for an answer to the other.
A further question might be whether we regard early church theologians who believed such things as Christians, especially if we do not regard our contemporaries who believe such things as Christians.
I've tried to steelman the framing of Horn et al. to get at what I meant by "rhetorically powerful." Now, there might be good reasons to reject initial intuitions. I'm interested in what those might be. For example, perhaps one might argue a redemptive-historical parallel to the faulty ecclesiastical intuitions of the Korahites. This can cut both ways, though, since the Korahites flattened the divinely ordained ecclesiastical hierarchy and were relatively quickly corrected. Or perhaps ecclesiastical polity permits flexibility in certain circumstances, although I somewhat doubt that those who espouse[d] episcopalian polity see it that way. I'm open to alternative explanations.
At the end of the day, if there are no better explanations, Scripture is the sufficient rule of faith, and to Scripture must any arguments ultimately appeal. But I've often argued that Christianity is a super-sufficient religion. More often than not, we are given more reasons to believe that which God's word teaches, not less. If other, plausible responses might be offered to the questions which are being asks, I would not want them left unsaid.
I tend to think that Protestants do have a concept of doctrinal development. I once heard Dr. Strange gave a lecture in which he gave a broad-brushstroke outline of church history as developing the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of Christ's work (atonement), and the application of Christ's work (soteriology and pneumatology) - the latter two taking place from the Reformation to the present. So we too claim commonality with the church fathers
More precise doctrinal articulation is one thing (and with which I would agree). Deeper inferences can later be made in church history which were not made earlier. But it is less often the case that we suggest the church fathers were simply wrong on the doctrine of Christ for ~1,500 years.
Two things Protestants have that I don't see in RC and EO lines of thought:
1) We don't necessarily engage in anachronistic readings. We simply say there were harbingers of key Reformed doctrines but they would become more explicit later. It often seems like Romanists in particular feel a need to assert that the doctrine really was there all along - that transubstantiation is really already there in Ignatius or Augustine and that the doctrine of the church is already there in Cyprian. I, at least, am ok with simply saying "we didn't know at that time; now we know".
In some cases, yes, in others, I find that RC and EO apologists are also forced to admit something like this (e.g. icon veneration).
2) In addition to doctrinal development, we have a well-developed doctrine of the corruption of the church - the readiness with which it falls into error and is in need of constant Reformation. Romanists can't admit this because they have to maintain continuity and consistency (which also plays into #1) and EOs can't admit this because that acknowledgment of the human element threatens the pillar of tradition on which they so heavily rely.
There is indeed something to this. But I am presently looking for something more than: "Yes, for ~1,500 years, the ecclesiastical polity of church theologians was wrong."
Like I said, I'm not an expert in church history and am open to answers. But I do want to add that even granting their own presuppositions, I know enough to see that RCs and EOs also face their own difficulties regarding church history (
link).
So I guess when it comes to church polity, a typical Presbyterian defense would be that the originally prescribed Biblical system of government was representative, not hierarchical, but that over time this drifted more toward what would eventually become the Roman system, and needed to be Reformed. Maybe that's what you meant by a "blackout" view but I have heard arguments that are more nuanced than that - they don't skip straight from the Bible (or Augustine, or Constantine, or Gregory the Great) to Calvin, but they just acknowledge that, as in so many other areas, the church fell away from Biblical teaching over time and in this case the drift started pretty early on. I guess that's still a sola scriptura view, but I'm not sure what to say if you're looking for something more substantive - something that reconciles Biblical teaching more convincingly with what happened in church history? If so, I'm not sure what to say. I wouldn't think the representative idea was unknown in an ancient Greco-Roman context, but it certainly wasn't developed the way it was in Reformed thought, and a more hierarchical polity would certainly seem to be more in keeping with cultural norms of the time.
Again, I'm looking for how a Presbyterian or Baptist would respond to certain questions, not how an Anglican or Lutheran would. I have less interest in anti-papal apologetics than anti-episcopalian apologetics.
