Military Lay Leader

[Gorgias]

The Twelve Apostles have a unique role in Church history, and as such, are considered the first bishops. The first persons outside the Twelve chosen to assist them were called deacons. Presbyters, or priests, were later (by 45-50, we have a record of them)

The Apostles consecrated the Eucharist, didn’t they? So, who consecrates the Eucharist? (Hint: you don’t have to be called ‘presbyteros’ in order to be one… )

 

[JulianN]

What @dochawk said was that the diaconate was established before the presbyterate. (Hint:he used the names that signified the actual hierarchical order )

 

[Gorgias]

What @dochawk said was that the diaconate was established before the presbyterate.

Fair enough. Yet, the assertion is empty, if all it means is “they didn’t start calling priests ‘priests’ until after that started calling deacons ‘deacons’.” If you want to make that claim, then you’d also have to say that the diaconate was established before the episcopate, or even the papacy! (See how silly it sounds when you’re merely talking about titles, rather than the fact that the actual roles existed first? The expression becomes a mere assertion of trivia and nomenclature. )

 

[angel12]

The possibility of having visible-sized crumbs of the host increases when you use fabric gloves. Besides which, how would you purify your gloves following distribution of the Eucharist?

Also besides which, it seems to me that wearing gloves would increase the chances of accidentally dropping the host.

 

[JulianN]

Fair enough. Yet, the assertion is empty, if all it means is “they didn’t start calling priests ‘priests’ until after that started calling deacons ‘deacons’.” If you want to make that claim, then you’d also have to say that the diaconate was established before the episcopate, or even the papacy! (See how silly it sounds when you’re merely talking about titles , rather than the fact that the actual roles existed first? The expression becomes a mere assertion of trivia and nomenclature. )

Except the actual role of the presbyterate was to assist the episcopacy. And before that occurred in the early Church, the diaconate was established.

 

[gdigi]

Going by your thinking and out-of-context quotes, wouldn’t your gloves need to be consecrated, if you were to distribute the Eucharist wearing them? (everything else what’s already been pointed out aside)

 

[dochawk]

With all due respect, you might want to re-read the Acts of the Apostles. It was the apostles – the first priests of the Church – who instituted the ministry of ‘deacon’, in response to a particular need within the Church.

yes, that is what I’m referring to.

And it was before they instituted the presbyterite.

 

[Wesrock]

Personally, I’d like to see less EMHC in the mass, but it’s not a big thing for me. However, lay persons have been bringing communion to the infirm and imprisoned since the earliest centuries, and we have a few who were martyred while doing it.

 

[Gorgias]

yes, that is what I’m referring to.

And it was before they instituted the presbyterite.

Except that this isn’t really a distinction – priests already existed at that point; we called them “apostles” back then.

 

[Elf01]

Except that this isn’t really a distinction – priests already existed at that point; we called them “apostles” back then.

They would be bishops, but a bishop has the priesthood.

 

[JulianN]

Except that this isn’t really a distinction – priests already existed at that point; we called them “apostles” back then.

The Twelve have a unique place in Church history—and their successors are the bishops. The actual presbyterate (to which @dochawk referred) was instituted after the diaconate. The Twelve are not part of the presbyterate—the presbyterate was instituted to assist them.

 

[BartholomewB]

“they didn’t start calling priests ‘priests’ until after that started calling deacons ‘deacons’.”

@Gorgias, your Greek is much better than mine. Here’s a question that crops up from time to time. The authors of the NT are usually very careful to distinguish between hiereus, used only of the Jewish priesthood, and presbyteros and episkopos, used of the men in charge of the new Christian communities. There is one exception, however: the verb hierourgeo (ἱερουργέω). A literal translation would be “to priestwork”. In the only occurrence of this verb in the whole Bible, OT* and NT together, Paul uses it in the first person singular, with himself as the subject and the gospel of God as the object (Rom 15:16). Whoever in the early church first started calling himself, or calling someone else, a “hiereus” may perhaps have seen himself as carrying on from where Paul left off. Does that sound to you like a reasonable idea?

εἰς τὸ εἶναί με λειτουργὸν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ εἰς τὰ ἔθνη, ἱερουργοῦντα τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα γένηται ἡ προσφορὰ τῶν ἐθνῶν εὐπρόσδεκτος, ἡγιασμένη ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ.

*It occurs just once in 4 Maccabees, but that book in not part of the Catholic canonical OT.