(From the 1765 Venice edition of André Galland's "Library of the Ancient Fathers",
Tome 1, folio-size, p. 9)
Author: André Galland
Googlebooks
PDF: PG001
Chapter 40
These things, therefore, being manifest to us, <we> also <having curved in>[[70]] towards the depths of divine knowledge, all things <in order>[[71]] we ought to do, <as many as> the Master commande{d} to accomplish according to <the> appointed <opportune times>; <that> the offerings[[72]] and <public services> be accomplished, and <that they be> not <at random> or disorderly he commanded, but at the defined <opportune times>[[73]] and hours; where and by whom he wishes <them> to be accomplished, he himself defined by his highest counsel; so that hallowedly all the things happening[[74]] in approval, might be acceptable to his will. They, therefore making their offerings at the appointed <opportune times>, <are> acceptable and blessed; for following the <prescriptions> of the Master, they do not sin. For to the archpriest have been given[[75]] proper services, and to the priests the proper place has been assigned, and upon <the> levites lie proper <attendant services>; the layman[[76]] has been given to lay assignments.
Notes
70. "having curved in": <That> this is the genuine reading, however not "having curved out", as has Clement of Alexandria <in> "Miscellanies", book 4, chapter 16, page 613, Potter indicates. Thus also below <at> chapter 53, "Curve in towards the sayings of God". And Bois already earlier had seen it.--The same <sc. Gallandi>
71. "all things in order, etc.": The editions thus <punctuate> this passage: "all things--he commanded; according to <opportune times>, etc." Wotton, however, punctuated as in Clement of Alexandria, whom here we also follow. The same thing pleased Davies[[him???]] also.--The same <sc. Gallandi>
72. "the offerings, etc.": Those <words>, <with> the position of two words changed, Davies would prefer thus <to be read>: "The offerings and public services not at random or disorderly he commanded to be accomplished and to occur, but at the defined opportune times and hours".--The same <sc. Gallandi>
--"offerings": <It is sufficiently established that> "gifts, offerings", and <that> which comes back to the same <meaning>, "odor of sweet-smelling", are words received in the New Testament; but whether they are used through metaphor and rather charming twistings of figurative speech, or they were admitted completely from the common usage and received practice of the Church, <is to be investigated> more deeply. And indeed if the <Apostolic> Canons, <section> 2, which hold forth the name of the apostles, <if> [<they had>] those or at least this Clement our (what is accustomed to be said by certain ones) author, no place for doubt would remain. For the third canon thus says: "If a bishop or priest in violation of the arrangement of the Lord should <for the purpose of sacrifice> bring to the altar something other than honey, or milk, or fermented drink in place of wine, or birds, or other animals, or pulse in violation of the arrangement, let him be removed; except for new <unripe wheaten-groats> or a bunch of grapes in needful time", etc. But since indeed about the trustworthiness of those canons it is doubted, it should be observed that in the first times not only on individual <Sundays>, in the assembly of Christians mandated by the divine Paul, a collection of money <on behalf> of the poor had been instituted; but also certain first-fruits were brought to the sacred table under the name of gift or oblation. Hence more often in this epistle itself the mention of the offering; where also the bishops are described by this character and statement, that they are <ones having brought forth> the gifts[[A]]. In which sense the inspired Ignatius <of Antioch>, <with> Daillé the <old flogger>[[B]] of the holy Fathers not at all contradicting, said to the Smyrnaeans, that is was not allowed without a bishop "neither to baptize, nor to bring forth <offerings>, nor to carry forth a sacrifice". Nor otherwise does Justin Martyr in the "Apology" <section> 2 with eloquent words name "offerings" both the elements applied to the Eucharist and destined for sending blessings to the absent. But most openly of all Irenaeus, <in> book 4, chapter 39, follows up the whole matter: he says, "The Lord giving to his disciples the counsel to offer first-fruits to God from his creatures, not as <God being> needful, but that they themselves neither fruitless nor ungrateful, <etc.