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The “Necessity” of Being Catholic (Ecumenical Caucus)
The CHN Newsletters ^ | James Akin

Posted on 10/25/2009 9:52:48 AM PDT by narses

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To: Mr Rogers; annalex; kosta50

“However, the writer of Hebrews doesn’t encourage the idea that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, requiring a human priest. For one thing, it is repeatedly pointed out that the sacrifice of Jesus is PAST, and that “he did this once for all”. And it also points out that Jesus is the one acting as Priest, not any human. He offers himself - he is not offered by a man.”

Mr. R, the very earliest of the Fathers are quite uniform in their commentary and instruction that the Eucharist is a continuing and necessary “once for all” sacrifice. Indeed, they condemn those who deny that the Eucharist is not the very body and blood of Christ. The Eucharist celebrated in Orthodox and Latin and Oriental Orthodox Churches IS the Last Supper. I suppose the easiest way to explain it is to say that it exists off any mundane time line. At the Divine Liturgy distinctions between heaven and earth vanish.


201 posted on 11/04/2009 4:59:22 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: Mr Rogers

“elder” is a poor translation for “presbyteros” simply because age is not a requirement for the priestly office. Apostle John, for example, was a teenager yet the command “do this in memorial of me” was directed at him as well. The root of “presbyteros” is the same as the quizzical “presbeia” and if we were to translate “presbyteros” today into English we probably could use “leader”. However, we already have a direct borrow from Greek and we do not need to translate “presbyteros” at all. “Priest” is a contraction from “presbyteros” that went through centuries of the English hideous spelling and pronunciation grinder.

That “bishop” and “priest” were used interchangeably in the early church I have no dispute. First, bishop even today is a subspecies of priest. Second, in a small local church a bishop may not require to delegate his duty as homilist and eucharistic minister to anyone.

It is also true that Christ is the only priest ontologically speaking, and the sacrifice He is offering is He Himself. But Christ did command others to “do it in memorial of [Him]”. So it is the same sacrifice of the hill of golgotha that the priest makes availablel to us at Mass. Compare similar delegation done by Christ to absolve sins in John 20.


202 posted on 11/04/2009 5:12:23 PM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: Kolokotronis; annalex; kosta50

I understand your point of view. However, scripture takes precedence over church fathers, and scripture is quite clear - it was a past event, done once for all.

In remembrance? Yes.

A proclamation? Yes.

An actual sacrifice of Jesus? No.

I understand the timeline argument, except that isn’t the way the God-breathed words of scripture describe it. When it says, “But when Christ had offered [past tense] for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down [past tense] at the right hand of God, waiting from that time [present tense] until his enemies should be made [future tense] a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering [not single sacrifice, even, but single offering] he has perfected [past tense] for all time those who are being sanctified.”, I take it to mean what it says.

It may be the Greek has more subtlety of meaning than comes through in an English translation. I’ll be glad to learn as needed.

Now, is your soul imperiled by believing it is “the very body and blood of Christ”? Not that I know of...the thief on the cross had very imperfect theology, I suspect, but he went to be with Jesus in Paradise.

Is mine for not believing? Maybe...I’m not sure how strongly the Orthodox would condemn me, and the Catholics used to, but now say it is forgivable. I believe God judges our heart, although if we build badly, then our works will be destroyed and we will enter heaven with empty hands.

But I cannot teach what I believe scripture contradicts, nor would I ask you to change your beliefs on my say so. You can and have read the scriptures, how you interpret them is between you & God, and perhaps your Church.


203 posted on 11/04/2009 7:34:40 PM PST by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: Kolokotronis; annalex; kosta50

Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho, 117

“Accordingly, God, anticipating all the sacrifices which we offer through this name, and which Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer, i.e., in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are presented by Christians in all places throughout the world, bears witness that they are well-pleasing to Him...”

This certainly sounds like the Eucharist is a sacrifice of Jesus, doesn’t it? But a few sentences later he writes, “Now, that prayers and giving of thanks, when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God, I also admit. For such alone Christians have undertaken to offer, and in the remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son of God which He endured is brought to mind, whose name the high priests of your nation and your teachers have caused to be profaned and blasphemed over all the earth.”

