Dr. Hort deals, as it seems to me, most unreasonably with the pastoral epistles. It is surely arbitrary to dissociate 'the gift which was in Timothy by the laying on of St. Paul's hands,' the gift of power, and love, and discipline; which Timothy is to 'stir up' (2 Tim. i. 6), from that mentioned in the first epistle (iv. 14), 'the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbyters'; and to make the former a 'gift' of merely personal piety. And (even if the 'lay hands suddenly on no man' be interpreted, as Ellicott and Hort would interpret it, of the reception of a penitent) it seems absurd to doubt, in view of what is said about the laying on of hands in ordination of 'the seven' and of the 'evangelist' Timothy, and in view of the place it held generally for conveying spiritual gifts in the Christian Church, that this was the accepted method of ordination in all cases; there being in fact no evidence to the contrary.
Once more, Dr. Hort is surely maintaining an impossible position when, even in face of the salutation to the Philippians, he denies that the term 'episcopus' is used in the New Testament as a regular title of an ecclesiastical office.
Not even Dr. Hort's reputation for soundness of judgement could stand against many posthumous publications such as The Christian Ecclesia.
[[1]] Not, as Dr. Hort points out (Christian Ecclesia, p. 5), 'the elect (called-out) people.' The word has in fact no such association attached to it.
[[2]] pp. 10, 11.
[[3]] Unless indeed, in Eph. iii. 21, we should understand 'every building' as meaning every local church which, fitted together with every other, grows into a holy temple, i.e. into that which only a really catholic church can be.
[[4]] The same statement would be true of St. Ignatius of Antioch.
[[5]] 1 Cor. vii. 17.
[[6]] 1 Cor. xi. 2, xv. 2.
[[7]] 1 Cor. ix. 17.