The Assault on Priesthood: A Biblical and Theological Rejoinder

By Lawrence B. Porter

The concept and institution of priesthood in the Catholic Church has been the subject of serious challenge not only since the time of the Protestant Reformation but also, more recently, from within the Catholic Church, as the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and theologians afterward have reconsidered the place and function of priests in relation to both bishops and laity. In dialogue with those challenges, and by means of research into Scripture and the theological tradition--patristic, medieval, and modern--the author of this book considers classic images of priests and priestly ministry as a way of recovering an understanding of the priesthood that is at once both biblically and theological sound.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Jul 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781630876067

Lawrence B. Porter

Lawrence B. Porter, PhD, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Systematic Theology in the Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He is the author of A Guide to the Church: Its Origin and Nature, Its Mission and Ministries (2008).

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The Assault on Priesthood

A Biblical and Theological Rejoinder

Lawrence B. Porter

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The Assault on Priesthood

A Biblical and Theological Rejoinder

Copyright © 2012 Lawrence B. Porter. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 1986 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner.

Nihil Obstat: Rev. Msgr. Charles W. Gusmer, S.T.D., Censor Librorum.

Imprimatur: +Most Rev. John J. Myers, D.D., J.C.D., Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, March 15, 2012.

The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.

For those priests who have labored long and hard Often in difficult circumstances and with little thanks or recognition And especially those who remained faithful when The august profession was attacked from every side,May you continue to trust in the promise of the Lord:I will lavish choice portions on the priests. (Jer 31:14)

Acknowledgments

I thank several of my colleagues on the faculty and in the administration of Seton Hall University for the encouragement and assistance they have provided me during the writing of this book: Father Lawrence Frizzell, D. Phil., associate professor and program director of Jewish Christian Studies has been especially helpful in guiding me with rabbinic sources; Father Pablo Gadenz, S.S.L., S.T.D., assistant professor of Biblical Studies in the Seminary School of Theology has offered expert counsel regarding scriptural questions; Monsignor Anthony Ziccardi, S.S.L., S.T.D., the university’s vice-president for mission and member of the Seminary School of Theology’s Biblical Studies department, read and commented on parts of the text; Father Thomas Guarino, S.T.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in the Seminary School of Theology has been an endless source of encouragement and sage advice. And thus any errors in this book should be attributed to me alone.

Introduction

The History of the Assault and the Rationale of This Rejoinder

It could well be argued that priesthood, along with kingship and prophecy, is one of the great and enduring archetypes of human experience. By this I mean not only did priesthood, prophecy, and kingship appear early in human history but to this day we have significant examples of each in our midst. No doubt, certain and serious qualifications have to be made with regard to the contemporary character of these ancient, perhaps eternal, archetypes. For example, while there are still some kings among us, today most kings reign but do not rule. As for prophecy, false prophets have always been a problem. And today when prophetic voices abound, the very abundance of these voices often creates more confusion than understanding because today prophetic voices can be found on every side of every issue. As for the institution of priesthood, though it still has several important expressions—the Brahmans of Hinduism, the lamas of Tibetan Buddhism, the kennushi of Shinto, and the principal clergy of Orthodox and Catholic Christianity—today there are significant challenges to both the concept and institution of priesthood. In Tibet the challenge comes externally from political oppression. But in Catholic Christianity both the idea and the institution of priesthood have been challenged, and in Catholic Christianity the challenges have come not only from outside but also from within. To understand this latest assault on priesthood, we need to see it within the broad context of the history of priesthood in general and more specifically within the Christian tradition. And so here, after some initial observations regarding the phenomenon of priesthood in the history of religions, we look at the origin and development of priesthood in the biblical traditions of both Old and New Testaments and then the evolution of the concept of priesthood in Christian thought both ancient and modern. After that survey we describe the origin and character of the current assault and propose a strategic response to it.

Priesthood in the History of Religions

In terms of comparative religion, a priest can be defined as that individual who not only discerns and communicates the will of God but can effectively mediate between the divine and humankind. This is because, as a priest, he knows how to present a sacrificial offering so that it becomes the most eloquent expression of grateful praise to a gracious god, or the most effective means of expressing sorrow and contrition before offended deity. This idea has found significant expression in the general history of religions, both in the ancient past and even to this day.

The academic discipline of history of religions demonstrates how the ancient world was full of priestly cults. No doubt atheism has always been an option. The Bible itself witnesses to this truth. See Ps 53:1, The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ In classical Greece, the philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC), who espoused a philosophy of atomic materialism, gave atheism a certain intellectual character. Nevertheless, all evidence suggests earliest human beings were not only markedly religious but, from early on, primitive human beings were quick to intuit the special importance of sacrificial offerings. Moreover, cultural historians have also made it clear to us that it is not just among primitive societies that priesthood and sacrifice are observable. Indeed, there is considerable evidence to illustrate the fact that in the most sophisticated societies of the ancient world, Greece and Rome, priesthood and sacrifice were not just a prominent aspect of public life but also the object of the highest philosophical inquiry.

For example, Athens of the fifth century before Christ is now regarded as one of the most remarkable periods in the history of human development, a time when science, medicine, politics, and theater were all being invented. But at that same time, Pericles (495–429 BC), the great military commander and statesman, ordered the construction of a great temple at Athens, the Parthenon, at the pinnacle of the city. Although the outline of this temple towers over Athens to this day, it is in London’s British Museum that one can view a relief sculpture from the south frieze of the Parthenon that depicts the sacrificial rite of cattle being led to slaughter. Consider also how Plato (427–347 BC) dedicated an entire dialogue to a consideration of priesthood and sacrifice. Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro presents us with yet another archetype of human experience: the religious zealot. The title character is a young Athenian whose religious enthusiasm leads him to assume the role of the priest, for as he himself says, I speak in the assembly on religious matters and predict the future for them.¹ The assembly he refers to is the Athenian political assembly and his predicting the future is a reference to his performing the priestly rite of divination. His religious enthusiasm is such that he is intent on offering his father as an expiatory sacrifice. But his interlocutor in this dialogue, Socrates, challenges the young man regarding the nature of true piety and the role of sacrifice therein.

