The Ordination Prayers in the So-Called Apostolic Tradition

Vigiliae Christianae (2021) 1-11 Vigiliae Christianae brill.com/vc

Paul F. Bradshaw Emeritus Professor of Liturgy, University of Notre Dame, United States [email protected]

Abstract

The anonymous church order formerly identified as the Apostolic Tradition and attrib- uted to Hippolytus is now regarded by many scholars as a composite work made up of layers of redaction from around the mid-second to mid-fourth centuries. This essay revises the unsatisfactory attempt to discern such strata in its ordination prayers that was made by Eric Segelberg as long ago as 1975, and argues that their earliest forms are among the oldest material in the so-called Apostolic Tradition, belonging to the first half of the second century.

Keywords

Apostolic Tradition – ordination – bishop – presbyter – deacon

In 1966 the leading liturgical scholar E. C. Ratcliff claimed that the ordination prayer for a bishop in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus had “undergone considerable revision so as to be conformed to the standards and usage of the fourth century,”1 and in a paper published in 1975 Eric Segelberg also argued in detail that all its ordination prayers, but especially the one for a bishop, had been gradually expanded by successive layers of additions rather than being composed completely at one time.2 This thesis, however, did not

1 E. C. Ratcliff, “Apostolic Tradition: Questions concerning the Appointment of a Bishop,” Studia Patristica 8 (1966) 266-270, here at p. 270 n. 13. 2 Eric Segelberg, “The Ordination Prayers in Hippolytus,” Studia Patristica 13 (1975) 397-408; hereafter cited simply as “Segelberg.”

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden,- /journals/vc/aop/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418.xml 2021 | doi:10.1163/15700720-12341418 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:33:57PM via free access 2 Bradshaw receive support from others, and indeed I described it as “perhaps not entirely convincing.”3 What now seems surprising to me is that when in 2002 my collaborators and I came to publish our commentary on the supposed Apostolic Tradition, which challenged the belief that it was a third-century work by Hippolytus and argued that it was instead composed of several strata ranging from the mid-second to the early fourth century, we still did not examine the ordination prayers for any such layers, even though we had identified them in the ritual instructions im- mediately preceding, and had done exactly the same in its eucharistic prayer. We repeated the observation that Segelberg’s reconstruction was “not entirely convincing” and stated that it was “difficult to share his conclusions without reservation,” but did not pursue the matter any further.4 Even Alistair Stewart in his contemporaneous commentary, which similarly saw different hands at work in the church order, regarded the prayer for a bishop as stemming from a single hand.5 He has, however, just written an article that substantially sup- ports Segelberg’s position, although with some interesting variations.6 Just because Segelberg’s particular reconstruction of an original text might not be wholly convincing does not mean that there cannot have been any successive layers of redaction at all, and the prayers therefore warrant further consideration in this regard. One of the constant problems with this sort of scholarship, of course, is that one can easily tend to find what one wants to see, rejecting as secondary material what is not consistent with the picture of church life one has already formed for the period and not permitting the tex- tual evidence to count against it. Segelberg, however, did try to employ some rather more objective criteria in his attempt at stratification. Echoing one of Anton Baumstark’s liturgical laws, he claimed that the earliest liturgical texts tend to employ biblical allusions rather than direct quotations and he added that these were more likely to be drawn more from the Old Testament than the New.7

3 Paul F. Bradshaw, “Ordination,” in Geoffrey Cuming (ed.), Essays on Hippolytus (Grove Liturgical Study 15; Bramcote: Grove Books, 1978) 33-38, here at p. 37. 4 Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary (Hermeneia series; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002) 32. 5 Alistair Stewart(-Sykes), Hippolytus: On the Apostolic Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001) 62-64. 6 Alistair C. Stewart, “The ordination prayers in Traditio apostolica: the search for a Grundschrift,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 64 (2020) 11-24. 7 Segelberg, 397. For Baumstark’s law, see Anton Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy (London: Mowbray, 1958) 59.

In the accompanying translations of the prayers, Segelberg’s divisions have generally been adopted. The Greek text in the Epitome of the Apostolic Constitutions,8 which seems to be the closest of the versions to the missing Greek original, has been chosen as the basis for the translation of the prayer for a bishop; for the presbyter the Latin version has been used (rather than the Greek Apostolic Constitutions/Epitome version adopted by Segelberg); and for the deacon the Latin version again as far as the lacuna in the middle, when one is forced to turn to the Ethiopic.

