ELDERS, or SENIORS, in Jewish history, were persons the most considerable for age, experience, and wisdom. Of this sort were the seventy men whom Moses associated to himself in the government of his people; such as were those who afterwards held the first rank in the synagogue as presidents.
In the first assemblies of the primitive Christians, those who held the principal place were called elders. The word presbyter, so often used in the New Testament, is of the same signification; and hence the first council of Christians were called presbyteria, or councils of elders.