From Jesuit to Jesus

What Every Catholic Should Know ^ | Bob Bush

[redleghunter]

What we now have a poorly cathechized Jesuit priest!

[daniel1212]

In the Church as Jesus founded it, were the leaders called priests, and were they either required or forbidden to marry?

The first question is clearly no. Go search “hiereus” or “archiereus” and see if it is ever used for NT pastors, or if they engage in a uniquely sacerdotal function in changing bread. It's not there, only Catholic extrapolation and argumentation. See one response here .

and were they either required or forbidden to marry?

Of course, not, as instead, being married was the norm, (1Tim. 3:1-7) with celibacy having its commendation but as being gift. (1Cor. 7:7) Even all the apostles were married but two traveling missionaries.

To require clerical celibacy of almost all (and if the wife of converted clergy dies they cannot marry again) presumes almost all have that gift, which is contrary to Scripture and is asking for trouble.

But Scripture is not the supreme authority for Rome, not matter how much RCs attempt to wrest support from it for her traditions of men, nor is the weight of its warrant the basis for the veracity of her teachings, but which rest upon the presumed veracity of Rome.

[MamaB]

Thanks. You teach me every day.

[redleghunter]

Says something about those with theology degrees from Catholic seminary no?

If you continue to read he conducted his post graduate education in Rome no less. Was the post graduate program at the Vatican flag ship shoddy on rooting out a poor student?

So we can conclude the Vatican book store must have missed a few shipments of the Latin Vulgate.

So now we have two testimonies, one of a nun of over 20 years and a priest of an intelligentsia order telling us the Bible was cloistered and a servant of Rome. And when both cracked open a Bible, they found the Truth waiting.

>>>>Break<<<<

Gamecock I look forward to the next installment. Thanks for posting.

[daniel1212]

Does this individual go to Heaven or Hell? Catholic teaching says one has lost salvation if committing these sins without confession and forgiveness of the priest.

What Rome officially says versus what she effectually conveys - which evidences what she really believes - are two different things.

By treating even proabortion, prosodomite, promuslim pols and supporters as members in life and in death, she shows what she really believes in part, (Ja. 2:18) and the laity, who look to for the meaning of what is preached by how the preachers translate it into action, get the message. As "the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led,, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors," (VEHEMENTER NOS) so it seems most follow their overall interpretation.

Trad. RCs end up being somewhat akin to Protest-ants in dissenting from this, as they engage in interpreting teachings (in their case printed church teaching, often ancient) different than Rome most manifestly does in modern tradition, and thus are a sect.

[daniel1212]

So we can conclude the Vatican book store must have missed a few shipments of the Latin Vulgate.

From http://www.askacatholic.com/_WebPostings/Answers/2010_01JAN/2010JanDoTheyStudyTheWholeBible.cfm

Hi, guys — Does a priest study the whole Bible in seminary?

Dear Santina,

Thank you for your question. You hit on one of my pet peeves.

Unfortunately, priests don't study the whole Bible in seminary. In fact, they come no where near studying enough Scripture. They do study several years of theology and philosophy. The Theology classes will have some Scripture, as will the courses on the Church Fathers. They are lucky if, over their 4 or 5 years in seminary, they get about five courses on Scripture. To make matters worse, those courses are usually not about what the text actually means, rather they are courses based on the Historical Critical Method of exegesis. In other words, they waste too much time trying to figure out who wrote a certain book or reconstructing history from the text.

It's a very sad state of affairs. The Historical Critical Method is a useful tool, but studying the method, does not replace studying the Bible. Unfortunately, most of priests are biblically illiterate for all intents and purposes. This, of course, explains the doctrinally insipid and uninspiring slop they serve every Sundays from the pulpit.

To put it more bluntly, the average Catholic priest in America today would look for Zephania on the spice rack before he realized it wasn't an ingredient for tomato sauce, but the ninth of twelve minor prophets, who probably wrote in the 7^th century B.C.

[daniel1212]

Thanks. You teach me every day.

We all have much to learn.

[cva66snipe]

An amazing testimony of Grace, Faith, and Salvation.

[Elsie]

Two men considering a religious vocation were having a conversation. “What is similar about the Jesuit and Dominican Orders? “ the one asked.

The second replied, “Well, they were both founded by Spaniards — St. Dominic for the Dominicans, and St. Ignatius of Loyola for the Jesuits. They were also both founded to combat heresy — the Dominicans to fight the Albigensians, and the Jesuits to fight the Protestants.”