And so it was for Roman civilization. Not only did Julius Caesar, in his Commentaries on the Gallic War, describe the work of Druid priests, but he himself served for a time as Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of Roman religion.² And when Caesar’s nephew Octavian put an end to the thirty years of civil war that followed upon his uncle’s assassination, a grateful Roman senate ordered the construction of an altar to peace at which Octavian, now Caesar Augustus, was the first to offer sacrifice (a scene observable to this day on a sculptured relief on that very same altar, now preserved in its own museum on the banks of the Tiber at Rome). But it is also important to consider how at Rome too priesthood and cult were not just observed but subjected to serious philosophical scrutiny. In that regard, consider Cicero’s dialogue On the Nature of the Gods. There, unlike in Plato’s Euthyphro, the principal interlocutor is not a young and zealous priest but an old and skeptical one, the Roman pontiff Gaius Aurelius Cotta. The dialogue consists of a conversation among three characters, Veilleius, Balbus and Cotta. Cicero is for the most part a silent auditor. During the dialogue it becomes clear that Cotta’s philosophical learning leads him not only to criticize any naive anthropomorphism of the gods and express considerable skepticism regarding divine providence and the effectiveness of religious rites, but he also expresses his doubt regarding the very existence of the gods. But Cicero in his concluding words makes it clear he does not share the old priest’s impiety.³ While the priesthoods of the ancient Greeks and Romans have all disappeared, there are yet numerous priesthoods that function in the world today, for example, I have already noted the priesthoods of Hinduism, Shinto, and Tibetan Buddhism. But one could well argue it is within Christianity that the doctrines of priesthood and sacrifice have undergone their most serious intellectual and moral probing. That is, while the phenomena of priesthood and sacrifice are basic to comparative religion, though they can be found almost everywhere and always, even to this day, the concepts of priesthood and sacrifice have experienced a very significant and, arguably, a unique development in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, here I hope to demonstrate how this development in Christianity poses a challenge to all these other priesthoods and all other forms of sacrifice.

Priesthood in the Bible

The Bible, in its portrayal of the religious character of the primitive human being, is at one with the evidence of cultural anthropology. That is, the Bible itself portrays earliest man, Cain and Abel (Gen 4:3–4), and the ancient Hebrew patriarchs Noah (Gen 8:20) and Abraham (Gen 22:13), all offering sacrifice long before the appearance of a formal priesthood in Israel. But the Bible also witnesses to the establishment of a priestly caste and cult at the very command of God himself to Moses on Sinai (Gen 29) and to the growth of this professional priesthood and sacrificial cult into one of the major religious institutions of ancient Israel. But the biblical story of priesthood does not end with the Old Testament, for the New Testament witnesses to the paramount importance of the concepts of priesthood and sacrifice for the Christian tradition. This is to say, not only was the institution of temple priesthood one of the most prominent expressions of Old Testament religion but the concepts of priesthood and sacrifice were appropriated and applied early in the Christian movement as essential tools for understanding the death of Jesus, the life of his followers, and the work of certain Christian ministers.

One of the earliest literary works of the Christian movement, Paul’s First Letter to the Church at Corinth, written about the year 56, describes Jesus as employing cultic language at his last supper with his disciples. And one should not underestimate the importance of that choice of words: Jesus’ option for cultic language. Indeed, one could argue that when Jesus of Nazareth, at his last meal with his disciples, took the cup and said this is the New Covenant in my blood (1 Cor 11:25), he initiated the central rite of the Christian faith. For, while baptism is of fundamental importance, it is nevertheless a once-and-for-all event; whereas the Eucharist, according to 1 Cor 11:24, is to be celebrated repeatedly in memory of him. Moreover, Jesus’ words over the bread and cup at his last supper contain an implicit challenge to all other priesthoods and sacrifices. More precisely, his words there strongly suggest that the only sacrifice that really works is one’s self; thus the sacrifice of Christ became a challenge not just to the sacrificial cult of the Jerusalem temple but to all other sacrificial rites in the history of religion, wherein everything but oneself had been offered—sheep and cattle, incense, oil and wine, even one’s child, enemy or neighbor. This theme of the priesthood of Christ comes in for extended treatment in the Epistle to the Hebrews when, in Heb 5:6, the line from messianic Psalm 110 (verse 4), which describes the Davidic Messiah as a priest as well as a king, is applied to Jesus: you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Twentieth-century scholar Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, in his work on The Priestly Office, insists the priesthood of Christ is not just a theme in the Epistle to the Hebrews, rather the idea of priesthood is pervasive in the New Testament descriptions of Jesus as the one who bore the sins of many and allowed his body to be broken and his blood poured forth on behalf of others.⁴ We must also consider the fact that in the first fifty years after the death of Christ, the one supreme sacrifice of Christ had been extended to become a moral lesson for all Christians. More precisely, in the New Testament we can see the beginning of not only the doctrine of the priesthood of Christ but of all his followers, as in Rom 12:1, I urge you . . . to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, or in 1 Pet 2:5 let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. We can also observe in the New Testament the beginning of yet another extension and development of this priestly theme in Paul’s use of cultic language to describe his own ministry. In Rom 15:16 Paul describes himself as a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in performing the priestly service of the gospel. But the most explicit and direct application of priestly imagery to Christian ministers and ministry came slightly later than Paul.