Hmmm... but this sounds more like the Eucharist (Thanksgiving?) is a sacrifice of praise offered in remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food. In that sense, it is more certainly a Holy Sacrifice.

There is a discussion of how the early church fathers viewed the Eucharist here:

http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/2_ch05.htm

See Sections 68 & 69. HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH, Chapter 5 Philip Schaff

Here is a taste:

1. The Eucharist as a Sacrament.

The Didache of the Apostles contains eucharistic prayers, but no theory of the eucharist. Ignatius speaks of this sacrament in two passages, only by way of allusion, but in very strong, mystical terms, calling it the flesh of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, and the consecrated bread a medicine of immortality and an antidote of spiritual death.412 This view, closely connected with his high-churchly tendency in general, no doubt involves belief in the real presence...

...The same may be said of Justin Martyr, when he compares the descent of Christ into the consecrated elements to his incarnation for our redemption. 413

Irenaeus says repeatedly, in combating the Gnostic Docetism,414 that broad and wine in the sacrament become, by the presence of the Word of God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the body and blood of Christ and that the receiving of there strengthens soul and body (the germ of the resurrection body) unto eternal life. Yet this would hardly warrant our ascribing either transubstantiation or consubstantiation to Irenaeus. For in another place he calls the bread and wine, after consecration, “antitypes,” implying the continued distinction of their substance from the body and blood of Christ.415...The bread and wine represent and exhibit the body and blood of Christ as the archetype, and correspond to them, as a copy to the original. In exactly the same sense it is said in Heb. 9:24—comp. 8:5—that the earthly sanctuary is the antitype, that is the copy, of the heavenly archetype. Other Greek fathers also, down to the fifth century, and especially the author of the Apostolical Constitutions, call the consecrated elements “antitypes” (sometimes, like Theodoretus, “types”) of the body and blood of Christ.417

A different view, approaching nearer the Calvinistic or Reformed, we meet with among the African fathers. Tertullian makes the words of institution: Hoc est corpus meum, equivalent to: figura corporis mei, to prove, in opposition to Marcion’s docetism, the reality of the body of Jesus—a mere phantom being capable of no emblematic representation418 This involves, at all events, an essential distinction between the consecrated elements and the body and blood of Christ in the Supper. Yet Tertullian must not be understood as teaching a merely symbolical presence of Christ; for in other places he speaks, according to his general realistic turn, in almost materialistic language of an eating of the body of Christ, and extends the participation even to the body of the receiver.419 Cyprian likewise appears to favor a symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, yet not so clearly...

...The Alexandrians are here, as usual, decidedly spiritualistic. Clement twice expressly calls the wine a symbol or an allegory of the blood of Christ, and says, that the communicant receives not the physical, but the spiritual blood, the life, of Christ; as, indeed, the blood is the life of the body. Origen distinguishes still more definitely the earthly elements from the heavenly bread of life, and makes it the whole design of the supper to feed the soul with the divine word...

2. The Eucharist as a Sacrifice.

This point is very important in relation to the doctrine, and still more important in relation to the cultus and life, of the ancient church. The Lord’s Supper was universally regarded not only as a sacrament, but also as a sacrifice,422 the true and eternal sacrifice of the new covenant, superseding all the provisional and typical sacrifices of the old; taking the place particularly of the passover, or the feast of the typical redemption from Egypt. This eucharistic sacrifice, however, the ante-Nicene fathers conceived not as an unbloody repetition of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but simply as a commemoration and renewed appropriation of that atonement, and, above all, a thank-offering of the whole church for all the favors of God in creation and redemption. Hence the current name itself—eucharist; which denoted in the first place the prayer of thanksgiving, but afterwards the whole rite...

...Down to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the eucharistic elements were presented as a thank-offering by the members of the congregation themselves, and the remnants went to the clergy and he poor. In these gifts the people yielded themselves as a priestly race and a living thank-offering to God, to whom they owed all the blessings alike of providence and of grace. In later times the priest alone offered the sacrifice. But even the Roman Missal retains a recollection of the ancient custom in the plural form, “We offer,” and in the sentence: “All you, both brethren and sisters, pray that my sacrifice and your sacrifice, which is equally yours as well as mine, may be meat for the Lord.”

