Hippolytus of Rome, Apostolic Tradition, and Abosolving of Sins

[Andrew P.C.]

So, I'm doing research, and one of the secondary sources I am using is Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition. I am currently in volume one, and dealing with the idea of the means of grace in the early church. He talks about Hippolytus praying in the Apostolic Tradition for the bishop to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to absolve the sins of people. Here is the direct quote from The Apostolic Tradition :

Grant, Father who knows the heart,
to your servant whom you chose for the episcopate, that he will feed your holy flock,
that he will wear your high priesthood without reproach,
serving night and day, incessantly making your face favorable,
and offering the gifts of your holy church;
in the spirit of high priesthood having the power to forgive sins according to your command; (Apostolic Tradition, Chapter 3, Verses 4 and 5)

Was this the standard idea of what bishops (presbyters) could do? Thoughts?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Attribution of Apostolic Tradition to Hippolytus of Rome is an early 20th century convention, which has apparently been contested of late (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Tradition ). The work may still be quite early, or reflect a reasonably early church order.

I'd be interested in seeing the original text in parallel, for example what word(s) stand behind the term "high priesthood." Sometimes the translator's terminological choice (or the readers interpretation of the language) reflects an anachronistic tendency.

The text appears to support the following theses:

1) the bishop/overseer is the Lord's choice for the office, primarily, rather than man's, 1Cor.12:28; 1Tim.2:7; 2Tim.1:11.
2) his first task is to feed the flock of God (Word ministry), 1Pet.5:2.
3) he should wear [the Lord's ministry?] without reproach, 1Ti.3:2; Tit.1:6-7.
4) he should labor night and day, interceding in prayer especially, Act.20:31; 1Ths.2:9; 3:10; 2Ths.3:8; 2Tim.1:3.
5) he should offer the church's gifts [sacrament ministry?], 1Cor.4:1?
6) he should [ministerially?] grant absolution, Jn.20:23?​

When you ask, "Was this the standard idea of what bishops (presbyters) could do," are you thinking "permission," "capability," something else?

HOW the church's minister is supposed to perform his tasks, and IN WHAT does his tasks consist (beyond the simplest rehearsal of the Biblical directions)--are questions that call for further and deeper and broader understanding of the Bible's teaching. It might help as well to reckon with certain aspects of church history; but tradition can never carry the same weight as Scripture.

If Hippolytus, early 3rd C., was responsible for this work; or regardless, if it does indicate a 3rd. C. provenance, or close to it; still the beliefs reflected by the document have to be compared with what the Bible ordains. What sort of developments were going on in terms of the church's ministry and organization? How faithful to Scripture were those developments? Early (meaning in this case 300yrs after Jesus' life and ministry; 250yrs after the Apostles) does not translate to "pristine." The church did not take long in deviating from purity, in either doctrine or practice. It wasn't wholesale declension, but it also wasn't ideal.


A particular question that may be burning...
Does the minister grant absolution? Some churches so elevate the office of the ministry, they believe in the church's inherent authority to forgive by virtue of the office. Others, a bit more modestly (but still very high), authorize the pronouncement of forgiveness (publicly or privately) by the minister "in Christ's stead, and by his command," which is literal language they frequently utter in that context. These views tend to equate such verbal pronouncements with the actual conferring of what is uttered.

Still others--and I would put myself in this category--open the Bible, and declare what forgiveness is freely ordained to repentant sinners, according to the words therein revealed unto every believer from Christ and his Spirit. This, it seems to me, is the truest "ministerial" absolution (even moreso than the second example above). It is a direct absolution from Christ himself, mediated through his Word given by the Apostles, the Lord's authorized spokesmen. But--this is often a significant difference, and is related to ideas about sacramental efficacy--this is absolution available to none apart from saving faith, and not simply granted to anyone who happens to be present.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Well, with the heresy of Montanism during this time, the bishops had to establish the idea of biblical authority. Montonus claimed that he was the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, yet the bishops claimed that true authority and apostolic succession came through the offices ordained through Christ and His apostles, E.G. ministers, elders, deacons. Pelikan talks about two separate concepts of priesthood: The priesthood of bishops and the priesthood of all believers. He quotes Irenaeus in Against Heresies saying "all the righteous have a priestly order" and "all the disciples of the Lord are Levites and Priests".