Priesthood in the Early Church

Despite Paul’s use of sacral or cultic language to describe his apostolic ministry, the New Testament language for early Christian ministers is not the language of cultic worship but of contemporary public and domestic service. Numerous commentators are quick to point out how the New Testament terms episkopos, presbyteros, diaconos (bishop, presbyter, deacon), used to describe certain ministries in the early Christian community, were loanwords from the Greek secular or domestic workplaces. An episkopos (literally overseer) was the secular Greek term for a municipal inspector. The word presbyter literally means elder and was used to refer to both the male head of a family and to those male heads of families who presided over community decisions. The word diakonos literally meant server and was used to refer to domestic servants who waited at table. Far fewer commentators note that the terms overseer and elder did have some religious usage. The word episkopos was used at times to designate the overseer of a temple. The term presbyter was used to refer to the lay board that oversaw the running of Jewish synagogues, and it also served as the designation for the heads of Jewish families who in the past had handed down sacred Jewish traditions (as in the expression the traditions of the elders). Nevertheless, it was in the work called The First Letter of Clement to the Church at Corinth, usually dated circa AD 95—that is, coterminous with the last works of the New Testament (the Johannine literature) at the end of the first generation of Christians and within twenty years of the deaths of Peter and Paul at Rome—that we see for the first time the general cultic language, which Paul used metaphorically to describe his own ministry, applied with much greater precision to refer to a range of Christian ministries.

Many scholars regard the author of the so-called First Letter of Clement as having been the overseer (episkopos) of the Christian community at Rome, its principal presiding elder. And because of his eminent position at Rome, he writes to the Christian community at Corinth to give them some authoritative advice regarding church disorder, advice that they sorely needed because of a problem that had arisen among them. It seems that in the Christian community at Corinth rivalries in ministry had led to the ouster of some duly appointed elders. And so in chapter 40, Clement lectures the Christians at Corinth regarding the authority and sacred character of such duly appointed elders. Clement not only insists this is an order given by the Lord but also compares the organization of Christian ministries according to the ranks of bishop, presbyter, and deacon to the hierarchy of the sacred ministries of high priest, priest, and Levite given to Moses by God (in Num 3:5–10):

We are bound to do in an orderly fashion all that the Master has bidden us to do at the proper times he set. He ordered sacrifices and services to be performed; and required this to be done, not in a careless and disorderly way, but at times and seasons he fixed. Where he wants them performed, and by whom, he himself fixed by his supreme will, so that everything should be done in a holy way and with his approval, and should be acceptable to his will. Those therefore, who make their offerings at the time set win his approval and blessing. For they follow the master’s orders and do no wrong. The high priest is given his particular duties; the priests are assigned their special place, while on the Levites particular tasks are imposed. The layman is bound by the layman’s code.⁵

Even more significantly, later on in this same First Letter of Clement to the Church at Corinth, Clement insists his is not just a descriptive analogy or poetic metaphor. Clement makes it clear there is a very real sense in which certain of these Christian ministers do indeed function as priests. He does this in First Clement 44.4 when he warns: For we shall be guilty of no slight sin if we eject from the episcopate men who have offered the sacrifices with innocence and holiness.⁶

Moreover, there is evidence that the title priest, applied to the bishop as the principal presiding elder of the local Christian community, was becoming a tradition not just at Rome but elsewhere. For example, there is Hippolytus’s The Apostolic Tradition.⁷ While there is some debate as to the authorship and character of this work, the majority of scholars support the claim that it was written at Rome in the early third century, that is, around the year 215, but it witnesses to liturgical practices at Rome that had become standard several decades earlier, that is, by the mid-second century, around the year 150. The man to whom the work is ascribed, Hippolytus (ca. 170–ca. 236), was a conservative presbyter of the Church at Rome who objected to what he felt was some doctrinal and disciplinary laxity on the part of his contemporary Pope Zephyrinus. Hippolytus, eager to make clear what, indeed, was "the apostolic tradition to be handed down, wrote a work bearing that very title. And in that work Hippolytus describes the ordination ritual traditionally used at Rome. There, in the ordination prayer for bishops, we hear the words, Father who knowest the heart, grant to this thy servant, whom Thou hast chosen for bishopric, to feed thy flock; and to exercise high priesthood (primatum sacerdotii) for thee."⁸ The term priest, as applied to Christian ministers, is also found in two early church orders, the Didache 13.3, a work that some scholars date as early as the late first century, and the Didascalia apostolorum 2.26.4, that is, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a work appearing about 230. Indeed, priest is found so often in the works of second- and third-century North African church fathers that many scholars believe priest was, from early on, the common designation for bishops in North Africa.

For example, priest as a Christian ministerial title is found numerous times in the works of Tertullian (ca. 160–ca.225): in his treatises De baptismo 17.1, De exhortatione castitatis (On exhortation to chastity) 11.1–2, De monogamia (On marrying only once) 12, De pudicitia (On modesty) 20.10; 21.17. Moreover, Tertullian’s use of the term priest is particularly telling because, while he insists we must recognize in certain Christian ministers the ministry of a priest ordained to his sacred office (Exhortation to Chastity 11.1–2),⁹ Tertullian is also keenly aware of the New Testament doctrine of the common priesthood of all the baptized. In fact, Tertullian is so strong on the common priesthood of all the baptized that when he applies the term priest to designate a bishop, he uses not the simple sacerdos but rather the more distinguished, summus sacerdos, high priest. We see this in his On Baptism 17.1, it remains to put you in mind also of the due observance of giving and receiving baptism. Of giving it, the chief priest who is the bishop has the right, in the next place the presbyters and deacons.¹⁰ But in his On Monogamy (ch.12), Tertullian also warns the laity against unduly exalting their claim to a common priesthood as when we are extolling and inflating ourselves in opposition to the clergy, by invoking such biblical passages as ‘we are all one,’ and ‘we are all priests, because he has made us priests to (His) God and Father.’¹¹ Tertullian is quoting from Gal 3:28 and Rev 1:6.

