chapter 8

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4. If 11 is construed strictly, the “we” of this prayer should be “we, the bishop and presbyters”. But the plural pronoun originally—and probably in Hippolytus’s opinion also—meant “all we Christians in this congregation”; compare 4. 12, “your sacrifice” in Didache 14 and the explicit language in Justin, Dialogue 116-117. “Messenger of thy counsel” is from the Septuagint of Isaiah 9. 6; it recurs in Hippolytus’s Daniel commentary (III, 9, 6) and is used here as an anti-modalist term.

5. This whole sentence is anti-modalist.

6. As in 3. 4 the language is more theological than liturgic.

7. Christ’s hands were spread out in appeal (Isaiah 65. 2, Lamentations 1. 17).

8. The “boundary post” is the Cross, dividing the realms of life and death.

9. The terms in Christ’s words regarding the bread and the cup are given liturgical balance by introducing κλώµενον, “which is broken”, after “body”; this addition found its way into many manuscripts of 1 Corinthians 11. 24.

10. The terseness of this phrase is effective. In the Latin translator’s “commemorationem facitis” the indicative is certainly a mistake,[174] while his “perform a memorial” may be merely a Latinistic simplification of “do this in memory of me”; the Pseudo-Ambrosian _De Sacramentis_ has similarly “commemorationem facietis” and the present Roman liturgy “memoriam facietis”. By what follows the phrase here means “recall to our mind”.

11. To “death” in 1 Corinthians 11. 26 “resurrection” has been added; later liturgies at this point expand freely. Later liturgical development also connected “memory” and “offer” closely, pleading Christ’s death before the Father.

12. The prayer for unity echoes the habitual Jewish prayers for the return of all Israel to Palestine; compare the Didache.

13. Compare on 3. 7.

In this prayer as a whole the accumulation of phrases in 5-6 is largely due to Hippolytus, who may likewise be responsible for parts of 7-8. But, even as it stands, it is noteworthy for its sobriety and directness, both characteristic of the later Roman liturgy until Gallican floridity affected it.

The liturgical influence of this prayer has been incalculable. It is the basis of the liturgy in the Constitutions, through which it determined the form and in part the wording of the great Eastern liturgies, St James,[175] St Basil and St Chrysostom. In the other Eastern rites its influence is usually perceptible, though less fundamental, while in the Ethiopic church it is still used almost unchanged. In the West, however, later eucharistic conceptions led to a different type of liturgy.

Hippolytus gives only the vital part of the ceremony, which otherwise was presumably much as it is described in Justin, _Apology_ 67. But perhaps at a consecration service the opening lessons and instruction were omitted.

5-6

This blessing at the eucharist of food other than the bread and wine is a remnant of the primitive custom when the rite included a meal; in Hippolytus’s day, presumably, the cheese and olives were eaten at the service and part of the oil was sipped, the remainder being reserved for anointing the sick.[176] Perhaps only Hippolytus’s exaggerated reverence for the past preserved the usage, which at any rate soon disappeared. None of the other versions of his treatise retain