This subjective offering of the whole congregation on the ground of the objective atoning sacrifice of Christ is the real centre of the ancient Christian worship, and particularly of the communion. It thus differed both from the later Catholic mass, which has changed the thank-offering into a sin-offering, the congregational offering into a priest offering; and from the common Protestant cultus, which, in opposition to the Roman mass, has almost entirely banished the idea of sacrifice from the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, except in the customary offerings for the poor.”


204 posted on 11/04/2009 8:16:41 PM PST by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: annalex

I think elder is understood to mean spiritual maturity.


205 posted on 11/04/2009 8:22:47 PM PST by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: annalex; Mr Rogers; Kolokotronis; MarkBsnr
The Church is the True Israel, yes.

How can that which was grafted become the main vine? The graft either becomes incorporated into the vine or kills it and takes over.

Both “presbyteros”, priest and “episcopos”, bishop occur in the New Testament in numerous places...But more important is the question not of terminology but of function...The foundational verse for Christian priesthood is "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me" (Luke 22:19)...This establishes Christian ministerial priesthood: men consecrated to offer the sacrifice of Christ to their flock.

With all due respect, Alex, that is pure nonsense. I don't even want to go into this, because it would be tangential the topic, but suffice it to say that Chrstian priesthood evolved.

The Greek word for priest, Alex, is ἱερεύς (hierus), and you know that. One way or another, the word appears in the NT 30 times. It is a title for the one who offers sacrifices (the one who was to burn incense, as per Luke 1:9), and the priest's office or priesthood, is known as ἱερατεία (hierateia).

The difference is that the New Testament writers associated the terms priest(hood) with Jewish priest(hood), and did not think of their Apostles, and later of their elders (seniores in Latin translations, i.e. seniors) as being a "continuation" of Aaronic priesthood.

The ealriest Christians *and that certainly includes the Apostles) were still Jews, and in Judaism the priesthood is associated only with the Temple in Jerusalem and was an inherited tribal brithright and not a temporal appointment.

Clearly, then, no ordinary Jew, unless he was a Levi, could pretend to be a priest, and as far as I know, none of the 13 was a Levi. But anyone could offer thanks. That doesn't make one a priest!

Thus, offering thanks (as rabbis do at Seder) is not to be confused with offering sacrifice, or confusing rabbis with priests.

The fusion of the Christian presbyters with priestly fucntions of offering an actual sacrifice is a later development in the Church and not part of the pre-Jamnia Church.

Early Christians, being Jews, were not offering sacrifices, as that would have been contrary to their Jewish religious beliefs, and probably sufficient reason to be stoned to death.

That's why they call the Eucharist the "breaking of the bread" and do not speak of it as a "sacrifice" anywhere in the New Testament.

Of course, as the manuscript dates get closer and closer to the second century, so do New Testament concepts begin to change and attain their more familiar derived Christian meaning. That's why it is only in 1 Pet 2:5 that we see introduction of the "spiritual priesthood" and "spiritual sacrifice" (how convenient).

As for prebyteros not meaning "elder", you know you are not telling thew truth, Alex, because you know Greek (as well as Kolo, by his own admission). You know, then, that presbys means elderly and that the one who is presbys is older then the rest. Therefore, the Latin translation of presbyteros as senior is spot on!

As for episkopos not meaning "senior" you are right. Epi simply means "over" and skopos means "watchmen" — therefore, an "over-seer," or a Latin (literal) equivalent "super-visor" (from vision), one who is put in charge to make sure all tings are done right, a manager, one charged with overseeing things, a senior member in a work group.

Neither term means a "priest" directly or indirectly, and does not imply priestly duties. Priesthood was limited to the Temple in Jerusalem. Having a clear contextual picture of the environment in which the early church operated is crucial to unbderstahding how things evolved, Alex. Sometimes, the reality does not match the official truth or the myth that was either created or took hold on its own.

