232
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→II. Ecclesiology
Thus, while both the Jewish and the Christian communities shared the term of "elder" it is wrong, from what is now recognized, to see the Jewish institutions as a model for Christians. At best, one can claim that the pastoral role of the elders in both communities may be a new function in religion; religious leaders not only providing a link between the people and the divinity but also caring for the plight of their people in the world.
Nonetheless, a search for a Jewish use of ''episkopos'' which influenced Christians is not so unpromising. The new community of Christians spread throughout the urban centers of the Empire used Greek and so it was that they used the Greek translations of the Old Testament. Utilizing a term they found often in the Greek Bible (albeit a term designating various tasks), by the second century Clement of Rome and Irenaeus affirmed it its place in sacred history through a passage as Isaiah 60, distinguishing the word from the use of pagan government and religion as a part of sacred history.
===III. Ethics===