Yet another North African who employs the term priest to describe the principal Christian clergy is Origen of Alexandria. Take for example, his Homilies on Leviticus (there is common agreement that these homilies were delivered in a three year cycle sometime between 238 and 244). In those homilies, Origen continually draws comparisons between the Aaronid or Levitical priesthood and what he calls the priests of the Church (homily 6, pt. 6, para. 2)¹² or the priests of the Lord (homily 5.8.3).¹³

In the literary works of Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258), we see the term priest used regularly as a reference to bishops. In his Epistle 10, 1, he refers to the bishop as God’s Priest.¹⁴ In Epistle 11, 2, he speaks of reserving to the bishop the honor of his priesthood¹⁵ In Epistle 13, 1 he speaks of obeying the priests of God.¹⁶ There are numerous other such references, as in Epistle 34; 39, 4–5; 41, 1 and 2, to cite but a few. No doubt in most of these works the term priest is applied to bishops. The term priest as applied to presbyters would not become common for some time yet. This was because, at that time, Christianity was mostly an urban phenomenon and the Christian community would gather as one at a liturgy presided over by its bishop. We can see this in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 35–ca. 107), which are all addressed to Christian communities in urban centers such as Rome, Ephesus, Smyrna, Philadelphia, Tralles, etcetera. Even so, one of those letters, the epistle to the Church at Smyrna 8.1, witnesses to the fact that even then there were liturgies presided over by delegates of the bishop: Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints.¹⁷ Nevertheless, as Christianity grew to be a rural as well as an urban phenomenon, and presidency at the Eucharist began to be delegated regularly to presbyters, the cultic language of priest quickly came to be applied to presbyters.

Indeed, in the succeeding centuries Clement’s daring analogy between Christian ministry and Old Testament priesthood was probed, ratified, and extended. The foremost examples of this are three treatises on priesthood, one each by Gregory of Nazianzen (329–389), John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407), and Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444). All three of these theological treatises on the priesthood have an intellectually combative character. One was written in apologetic form and the two others were written in dialogue form, that is, like both Plato’s and Cicero’s works on priesthood, probing intellectual dialogues wherein various opinions, indeed, often clashing perspectives, are allowed to encounter each other. But most importantly, all three continue to expand and explore the analogy between the Christian ministries of bishop, presbyter, deacon, and Jewish temple hierarchy of high priest, priests, and Levites.

The earliest theological presentation of the priesthood is Gregory of Nazianzen’s work called In Defense of his Flight to Pontos.¹⁸ Gregory was born in the year 329 in Nazianzus in Cappadocia (modern day southern Turkey), where his father was the bishop. Young Gregory went off to Athens for his education, but upon his return to Cappadocia he retired in the hill country to become a monk. His father put great pressure on him to come out of monastic seclusion and help him with pastoral duties. Indeed, under pressure and against his will, Gregory was ordained a priest by his father in the year 361. Soon after however, he fled back to his monastic seclusion at Pontos. But by Easter of 362 he had returned to Nazianzus and delivered the apologetic oration called An Apology for his Flight to Pontos, an attempt to explain that the reason he had resisted ordination, and indeed fled so quickly after ordination, was not for any despising of the office but because he feared its numerous and awesome responsibilities. Indeed, one of the most revealing passages in the oration are the sections now numbered 93–96, wherein he compares his plight with that of the sons of two famous Old Testament priests, Aaron and Eli. The sons of Aaron and Eli proved themselves inadequate for priestly ministry.

The last of these three works is Cyril of Alexandria’s On Worship in Spirit and in Truth,¹⁹ written about the year 420, in the form of a dialogue between Cyril and a questioner Palladius. This work deals precisely with appropriateness of employing Old Testament cultic terminology such as high priest, priest, and Levite to Christian ministers. Palladius is troubled as to how one might reconcile two sayings of Jesus: Matt 7:17–18, I have come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them and John 4:23, true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. It seems to Palladius that the second implies the abolition rather than the completion of Jewish worship. In reply, Cyril gives an exegesis of a selection of passages from the Pentateuch in order to show how the law given to Moses, including all the cultic ceremonies and even the color of the threads in the priestly vestments, find their fulfillment in Christian beliefs and observances.

But the most influential of these three works is John Chrysostom’s Peri hierosunis or On the Priesthood, written sometime between AD 381 and 386. The work was written in the form of a probing dialogue between Chrysostom and his friend Basil. The precise identity of this Basil is a much disputed point. Nevertheless, in this dialogue Chrysostom tries to explain to his friend, who is a bishop, why Chrysostom himself always preferred the ascetic life and withdrawal from the crowds, despite pressures put upon him to assume the pastoral charge of a Christian minister. In one passage (bk. 3, art. 4), Chrysostom is trying to convey his temerity before what he regarded to be the awesome responsibility of the office. In this passage he draws a comparison between the spectacle of the Jewish high priest, entering the holy of holies with the blood of a sacrificial lamb on the great feast of the atonement, with the image of the presider at a Christian Eucharist, who has just distributed the host and the chalice. Some details in Chrysostom’s description of the high priest’s vestments need explanation, for example, his reference to the bells and the pomegranates, small ornaments sewn into the hem of the high priest’s robe (see Exod 39:24–25). The bells had a practical purpose. If they ceased to sound, it was the signal that the high priest, who entered in the inner sanctum alone, had either been struck dead or fainted:

The things, indeed, which preceded the law of grace were fearful and awe-inspiring: the bells, the pomegranates, the precious stones on the breast and on the shoulders, the girdle, the mitre, the garment reaching down to the feet, the plate of gold, the Holy of Holies and the solemn stillness within. But if you examine the things of the law of grace, you will find that those awful and awe-inspiring things are small in comparison, and that what was said of the law is true also here. For that which was glorious in this part was not glorified by reason of the glory that excelleth [2 Cor 3:10] For when you behold the Lord immolated and lying on the altar, and the priest standing over the sacrifice and praying, and all the people purpled by that precious blood, do you imagine that you are still on earth amongst men, and not rather rapt up to heaven; and casting away all worldly thought from your mind, do you not contemplate with a clean heart and pure mind the things of heaven? O miracle! O goodness of God! He that sitteth above with the Father is at that moment in the hands of all!²⁰

