What is wrong with a Eucharist or
Agape when the bishop is absent is that it represents division in the church.
It is noteworthy that Ignatius uses no word for the bishop's activity in the
Eucharist, such as 'celebrating' or 'offering'.
εκείνη βεβαία ευχαριστία ήγείσθω,
ή ύπό έπίσκοπον ουσα (let
that Eucharist be considered valid which takes place under the presidency of
the bishop) (Smyrn 8:1)
The Eucharist is 'under' the
bishop, that is he presides, and all that matters is his legitimating presence
rather than anything that he contributes to the proceedings. A contrary view
might seem to be suggested by Ignatius' use of the word θυσιαστήριον (Eph 5:2;
Mag 7:2; Trall 7:2; Philad 4). It might be thought that the use of a word taken
from the vocabulary of sacrificial worship shows that for Ignatius the
Eucharist is seen as a sacrifice which the bishop offers. It is doubtful
whether this idea is really present. In the Ephesian passage, Ignatius is
arguing for the importance of unity expressed in meeting together, and he
supports it with a fourfold appeal to Scripture and common knowledge. There is
an allusion to Jesus' words about the power of the prayer of the one or two
together, to the Old Testament maxim that God resists the proud and to the
well-known principle that to accept or reject the servant is to accept or
reject the master. In such a context, it is likely that the θυσιαστήριον is
not a Christian altar but the Jewish altar. Ignatius is doing what Paul also
does, using the analogy of the Jewish altar to draw not so much a liturgical as
a common-sense conclusion (1 Cor 9:13, 10:18). The words, εαν μη τις ή έντός του θυσιαστηρίου, ύστερεΐται
του άρτου του θεου, (if anyone is not within the
altar, he lacks the bread of God) look like an appeal to a truth considered
self-evident; those who separate themselves from the sacrifice do not partake
in whatever material or spiritual blessing is deemed to flow from it. The same
is true in Trall 7:2. A comparison is being drawn between a state of affairs
known to hold in the world of Judaism (‘He who is within the altar is pure
...’), and the situation in the church as Ignatius sees it (He who acts without
the bishop, eldership or deacons is not pure in his conscience’). Accordingly,
it seems doubtful whether Ignatius sees the bishop as a priest. Rather he is
using the well-known and respected model of the Old Testament cultus to argue
for unity in submission to the bishop. What we can say is that here, as in 1
Clem 40:5, Old Testament language is being used which will quickly lead to such
a view of the bishop’s ministry. (R. Alastair Campbell, The Elders:
Seniority Within Earliest Christianity [Studies of the New Testament and
Its World; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994], 220-21, emphasis in bold added)
