“They clearly understood the word presbyter to mean priest in terms of function, even if the word was not used.”
Sorry, but that is simply NOT what the word means. There is a Greek word for priest, and it was not used for any christian office - and Hebrews makes it excruciatingly clear WHY...
“The Eucharist is not a “blood sacrifice” it is a re-presentation of the once for all paschal mystery of Christ made present thru the celebration of the Eucharist [called Divine Mystery in the Greek Church, Sacrament in the West], in an unbloody manner. Nothing bloody about it.”
Do you believe in the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation?
“That the consequence of Transubstantiation, as a conversion of the total substance, is the transition of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is the express doctrine of the Church (Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, can. ii). Thus were condemned as contrary to faith the antiquated view of Durandus, that only the substantial form (forma substantialis) of the bread underwent conversion, while the primary matter (materia prima) remained, and, especially, Luther’s doctrine of Consubstantiation, i.e. the coexistence of the substance of the bread with the true Body of Christ. Thus, too, the theory of Impanation advocated by Osiander and certain Berengarians, and according to which a hypostatic union is supposed to take place between the substance of the bread and the God-man (impanatio = Deus panis factus), is authoritatively rejected. So the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation sets up a mighty bulwark around the dogma of the Real Presence and constitutes in itself a distinct doctrinal article, which is not involved in that of the Real Presence, though the doctrine of the Real Presence is necessarily contained in that of Transubstantiation. It was for this very reason that Pius VI, in his dogmatic Bull “Auctorem fidei” (1794) against the Jansenistic pseudo Synod of Pistoia (1786), protested most vigorously against suppressing this “scholastic question”, as the synod had advised pastors to do...
...Regarding tradition, the earliest witnesses, as Tertullian and Cyprian, could hardly have given any particular consideration to the genetic relation of the natural elements of bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Christ, or to the manner in which the former were converted into the latter; for even Augustine was deprived of a clear conception of Transubstantiation, so long as he was held in the bonds of Platonism. On the other hand, complete clearness on the subject had been attained by writers as early as Cyril of Jerusalem, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria in the East, and by Ambrose and the later Latin writers in the West. Eventually the West became the classic home of scientific perfection in the difficult doctrine of Transubstantiation.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm#section3
“The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation (CCC, 1376).”
http://carm.org/transubstantiation
” There is an important Greek word which is used to describe both the death and the sacrifice of Christ: ephapax, which means ‘once-for-all’. In Romans 6:9-10, Paul clearly states that Christ can never die again because his death was ‘once-for-all’. The author of Hebrews insists that Christ cannot be sacrificed daily, that his body is offered ‘once-for-all’ and that because this once-for-all sacrifice has brought complete forgiveness of sin there is no longer any requirement for an offering or sacrifice for sin.33 All that the animal sacrifices and human priesthood signified in the Old Testament, Christ has fulfilled. Consequently, God has abolished the priesthood and all sacrifices.
This presents the Roman Catholic Church with a dilemma. Scripture teaches that Christ’s body and his sacrifice were offered once. Rome teaches that his body and sacrifice are offered over and over again in transubstantiation and the repetition of each mass. The Church attempts to get around this problem by claiming that the sacrifice of the mass is not a different sacrifice from that of Calvary but the same sacrifice perpetuated through time. Because God is beyond time the sacrifice of the cross is always present with him, and therefore the sacrifice of the mass is the same sacrifice as that of Calvary. This logic is a semantic smoke-screen: the sacrifice of the cross was an historic space-time event which occurred once and can never be repeated. The application of the Lord’s sacrifice goes on through time in terms of the Holy Spirit bringing men to receive the benefits of his finished work, and the commemoration of his sacrifice goes on through time, but the sacrifice itself cannot be perpetuated. Indeed, the principal theme of the book of Hebrews is that there are no more sacrifices for sin of any kind whatsoever...
... Scripture does speak of a eucharistic sacrifice. The word ‘eucharist’ literally means ‘thanksgiving’ and the New Testament frequently enjoins believers to offer this kind of sacrifice of praise: ‘Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of the lips that give thanks to His name’ (Heb. 13:15). This is the true eucharistic sacrifice. Scripture also speaks of other sacrifices the believer is to offer to God — our goods to meet the needs of others, and ourselves in total surrender to God (Heb. 13:16; Rom. 12:1). These are all true sacrifices in the New Testament but they have nothing to do with the expiation of sin.
