In the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107 AD) we find that the Eucharist was only to be offered by the bishop or his delegate (presumably the presbyters). The bishop was certainly the “high priest.” Today we say he has the “fullness of holy orders.” But the priests and deacons, then as now, share in the clerical state. As the Church grew, it became necessary for the ordinary celebration of the Mass to fall to the presbyters.

The Greek Fathers got it. As far back as Clement of Rome (67 AD?), but especially in the later documents called “church orders,” we find the ranks of Christian clergy compared the the high priest, priests, and levites of the Old Testament.

I hope this answers the question in your next-to-last paragraph.

I don’t know what St. Hilary would make of today’s Catholic Church. I suspect he would think of it exactly as he thought of the fourth-century Catholic Church, with all its glories and all its struggles. I see no substantial differences.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.ii.iii.i.html

In it, it says that until the 4th century, the word sacerdos in Latin was generally used to mean Bishop, not priest. What do you think of this shift in meaning in the term sacerdos, and how does one come to grips with it, if it occurred?

This raises an interesting question about the development of tradition regarding bishops and priests. Would it be true to say that the “distribution of communion by priests” (as referenced in the article, making priests in the first to fourth centuries somewhat like EMHCs nowadays) was replace later, by a notion of priests “celebrating mass” completely on their own?

Just wondering, what would St. Hilary make of today’s Catholic Church?

Warren