1 The Prayer for a Bishop

Segelberg rightly regarded I:c-e as a later addition to the prayer, as it consists of three biblical quotations that could function as generic introductions to a prayer in any context and have no specific connection to ordination. To these I would also add I:b. Not only is it of the same character as the others, but the fact that it is also used in the prayers for presbyters and deacons does not strengthen the case for it belonging to the earliest stratum9 but rather suggests that it was inserted as part of a harmonizing process when versions of the three individual prayers were first brought together. Segelberg then plausibly suggested that the whole of part II, with the exception of the first word “you” (which serves to resume the sequence after the interruption of I:b-e), belonged to the earliest stratum.10 We should note, however, that II:d-e are almost the only lines of the prayer that are completely missing from the version in the Canons of Hippolytus.11 Even where the lines of this prayer later diverge sharply from the Apostolic Tradition, enough signs are left to show that the compiler was aware of them. So, was this a deliber- ate omission by its compiler, not wishing to include a sacerdotal dimension to episcopal ministry, or did the earlier version of the Apostolic Tradition that lay before him not yet have those lines, and even perhaps had something like its phrase “authorities and powers” found in the Canons of Hippolytus in line II:c rather than “rulers and priests”? We shall return to this question later. Part III is, as Segelberg observed, rather more complex. He rejected III:a as another resumptive phrase like “you” in II:a that was not part of the oldest

8 For this see F. X. Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1905; reprinted Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1979) II, 78-79. 9 Pace Segelberg, 397, but cf. p. 398, where he appears to include it among the additions. 10 Segelberg, 398. 11 English translation in Bradshaw, Johnson, and Phillips, Apostolic Tradition, 51.

Vigiliae Christianae (2021)- /journals/vc/aop/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418.xml 1-11 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:33:57PM via free access 4 Bradshaw

I a) God b) and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, (2 Cor 1:3; 11:31; Col 1:3; 1 Peter 1:3) c) the father of mercies and the God of all comfort, (2 Cor 1:3) d) dwelling on high and looking on that which is lowly, (LXX Ps 112:5-6) e) knowing all things before their creation, (Dan 13:42; Sus 35) II a) you giving [the] rules of [the] church through the word of your grace, (“word of his grace”: Acts 20:32) b) having foreordained from the beginning a righteous race from Abraham, c) having appointed rulers and priests, d) and not leaving your sanctuary without a ministry, e) having been pleased from the creation of the world to be glorified in those whom you chose; (some similarities to Eph 1:4-6) III a) and now b) pour forth the power from you of the spirit of leadership (LXX 50:14) c) which you gave through your beloved servant Jesus Christ to your holy apostles d) who established the church in every place as your sanctuary to the unceasing glory and praise of your name. e) Knower of the hearts of all, (Acts 1:24) f) grant g) to this your servant whom you have chosen for the episcopate IV a) [to shepherd] your holy [flock] (some similarity to Acts 20:28) b) and to serve as high-priest for you blamelessly night and day, c) unceasingly to propitiate your countenance, d) and to offer to you the gifts of your holy church; e) and f) in the high-priestly spirit g) to have authority to forgive sins according to your command (allusion to John 20:23) h) to give lots according to your bidding i) to loose every bond according to the authority that you gave to the apostles (allusion to Matthew 18:18) j) and to please you in gentleness and a pure heart, offering you a sweet- smelling savour; (? allusion to Ephesians 5:2) V a) through your servant Jesus Christ our Lord b) with whom [be] glory, power, honor to you, with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Figure 1 The prayer for a bishop