The early Christians attended service in synagogues (until they were thrown out of them, most probably following Jamnia's rejection of Christianity as a Jewish sect, at the end of the first century). You don't think they were making Eucharistic sacrifices in the synagogues, do you!?!

Paul never talks about making Eucharistic sacrifices. Why do you think that is, Alex? Neither does Mark, Matthew or John.

Christianity evolved. It's not something that just happened. The Church on day one in 33 AD would not have been the Catholic Church as we know it, theologically, ecclesiastically or ritually. Neither would its elders be the kind of hierarchy we see today. It's apples and oranges.

206 posted on 11/04/2009 9:25:47 PM PST by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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To: annalex; Mr Rogers
To show continuity from the geographical Israel to the Catholic Church, the true Israel.

Either Jesus had a hidden agenda and could not give it out (it would be blasphemy) or this is something the Church made up, as part of the deliberate 'transformation' of Jewish Christianity into Pauline Christianity, Alex.

Reading the Gospels, Jesus is unequivocal about the purpose of why and for whom he was sent, and what ethnic limitations his mission entailed.

207 posted on 11/04/2009 10:24:59 PM PST by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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To: annalex; Kolokotronis; Mr Rogers; MarkBsnr
I was simply reacting to some sweeping statements made earlier, to the effect that no hint at the institution of papacy can be found in patristic literature.

The institution of papacy as understood by the Latin Church was unknown to the Church in the 5th century as evidenced by Council texts prior at that time, texts that are not disputed by Latin translations.

In short: papal primacy of honor and shared primacy of privilege with the Ecumenical Patriarch is a product of episcoapal consent of the Church based on the dignity of the location of the Roman Senate.

To an occasional reader, the location of the Roman senate may seem trivial, but it is far from that. The whole Roman state was based on two elements: the senate and the people of Rome (hence the very name of the Roman state, Senatus Populusque Romanus).

No biblical prerogative was cites as authority of elevating the Bishop of Rome above other bishops in honor, but the location of the Senate and the primal dignity of Old Rome is.

Most of the Latin claim to papal supremacy comes from what is now know as False or Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, a collection of 9th century Frankish forgeries, used as 'genuine' documents giving the popes the authority they sought.

208 posted on 11/04/2009 10:37:10 PM PST by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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To: Kolokotronis; Mr Rogers; annalex
Mr. R, the very earliest of the Fathers are quite uniform in their commentary and instruction that the Eucharist is a continuing and necessary “once for all” sacrifice. Indeed, they condemn those who deny that the Eucharist is not the very body and blood of Christ

Kolo, the proper context of this must be sought in the story of Exodus and the role played by the Paschal lamb. It is a conflation with the story of the Yom Kippur goat, and some strange and unusual (cultist) practices.

What was salvific about the Paschal lamb is that its blood marked the Jewish homes, leading the Spirit of God (understood in Judaism as the power of God) to spare or bypass their households, and in that sense, the blood of the lamb "saved" the Jews. Never mind the naive notion that God needed a marker..it was a one time event. No one in commemoration of the Passover kills lambs and places its bloody mark over their doors!

The lamb is eaten, as part of the commemorative remembrance of the event, which has no salvific effect. Nothing in the Seder implies that the sins are taken away by eating it. The Passover lamb was not slaughtered to take away the sins but to get its blood to mark the homes so the wrath of God would not befall the Hebrews, but only the Egyptians.

Also, nothing in the act of eating of the lamb implicitly imparts eternal life on anyone.

The idea of an animal taking away the sins is associated with the goat of Yom Kippur. By laying one's hands on the goat's head, your sins are believed to be transferred onto the goat, which is then either killed (and thus "takes" away your sins) or, more commonly, allowed to run away (with your sins).

The "strange customs" part is the cultist drinking of the blood (strictly forbidden in Judaism) and eating of the flesh (likewise not allowed)! The NT even mentions the disgust of the Jews upon hearing that eating Jesus' flesh will give them eternal life... In fact one of the bad raps of early Christians was that they worship a dead man on a tree, eat his flesh and drink his blood, i.e. a mixture of necrophilia and cannibalism, otherwise known to cause a specific disease known as kuru, which has been practiced throughout ages in many societies.

