In the Constitutions the deacons hold the book of the Gospels over the person to be consecrated.
[3]
The Jewish background of this prayer is extremely marked, and 2-3 may well have been taken bodily from some synagogue formula; Christianity is regarded as the orderly continuation of Old Testament Judaism.
4. “Royal” (more precisely “princely”) renders ἡγεμονικός, taken from the Septuagint version of Psalm 51. 12 (50. 14).
The Epitome’s abbreviation in this passage avoids suggesting that until a definite moment the Son did not possess the Spirit (Connolly, p. 151). The unabbreviated text is practically only a combination of Matthew 3. 16 and John 20. 22, but the result is so definitely anti-modalistic that it is probably the work of Hippolytus; the language is over-precise for a prayer.
5. “Thou who knowest the hearts of all” is from Acts 1. 24, but such exact Scriptural language is more characteristic of the fourth century than the third. While the emphasis is on the bishop’s offering the “gifts”, his prayers for his flock are certainly not excluded as part of his high-priestly ministry (Hebrews 7. 25, etc.).
6. The “odour of sweet savour” is the offering of a holy life, as in Romans 12. 1.
[7.] The doxology is that given in the Epitome and presupposed in the Canons and Testament, with the substitution of “through whom” (so the other sources) for “with whom” (a peculiarity of the Epitomist). After “honour” the Latin and Ethiopic insert “to the Father and the Son”. “Servant” as a liturgical title for Christ comes from Acts 4. 27, 30; the later versions naturally substitute “Son”.
The Sahidic and the Arabic omit the consecration prayer entirely, presumably because it did not accord with local use. The Canons paraphrase Hippolytus’s form slightly; the Constitutions and the Testament enlarge it greatly. For the sake of comparison Sarapion’s prayer may be given:
Thou who didst send the Lord Jesus for the gain of the whole world, thou who didst through him choose the apostles, thou who generation by generation didst ordain holy bishops, O God of truth, make this bishop also a living bishop, worthy (?) of the succession of the holy apostles, and give to him grace and divine Spirit, that thou didst freely give to all thine own servants and prophets and patriarchs: make him to be worthy to shepherd thy flock, and let him still continue unblamably and unoffendingly in the bishopric.