-— the difference between a priest and an elder -—
The word, presbuteros, can be translated as elder, presbyter, or priest.
St. Patrick was probably aware of this, since he was a Catholic bishop.
It definitely does not...
St. Patrick was probably aware of this, since he was a Catholic bishop.
Prove it...
Wrong!, and an often parroted fallacy. Presbuteros means elder, and is used in the OT before there was a Hebrew priesthood and sometimes separately from it, while "hiereus" is the distinctive word which means "priest," and is NEVER used by the Holy Spirit for NT pastors. Instead, hiereus is ONLY used for Jewish or pagan priests, making a distinction btwn NT pastors and them, whose primary function is different and not unique.
The only sense in which pastors are priests is by being part of the general priesthood of all believers, as all are called to sacrifice. (1Pt. 2:5,9; Rm. 12:1; 15:16; Phil. 2:17; 4:18; Heb. 13:15,16; cf. 9:9)
The use of presbuteros for priests is etymologically due to imposed functional equivalence, based upon the erroneous premise that NT pastors engage in a uniquely sacrificial practice as their primary function, as in the OT, but which is simply not the case.
Not only are all believers priests who engage in sacrifice, but nowhere do we see NT pastors engaging in a uniquely sacrificial practice as their primary function, that of turning bread and wine into human flesh and blood, or even dispensing any physical food in a church service.
Nor is this mentioned once as a prescribed function of pastors in any of the pastoral letters written to the churches or the pastors. And the only manifest description of the Lord's supper presents the body of Christ as the church , which declares the Lord's death by how they kept the Lord's supper as a communal meal of sharing, not by focusing on the nature of the elements.
And instead of the Lord's supper being preached as "the source and summit of the Christian life," in which "is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church," the gospel is what is preached as giving life," and edification by seeing yourself in Christ, and letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." (Colossians 3:16)
All of which is interpretive of the gospel accounts of the Lord's supper, which, as in 1Cor. 11 , was a communal meal, a "feast of charity," (Jude 1:12) and inn which it is not taught that the pastors must be the ones who give thanks for the elements and distribute them, and are never show doing.
Which is more evidence the Bible was not written to support its beliefs, for if it had then there surely would be a chapter instructing pastors on the absolute primacy of this ritual and how to properly change them into the purported human body and blood, and frequent mention of this as doing so, not just breaking bread.
Thus turning presbuteros into hiereus is a contrived convention.