>", which he more frequently presses upon <in> chapters 33 and 34 and elsewhere here and there. To which things the blessed Cyprian agrees <in> "On works and alms", which Augustine quite described <in> sermon 13 "On the times". And on account of this cause, the word offerings so frequently occurs among the most ancient Father of the Church, especially where <it is treated> of the mysteries of the Eucharist, that even in the "Roman Missal", and in fact even in the solemn office of our Anglican Church <it> is even now retained. Of course, so that the most sacred mysteries of the Eucharist could totally be seen <as> the peaceful things or pacific, it was proper that he who effected sacred things, offered his resources to God, and when he took part of the same things, brought to the sacred table he became a table companion of the Godhead, and was able, so that I may use the words of the divine Paul, "to take part of the altar". Furthermore, it should be adverted that that originally was not only of the Eucharist, but also of offerings a [<religious ceremony>], such that to be detained from it was held <as> a stage of banishment or excommunication; and accordingly among the sacred canons, especially the Ancyran, fellowship without offering used to be imposed <as> a mark of rather strict judgment and separation, howsoever this was <not quite> observed by learned men. Since indeed it would result in the most grave penalty of inexpiable crime, if for someone that censure were prolonged after death, nor in the faith of conceded forgiveness were offerings received in the name of the deceased as if for restitution; so <sc. offerings> to be bestowed for God and for sacred <sc. rites> were held, <when> the Church was nascent, not <as> wasteful expense, but <as> privilege and gain.--Fell
--There is someone who would that these <words> all be of a bad stamp, up to the end of the chapter, and <who> sends the reader off to Clement of Alexandria, page 518. He says, you have the same things among the apostolic constitutions, as they are called.--Bernard
73. "defined opportune times": "For all things a time is determined and an opportunity for all business under heaven", says the wise man <in> Ecclesiastes 3:1. It is earnestly to be grieved, if the most unimportant duties of life have occasions prepared for themselves, that piety alone, in whose obedience life itself was given up, should be excluded from the boundaries of time. In fact, the seventh day for the human race <since the creation of the world>, by the greatest, that is, his own command God wished <to be> sacred. Whence after in the resurrection of the same <sc. God> he had instituted the new epoch of the reborn world, he granted it with the same privileges and the religion of the Lord's <sc. day> was made sacrosanct. In fact also since indeed our Savior wished the piety of his own disciples to surpass the <virtuous actions> of the followers of Moses, among whom beyond the <established rites> of the Sabbath the second and fifth <day from the Sabbath> were held sacred, lest, as Maimonides says, <in> "Prayer and priests' blessing"[[C]], chapter 12, note 1, "<it> be ceased from hearing by a space of three days" (whence flowed the custom of fasting twice of the Sabbath, the mention of which <is in> Luke 18:12), <it> was suitable that at least with the same intervals, among <those who had professed> the Christian religion, they render sacred duties, which at any rate <was> done, of course, <with> days of fasts moved up to the fourth and sixth; which here and there from Tertullian we learn, and also from Clement of Alexandria, who <constantly calls> them "fourth and preparation" or "of Hermes and of Aphrodite"; although <it> is long from when the Roman Church departed from this most ancient practice. In smaller intervals of time, the reasoning is completely similar; for those, which had been accepted in the Jewish Church, <sc. those> times not only by our Lord, but moreover by the apostles, we see <as> acknowledged, accordingly <in> Acts 3:1, "the hour of the <petitionary prayer>", for the purpose of established ritual, is said[[D]] in clear words to have led the divine Peter and John to the temple. In the Synagogue, although it is advised by no law of prayer, on individual days three times of them <sc. prayer> would recur: "The three prayers are found on every day: evening and morning and afternoon," Maimonides <in the Book of the Strong> Hand, "On the Priests' prayer and blessing", chapter 1, <section> 8, which also <having been> received by the customs of the Christian church, Tertullian in the "Book on fasts", Cyprian "On Oratory", <and