Through as the distinctive prerogative of Christians. Him, then,' thus it proceeds in ver. 15, 'let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to His Name.' I do not suggest that the phrases of this verse have what would be called a literal or direct-far less an exclusive-reference to the Eucharistic celebration, but can any one suppose that to those who were living, in fact, in the fellowship of the breaking of the bread, and finding in it their communion with the Body of Christ, the Eucharistic celebration could ever have been less than the palmary meaning of the Christian sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving'? When the writer goes on to exhort his hearers, 'But to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God particular piece of historical church furniture; on the contrary, it may be of considerable importance to insist that this was a secondary, not a primary usage of the word (cp. Bp. Westcott in loco); but it does seem to me altogether to follow that, however much more inclusive or indefinite may be, to thought, the entire connotation of the word, the Eucharistic celebration must, after all, be that among concrete things which it most directly signified, and which most fully embodies and expresses its meaning. If the main principle be once granted, both the meanings given by the Bishop-and others, perhaps, besides them-may be readily allowed. The Cross of Christ' (which seems to me essentially to concede the whole point at issue) may be directer and fuller than 'the congregation assembled for Christian worship'; but both are true; and, on analysis, both will mean the same thing. Either, in its highest culmination of earthly enactment, can only be the celebration of the Christian Eucharist. 1 Ovolav alvéoews, from Psalm 1. (Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the Most High,' vv. 13, 14; and 'Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth Me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God'; ver. 23): so Clem. Rom. ch. xxxv. ; see below, p. 273. Both here, and in the passage of St. Clement, and everywhere else (as in the prayer of oblation in the Prayer-book), it is, I conceive, quite inevitable that any such phrase as this, our 'sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,' describing the distinctively Christian offering of service, should have its supreme reference as well to the outward celebration, as to the inward and spiritual character, of the sacramental Eucharist: not (as I have said above) exclusively, nor always directly, but as the highest embodiment, at least, and symbol of what Christian thanksgiving and praise mean. To a distinctively Christian experience, Ovola alvéσews could no more ultimately fail to express the aspiration and joy of 'Holy Communion,' then euxapioría to find its consummating significance in 'the Eucharist.' is well pleased,' he is still upon the expression in act of that inwardness of spirit which is itself the result-not of the typical, and external, sacrifices of the law, but of spiritual union with the Body and Blood of Christ. And how near topics like these bring him to the thought of their regularly constituted Christian ministry is, to say the least, strongly suggested by the words which immediately follow: 'Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them; for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account; that they may do this with joy, and not with grief: for this were unprofitable for you.' He goes on to ask their prayers for himself, and ends with a form of solemn blessing, the very terms of which echo still, as in the language of the twentieth chapter of Acts, the implicit thought of the shepherds feeding the flock which was purchased with Christ's Blood: 'Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep with the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.' The only thing that seems still to hesitate at all is the directness of nomenclature. I have already given reasons why this could not but hesitate at the time of the New Testament, but have also noticed already that even in the New Testament the Christian Church is to St. Peter a new iepáτevμa, to offer up spiritual sacrifices,1 and Christians are to St. John iepeîs: to which we must add that St. Paul, in a strain which is no doubt for the moment largely figurative, begins to use hieratic language of his own ministry: 'The grace that was given me of God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.' It is 1 ’Ανενέγκαι πνευματικὰς θυσίας εὐπροσδέκτους τῷ Θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 1 Pet. ii. 5. 2 Εἰς τὸ εἶναί με λειτουργὸν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ εἰς τὰ ἔθνη, ἱερουργοῦντα τὸ certainly true that 'ministering in sacrifice' (see R. V. margin) and offering' are not in this passage used directly of the Eucharist. Once grant, however, that the Eucharist was what it surely must be allowed to have been to the writer of the tenth and eleventh chapters of 1 Cor., understood in harmony (at least) with the tenth chapter of Hebrews, i. e. was at once the Christian 'proclaiming' and the Christian 'communion of' the only one real sacrifice of the only one real priest-which every Levitical sacrifice did but outwardly and unreally symbolize-and it is hard to see how hieratic language used of Christian ministry could fail to have ultimate reference to the Eucharist. Often indeed it may not be spoken of the Eucharist quite directly; but however little it is to be confined to any outward enactment whatever, it is hard to see how such language can fail to find at least its crowning exemplification and expression ceremonially in that Sacrament of the Sacrifice which constituted the distinctive worship and characterized the distinctive life of the Christian Church. When we pass beyond the Scripture it is plain, even from the very earliest moments, that such a strain of thought was taken for granted. The earliest writers do not dream of arguing it. If in some ways they are a little more explicit than Scripture, they are like Scripture in this, that the proportion of the truth in this matter is not so much a thesis insisted on as a hypothesis assumed. So it is with the writers of the Didache. The Christian congregation must not fail in the perpetual sacrifice as prophesied by Malachi. Week by week, every Lord's day, it must be offered with regularity-in purity; and therefore must the Church in every place provide itself with its own. bishops (i. e. presbyters) and deacons.1 Could there be a εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἵνα γένηται ἡ προσφορὰ τῶν ἐθνῶν εὐπρόσδεκτος, ἡγιασμένη ἐν Πνεύματι Αγίῳ, Rom. xv. 16. 