- /journals/vc/aop/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418.xmlVigiliae Christianae (2021) 1-11 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:33:57PM via free access The Ordination Prayers in the So-Called Apostolic Tradition 5 stratum.12 He may well be right here, as there is no finite verb in what precedes it, but the phrase is used in some ancient prayers to connect what can be called the anamnetic portion of a prayer with the epicletic or petitionary section.13 Segelberg rightly accepted III:b as part of the original, but the lengthy dou- ble subordinate clauses of III:c-d, differing from the style of II:b-e, led him to conclude that they were an addition, though an early one, to the original text.14 However, the use of the Greek word pais, “child/servant” rather than “son,” seems to be an indicator of a very early date, as it otherwise only oc- curs in prayers thought to have their origin in the first to mid-second century.15 Indeed, the almost identical phrase “through Jesus Christ your beloved servant” is found in 1 Clement 59.3 (cf. also 59.2). III:c, therefore, might be original, and III:d a later expansion of it. Segelberg rightly treated III:e, a quotation from Acts 1:24, as a later addition, but he also wanted to eliminate the verb in III:f, because it occurred in a different position, before III:e, in Apostolic Constitutions and in the Latin version, was not found in all the codices of the Epitome, and above all its use with the following preposition epi was “very bad Greek.” He believed that instead the preposition was originally dependent on the verb in III:b. Translated as “pour forth … upon,” reflected “perfectly good Greek.”16 This is a plausible explana- tion, and if true, would settle the question of the authenticity of III:c; but the argument is not conclusive. Segelberg judged the whole of III:g to belong to the earliest stratum, but it should be noted that the second part of it, “whom you have chosen for the episcopate,” is missing from the Canons of Hippolytus. On the other hand, the term episkopē is used in this sense as early as Acts 1:20; 1 Timothy 3:1; and 1 Clement 44:1, 4. Part IV lists the functions to be exercised by the new bishop, all as a series of infinitives. Segelberg assigned a-d to the earliest stratum of the prayer and e-i to a later one, on the grounds that a-d lacked “direct New Testament in- fluence” while e-i had “definitive New Testament connotations.”17 But things do not seem quite as simple as that. At the time when Segelberg was writ- ing, he shared the general consensus of the period that this church order was compiled by Hippolytus and therefore to be dated to the early third century.

12 Segelberg, 398. 13 For example, Acts 4:29; Apostolic Tradition 7.4. 14 Segelberg, 399. 15 It must be noted that when the reference to “servant” is to the ordinand, different words are used in both the Greek and the Latin, doulos and servus respectively. 16 Segelberg, 399. 17 Segelberg, 400.

Vigiliae Christianae (2021)- /journals/vc/aop/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418.xml 1-11 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:33:57PM via free access 6 Bradshaw

He acknowledged that Hippolytus drew in part on “traditional liturgical material,”18 but it seems unlikely that he considered the consequences of dating some of that material as early as certain other parts of the Apostolic Tradition now seem to suggest, for example, the core of its eucharistic prayer, which might well be the first part of the second century. For that period we possess no signs of the existence of a priestly or high- priestly understanding of the episcopal office in Christian literature: it is not until the beginning of the third century that it begins to emerge, and not until the fourth century that expressions such as the bishop “propitiating God’s countenance” are found. In his recent article, however, Alistair Stewart de- fends the antiquity of the sacerdotal characterizing of the episcopal office in the prayer by reference to a single phrase in 1 Clement 44.4 that speaks of the deposed leaders having offered “the gifts.” He admits that these gifts are most probably the provisions for the eucharistic meal, and are “a sacrifice only inso- far as the gifts are offered,” but that is hardly sufficient to justify the fully-blown sacerdotal language of the prayer as belonging to “the middle of the second century.”19 If, therefore, the roots of this prayer are very ancient, as for example the use of the term pais seems to suggest, then we would not expect to see as part of it II:d-e, and even less IV:b-c, although IV:d might well have been there alongside IV:a. The absence of IV:a from the Epitome does not challenge its place in the core text, as not only is it found in all the other versions but the presence of the words “your holy” in the Epitome indicate that haplography has taken place in the course of its transmission, with a copyist accidentally passing directly from the Greek word episkopēn, “episcopate,” to the end of the word poimnēn, “flock.” Although Segelberg excised all of IV:e-i from the earliest stratum, in his article Alistair Stewart has proposed an exception to the secondary character of this material, and that is IV:h. This seems quite plausible, especially if, as Stewart suggests, “to give lots” is understood as referring to the distribution of what has been collected from the congregation rather than, as is generally supposed, to the assignment of ecclesiastical duties to other ministers.20 On the other hand, it has rather oddly been sandwiched between two later references to the ministry of the forgiveness of sins, with all three featuring the phrase “according to,” which might count against its place in the earliest text. While the Canons of Hippolytus diverges widely from the Apostolic Tradition in this

18 Segelberg, 401. 19 Stewart, “The ordination prayers in Traditio apostolica,” 19. 20 Stewart, “The ordination prayers in Traditio apostolica,” 14.

God, giving the rules of the church through the word of your grace, having foreordained from the beginning a righteous race from Abraham, having appointed rulers (and priests), pour forth the power from you of the spirit of leadership upon this your servant (whom you have chosen for the episcopate) to shepherd your holy flock (and to offer to you the gifts of your holy church, to give lots according to your bidding,) and to please you in gentleness and a pure heart, offering you a sweet-smelling savour; through your servant Jesus Christ.