The conflation of the stories and the cultist flavor was possible because, remember, the NT was written for the pagan Greeks who were not turned off by blood, and in Greek, who knew nothing of the Jewish law, customs or the Old Testament God and would therefore be much more open to such teachings.

209 posted on 11/04/2009 11:35:23 PM PST by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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To: Mr Rogers; Kolokotronis; kosta50

Thank you for the irenic tone.

I don’t think there is anything in the Greek that does not come through in the transaltions, other than the neologistic “elder”. If the English language evolves one day and begins to call our preists elders, I would be fine with that. The question is, does the priest/elder offer the sacrifice that once happened at the hill of Golgotha? The scripture says, “do it” and Christ commanded it, and St. Paul in 1 Cor. 11 says “For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come”. So I think the answer scripturally is yes.

It also says that not “discerning the body” is a damnable sin.


210 posted on 11/05/2009 12:41:29 AM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: kosta50
The Greek word for priest, Alex, is ἱερεύς (hierus), and you know that

That is for Hebrew priests, who are in your colorful language, "killed and taken over". Our priests are presbyters.

211 posted on 11/05/2009 12:44:10 AM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: kosta50

“Kolo, the proper context of this must be sought in the story of Exodus and the role played by the Paschal lamb. It is a conflation with the story of the Yom Kippur goat, and some strange and unusual (cultist) practices.”

I know the history, Kosta. :)

“What was salvific about the Paschal lamb is that its blood marked the Jewish homes, leading the Spirit of God (understood in Judaism as the power of God) to spare or bypass their households, and in that sense, the blood of the lamb “saved” the Jews. Never mind the naive notion that God needed a marker..it was a one time event. No one in commemoration of the Passover kills lambs and places its bloody mark over their doors!”

We are not Jews, Kosta.

“The conflation of the stories and the cultist flavor was possible because, remember, the NT was written for the pagan Greeks who were not turned off by blood, and in Greek, who knew nothing of the Jewish law, customs or the Old Testament God and would therefore be much more open to such teachings.”

I know, Kosta. We are a lucky people.


212 posted on 11/05/2009 3:59:01 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: annalex; kosta50
"That is for Hebrew priests, who are in your colorful language, "killed and taken over". Our priests are presbyters."

So far as I know, today and for the past 2000 years anyway, the word for priest in Greek (other than παπας) is ἱερεύς, with small spelling variations over the centuries.

Πρεσβευτερος, I think, means either an old man or a representative, though we do call the wife of a priest a πρεσβευτερα. Certainly in English, though, we call priests Presbyters.

213 posted on 11/05/2009 4:11:15 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: annalex; Kolokotronis; kosta50

“The question is, does the priest/elder offer the sacrifice that once happened at the hill of Golgotha? The scripture says, “do it” and Christ commanded it,”

Umm, you are mixing apples and oranges. When the scripture says ‘do it’, it means partake in the Eucharist. It does not and never says or implies that it is a sacrifice of Jesus, and specifically states that the sacrifice of Jesus was a once for all event in the past.

There is not a single verse anywhere in scripture that says we are to regularly offer Jesus in sacrifice, and no where in the NT are any believers designated priests, save in the universal sense offering a sacrifice of praise or good deeds. Furthermore, the scripture specifically teaches that no sacrifice remains, which is why we need no priests:

“And every [Jewish] priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” - Hebrews 10

Short of using a crayon, I don’t know how it could be made any clearer: “there is no longer any offering for sin”.

annalex, you write, “St. Paul in 1 Cor. 11 says “For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come”.

Correct. Let’s look at the passage in its context:

“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

“In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.”

There is no hint here of offering Jesus in sacrifice. “in remembrance of Me...in remembrance of Me...” You “proclaim” his death. If you do this “in an unworthy manner, [you] shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.”