“What is different about the Jesuit and Dominican Orders?”

“Met any Albigensians lately?”

[Gamecock]

</rimshot>

[CynicalBear]

>>So now we have two testimonies, one of a nun of over 20 years and a priest of an intelligentsia order telling us the Bible was cloistered and a servant of Rome.<<

The importance of God's word is obviously secondary to the word of Rome.

[Petrosius]

In her effort to conform NT pastors to her erroneous understanding of the Lord's Supper (“Eucharist”), Catholicism came to render presbuteros” as “priests” (which the RC Douay Rheims Bible inconsistently does: Acts 20:17; Titus 1:5), and sometimes “episkopos,” in order to support a distinctive NT sacerdotal priesthood in the church, but which the Holy Spirit never does. For the word which the Holy Spirit distinctively uses for priests*, is “hiereus” or “archiereus.” (Heb. 4:15; 10:11) and which is never used for NT pastors, nor does the words presbuteros (senior/elder) or episkopos (superintendent/overseer) which He does use for NT pastors mean "priest." Presbuteros or episkopos do not denote a unique sacrificial function, and hiereus (as archiereus=chief priests) is used in distinction to elders in such places as Lk. 22:66; Acts 22:5.

You misunderstood the meaning of my post. You correctly point out the difference between presbuteros and heireus. This distinction is kept in Latin with presbyter and sacerdos. English, however, has failed to maintain two separate words. The English word "priest" can refer to either the sacrificial office of hiereus or the New Testament office of presbuteros. This is why in these discussions I like to stay with the Greek terms. I was not claiming that the Catholic priesthood was the same as the Temple office of heireus. But there was in the New Testament the offices of epsicopos, presbuteros and deaconos. This second office continues today and in English is call "priest", a word which is indeed derived from the original Greek term for the office. It is because of the lack of an unique English term for heireus that the English word for the office of presbuteros has been applied to it. BTW, Latin texts upon which Catholic theology is based still make a distinction between the terms presbyter and sacerdos.

Catholic writer Greg Dues in "Catholic Customs & Traditions, a popular guide," states, "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity, because at that time priesthood was still associated with animal sacrifices in both the Jewish and pagan religions." "When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension. By the third century bishops were considered priests. Presbyters or elders sometimes substituted for the bishop at the Eucharist. By the end of the third century people all over were using the title 'priest' (hierus in Greek and sacerdos in Latin) for whoever presided at the Eucharist."

Dues is speaking here of the use of the term heireus/sacerdos not the English term "priest" thus it does not apply to the use of the word in English for the office of presbuteros. As for his claim that the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice only later in the 3rd century he is just wrong:

The Didache

"Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. Anyone who has a difference with his fellow is not to take part with you until he has been reconciled, so as to avoid any profanation of your sacrifice [Matt. 5:23–24]. For this is the offering of which the Lord has said, ‘Everywhere and always bring me a sacrifice that is undefiled, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is the wonder of nations’ [Mal. 1:11, 14]" (Didache 14 [A.D. 70]).

Pope Clement I

"Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its sacrifices. Blessed are those presbyters who have already finished their course, and who have obtained a fruitful and perfect release" (Letter to the Corinthians 44:4–5 [A.D. 80]).

Ignatius of Antioch

"Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice—even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all your doings are in full accord with the will of God" (Letter to the Philadelphians 4 [A.D. 110]).

Justin Martyr

"God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [minor prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands; for from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles . . . [Mal. 1:10–11]. He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us [Christians] who in every place offer sacrifices to him, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 41 [A.D. 155]).

Irenaeus

"He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, he confessed to be his blood. He taught the new sacrifice of the new covenant, of which Malachi, one of the twelve [minor] prophets, had signified beforehand: ‘You do not do my will, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is my name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Almighty’ [Mal. 1:10–11]. By these words he makes it plain that the former people will cease to make offerings to God; but that in every place sacrifice will be offered to him, and indeed, a pure one, for his name is glorified among the Gentiles" (Against Heresies 4:17:5 [A.D. 189]).