The passage quoted is of great theological and historical importance, and for several reasons. In its description of communion in the hand and congregational reception from the chalice, it is an important historical witness to early Christian worship practices. In its visually stunning image of Christians smeared with the blood of Christ, which purples their lips in the communion rite, it is an important witness to the development in the patristic era of the biblical doctrine of sacramental realism (John 6). But its image of the Lord immolated and lying on the altar, and the priest standing over the sacrifice and praying may have had even more influence. The rhetorical power of this entire passage helps us understand why later generations were quick to bestow on its author the epithet the golden mouthed. But it is more difficult to calculate the effect that this powerful visual image had on the later church, specifically, the church’s understanding of the Eucharist, or Memorial, of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice; and the identity of the presider at the Eucharist as a priest. As a witness to its early influence and prestige, we can point to the fact that it was On the Priesthood that gained Chrysostom an entry (ch. 129) among Jerome’s short notices on 135 Christian writers in his On Illustrious Men (written in AD 392).²¹ But Johannes Quasten witnesses to the much more extended influence of Chrysostom’s On the Priesthood when he says in his Patrology, vol. 3: No work of Chrysostom is better known and none has been more frequently translated and printed . . . it has ever been regarded as a classic on the priesthood and one of the finest treasures of Patristic literature.²² Moreover, we should call to mind the fact that, as late as the 1950s, seminarians in both Europe and America were often required to read Chrysostom’s On the Priesthood during the retreat on the eve of their priestly ordination.

Priesthood in the Middle Ages

Whatever the precise influence of Chrysostom’s On the Priesthood, the fact is that in the century after his and these other writings on priesthood appeared, we begin to see the title of priest applied not just to bishops but also to presbyters. For example, the earliest witness to liturgical practice at Rome after Hippolytus’s Apostolic Tradition is a work called the Leonine Sacramentary. Though named for Pope Leo I who died in 451, it was not composed by Leo or anyone under his patronage. Nevertheless it is a witness to Roman liturgical practice around his time or, at most, in the century after. In the Leonine Sacramentary, we find sacerdotal language employed in the ordination prayer for presbyters: "Hear us, O God of our salvation, and pour forth the benediction of the Holy Spirit and the power of priestly grace (sacerdotalis effunde virtutem) upon these your servants."²³ In a work that can be dated with much more precision, The Eccesliastical Hierarchy ascribed to Dionysius the Pseudo-Aeropagite and cited by Severus the Patriarch of Antioch in the year 513, the bishop is called the hierarch, while to the presbyter is given the title priest. An example of this is the reference to the baptism of adults (ch. 2, art. 7), the godlike hierarch begins the sacred anointing but it is the priests who actually perform the sacrament.²⁴ See also chapter 5, article 5 where it is said of the presbyter, He would not even be a priest if the hierarch had not called him to this.²⁵ A century later, Isidore of Seville (b. 560, d. 636), Archbishop of Seville from 600 and one of the most learned men of his time, composed a work entitled Ecclesiastical Offices. It is a comprehensive survey of ministries in the church. In book 2, Isidore treats of clerics and their classification. And in part 5 of that book, he speaks of the bishop as high priest and presbyters as priests, indeed, claiming presbyters in the church have been constituted to be just like bishops.²⁶ And then there is Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 1078-1141) who, in the section of his On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith which is entitled On Presbyters (bk. 2, pt. 3, art. 11), says: Whether they are priests of the lower or the higher order, that is, whether presbyters or bishops, they perform the duty of the highest pontiff when they call delinquent peoples to repentance and heal with the remedy of their sermons.²⁷

From this point on the title priest is given more commonly to those of the presbyteral rank, while other exalted titles are given to bishops. For example, William Durand (1230–1296), bishop of Mende from 1285, was one of the principal medieval canonists. A legal official of the Roman Curia, in 1274 he attended Pope Gregory X at the Second Council of Lyons, the decrees of which Durand himself drafted. However, his best known work is his Rationale divinorum officiorum, a compendium of liturgical knowledge with mystical interpretation. Therein those of presbyteral rank are referred to as priests,²⁸ a bishop is referred to either as a prelate²⁹ or a pontiff ,³⁰ and the title high priest is reserved for Christ alone.³¹

And so it was with Thomas Aquinas (ca.1225–1274). While acknowledging the common priesthood of the faithful and the prelatial authority of bishops, Aquinas, nevertheless, is emphatic about the priestly dignity of the presbyter. For example, in his Summa Theologica 2a2ae (questions 85 and 86), Aquinas undertakes an extensive treatment of the concept of sacrifice and its various forms, material and spiritual, in human history and the Old Testament. So too, in the 3a Pars of the Summa Theologica questions 73 to 83, form the equivalent of a lengthy treatise on the Eucharist. There, in question 82, Of the Minister of this Sacrament, Aquinas constantly calls the presbyter a priest and identifies him with the apostles. I am referring to article 1, which treats of the question Whether the consecration of this sacrament belongs to a priest alone? There Aquinas not only answers affirmatively, insisting the power of consecrating this sacrament on Christ’s behalf is bestowed upon the priest at his ordination, but he adds, "thereby he is put on a level with them to whom the Lord said (Luke 22:19): Do this for a commemoration of me."³² Aquinas also acknowledges the common priesthood of the faithful, for in his reply to Objection 2, he says:

A devout layman is united with Christ by spiritual union through faith and charity, but not by sacramental power: consequently has a spiritual priesthood for offering spiritual sacrifices, of which it is said (Ps 1:19): A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit; and (Rom 12:1): Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Hence, too, it is written (1 Pet 2:5): A holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.³³

