Since extempore prayer was still largely practised ([4]), the contents of the Christian thanksgivings naturally varied widely, but it would appear inevitable that at first, in accord with Christ’s example, God’s provision of food for men was the normal topic: the beautiful prayer in the Didache is formed on this model, which Hippolytus follows closely in [chapters 5-6]. But the thought of food in the bread and wine was overshadowed by the thought of redemption, and even in the Didache the earthly species only typify the salvation wrought in Christ. In [chapter 4] of Hippolytus the “table” form of the blessing is abandoned altogether for the praise of Christ’s redeeming works, and the same is true of practically all later liturgies. As is entirely natural, Hippolytus’s thanksgiving concludes with reciting the work of Christ most vividly in mind at the moment: his institution of the rite that the church was engaged in celebrating.[170]
The evidence of the later liturgies shows us that the purely Christian objects of thanksgiving in Hippolytus were by no means the only ones for which God was blessed; thanks could be given with entire appropriateness to the Father for any of His benefits from creation on. For such prayers Jewish synagogue formulas provided models that were freely utilized; compare, e.g., Constitutions VII, 33-38. These thanksgivings often included (VII, 35, 3) or culminated in the hymn of Isaiah 6. 3 (“Sanctus”), and in this way this hymn passed into the Christian eucharistic prayers, to become an all but universal feature in them. In the liturgy in the Constitutions it stands at a place that shows its origin, at the close of the (Jewish) thanksgivings for Old Testament benefits (VIII, 12, 27) and before the (Christian) thanksgivings for Christ’s incarnate acts.
After the completion of the thanksgiving (4. 10) Hippolytus makes certain additions. [4. 11] declares that in performing the rite the church remembers Christ according to his command: this is the germ of what in the later liturgies is known as the “anamnesis”. And the offering is formally presented to God; this likewise reoccurs regularly and is called the “oblation”. Either or both of these features could have been used in any eucharistic prayer from the earliest time.
4. 12, however, shows a later concept. In the age of Hippolytus the consecratory effect of thanksgiving was growing unfamiliar, and a special petition was thought needful in order that the bread and wine might truly be made “a communion” of the body and blood of Christ. The liturgy’s thought is simple: if earthly food is truly to become “spiritual” food,[171] God must send upon it the Spirit. The prayer is phrased accordingly, and is the first known instance of what is technically known as the “invocation”, universal in Eastern liturgies, although absent from the present Roman. But the testimony of Irenaeus shows that in the late second century at Rome the invocation was regarded as the truly consecratory formula,[172] and Hippolytus continues Irenaeus’ tradition.
Hippolytus’s use of the invocation shows that only bread and wine are offered to God at the oblation. For his doctrine of communion see on [23. 1].
[4]
2. “All the presbytery” join with the bishop in offering the gifts; the “concelebration” of a later terminology. The custom is derived from a time when the local monarchical episcopate was not yet established and the presbyters were normal officiants at worship.[173] They act in their corporate capacity; compare on [chapter 8].
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.