[Springfield Reformer]

English, however, has failed to maintain two separate words

That simply is not the case.  If one uses a dictioary approach to discovering modern English usage, the distinction in English initiated by Tyndale to reflect the distinction in Greek has now run for half a millennium and is still going strong.  From Merriam-Webster Online:

Priest:  one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God; specifically :  an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon

Elder:
1:  one living in an earlier period
2
    a :  one who is older :  senior <a child trying to please her elders> 
    b :  an aged person
3:  one having authority by virtue of age and experience <the village elders>
4:  any of various officers of religious groups: as 
    a :  presbyter 
    b :  a permanent officer elected by a Presbyterian congregation and ordained to serve on the session and assist the pastor at communion 
    c :  minister 
d :  a leader of the Shakers 
e :  a Mormon ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood

A case can be made that there can be overlapping uses of the two terms, such as when a Roman Catholic priest is described in terms of his non-sacerdotal duties, i.e., those that would be identical to any Presbyterian or Baptist elder or minister.  But when, as you concede, the Vulgate itself maintains the Greek's distinction between presbyter and sacerdos, why is it at all wrong for Tyndale and his progeny to provide a means of recognizing that distinction in English? Particularly when that distinction has been spectacularly successful in disentangling the Christian minister's duties of governance and spiritual oversight from the outmoded sacerdotal duties of the OT priesthood, rendered entirely obsolete by the only remaining arch-hiereus (high priest), Jesus Christ?  Only Jesus retains the sacerdotal aspect of the priestly office in fulfillment of the OT typology of priest and temple. Overseers and elders are caretakers of the Ecclesia, undershepherds of the one sheep-fold, but not mediators offering sacrifices on behalf of an invented underclass of believers.

As for whether the early believers viewed the Eucharist as a sacrifice in the sense presented by transubstantiation, it is egregiously anachronistic to read back into those early texts a meaning that clearly took centuries to evolve.  For example, you cite to the Didache, but nothing in the text of that document suggests a sacrifice in the nature of an offering for sin.  Indeed, the name "eucharist" itself is an expression of thanksgiving.  The entire meal is viewed here, not in terms of propitiation, but in terms of thanksgiving.  This is reinforced by Scripture:

Hebrews 13:15-16  By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.  (16)  But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

This is particularly significant coming from the writer of Hebrews because he has just spent the preceding 12 chapters disabusing his readers of the false idea that any further sacrifices of propitiation, i.e., for the removal of sin, are needed, in that Jesus accomplished the entire work of propitiation, once for all, past tense, obsoleting the entire OT sacerdotal system.  Therefore we can be absolutely certain that sacrifice (thusia)  as used here, while it has an etymological connection to animal sacrifice, is NOT being used as an additive to the one-time sacrifice of Christ for sins, but is describing instead a natural response of the believing heart, the desire to offer our praise to God in thanksgiving for all He has done for us.

And such praise is a true sacrifice as against our fallen nature, because in our sin and pride we have ourselves as the centers of our universe, and tend to think we deserve the good things that come to us, and this discourages a spirit of thanksgiving and praise.  Very often, in our darkest moments, we are bitterly tempted to turn entirely inward, and even the thought of praise in those moments, because of our sin, can seem awkward and unnatural, insincere.  But it remains our duty, because no matter what we may be feeling due to our weakness of faith, His matchless glory is undiminished, He is still the mighty Savior, Who has rescued us and delivered us from the hand of the oppressor, and as such He is still worthy to be praised and thanked, most of all for the darkness and sorrow He Himself was willing to endure on our behalf, to give us life through His death. And so our praise is offered to Him, in good times and bad, for better, for worse, always, and under all circumstances, we offer to him from ourselves a willing witness and testimony to His goodness and love to us.  If this is our small sacrifice, it does not absolve us of sin, as His sacrifice for us does, but it is still a sacrifice, and still and always the right response of a believing heart.

Romans 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Peace,

SR




 

[daniel1212]

You misunderstood the meaning of my post. You correctly point out the difference between presbuteros and heireus. This distinction is kept in Latin with presbyter and sacerdos. English, however, has failed to maintain two separate words. The English word "priest" can refer to either the sacrificial office of hiereus or the New Testament office of presbuteros. This is why in these discussions I like to stay with the Greek terms.

Then stay with the Greek, rather than defining presbuteros by what is morphed into! In reality, RCs do not want to stay with the Greek, but want to define it by what it came to denote due to imposed equivalence, not what it originally meant, which made distinction btwn hiereus and presbuteros. .