And, while Aquinas acknowledges the superior authority of bishops, he argues even that can be shared with priests, for in reply to Objection 4 he says: The bishop receives power to act on Christ’s behalf upon His mystical body, that is, upon the Church; but the priest receives no such power in his consecration, although he may have it by commission from the bishop.³⁴ And, finally, in that same reply to Objection 4, Aquinas goes on to make clear the role of the bishop is not just to rule over, teach and direct, preside and govern the people of God but to serve both laity and priests: "it belongs to the bishop to deliver, not only to the people, but likewise to priests, such things as serve them in the fulfillment of their respective duties [Ad episcopum vero pertinet trader non solum populo, set etiam sacerdotibus ea ex quibus possunt propriis officiis uti]."³⁵

Arguably, it is Bonaventure who gives the most eloquent expression to the idea that the presbyteral office is the fullness of the priesthood. He does this in his work called the Breviloquium. There in chapter 12, he says: There are seven Orders gradually rising to culminate in the priesthood, in which is the fulfillment of all Orders: for it is the priest who consecrates the sacrament of the body of Christ, in which is the fullness of all graces. Thus the other six degrees are attendants upon this one, and resemble the steps leading to the throne of Solomon.³⁶ That last line is a reference to the description of the throne of Solomon in 1 Kgs 10 which records the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the court of Solomon. There in 1 Kgs 10: 18–19: The king also had a large ivory throne made, and overlaid it with refined gold. The throne had six steps. The seven orders that Bonaventure refers to here are, in ascending order: porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, and priest. This pattern of formally recognized ministries developed over a long period of time, the gradation according to proximity to the Eucharistic table. Each is referred to in early patristic literature, but references to the office of subdeacon appear for the first time in the letters of Cyprian of Carthage, who died in 258.³⁷ The Council of Trent (in its session 23, ch. 2), taught that From the very beginning of the church the names and proper functions of each of the following orders are known to have been in use (though not of equal rank), namely: subdeacon, acolyte, exorcist, reader, and doorkeeper. For the subdiaconate is included among major orders by fathers and holy councils, and we often read in them of the other lower orders.³⁸ But changes were soon to come. First came the challenge of the Protestant Reformation and, later still, reorganization of ministries at the Second Vatican Council and after by Pope Paul VI.³⁹

Challenges to the Catholic Notion of Priesthood

After having said all this about the importance of the concept of priesthood in both ancient and modern times, in Christianity as well as in world religions, and after having traced something of the development of the notion of priesthood in Christianity in its first twelve centuries, one must also note that the concept of priesthood in the Christian tradition has become a very disputed point in modern times. More precisely, in modern times the concept of ministerial priesthood has been seriously delimited in Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic. This began when the Protestant reformers chose to limit the notion of priesthood to Jesus and the baptized and deny its application to pastoral ministers.

The theme of the common priesthood of the faithful, or of all the baptized, is found throughout Luther’s so-called Reformation pamphlets of 1520. According to Luther, this common priesthood is the source of all ministries. For example, in his The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he says, let everyone, therefore, who knows himself to be a Christian, be assured of this, that we are all equally priests, that is to say, we have the same power in respect to the Word and the Sacraments.⁴⁰ In Luther’s To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. . . , sometimes called An Appeal to the Ruling Class, he says We are all consecrated priests through baptism . . . Therefore when a bishop consecrates it is nothing else than that in the place and stead of the whole community, all of whom have like power, he takes a person and charges him to exercise this power on behalf of the others.⁴¹

In Calvin, the assault on priesthood took two forms, Christological and ecclesiological. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin replaced the duplex munus Christi of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the idea that Christ was both priest and king, with the concept of the munus triplex Christi, the idea that Jesus’ ministry besides having a priestly and kingly dimension also had a prophetic one. But while adding the prophetic note to Jesus’ ministry, Calvin totally removed any priestly sense from Christian ministry, namely the ministry of Jesus’ disciples. That is, when we look at Calvin’s ecclesiology, we find that priests disappear entirely. Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (bk. 4, ch. 3, art. 8), defines presbyters as elders chosen from among the people to exercise discipline in the Church.⁴² And in his Draft Ecclesiastical Ordinances of September and October 1541 for the organization of the Church at Geneva, he replaces the traditional triad of ordained ministries, bishop-priest-deacon, with four orders of office: pastors, doctors, presbyters, and deacons.⁴³

The second great modern challenge to priesthood came with the Second Vatican Council. Between 1962 and 1965 all the bishops of the Catholic Church met in Rome for a deliberative assembly that we know as the Second Vatican Council. That assembly produced significant statements about the nature of the church (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church called Lumen gentium) and church order (both the Decree on Bishops, Christus dominus, and the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Presbyters, Presbyterorum ordinis). In those statements there is a discernibly similar attitude toward priestly language that was exhibited by the Protestant reformers. Indeed, in 1966, shortly after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, Joseph Ratzinger, who had served through all four sessions of the council as theological consultant to Cardinal Frings of Cologne, compared the approach of the Second Vatican Council regarding the language of priesthood to Luther’s stance: "Luther’s protest against the Catholic notion of priesthood was really based on the fact that in the Catholic view the priesthood was almost exclusively a sacrificial priesthood. In fact, even in patristic theology and especially in medieval theology, the old association between sacerdos and sacrificium, between priest and sacrifice, had been emphasized again in contradiction to the view of the New Testament."⁴⁴

One of the practical effects of the Council’s reaction against the older theology’s emphasis upon the cultic aspect of ordained ministry was to opt for noncultic language. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council, while employing the language of priesthood in reference to Christ and the baptized, very much limited its use of such language when referring to Church ministers, preferring instead to go back to the New Testament language of bishop, presbyter, and deacon. These are noncultic, emphatically pastoral terms of leadership and service. Avery Dulles, in his The Priestly Office, makes much of the theological importance of this shift in language: "The council showed considerable restraint in applying priestly language to bishops and presbyters. It spoke of them as exercising a three-fold office—prophetic, priestly, and royal. Priestly ministry, therefore, was only one dimension of an office that involved the ministry of the word (the prophetic) and the ministry of the shepherd (the pastoral). In only a few texts did Vatican II designate bishops and presbyters by the title ‘priest’ (Latin sacerdotes, corresponding to the Greek hiereus)."⁴⁵