In the past there has been a disagreement between Stewart and myself over his claim that the prayer for a bishop in the Apostolic Tradition was older than that for a presbyter,23 which is why he does not include the latter in his recent article. If we are speaking of the bishop’s prayer in its finished form, then I would still maintain that the one for a presbyter is older than that. But if we are referring instead to the earliest form of the bishop’s prayer, then I would happily concede that it belongs among the oldest material now in the Apostolic Tradition, even if it were not added to that collection until some time later, when it might already have undergone some expansion.

21 Segelberg, 401. 22 See Bradshaw, Johnson, and Phillips, Apostolic Tradition, 52-53. 23 See Alistair Stewart-Sykes, “The Integrity of the Hippolytean Ordination Rites,” Augustinianum 39 (1999): 106-116; Paul F. Bradshaw, “Redating the Apostolic Tradition: Some Preliminary Steps,” in John Baldovin and Nathan Mitchell (eds) Rule of Prayer, Rule of Faith: Essays in Honor of Aidan Kavanagh, OSB (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996) 3-17, here at pp. 7-8; Stewart-Sykes, Hippolytus: On the Apostolic Tradition, 63.

Vigiliae Christianae (2021)- /journals/vc/aop/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418.xml 1-11 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:33:57PM via free access 8 Bradshaw

2 The Prayer for a Presbyter

To most commentators this prayer has always seemed somewhat problem- atic (even without reference to the strange instructions preceding it), having a change of object in the middle from the third person singular to the first person plural – from the candidate to the praying community. In spite of the efforts made by others to justify this,24 Segelberg described it as “peculiar” and excised the whole of part IV from the original stratum. On the other hand, not- ing that IV:a-b was omitted from the Epitome (though not from the Apostolic Constitutions), he wondered whether that version might have preserved a text closer to the original here.25 This is highly unlikely, as the prayer then contin- ues in both the Epitome and the Apostolic Constitutions to relate what follows to the candidate in the third person rather than to those praying, as in the Latin. This looks like an attempt by a redactor to make better sense of this section of the prayer, with the omission being either part of that process, or an accident by a copyist. This has much more reason to it than that the tradition behind the Latin should somehow have corrupted the whole section to result in a more difficult reading. Segelberg regarded the opening of the prayer (part I), which was the same as that in the prayer for a bishop, and also recurs in the prayer for a deacon, as belonging to the earliest stratum in every case.26 However, as I indicated above with regard to the prayer for bishop, it seems more likely that it was added to them all as part of a harmonizing process when the prayers were brought together from disparate sources into this collection, as they are each quite different in structure. It appears, therefore, that the original core consisted of no more than II:a- III:c, together with the simple doxology in V:a-b. Yet even within that the clause in III:b, “that you gave to your servant,” has the appearance of an explanatory expansion and is absent from the Apostolic Constitutions/Epitome version. The Latin word for servant here is famulus, a perfectly normal word for a domestic servant that continued to be used in later liturgical texts, but is not otherwise part of the vocabulary of the Latin version of the Apostolic Tradition. Could the

24 See, for example, Roger Béraudy, “Le sacrement de l’Ordre d’après la Tradition apostolique d’Hippolyte,” Bulletin du Comité des Études 38/39 (1962) 350, who saw it as an expression of the commonality of the Spirit shared by both bishop and presbyterate. 25 Segelberg, 403-404. 26 Ibid., 402.

I God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ II a) look upon this your servant b) c) and impart the spirit of grace and of counsel of the presbyterate d) that he may help and guide your people with a pure heart,\ III a) just as you looked upon your chosen people b) and commanded Moses to choose presbyters whom you filled with your spirit that you gave to your servant; (Numbers 11:16-17) IV a) and now, Lord, b) grant to be preserved unfailingly in us the spirit of your grace and make [us] worthy, c) that believing in you d) we may minister in simplicity of heart e) praising you V a) through your servant, Christ Jesus, b) through whom to you [be] glory and power, c) Father and Son with the Holy Spirit, in the holy church, both now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Figure 2 The prayer for a presbyter clause, therefore, be a later addition? The servant in question is presumably Moses. Because the presbyter is said to have the function of counsel and gover- nance, as were the elders selected by Moses (Numbers 11:16-17), and no liturgical activity is mentioned, the root of the prayer seems to belong to the second century when presbyters were apparently leading members in each local congregation who acted as an advisory body to its bishop and had not yet become subordinate ministers.27 One might assume that such people would simply have been elected or appointed without any ritual act or even prayer for them, but there is no reason to suppose that this was true everywhere or that it per- sisted throughout the century as their role began to change. While the prayer in its final form may be a third-century addition to the church order, its earliest version may well have arisen in the first half of the second century.