. But there was in the New Testament the offices of epsicopos, presbuteros and deaconos. This second office continues today and in English is call "priest", a word which is indeed derived from the original Greek term for the office.

It indeed was derived, via Latin, yet even a Catholic forum will tell you that “the Latin word presbyter has no lingual or morphological relationship with the Latin word sacerdos, but only an inherited semantical relationship.” - http://catholicforum.fisheaters.com/index.php?topic=744379.0;wap2z

Instead presbuteros became priest under the premise that the primary function of NT pastors was that of engaging in the "sacrifice" of the mass, an imposed functional equivalence that the Holy Spirit did not make by ever titling presbuteros/epsicopos (one office: Titus 1:5-7) hiereus,

And having presumed to help the Holy Spirit (again), RCs defend it by or and in a un etymological fallacy "that holds, erroneously, that the present-day meaning of a word or phrase should necessarily be similar to its historical meaning. This is a linguistic misconception.."

Dues is speaking here of the use of the term heireus/sacerdos not the English term "priest" thus it does not apply to the use of the word in English for the office of presbuteros.

Of course it applies, as the presumed primary sacrificial function denotes priests is behind a distinctive class of clergy being titled that. Yet for NT pastors it is prayer and preaching the word, (Acts 6:3) which they are abundantly shown doing and instructed to do, and never even shown officiating a the Lord's supper in bread making and dispensing. All the believers were to told to to share food, showing the Lord's death by that communal meal, as described here .

. As for his claim that the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice only later in the 3rd century he is just wrong: ]

He did not even say claim that the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice only later in the 3rd century, but that "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity," and " When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension."By the third century bishops were considered priests."

Thus he says by the 200 AD+ period, and as , even praise is a sacrifice ,Dues may be referring to a more widespread understanding of the Eucharist as an atonement for sin, offered by priests, as per Hebrews 5:1 regarding OT priestly duty, , "that he [the HP] may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.' (Hebrews 5:1) In any case, that the Lord's supper is an sacrifice for sin, versus declaring it, is not what it is manifest to be in the NT., which is the unchanging standard regardless of the varied and changeable misunderstandings of pious men.

Irenaeus

Came across this but have not read it all , and though you might want to: http://www.whitehorseblog.com/2014/07/27/eating-ignatius/

[Petrosius]

That simply is not the case. If one uses a dictioary approach to discovering modern English usage, the distinction in English initiated by Tyndale to reflect the distinction in Greek has now run for half a millennium and is still going strong. From Merriam-Webster Online:

Priest: one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God; specifically : an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon

You should have included from Merriam-Webster:

Origin of PRIEST

Middle English preist, from Old English prēost, ultimately from Late Latin presbyter — more at presbyter

First Known Use: before 12th century

What we are discussing is not what other Christian denominations use to describe their clergy but the English usage for the present office of presbuteros which is an historical continuation of of the ancient office described in the Bible. This office only exists today in the Catholic and Orthodox churches and the term that they use is "priest". This is even acknowledged in the Merriam-Webster definition that you quoted (albeit including the Anglicans) when it states: "specifically : an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon." That some non-Catholic churches chose to translate presbuteros as "elder" for their newly created clergy has no bearing in what the English term is for the continuing office of presbuteros that exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

As for whether the early believers viewed the Eucharist as a sacrifice in the sense presented by transubstantiation, it is egregiously anachronistic to read back into those early texts a meaning that clearly took centuries to evolve. For example, you cite to the Didache, but nothing in the text of that document suggests a sacrifice in the nature of an offering for sin.

While you might be able to make an argument that the Didache and perhaps Pope Clement are speaking metaphorically, you cannot do so for the other authors I cited:

Ignatius of Antioch

Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice…

Justin Martyr

He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us [Christians] who in every place offer sacrifices to him, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist.

Irenaeus

He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, he confessed to be his blood. He taught the new sacrifice of the new covenant, of which Malachi, one of the twelve [minor] prophets, had signified beforehand…

As for the sense presented by transubstantiation, we have the words of Justin Martyr:

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do in remembrance of Me, this is My body"; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood"; and gave it to them alone.