Lest we underestimate the momentous character of that change in terminology, Dulles pronounces upon it, describing it as an abrupt departure from a tradition of many centuries.⁴⁶ Unfortunately, this momentous decision on the part of the Second Vatican Council is not always immediately recognizable to us today. By that I mean there is more than one theological commentator on the council documents who has lamented the fact that the available English translations of these documents obscure this important theological point by constantly refusing to use the literal equivalent of presbyter, and instead consistently translate the council’s use of the word presbyter as priest. For example, consider what Patrick Dunn in his book, Priesthood: A Re-Examination of the Roman Catholic Theology of the Presbyterate, says: "Unfortunately, the English translation of the Council Documents has effectively concealed the theological precision for which the Fathers were striving. As a general rule the conciliar texts try to follow the Scriptures and to restrict the word ‘priest’ (sacerdos) to Jesus himself and to the ‘common priesthood’ of the baptized; and when talking about the ordained, they use the word ‘presbyteros.’ But the English translation uncritically translates both ‘sacerdos’ and ‘presbyteros’ as ‘priest.’"⁴⁷

A few years later, Daniel Donovan in his What Are They saying about the Ministerial Priesthood? registered a similar complaint: "The issue of terminology is not insignificant. It points to deeper realities reflecting fundamentally different theological approaches. For this reason our treatment of Latin documents will use ‘priest’ as a translation of sacerdos and the somewhat awkward ‘presbyter’ for its Latin equivalent. This is all the more important as the available English translation of the conciliar documents use ‘priests’ for both Latin words, thus making it all but impossible to understand the nuances of the council’s teaching."⁴⁸

More precisely, this kind of obfuscation is found in all the authoritative translations: in The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II, a translation by the National Catholic Welfare Conference (Boston: the Daughters of St. Paul , 1966); in the translation of The Documents of Vatican II, edited by Jesuit Walter M. Abbott (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966); in Irish Dominican Austin Flannery’s Vatican II: the Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing, 1975); and in Jesuit Norman Tanner’s two-volume Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990). All four of these editions, in their translation of the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Presbyters, consistently translate presbyteros as priest. Tanner’s edition at least provides something of a corrective in that it has, on the facing page, the original Greek or Latin text. Paul McPartlan, professor of theology at Catholic University in Washington DC, in his essay Presbyteral Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church says of his own use of Flannery’s translation: Our translations of the Vatican II documents can themselves mislead by lapsing almost instinctively into a pre-conciliar vocabulary and mindset and not heeding the nuances of the Council’s actual words. It is striking how frequently, as here, the Council actually says ‘presbyters’ rather than ‘priests.’⁴⁹ And for that reason McPartlan, when he quotes from Flannery’s translation, amends that translation so as to reflect the more precise term used in the original Latin text, indeed, inserting the original Latin term in brackets within his citation (see footnote 17 in his essay). I have made the decision to quote herein from Abbott’s edition of the council documents because its American English will be more familiar to my readers than Tanner’s or Flannery’s British English.⁵⁰ Occasionally, and for reasons of comparison, I will quote from Tanner’s translation or one of the other English translations. Nevertheless, whether quoting from Abbott’s edition or from one of the others, I will follow McPartlan’s example and correct the translation in Abbott whenever it renders presbyteros as priest; and I too will always be careful to insert after my emendation of the English translation the original Latin or Greek of the conciliar text. With regard to this problem of translation, it is worth noting: In October of 2005, in an address at the opening of the academic year at Rome’s Athenaeum of Saint Anselm, William Cardinal Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, criticized the present translations of the documents of Vatican II as imprecise. He also expressed his hope that the Council’s fiftieth anniversary in 2015 will bring with it a more careful, official translation.

But what happened to ministerial priesthood at the Second Vatican Council was hardly limited to simply an adjustment in terminology. Most commentaries on the council agree that the principal concern of the council fathers at Vatican II was to speak authoritatively on the role of bishops and laity in the church. Ever since the First Vatican Council’s pronouncements on papal primacy and infallibility in 1870, there had been concern that some things needed to be said about the role of the diocesan bishop in relation to the supreme authority of the pope. And, even earlier, a theological movement had begun to reconsider the role of the laity in the church. John Henry Newman’s 1859 essay, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, might be considered one of the earliest products of this movement. And Yves Congar’s Jalons pour un théologie du laicat (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1951; trans. by D. Attwater: Lay People in the Church [London: G. Chapman, 1957]) could well be considered one of its finest achievements. Congar became one of the principal theological consultors at the Second Vatican Council.

It is the opinion of more than one commentator on Vatican II that the council’s preoccupation with those two important themes, the bishops and the laity, resulted in the simple priest or presbyter having gotten lost in the shuffle. For example, no sooner had the council ended when Sulpician Father Frank B. Norris, ecclesiologist at St. Patrick’s Seminary, Menlo Park, California, published a commentary on Vatican II’s Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests. There Norris said of the overall work of the council: From the moment of preparation for Vatican Council II began, it was clear that the roles of bishops and of laymen would receive major attention on the conciliar agenda . . . The simple priest, or ‘presbyter’ . . . turns out to be something of a forgotten man in this picture.⁵¹ Some few years later, University of Chicago Divinity School Professor Martin Marty, a historian of Christianity in America, extended Norris’s judgment to include consecrated religious as well as priests. Noting the already precipitous decline in vocations to both the priesthood and religious life in the Catholic Church in America, Marty, in an article entitled What Went Wrong? (which he published in the magazine of Catholic culture, The Critic 34, fall 1975, pages 49–53), expressed the opinion that there were winners and losers at the Second Vatican Council. He saw the winners as the bishops and the laity, the losers as the priests and religious. Using sociological language he analyzed the situation in these terms:

The service ranks of the Church are in trouble; their rationale was cut into by Vatican II. Vatican II knew pretty much about what it was to be a bishop, and gave the episcopacy new morale. The Council knew very much more than Catholicism earlier had known about what it was to be a lay person: How only the laity could go most places where the Church would go. But no fresh rationales for being a priest or a religious emerged, while the old ones were effectively undercut by the advances in understanding of bishop and lay person.⁵²

When the council documents are scrutinized, this judgment about the treatment of priests at Vatican II, a judgment shared by a Catholic and a Protestant commentator, is not difficult to understand. Take for example the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, called Lumen gentium, from its opening words, it is a document that many regard as the major doctrinal achievement of that council. While there are entire chapters on the episcopacy (ch. 3, The Hierarchical Character of the Church and in Particular the Episcopate) and the laity (ch. 2, The People of God, ch. 4, The Laity, ch. 5, The Universal Call to Holiness), on the religious life of consecrated men and women (ch. 6, Religious), even on the Blessed Virgin Mary and the church in heaven (ch. 7, The Eschatological Character of the Pilgrim Church), there is no chapter on those who were once called priests but now called presbyters. Instead the role of presbyters in the church is treated in one short article (28) of chapter 3, The Hierarchical Structure of the Church with Special Reference to the Episcopate, and the spirituality appropriate to a presbyter is treated in one short paragraph of yet another article (41) of chapter 5, a chapter entitled The Call of the Whole Church to Holiness.

Priesthood in the Documents of Vatican II

If we look closely at the contents of Lumen gentium, it is readily observable how the empowerment of bishops and laity are not only its principal themes; there is also an attendant diminishment of the once priestly, now presbyteral office. As for the empowerment of bishops, in article 22 the council speaks of the supreme and full power (supremae ac plenae potestatis) of bishops. In article 27, the council fathers go on to define the power of bishops more precisely, that is, in relation to Christ and the pope. While they were obviously somewhat self-conscious about their numerous references to power (they use the word six times in two paragraphs), they do try to soften their insistence upon the power that is rightfully theirs by adding biblical references to humility. Nevertheless, article 27 of Lumen gentium is so emphatic in its assertion of episcopal power that it reads like a lecture to the pope on how even he must respect this, for it is the will of God. And though it is a lengthy passage, it is worth quoting in its entirety so as to appreciate its cumulative effect:

Bishops govern the particular churches entrusted to them as vicars and ambassadors of Christ. This they do by their counsel, exhortations, and example, as well, indeed as by their authority and sacred power. This power they use only for the edification of their flock in truth and holiness, remembering that he who is greater should become as the lesser and he who is more distinguished, as the servant (cr. Luke 22:26–27). This power, which they personally exercise in Christ’s name, is proper, ordinary, and immediate, although its exercise ultimately regulated by the supreme authority of the Church, and can be circumscribed by certain limits, for the advantage of the Church or of the faithful. In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and the duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, to pass judgment on them, and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.

The pastoral office or the habitual and daily care of their sheep is entrusted to them completely. Nor are they to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiff, for they exercise an authority which is proper to them, and are quite correctly called prelates, heads of the people whom they govern. Their power, therefore, is not destroyed by the supreme and universal power. On the contrary, it is affirmed, strengthened, and vindicated thereby, since the Holy Spirit unfailingly preserves the form of government established by Christ the Lord in His Church.⁵³

As for the role of the laity, a major theme of Lumen gentium is their priestly character. This is boldly and eloquently set forth in the first paragraph of article 10 of Lumen gentium:

Christ the Lord, High Priest taken from among men (cf. Heb 5:1–5), made a kingdom and priests to God his Father (Apoc. 1:6; cf. 5:9–10) out of this new people. The baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood. Thus through all those works befitting Christian men they can offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the power of Him who has called them out of darkness into His marvelous light (cf. 1 Pet 2:4–10). Therefore all the disciples of Christ, persevering in prayer and praising God (cf. Acts 2:42–47), should present themselves as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (cf. Rom 12:1). Everywhere on earth they must bear witness to Christ and give an answer to those who seek an account of that hope of eternal life which is in them (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).⁵⁴

The role of the laity is expanded upon in article 33 of Lumen gentium, where it is made clear that, just as the bishop’s authority and power are not by delegation of the church but derive immediately from Christ, so too lay participation in the apostolate, the universal mission assigned by Christ to the apostles, is not a privilege extended by church authorities but a commission which comes from Christ himself: The lay apostolate, however, is a participation in the saving mission of the Church itself. Through their baptism and confirmation, all are commissioned to that apostolate by the Lord Himself. Moreover, through the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, there is communicated and nourished that charity toward God and man which is the soul of the entire apostolate.⁵⁵

In article 36 of Lumen gentium, the council fathers employ legal language to secure the role of the laity in both church and world: Because the very plan of salvation requires it, the faithful should learn how to distinguish carefully between those rights and duties which are theirs as members of the church, and those which they have as members of human society.⁵⁶ And in article 37 the rights of the laity in relation to their pastors are specified: The laity have the right, as do all Christians, to receive in abundance from their sacred pastors the spiritual goods of the Church, especially the assistance of the Word of God and the sacraments.⁵⁷

More than once this theme of the rights of the laity within the church is carried over in the Council’s Decree on the Laity. For example, article 3 of the council’s Decree on the Laity says, The laity derive the right and duty with respect to the apostolate from their union with Christ their Head.⁵⁸ In article 25 of the Decree on the Laity, the clergy are warned: Bishops, pastors of parishes, and other priests of both branches of the clergy should keep in mind that the right and duty to exercise the apostolate is common to all the faithful.⁵⁹

As for simple priests, now called presbyters, when we look at the one article of Lumen gentium, article 28, in which the council fathers address their role in the church, there is little talk of power and none of rights. Whatever power they might be able to exercise is totally derived from the bishop. Indeed, the opening words of Lumen gentium 28 make it clear it is bishops who have received consecration and mission from the Lord, and that whatever power presbyters may have is delegated to them by their bishop: "Christ,