https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...56090cf01d844c8b033a4/1715822736445/shift.pdf
Summary: in the first three centuries. Christians
oppose temples, along with the worship, altars, sacrifices, and images that commonly accompany them. Since God now dwells in the human heart,
Christians honor Him by living righteous and holy lives.
Shift #1: The Lord’s Supper is a Sacrifice
Justin Martyr (ca. AD 160) identifies the eucharist as a “sacrifice” that Christians offer to God. This connection is odd, because in the NT, the Lord’s Supper represents Jesus’s sacrifice for us, not our sacrifice for God.
Shift #2: Ministers Become Priests
If the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice that is offered, then the person who offers that sacrifice must be a priest.
Shift #3: Christians Build Holy Temples
The literal application of OT temple terminology is not complete until a building becomes “a temple.”
Up until about 250 A.D., Christians primarily met in homes. In the late third century, in the places where they actually built meeting houses, these buildings were called “places of instruction,” “houses of prayer,” and “houses of assembly” where they would “perform their customs.”
Eusebius (ca. AD 320): Christians are described as conducting “worship” in church (a building, instead of the assembly of Christians in a community). He also refers to a church building as a “temple” many times in reference to the Constantinian church buildings, often comparing the new churches to the glory of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
The Cause of the Shift
After being persecuted, slaughtered, and ridiculed for three centuries Christians found reason to claim their own sacrifices, altars, priesthood , and temples, they could gain long-sought social approval.
The tendency among early church fathers to engage in typological and allegorical exegesis in their desire to connect the two Testaments.
Finally, the shift may have been motivated by church leaders who sought to elevate their position in the church.