This is particularly significant coming from the writer of Hebrews because he has just spent the preceding 12 chapters disabusing his readers of the false idea that any further sacrifices of propitiation, i.e., for the removal of sin, are needed, in that Jesus accomplished the entire work of propitiation, once for all, past tense, obsoleting the entire OT sacerdotal system. Therefore we can be absolutely certain that sacrifice (thusia) as used here, while it has an etymological connection to animal sacrifice, is NOT being used as an additive to the one-time sacrifice of Christ for sins, but is describing instead a natural response of the believing heart, the desire to offer our praise to God in thanksgiving for all He has done for us.

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting the Catholic teaching on the Mass as a sacrifice. The Mass is not a further sacrifice nor is it an additive to the one-time sacrifice of Christ, it is that one-time sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross made present to us. The Catholic Church has repeated this so often for the last 500 years that it is hard to believe that a Protestant in good faith can still make the false claim that Catholics believe that we are repeating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ or making a new sacrifice.

[Petrosius]

It indeed was derived, via Latin, yet even a Catholic forum will tell you that “the Latin word presbyter has no lingual or morphological relationship with the Latin word sacerdos, but only an inherited semantical relationship.”

I never said that it did.

Instead presbuteros became priest under the premise that the primary function of NT pastors was that of engaging in the "sacrifice" of the mass, an imposed functional equivalence that the Holy Spirit did not make by ever titling presbuteros/epsicopos (one office: Titus 1:5-7) hiereus,

You have it backwards. The word "priest" came into existence in English as the equivalent to presbuteros not hiereus. It was the lack of an English equivalent to hiereus that caused "priest" to be used also for hiereus. I will admit that this was helped by the identification of the sacrificial role of the presbuteros with that of the hiereus. But what you should then be complaining about is the use of "priest" for non-Christian sacrificial ministers rather than its use for presbuteros which was its original use. That being said, this confusion of terms only exists in English. Catholic theology developed in Latin and Greek were the distinction of the two terms were kept. The Catholic understanding of the office of priest was not determined by the usage in English.

[Faith Presses On]

>>Since it is only discipline no one said that it was God’s will.>>

God’s will should be the one and only measure for everything.

>>On the other hand, it cannot be shown that it is against God’s will either.>>

Scripture gives qualifications for leadership, and it doesn’t disqualify those who marry. So what exactly was the reasoning for rejecting the ways established by Jesus and those He chose to walk with Him, and to see Him after His Resurrection, and to fundamentally change the Church in so many ways? In fact, to establish a hard-and-fast rule that married men couldn’t have received a call from God to the highest offices of the Church, although in the Church as Jesus established it, they did.

>>Jesus gave Peter the power to bind and loose, thus the Church possesses the authority to regulate its internal life.>>

Yes, to Peter, who was a disciple of His AND, even more so, saw Him resurrected, an experience that transformed the apostles. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” The power to “bind and loose” is never one not under the headship of Christ, meaning whatever is done must be done in the spirit of submitting fully to God’s will.

>>For this to be operative there must be a recognized and visible leadership in the Church with the authority to do so. This only exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. >

Sometimes I wonder what Catholics of today would have made of Jesus when He walked the earth, and specifically if they would have accepted Him, since He angered the Jewish authorities by healing on the Sabbath and allowing His disciples to eat from the fields on the Sabbath as well, saying the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

“After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, 11 realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned.” Titus 3:10-11, Catholic Bible

Vote on paragraph approving of gay unions: 118-62.
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/10/over-half-bishops-in-synod-have-already.html?m=1

Nearly two-thirds of the Catholic leaders at this synod voted to approve homosexuality! Each that did is a heretic, and not just in the Church, but in the highest reaches of leadership! As each of them doesn’t look at homosexual behavior as a sin to repent of, how can they actually be said to believe the Gospel? They don’t, and in their job of overseeing their flocks, they bring their heresy to everything they do. Again, each one of these high Catholic leaders is a proven heretic. Titus 3:10-11 is talking about any heretic, any place in the Church, because wherever they are, they do damage. But out of the billion or so Catholics, IIRC, these are highest LEADERS, and open and unrepentant heretics which the Catholic Church does nothing about. Unbelievable! And how did things get to that point? Do you think radically altering the Church from what Jesus established might have had something to do with it?

[BlueDragon]

You have it backwards. The word "priest" came into existence in English as the equivalent to presbuteros not hiereus. It was the lack of an English equivalent to hiereus that caused "priest" to be used also for hiereus

Horsefeathers!

It is YOU who has it ---- SIDEWAYS!!!