1 Κατὰ κυριακὴν δὲ Κυρίου συναχθέντες κλάσατε ἄρτον· καὶ εὐχαριστήσατε προσεξομολογησάμενοι τὰ παραπτώματα ὑμῶν· ὅπως καθαρὰ ἡ θυσία ἡμῶν ᾖ . . . ἵνα μὴ κοινωθῇ ἡ θυσία ὑμῶν· αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ῥηθεῖσα ὑπὸ Κυρίου· ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ καὶ χρόνῳ προσφέρειν μοι θυσίαν καθαράν. ὅτι βασιλεὺς μέγας εἰμί, λέγει more striking testimony than this, which, coming out so incidentally in a context which can hardly be called either sacerdotal or episcopal, shows quietly, without emphasis or self-consciousness, what was at least a characteristic and leading thought of the meaning of presbyteral office. St. Clement's letter to the Corinthians is certainly not occupied with special or pointed insistence upon this aspect of the ministry. And yet it is unmistakably there. The thought is learning to fix itself upon Christ as High Priest, and as High Priest in relation to the offerings' of the Christian Church, and upon the Christian service as 'the offerings,' and upon the presbyteral office as the office chiefly characterized (as far as outward routine of office goes) by the presentation of the offerings. Thus, to put a few passages together, after quoting the last eight verses of the fiftieth Psalm, verses which immediately follow upon a denunciation of merely external sacrifice in comparison with 'the sacrifice of thanksgiving,' and which themselves culminate in the words the sacrifice of thanksgiving (aivéσews) shall glorify me, and therein is a way which I will show to him, the salvation of God' (LXX), St. Clement goes on, 'This is the way, beloved, in which we found our salvation—Jesus Christ, the High Priest of our offerings, the defender and helper of our weakness.' Put this with the forty-first chapter, where after emphasizing the discipline, order, and precision of the offerings and services (προσφοραὶ καὶ AETOVрyía) of the old covenant, of high priest, priests, Levites, and layman (ó λaïkós), he goes on, 'Let each one of you, brethren, make his thanksgiving (exaрwτeíτw) to God in his own ordered place (ev tŷ idíw Táyμatı), being in a good conscience, not overstepping the appointed line of his service (μὴ παρεκβαίνων τὸν ὡρισμένον τῆς λειτουργίας αὐτοῦ Kavóva), in awe1.' After this we are prepared for the terms in χειροτονήσατε οὖν ἑαυτοῖς Κύριος· καὶ τὸ ὄνομά μου θαυμαστὸν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσι. 1 The parallelism between the phrases and ideas used of the Levitical and S which he speaks of the presbyters and their office in chap. 44. The Apostles, he says, had carefully provided for a perpetual succession, that when those died whom they themselves had ordained, others from them might take up their ministry (Tv λerovрyíav auT@v). Those, then, who were constituted by them or by their successors with the assent of the whole Church, and who have ministered blamelessly to the flock of Christ (λειτουργήσαντας ἀμέμπτως τῷ ποιμνίῳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ) in lowliness of spirit, quietly and modestly, receiving for many years universal testimony, these men cannot righteously be thrust out from their ministry (ἀποβάλλεσθαι τῆς λειτουργίας). For we shall incur no light sin if we thrust out from their presbyterate (шкожĥs) men who have blamelessly and reverently presented the gifts. Blessed are the presbyters who have finished their course before . . . . for they fear not lest any should remove them from the place to which they have been appointed (ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱδρυμένου αὐτοῖς τόπου). For we see that there are men of good Christian lives whom ye have removed from the service which they had served in the Christian offerings respectively is, throughout these chapters, very close. Thus : 1. To offer the Levitical service is ποιεῖν τὰς προσφοράς; ἐπιτελεῖν τὰς προσφορὰς καὶ λειτουργίας. Το offer the Christian service is εὐχαριστεῖν; προσφέρειν τὰ δῶρα ; λειτουργεῖν ; λειτουργεῖν τῷ ποιμνίῳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 2. It is of necessity that the Levitical offerings must be oʊê elêî †) ȧTákTws; κατὰ καιροὺς τεταγμένους ; ὡρισμένοις καιροῖς καὶ ὤραις; ποῦ τε καὶ διὰ τίνων ἐπιτελεῖσθαι θέλει αὐτὸς ὥρισεν. So in the Christian offerings, though there is no single place or moment for them, yet each member of the Church must abide in his own ráyμa, not overstepping τὸν ὡρισμένον τῆς λειτουργίας αὐτοῦ κανόνα. 3. Those who thus conform to Levitical order are evπpóσdektol te kai μακάριοι· τοῖς γὰρ νομίμοις τοῦ Δεσπότου ἀκολουθοῦντες οὐ διαμαρτάνουσιν. So the Christian presbyters who have done their part aright have served an ἀμέμπτως τετιμημένη λειτουργία. Μακάριοι are they who have been allowed to live and die in that service. The Levitical phrases are chiefly in ch. 40. The Christian in 41 and 44. It is to be added that the intervening ch. 43 contains a solemn reminder to the Corinthians how peremptorily God had vindicated the Aaronic priesthood from such as presumed to invade it without authority. All this, it is to be remembered, is a first century comment upon the character of the Christian presbyterate. |