Dr. Pelikan further writes the following:

The earliest formula of ordination to have survived, that which is preserved in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, prayed that God would pour out upon the bishop the power of the Holy Spirit, which Christ had bestowed on the apostles, and would endow him with the authority to intercede on behalf of the people and to absolve them of their sins. The surviving liturgical information and canonical legislation also reinforce the impression of great variety of usage, as well as of nomenclature, in the relation between offices of priest (or presbyter) and bishop, which seem to have been interchangeable in some places but not in others; but these sources also document the general and deepening doctrinal agreement on the sacramental understanding of the priesthood as dispenser of the means of grace, on its continuity with the apostles, and on its function as the assurance of unity. (Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: Vol. 1, Pg.161)

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Certainly, it is a true development that organizational coherence, and a "succession" by organic link (rather than by pure confession and doctrinal fidelity) came to be seen as something vital and indispensable to the truth; and to the very existence of the church.

But the question was and is still: was this development a) necessary, and b) salutary? One of the problems that came about in the church over it's first 500yrs or so, was a kind of "reinstitution" of the OT priestly caste and function, superimposing it upon the inherited Apostolic organization of the church. This was not beneficial.

We can and do concede that the Lord's office-bearing servants derive their ministerial authority from the triplex munus (threefold office) of Christ the Mediator. But that we (pastors) should ever have been called "priests" is more than mildly questionable. Certainly the Apostles never so identified themselves in office, or the ordinary officers that followed them, see Eph.4:11-12. The nearest is Rom.15:16, but if not a highly picturesque reference, it is certainly unique. And the ordinary places devoted to discussing the ministry know nothing of the designation.

Rev.1:6 and 5:10 (n.b. 20:6) speak of the church as the new "kingdom of priests" (or kings and priests); cf. 1Pet.2:5 & 9. Hebrews speaks over and over about Jesus the priest, but not once of his people or his ministers as such. This uniqueness ascribed to Christ as priest should not have been borrowed against by the church.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Rev. Bruce,

I understand there is a distinction between the priesthood of Christ (order according to Melchizedek) and the priesthood of all believers (royal priesthood 1Pet.). Yet, there seems to be an idea of priesthood with the church fathers for the Bishops (now I don't think it would be the same idea as Rome believes, but maybe some sort of idea of a priesthood).

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Andrew,
The direction the early church went with this notion eventually produced the priestly system, whether we speak of western or eastern models.

Your original curiosity seemed to be with what the prayer in that early church-order document implied about the role of early (first three centuries) presbyters.

I can't vouch for the language presented in the translation, because I don't have the original, nor am I a Latinist; but with the original I could at least note the terms offered for translation. Is the English "high priesthood" actually the most engaging term for the modern reader? Does it help us understand what the 3rd C. writer intended to convey to his contemporary reader? Could it be a tendentious translation?

The document in question represents an historic development. The Scripture references I appealed to in my original answer suggest the primitive (NT) basis for the particular aspects of ministry--aspects that by the 3rd C. are starting to take on "priestly" description. In many areas of ecclesiology, the church is not maintaining the biblical standard. The whole church has been moving for 150-200 years (at that point) toward a monarchical-bishop model for church polity. In this, the church is aping the imperial politics of that day, favoring its supposed efficiency. Sacramentally, the church is elaborating on baptism and the Lord's Supper, in competition (as it were) with the Gnostics.

And yet, despite declension and loss of purity, I think that prayer still shows the core expectations have not moved far. My aim was to present qualified support for the description of the minister's functions the document supplies.

 

[RamistThomist]

So, I'm doing research, and one of the secondary sources I am using is Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition. I am currently in volume one, and dealing with the idea of the means of grace in the early church. He talks about Hippolytus praying in the Apostolic Tradition for the bishop to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to absolve the sins of people. Here is the direct quote from The Apostolic Tradition :

Grant, Father who knows the heart,
to your servant whom you chose for the episcopate, that he will feed your holy flock,
that he will wear your high priesthood without reproach,
serving night and day, incessantly making your face favorable,
and offering the gifts of your holy church;
in the spirit of high priesthood having the power to forgive sins according to your command; (Apostolic Tradition, Chapter 3, Verses 4 and 5)

Was this the standard idea of what bishops (presbyters) could do? Thoughts?

While I am not prepared to discuss the dating of this document, there quickly arose in the ancient church that "being/power/grace" flowed downwards. The bishop, then, had more being and grace than the rest and then imparted that higher level of being to the laity.

 

[RamistThomist]

Rev. Bruce,

I understand there is a distinction between the priesthood of Christ (order according to Melchizedek) and the priesthood of all believers (royal priesthood 1Pet.). Yet, there seems to be an idea of priesthood with the church fathers for the Bishops (now I don't think it would be the same idea as Rome believes, but maybe some sort of idea of a priesthood).

And that's fairly true, but it didn't really become a problem until they tied it with the pagan chain of being idea.