give to your servant whom you chose for the episcopate [the
ability] to shepherd (poimainen) your holy flock, to serve you
blamelessly as high-priest (archierateuein), ministering (leitourgounta)
night and day, to appease (hilaskesthai) your face without ceasing, to
offer (prospherein) to you the gifts (ta dōra) of your holy
church, and by the spirit of the high-priesthood (tō pneumatō tō
archieratikō) to have power to forgive sins according to your command, to
ordain (didonai klērous) (Lit. “to give lots”. Botte has noted that this
term appears throughout the AT to refer to the ecclesiastical charge, i.e.
ordination (see Botte, La Tradition Apostolique, 47, n.1). See Irenaeus,
Against Heresies 1.27.1; 3.3.2-3 for a similar usage of the term to
refer to ordination) according to your ordinance, to loose every bond according
to the authority which you gave to the apostles, and to please you with
gentleness and a pure heart, offering (prospheronta) to you the scent of
fragrance through your Son . . . (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], 65)
Stewart
notes that the bishops, in the theology of the Apostolic Tradition,
are new covenant priests, fulfilling
the typology of Old Testament priesthood through their participation and
identity with Christ and his authority and ministry as given through his
apostles. (Ibid., 80)