And that sideways-ness -- can be traced to Jerome's Latin translation of Greek NT texts.

Once we return again to Greek texts the fog of confusion can be dispelled.

If that be not enough, then going to Hebrew usage nails the matter.

Being that there are Greek, Hebrew, and Latin words for "priest" which DO NOT equate to presbuteros, there is no excuse for cramming in the word "priest" in present day English translation, as substitution for the word presbyter.

The literal meaning of the presbyter, in English language, is not "priest", but elder.

Where as ἱερεύς OR hiereús translates more directly to the English word "priest".

Hebrew = כָּהַן, kahan or kohen = priest (in English).

daniel, & S.R. -- please forgive me for jumping in here, for my own interjection at this juncture may render portion of either of your own possible further comments or rebuttal partially repetitious.

[Springfield Reformer]

What we are discussing is not what other Christian denominations use to describe their clergy but the English usage for the present office of presbuteros which is an historical continuation of of the ancient office described in the Bible. This office only exists today in the Catholic and Orthodox churches and the term that they use is "priest". This is even acknowledged in the Merriam-Webster definition that you quoted (albeit including the Anglicans) when it states: "specifically : an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon." That some non-Catholic churches chose to translate presbuteros as "elder" for their newly created clergy has no bearing in what the English term is for the continuing office of presbuteros that exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

But that is begging the question, assuming the answer you favor in the framing of the discussion.  We do not assume that "priest" conveys in English the office described in the New Testament under the term presbuteros.  As Daniel has twice now pointed out, you are apparently relying on simply the raw etymology to sustain your theory of semantic continuity.  That is not good lexicography.  Semantically, the English "priest," thought it may represent a contracted, Latinized version of what started out in Greek as presbuteros (though I have seen arguments for other possible "genetic" histories of the term), in semantic usage presbuteros is far more accurately represented by the English "elder," as an ecclesiastical office, than by "priest," which in English carries with it all the sacerdotal baggage of the Roman evolution.

While you might be able to make an argument that the Didache and perhaps Pope Clement are speaking metaphorically ...

My argument is not that in the early Eucharistic practice we are talking about metaphorical sacrifice versus real sacrifice.  I do not reject the idea of metaphor.  I simply wasn't using it here.  Instead, I am saying the kind of sacrifice envisioned by transubstantiation was not at all in view in those early writings.  Rather, the sacrifice of praise is in view.  It is no less real, but the one is not a metaphor for the other.  They are of two different kinds altogether.  One involves a time-honored and entirely spiritual form of offering to God, not done in exchange for forgiveness, but simply to give oneself to God in love. The other involves a bizarre use of Aritstotelian categories to achieve a kind of realism for the paschal meal not contemplated in Scripture or the earliest Christian writers.

Similarly, the realism appealed to in Ignatius and the others is not the realism of transubstantiation.  It is not the ontological identity of Christ and the elements.  Much of that language in the early Christian writers is directed at the docetists and others that disparaged the physicality of Jesus, the aim being not to demonstrate that the bread is the very substance of Christ, but that Jesus was Himself a real, corporeal being, not a mere apparition, as some supposed, and that therefore the Eucharistic elements had that underlying reality, not in Aquinas' substance versus accidence sense, but closer to Augustine's sense, that the thing the sign pointed to, though not the sign itself, was nonetheless quite real.

For example, in the case of Justin Martyr, he specifically denies consuming human flesh and blood:

For I myself, too, when I was delighting in the doctrines of Plato, and heard the Christians slandered, and saw them fearless of death, and of all other-things which are counted fearful, perceived that it was impossible that they could be living in wickedness and pleasure. For what sensual or intemperate man, or who that counts it good to feast on human flesh,  could welcome death that he might be deprived of his enjoyments, and would not rather continue always the present life, and attempt to escape the observation of the rulers; and much less would he denounce himself when the consequence would be death? This also the wicked demons have now caused to be done by evil men. For having put some to death on account of the accusations falsely brought against us, they also dragged to the torture our domestics, either children or weak women, and by dreadful torments forced them to admit those fabulous actions which they themselves openly perpetrate; about which we are the less concerned, because none of these actions are really ours, and we have the unbegotten and ineffable God as witness both of our thoughts and deeds.