also> Jerome <in letters> to Laeta and to Demetrias forbid us to be ignorant of. Not unjustly can be added to these <the fact that> the usage of the sacred hours was so outstanding towards promoting the purposes of piety, that Julian the Apostate, after he had <it> as <firmly ascertained> that the Christian faith could not be overcome by force and injuries, and he decreed that <it> be destroyed by imitation, he took care that "organized prayers of specified hours and days" be interspersed into his paganism, <as> Sozomen <testifies>, book 9, chapter 15, which also Apollonius of Tyana had done we learn from Philostratus <in> book 4, chapter 8, of his <sc. Apollonius's> Life. That among the Turks the same custom prevails, no one is ignorant.--Fell
74. "the things happening": Thus <reads> the manuscript <according to> Wotton. The editions all <unanimously> omit "the".--Gallandi
75. "For to the archpriest have been given proper services": Our apostolic <author, sc. Clement> would not so have praised the order and diverse duties of the pontiff, priests, levites, and laymen, if, <to the extent that> it pleases the heterodox, the Christian religion had abolished the pontificate, and had wished none to be the particular duty of the pontiff, which <duty> not also <were suitable> to priests <and> also to pontiffs themselves. He praises, since <according to Jerome teaching> [<in book> 2 against Jovinian, <section> 15, and epistle 85], in both Testaments the pontiff has one order, the priests another, the levites another, and by the apostolic traditions descending from the old law, the bishops, presbyters, and deacons succeed Aaron and his sons and the levites.--Cotelier
76: "layman": No servitude is so <given over to>, so wretched, as <of the one being a slave> to supposition[[E]]. Otherwise, the most learned men Salmasius and Selden, that I may pass over other critics of lesser people given over to the sentiments of Calvin or Erastus, never so gravely in the skill which they professed would have fallen, so that they endured to say that "presbyters were once laymen, and the word 'lay', insofar as it was <distinguished in opposition> to clergy, prevailed rather late in the Church". I do not bring up the passages of Ignatius <of Antioch>, since indeed the innovators, when they are pressed by his authority, briefly extricate themselves by saying that he is <not genuine> or is interpolated.--Fell
My Notes
A. The Greek verb "prosferw" and its various are under discussion here. This word can be translated as "bring forth" or "offer".
B. He is called "Orbilius", a literary reference to a strict schoolmaster of the poet Horace.
C. The Hebrew title is transliterated here into Latin.
D. Migne's text has "dictam est". This seems to be a common error for "dictum est", possibly due to the similarity between lower-case "u" and "a".
E. I'm not sure why this is in Greek.
Notes
70. "having curved in": <That> this is the genuine reading, however not "having curved out", as has Clement of Alexandria <in> "Miscellanies", book 4, chapter 16, page 613, Potter indicates. Thus also below <at> chapter 53, "Curve in towards the sayings of God". And Bois already earlier had seen it.--The same <sc. Gallandi>
71. "all things in order, etc.": The editions thus <punctuate> this passage: "all things--he commanded; according to <opportune times>, etc." Wotton, however, punctuated as in Clement of Alexandria, whom here we also follow. The same thing pleased Davies[[him???]] also.--The same <sc. Gallandi>
72. "the offerings, etc.": Those <words>, <with> the position of two words changed, Davies would prefer thus <to be read>: "The offerings and public services not at random or disorderly he commanded to be accomplished and to occur, but at the defined opportune times and hours".--The same <sc. Gallandi>
--"offerings": <It is sufficiently established that> "gifts, offerings", and <that> which comes back to the same <meaning>, "odor of sweet-smelling", are words received in the New Testament; but whether they are used through metaphor and rather charming twistings of figurative speech, or they were admitted completely from the common usage and received practice of the Church, <is to be investigated> more deeply. And indeed if the <Apostolic> Canons, <section> 2, which hold forth the name of the apostles, <if> [<they had>] those or at least this Clement our (what is accustomed to be said by certain ones) author, no place for doubt would remain. For the third canon thus says: "If a bishop or priest in violation of the arrangement of the Lord should <for the