27 See Alistair Stewart, The Original Bishops (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014) 187-298.

Vigiliae Christianae (2021)- /journals/vc/aop/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418.xml 1-11 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:33:57PM via free access 10 Bradshaw

3 The Prayer for a Deacon

The opening lines of this prayer have the appearance of a fusion of an older form (I) with a later insertion (II) which introduces a christological dimension to the prayer and employs the same New Testament phrase that I suggested earlier was part of a harmonizing process when all three prayers were brought together.28 II:b has echoes of the eucharistic prayer: “whom in the last times you sent to us as savior and redeemer of your will” (Apostolic Tradition 4.4). Bernard Botte saw in both instances an allusion to the Septuagint of Isaiah 9:5, “messenger of great counsel.”29 The prayer becomes more difficult to analyze after III:c because at that point a lacuna in the Latin text begins, and the only witnesses to the rest of it are the Ethiopic version and the Testamentum Domini, both of which are known to expand considerably on their source. We cannot, therefore, rely on any details in their versions, but they do agree that the text that they were using spoke of the deacon presenting to the bishop, described as high priest, what was to be offered (III:d), a practice referred to elsewhere in the Apostolic Tradition (4.2; 21.27). This language suggests either that the whole prayer is a third-century composition or that III:c-d is a later insertion into an older text, which seems the more likely. In any case, Botte judged that the Latin text of III:a, when compared with the Ethiopic, had inserted “holy” and translated the qualities sought in the original by three words in place of two.30 IV:a-b is rather confused, but seems originally to have been based on 1 Timothy 3:13, “those who have served (‘deaconed’) well gain for themselves a good standing …” The expression translated here as “a good standing” seems to have been meant in the sense of “a good reputation,” but translators of the Apostolic Tradition apparently understood the Greek noun in its basic sense of “step” or “degree,” and thought it referred to promotion to higher office. In accordance with his principle that New Testament allusions tend to belong to later strata of prayers, Segelberg described part IV as representing “mainly an addition or deviation.”31 If that is so, I would regard it as quite an early insertion, especially as it parallels the petition for the quality of life sought for the ordinand in the prayer for a bishop (IV:j). No trace of a primitive ending has

28 Stewart-Sykes, Hippolytus: On the Apostolic Tradition, 91, also sees a duplication of open- ings here. 29 Bernard Botte, La Tradition apostolique de saint Hippolyte: Essai de reconstitution (LQF 39; Münster: Aschendorff, 1963) 27 n. 1. 30 Ibid., 27 n. 2. 31 Segelberg, 406.

I a) God, b) who created all things and ordered [them] by [your] word II a) Father of our Lord Jesus Christ b) whom you sent to serve your will and manifest to us your desire, III a) give the holy spirit of grace and caring and diligence to this your servant b) whom you have chosen to minister for your church c) and to present d) in your sanctuary that which is offered to you by your ordained high priest to the glory of your name, IV a) so that he may acquire, having served without blame in a pure way of life, b) the great levels of ordination and your honour c) and may glorify you V a) through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, b) in whom you have glory and power and praise with the Holy Spirit, now and always and forever. Amen.

Figure 3 The prayer for a deacon been preserved in part V, and so it seems that all we can be reasonably sure of is that the earliest form of this prayer contained I:a-b and III:a-b.

4 Conclusion

This analysis of the prayers suggests that behind the developed versions preserved in the church order are signs of very much earlier core of each one of them. These appear to be at least as old as the first half of the second century when church offices were first becoming stabilized, but had not yet acquired the sacerdotal dimensions they were to develop in the third century, and the transition of presbyters from bishop’s counselors to subordinate functionaries had not so far taken place. Finally, it deserves emphasizing that there is no reason to think that the prayers formed a single collection prior to their absorp- tion into the developing Apostolic Tradition, but each one may have come from a different ecclesiastical tradition.

Vigiliae Christianae (2021)- /journals/vc/aop/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418/article-10.1163-15700720-12341418.xml 1-11 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:33:57PM via free access