The following is taken from:
Brian
Alan Stewart, "'Priests of My People': Levitical
Paradigms for Christian Ministers in the Third and Fourth Century Church" (PhD Dissertation; University of Virginia,
May 2006), 109-12
Eucharistic Sacrifice?
As I have explored in earlier chapters, a common explanation given
for the rise of priestly designations has to do with the bishop’s connection
with offering the Eucharistic sacrifice. Does the DA support this idea?
At first glance, there are a few texts that seem to suggest a connection
Chapter 9 begins with a comparison between the old people of God and the Christian
Church, quickly moving to a comparison regarding sacrifice. The author
instructs, “The sacrifices which existed formerly are now prayers and petitions
and acts of thanksgiving; formerly there were first-fruits and tithes and
portions and gifts, but now there are offerings between the bishop-priest idea
and the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice. which are made to God for the
remission of sins through the bishop. For they are your high priests.” [263]
Here it appears that part of the responsibility of the bishop, qua high-priest,
is to make the offerings of the Church. Certainly, as president of worship,
this is one of the bishop’s primary tasks. Yet, nothing in this passage
explicitly speaks of the Eucharistic offering. Instead, the Christian
sacrifices are specifically named “prayers and petitions and acts of thanksgiving.”
[264] Though the Eucharist certainly would have been seen as sacrificial in
nature (a virtually unanimous Christian perspective) [265] it does not seem to
be the foremost “sacrifice” in connection with the bishop’s designation as
“high priest.” Another passage in the same chapter also speaks of the bishop as
priest in the context of sacrifice by making the comparison between liturgical
ministry in Israel and in the Church: “Therefore just as it was not lawful for
him who was not a Levite to offer anything or to approach the altar (altarem/thusistērion)
without a priest, so also you should not desire to do anything without the
bishop.” [266] Again, the priestly metaphor seems to work along the lines of sacrificial,
liturgical duties of Levites and Christian bishops. Yet, while the Eucharistic
service may be in the purview of the author, it is clearly not the foundational
idea. The immediately preceding context helps us see what the “altar” is: as
the bishop stands in the place of God and the deacons in the place of Christ,
“the widows and orphans should be understood by you as the type of the altar (in
typum altaris/tupon tou thusiastēriou).” [267] A few lines later,
the author commands, “Therefore, make your offerings (prosforas/tas
thusias) to your bishop, either you yourselves or through the deacons; and
when he receives from each, he will divide to each as he should. For the bishop
knows well those who are distressed and gives to each according to his stewardship…”
[268] The “altar” in this context, though related to the offerings provided in worship,
refers metaphorically not to the Eucharistic altar, but to the poor and
distressed within the community. They constitute the “altar.” The “sacrifices”
brought to the bishop-priest are those goods and gifts which in turn are taken
to the widows and orphans, “those who are distressed.”
The priestly function of the bishop, then, does relate to his task
as one who receives and distributes the “offerings” of the people. The
Eucharistic sacrifice, however, does not play a large role, if any, in the
conception of the bishop as priest. In fact, the one chapter where Christian
worship is addressed explicitly (chapter 12), the Eucharistic rite receives
almost no attention. [269] As Collin Bulley notes, “Although there is no doubt,
then, that the author of the Didascalia viewed the bishop as the one who
normally presided at the Eucharist . . . he nowhere relates the bishop’s
priesthood specifically to this function.” [270] Schöllgen also recognizes this
absence of a Eucharist-priesthood connection and observes that “the liturgical
service of the clergy in the Didascalia strongly recedes altogether.”
[271] Although the ministration of the Eucharistic service may be one of the
functions of the Didascalia’s bishop, it by no means holds a primacy of
place or lies as the basis for understanding the bishop as a priest. Rather the
bishop’s more general role as one who presides over all of worship (including
but not limited to the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving) seems to be the
connecting point for the priesthood motif.
Notes
for the Above:
263 Didascalia, chapter 9; Latin: Didascaliae
Apostolorum XXV, in Tidner, 41; and Apostolic Constitutions 2.26, in
Metzger1:236, though in a slightly different form.
264 The Apostolic Constitutions, in comparison with the
Latin, omits the word “acts” (actiones) and speaks only of
“thanksgivings” (eucharistiai). This may be taken to refer to the Eucharist;
however, it is debatable whether this was the original wording of the Didascalia.
Van Unnick also sees this passage as speaking of prayers rather than the
Eucharist (“Moses' Law,” 22).
265 For an overview of the early church’s view of the Eucharist as
sacrifice, see Robert Daly, Christian Sacrifice: the Judeo-Christian
background before Origen (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Univ. Press, 1978)
311-372, 498-508; Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 2nd ed.
(Westminster [London]: Dacre Press, 1949) 110-118; G.W.H. Lampe, “The Eucharist
in the Thought of the Early Church” in Eucharistic Theology Then and Now.
ed. R.E. Clemens. (London: SPCK, 1968), 38-46; Edward J. Kilmartin, The
Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. Robert Daly,
(Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998), 8-23. The pertinent church
fathers on the Eucharist in connection with either sacrifice or altar include Didache
14; Ignatius of Antioch, Philadelphians 4; Ephesians 5.2; Justin
Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 41.1-3, 117.1-3; Irenaeus, Against
Heresies IV 17.5, 18.1-6; Tertullian, Exhortation on Chastity 10.5; 11;
Apostolic Tradition 4.11-12; and Cyprian, Epistle 63.
266 Didascalia, chapter 9; Latin: Didascaliae
Apostolorum XXVI, in Tidner, 42; and Apostolic Constitutions 2.27,
in Metzger 1:240
267 Didascalia, chapter 9; Latin: Didascaliae Apostolorum XXV-XXVI,
in Tidner, 42; and Apostolic Constitutions 2.26, in Metzger 1:240.
268 Didascalia, chapter 9; Latin: Didascaliae Apostolorum XXVI,
in Tidner, 42; see also Apostolic Constitutions 2.27, in Metzger 1:242,
for a slightly revised version.
269 It is for this reason that Schöllgen does not want to place
the Didascalia in the same category (Kirchenordnung) as the Didache
and the Apostolic Tradition.
270 Bulley, 130.
271 “Der liturgischen Dienst des Klerus in der Didaskalie ingesamt
stark zurücktritt.” Schöllgen, Die Anfänge, 91. Oddly, later in this
same work, Schöllgen seems to suggest conflicting conclusions. One the one
hand, he argues that the priestly understanding of the bishop is best explained
because of the “understanding of the Eucharist as sacrifice” and “the liturgy
of the Eucharistic celebration” (105). On the same page, however, he argues
that the bishop is spoken of as a priest in connection with the Eucharist in
only a few places (105).