purpose of sacrifice> bring to the altar something other than honey, or milk, or fermented drink in place of wine, or birds, or other animals, or pulse in violation of the arrangement, let him be removed; except for new <unripe wheaten-groats> or a bunch of grapes in needful time", etc. But since indeed about the trustworthiness of those canons it is doubted, it should be observed that in the first times not only on individual <Sundays>, in the assembly of Christians mandated by the divine Paul, a collection of money <on behalf> of the poor had been instituted; but also certain first-fruits were brought to the sacred table under the name of gift or oblation. Hence more often in this epistle itself the mention of the offering; where also the bishops are described by this character and statement, that they are <ones having brought forth> the gifts[[A]]. In which sense the inspired Ignatius <of Antioch>, <with> Daillé the <old flogger>[[B]] of the holy Fathers not at all contradicting, said to the Smyrnaeans, that is was not allowed without a bishop "neither to baptize, nor to bring forth <offerings>, nor to carry forth a sacrifice". Nor otherwise does Justin Martyr in the "Apology" <section> 2 with eloquent words name "offerings" both the elements applied to the Eucharist and destined for sending blessings to the absent. But most openly of all Irenaeus, <in> book 4, chapter 39, follows up the whole matter: he says, "The Lord giving to his disciples the counsel to offer first-fruits to God from his creatures, not as <God being> needful, but that they themselves neither fruitless nor ungrateful, <etc.>", which he more frequently presses upon <in> chapters 33 and 34 and elsewhere here and there. To which things the blessed Cyprian agrees <in> "On works and alms", which Augustine quite described <in> sermon 13 "On the times". And on account of this cause, the word offerings so frequently occurs among the most ancient Father of the Church, especially where <it is treated> of the mysteries of the Eucharist, that even in the "Roman Missal", and in fact even in the solemn office of our Anglican Church <it> is even now retained. Of course, so that the most sacred mysteries of the Eucharist could totally be seen <as> the peaceful things or pacific, it was proper that he who effected sacred things, offered his resources to God, and when he took part of the same things, brought to the sacred table he became a table companion of the Godhead, and was able, so that I may use the words of the divine Paul, "to take part of the altar". Furthermore, it should be adverted that that originally was not only of the Eucharist, but also of offerings a [<religious ceremony>], such that to be detained from it was held <as> a stage of banishment or excommunication; and accordingly among the sacred canons, especially the Ancyran, fellowship without offering used to be imposed <as> a mark of rather strict judgment and separation, howsoever this was <not quite> observed by learned men. Since indeed it would result in the most grave penalty of inexpiable crime, if for someone that censure were prolonged after death, nor in the faith of conceded forgiveness were offerings received in the name of the deceased as if for restitution; so <sc. offerings> to be bestowed for God and for sacred <sc. rites> were held, <when> the Church was nascent, not <as> wasteful expense, but <as> privilege and gain.--Fell
--There is someone who would that these <words> all be of a bad stamp, up to the end of the chapter, and <who> sends the reader off to Clement of Alexandria, page 518. He says, you have the same things among the apostolic constitutions, as they are called.--Bernard
73. "defined opportune times": "For all things a time is determined and an opportunity for all business under heaven", says the wise man <in> Ecclesiastes 3:1. It is earnestly to be grieved, if the most unimportant duties of life have occasions prepared for themselves, that piety alone, in whose obedience life itself was given up, should be excluded from the boundaries of time. In fact, the seventh day for the human race <since the creation of the world>, by the greatest, that is, his own command God wished <to be> sacred. Whence after in the resurrection of the same <sc. God> he had instituted the new epoch of the reborn world, he granted it with the same privileges and the religion of the Lord's <sc. day> was made sacrosanct. In fact also since indeed our Savior wished the piety of his own disciples to surpass the <virtuous actions> of the followers of Moses, among whom beyond the <established rites> of the Sabbath the second and fifth <day from the Sabbath> were held sacred, lest, as Maimonides says, <in> "Prayer and priests' blessing"[[C]], chapter 12, note 1, "<it> be ceased from hearing by a space of three days" (whence flowed the custom of fasting twice of the Sabbath, the mention of which <is in> Luke 18:12), <it> was suitable that at least with the same intervals, among <those who had professed> the Christian religion, they render sacred duties, which at any rate <was> done, of course, <with> days of fasts moved up to the fourth and sixth; which here and there from Tertullian we learn, and also from Clement of Alexandria, who <constantly calls> them "fourth and preparation" or "of Hermes and of Aphrodite"; although <it> is long from when the Roman Church departed from this most ancient practice. In smaller intervals of time, the reasoning is completely similar; for those, which had been accepted in the Jewish Church, <sc. those> times not only by our Lord, but moreover by the apostles, we see <as> acknowledged, accordingly <in> Acts 3:1, "the hour of the <petitionary prayer>", for the purpose of established ritual, is said[[D]] in clear words to have led the divine Peter and John to the temple. In the Synagogue, although it is advised by no law of prayer, on individual days three times of them <sc. prayer> would recur: "The three prayers are found on every day: evening and morning and afternoon," Maimonides <in the Book of the Strong> Hand, "On the Priests' prayer and blessing", chapter 1, <section> 8, which also <having been> received by the customs of the Christian church, Tertullian in the "Book on fasts", Cyprian "On Oratory", <and also> Jerome <in letters> to Laeta and to Demetrias forbid us to be ignorant of. Not unjustly can be added to these <the fact that> the usage of the sacred hours was so outstanding towards promoting the purposes of piety, that Julian the Apostate, after he had <it> as <firmly ascertained> that the Christian faith could not be overcome by force and injuries, and he decreed that <it> be destroyed by imitation, he took care that "organized prayers of specified hours and days" be interspersed into his paganism, <as> Sozomen <testifies>, book 9, chapter 15, which also Apollonius of Tyana had done we learn from Philostratus <in> book 4, chapter 8, of his <sc. Apollonius's> Life. That among the Turks the same custom prevails, no one is ignorant.--Fell
74. "the things happening": Thus <reads> the manuscript <according to> Wotton. The editions all <unanimously> omit "the".--Gallandi
75. "For to the archpriest have been given proper services": Our apostolic <author, sc. Clement> would not so have praised the order and diverse duties of the pontiff, priests, levites, and laymen, if, <to the extent that> it pleases the heterodox, the Christian religion had abolished the pontificate, and had wished none to be the particular duty of the pontiff, which <duty> not also <were suitable> to priests <and> also to pontiffs themselves. He praises, since <according to Jerome teaching> [<in book> 2 against Jovinian, <section> 15, and epistle 85], in both Testaments the pontiff has one order, the priests another, the levites another, and by the apostolic traditions descending from the old law, the bishops, presbyters, and deacons succeed Aaron and his sons and the levites.--Cotelier
76: "layman": No servitude is so <given over to>, so wretched, as <of the one being a slave> to supposition[[E]]. Otherwise, the most learned men Salmasius and Selden, that I may pass over other critics of lesser people given over to the sentiments of Calvin or Erastus, never so gravely in the skill which they professed would have fallen, so that they endured to say that "presbyters were once laymen, and the word 'lay', insofar as it was <distinguished in opposition> to clergy, prevailed rather late in the Church". I do not bring up the passages of Ignatius <of Antioch>, since indeed the innovators, when they are pressed by his authority, briefly extricate themselves by saying that he is <not genuine> or is interpolated.--Fell
My Notes
A. The Greek verb "prosferw" and its various are under discussion here. This word can be translated as "bring forth" or "offer".
B. He is called "Orbilius", a literary reference to a strict schoolmaster of the poet Horace.
C. The Hebrew title is transliterated here into Latin.
D. Migne's text has "dictam est". This seems to be a common error for "dictum est", possibly due to the similarity between lower-case "u" and "a".
E. I'm not sure why this is in Greek.