Available here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0127.htm

Again, Justin Martyr cannot be discussing transubstantiation, because Radbertus (9th Century) had not yet invented it, nor Aquinas perfected it, nor Trent anathematized the rejection of it.  If you reread him very carefully in the quote you gave, and set aside the artificial categories created for you by these later innovators, you will notice there is no affirmation of swapped substances, with only accidents remaining.  But rather his words are compatible with his assessment above, that the accusation of eating human flesh is false.  The later hyper-realism represented by transubstantiation is obviously unknown to him, or he would not have been able to make such an unqualified denial of eating human flesh, unless he were to deny the flesh of Jesus was human, which is of course absurd.  

The fact that this comment rests at ease in the same mind with the other comment should suggest to us he is using some other model than transubstantiation to understand what it means for the bread and wine mixed with water to be the body and blood of Jesus.  And other such models exist that would be fully compatible with both the directness of the imagery and the uncomplicated rejection of eating human flesh.  One such model might be called an immersive metaphor, a way of seeing the elements as such a clear window to the underlying reality, that the mind barely notices the lens of the metaphor, but looks right through the lens to only see what the metaphor is pointing to.  Yet push come to shove, and accusations of cannibalism being given, he is easily able to cast off those charges as totally untrue. That is, untrue in any corporeal sense.  Because for Justin Martyr, as truly as the bread and wine are in some sense the body and blood of Jesus, it is equally true that no corporeal human flesh is consumed in the Eucharist.

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting the Catholic teaching on the Mass as a sacrifice. The Mass is not a further sacrifice nor is it an additive to the one-time sacrifice of Christ, it is that one-time sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross made present to us. The Catholic Church has repeated this so often for the last 500 years that it is hard to believe that a Protestant in good faith can still make the false claim that Catholics believe that we are repeating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ or making a new sacrifice.

I assure you it is not my intent to either misrepresent or misconstrue the Roman theory of the mass, and I welcome your offered refinements to my understanding.  However, I reject as invalid the time travel escape hatch so commonly used to avoid the charge of repeating the sacrifice of Christ in the mass.  Each time the once-for-all sacrifice is offered, it purports to have new propitiary effect, as if it's first effect was not enough. It is functioning as a new sacrifice each time it is offered. If we do something over and over again, it doesn't matter if we can imagine the source of the repeated event as frozen somewhere in eternal timelessness (a dubious theory in its own right). Repetition is about what we do within our own temporal framework, and in that framework, it is either done or it is not done, we are forgiven entirely when we believe or else forgiven incompletely, on the installment plan.  And if, to make up for our lack of feeling forgiven, we make the body and blood of Jesus "present" over and over again as a true sacrifice, each time with new propitiary effect to us, we really are repeating it in practice, though I understand that will be denied in the formal teaching.

But we are not told by the Holy Spirit in Scripture to consider His death continuously present via time travel, nor to consider Christ a perpetual victim.  We are enjoined to consider the atonement done and over, the sin debt canceled, the sacrifice that accomplished it to be remembered in the paschal meal, but not to be literally revisited time and time again.  God has given us this temporal frame of reference in which we live. We cannot and should not attempt to circumvent it.  We only end up fooling ourselves with our fallen imaginations if we try.  In reality, this time travel theory is nothing but an inventive way to avoid a blazing obvious contradiction. Temporally speaking, Christ, in His human nature, is not on the cross right now, but in the presence of the Father, interceding for us, preparing to come again for us.  In remembering his death for us, we are being told to access, by memory, the past, the time when He was here.  We are not being told to access, by a miracle with no footprint in reality, an eternal present in which Christ is endlessly dying.  God has the authority to set the rules on how He is worshiped. If He has told us specifically to look to the past regarding Jesus' death, that is what we must do. 

Peace,

SR

[Petrosius]

The literal meaning of the presbyter, in English language, is not "priest", but elder.

I have to disagree. English is heavily influenced by Latin usage. When we look at Latin words we often have the choice of translating their meaning into English or to use Latin base cognates that have entered into English usage. Thus the Latin senatus literally means "council of elders" but we use the cognate "Senate" which is a recognized English word. Examples of this in English would be countless. Thus while translating presbuteros into English by its meaning would produce "elder", the English word "priest" is its cognate that has been in constant English usage since before the 12th century to describe this office that itself has been in constant existence since the beginning of the church. The original and continual meaning of "priest" in English has been for the office of presbuteros. Its usage to describe cultic sacrificial ministers is the derivative one.