Of course! It would be spitting on Jesus, to use more modern terms. None of this suggests we have or need priests - sacrifice offering priests - who offer Jesus.

The article by Philip Schaff discusses how the Eucharist moved from a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for what God had done into a sacrifice for sins. It took roughly 1000 years to develop that idea.

I cannot stop anyone from believing it, but it simply isn’t true that it is taught in the New Testament and practiced by all the early church.

This is why Protestants don’t accept sacred tradition. All churches have tradition, but it isn’t sacred. It is tradition, and the best way to avoid 2000 years of creeping error is to go back to the source documents. Now, k50 & I don’t see eye to eye on how pure those source documents - how well we can figure out what the originals had in them - but it seems obvious that written documents evolve slower than traditions based on what various men have taught and preached for the last 2000 years.

Also: kosta50, we’ve often disagreed, but I want to publicly thank you for your posts here. I’ve seen much of the same material spread through a variety of books, but I thought your summary quite powerful. In fact, I’ve bookmarked it for future reference...who ever woulda thunk it?


214 posted on 11/05/2009 7:19:01 AM PST by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: kosta50

“That’s why it is only in 1 Pet 2:5 that we see introduction of the “spiritual priesthood” and “spiritual sacrifice” (how convenient).”

I think that was a very Jewish idea Peter offered...

Hsa 6:6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Psa 50:14 “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High,

Psa 50:23 “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”

Psa 116:17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord .


215 posted on 11/05/2009 7:33:57 AM PST by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: Mr Rogers; kosta50; annalex

“The article by Philip Schaff discusses how the Eucharist moved from a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for what God had done into a sacrifice for sins. It took roughly 1000 years to develop that idea.”

Not in the East, Mr. R. There are indeed prayers about the Eucharist being celebrated and consumed for the forgiveness of sins, but there is even more regarding thanksgiving and praise. For example:

“It is proper and right to sing to You, bless You, praise You, thank You and worship You in all places of Your dominion; for You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same; You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. You brought us into being out of nothing, and when we fell, You raised us up again. You did not cease doing everything until You led us to heaven and granted us Your kingdom to come. For all these things we thank You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit; for all things that we know and do not know, for blessings seen and unseen that have been bestowed upon us. We also thank You for this liturgy which You are pleased to accept from our hands, even though You are surrounded by thousands of Archangels and tens of thousands of Angels, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, soaring with their wings,...”

The Divine Liturgy is far, far more a liturgy of praise and thanksgiving and supplication than of propitiation and blood sacrifice. Of course, our Divine Liturgies are at the latest from the late 4th, very early 5th centuries so the change to the Anselmian blood atonement sacrifice focus of the West from about 1000 years ago simply isn’t a focus we ever adopted.

BTW, you want to read the Protestant version of the Ante Nicene, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers with a grain of salt. The commentary is spun, just as the Roman Catholic version is. Its best just to read what The Fathers say and skip the commentary in the series.


216 posted on 11/05/2009 8:54:51 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: Kolokotronis

I just posted Schaff’s writings here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2379242/posts

If you don’t mind, I’d like to add your comment to that thread, since it seems quite appropriate. I would like to read the Church Fathers, but even as a retired guy I find myself barely able to read 1/10 of what I want!


217 posted on 11/05/2009 9:03:09 AM PST by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: annalex; Kolokotronis; Mr Rogers; MarkBsnr
[re: Greek for priest is: hierus] That is for Hebrew priests, who are in your colorful language, "killed and taken over". Our priests are presbyters

Really? So, who are the yereys, the protoyereys, the hieromonks in the Orthodox Church? My "Jewish" clergy?

218 posted on 11/05/2009 9:35:20 AM PST by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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To: Kolokotronis
But ἱερεύς seems to only apply to pagan and Hebrew priests in patristic literature, no?
219 posted on 11/05/2009 10:11:03 AM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: annalex
"But ἱερεύς seems to only apply to pagan and Hebrew priests in patristic literature, no?

Take a quick look at this. Maybe more later:

http://www.eastern-orthodoxy.com/mysticalprayers.doc

220 posted on 11/05/2009 10:28:26 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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