If, as we have seen, there is no more sacrifice for sin — what is the meaning of the Lord’s Supper? The Supper was established by the Lord Jesus as a memorial of thanksgiving and praise for his atoning sacrifice by which believers were to commune with him spiritually and also to proclaim his death until he comes again. The bread and wine, as Augustine points out, were given as figures or visible symbols of his body and blood and therefore are figurative expressions of his self-sacrifice. They are visible reminders to his people of what he has done on their behalf. When the Lord says, ‘This is my body’, he is speaking figuratively and not literally. In fact, in Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25 and Luke 22:16,18, Christ refers to the wine after consecration as the ‘fruit of the vine’, indicating that it was still wine. Twice, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-27, Paul refers to the consecrated bread as ‘bread’.”
http://www.the-highway.com/eucharist_Webster.html
Yes I believe in the Doctrine of the Eucharist. The term transubstantiation is a philosophical explanation to a philosophical question regarding the Eucharist. It does not have to the only way to understand it but when the question was raised during the scholastic period, a scholastic formulation relying on the metaphysics of Aristotle was used to answer the question.
Again elder=presbyteros is just and older man. In the early Church elders-presbyteros [presbyter is a Latin word] and their duties overlapped with Bishops[Episcopi=overseers]. The words episcopi and presbyteros are two different words and at times are used interchangeably since an overseer was by definition also a presbyter. The roles were distinct and the roles of the overseer[episcopi] equals Bishops role and the presbyters took on the roles of priests who were not Bishops and the roles of Bishops and presbyters were not that of the Deacons.
I don’t want to have to quote every Church Father who clearly understood the NT passages that you quote to indicate a 3 tiered ministry of Bishop/Presbyter{priest}/Deacon. The post would take for days. Lets just look at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. The Council was called to answer Arius’s interpretation of Proverbs 8:22-31, which everyone in the early Church saw as a prefigurement of Christ. The problem was that you can’t from the text clearly define how Christ is from the Father and [of Course Consubstantial is the Latin Term that would be used as the equivalent of homoousia] and because of that Council, the Nicene Creed was defined.
Now some questions
1) Do you agree with the Council of agree with Arius interpretation of Proverbs 8:22-31 because a simple reading of that text does not allow for a clear dogmatic statement of how Wisdom [Christ] comes from the Father since the text makes statements like from of old I was poured forth, before the earth, when there was no depths, I was brought forth.... Nothing in the text clearly states that Wisdom [the pre-Incarnate Christ] was as the Council would define, Eternally begotten from the Father....
2) Lets assume you think the COuncil of Nicea correctly interpreted Proverbs 8:22-31 and made the correct Doctrinal statement regarding Christ, the same council in Canons 3, 4,5,6,7,8, 9, 15, and 18 speak of Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons.
Canon 18 is of particular interest as it states that it has come to our attention of the Holy and great council that in some locales and cities, Deacons give the Eucharist to presbyters, although neither the canon nor custom [Tradition] permits those who do not offer SACRIFICE [emphasis mine] to give the Body of Christ to those who do offer sacrifice. This, too, has become known: that some deacons are now receiving the Eucharist before the Bishop. All of this is to be discontinued, and the Deacons are to keep within their own proper bounds, knowing that they are the servants of the Bishop and that they rank less than presbyters. They are to receive the Eucharist, in accord with their rank, after the presbyters, either a Bishop or Presbyter giving it too them.
Now This Council was written in Greek [Canons] and the Creed was also written in Greek. How did these guys not get the Protestant understanding of the NT epistles and not define them the way you Baptist do today. I mean really??????????????????
As for some early Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which mention overseer and presbyters, Saint John Chrysostom in his Homilies on 2nd Timothy [393AD] speaks of priests offering the sacrifice of the Eucharist [oblation] just as the Apostles [Peter and Paul did]
In his commentary/homilies on the Letter to Philippians [398AD] , Saint John Crysostom writes, in his greeting to the Philipians, Paul addresses himself. To the co-bishops and deacons..What does this mean? Where there plural Bishops of one city? Certainly not! It is the presbyters that Paul calls by this title; for these titles were then interchangeable, and the bishop is even called a deacon. that is why when writing to Timothy, Paul says..fullfill your diaconate although Timothy was then a Bishop. that he was in fact a Bishop is clear when Paul says to Him “Lay Hands on no man lightly and again “which was given you with the laying of hands of the presbyter and presbyters would not have ordained a bishop.
As for your views or the views of the Protestant scriptural commentary you cite regarding the Letter to the Hebrews, Saint John Chrysostom also gave a Homily/commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews [403AD] and he addresses the notion of Christ once for all sacrifice [Hebrews 9:28 is quoted] and how the Eucharistic sacrifice is not a different one, it is one in the same.
In summary, as I stated before, I could find bundles of more quotes from the Patristic period that is consistent with the Catholic Church’s understanding of Bishop[Episcopi]; Presbyter/Elder[Priest] and Deacon but the Canons from Nicea and Chrystostem’s Commentaries/Homilies will suffice and are consistent with my understanding of it because my understanding of it is the understanding of the constant witness of the Apostolic Church.