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Jewish and Christian Ordination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Everett Ferguson
Everett Ferguson
Affiliation:
Abilene Christian College, Abilene, Texas
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Extract

A few years ago Arnold Ehrhardt wrote an erudite and stimulating article as a criticism and development of Eduard Lohse's Die Ordination. A few observations in regard both to the laying on of hands in the Jewish background and to the seating of a candidate in the chair of office will serve to carry the discussion a step further.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , January 1963 , pp. 13 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1963

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References

1 “Jewish and Christian Ordination,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. V (1954), pp. 125–138.Google Scholar

2 Lohse, Edward, Die Ordination im Spätjudentum und im Neuen Testament (Göttingen, 1951)Google Scholar.

3 Daube, David, New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1956), pp. 224–246Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., pp. 226 ff. The case of the witnesses (Lev. 24:14) does not fit this frame of thinking. Moreover, an animal represented the offerer in only one particular aspect (his sins or his feeling of gratitude); therefore the distinction from śim breaks down, for this word is said to indicate the transference of something other than or less than the whole personality. Moreover, in the healings, which Daube says carried no notion of conveying personality, some positive quality must have been thought of as imparted and this is hardly less than is said for the peace offerings.

5 As examples of ordination passages may be cited Didas 4; Test, of our Lord I.21, 30, 33; Edessene Canons, Int.; Doct. of Addai (ed. George Phillips, p. 50).

6 Smith, R. Payne, Thesaurus Syriacus (Oxford, 1901), Vol. II, col. 2556–2565Google Scholar.

7 Zeitlin, Solomon, “The Semikah Controversy Between the Zugoth,” Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. VII (April, 1917), pp. 499CrossRefGoogle Scholar f. Ehrhardt suggests the meaning “support.”

8 Strack, H. L. and Billerbeck, Paul, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Munchen, 1924), II, 654Google Scholar. To their arguments we may add the consideration that the Rabbis connected ordination with the imposition of hands in sacrifice — bSanhedrin 13b; pSanhedrin 19a; Tosephta Sanhedrin 1,1. The phrase semikah zeqenim in these passages is interpreted by Strack-Billerbeck (op. cit., p. 653) and Daube (op. cit., pp. 244 f.) as meaning “ordination to be elders.” Lohse (op. cit., p. 28) and Newman, J., Semikhah (Manchester University Press, 1950), pp. 3Google Scholar f., dissent, and with their dissent we must agree. In Sanhedrin i.3 the context makes clear that the expression means the “laying on of the elders’ hands” as is the Biblical usage. With the precedent of the Bible and the Mishnah before them it does not seem possible that the Talmudists reversed the usage.

Verbal naming replaced imposition of hands in Rabbinic ordination during the reorganization under Hadrian — Newman, op. cit., pp. 104–110.

9 Note especially Mk. 10:13–16; 5:23; 6:5; 8:23, 25.

10 Op. cit., p. 234.

11 P. Galtier, “Imposition des mains,” Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, VII, 1338.

Note that the word coined for the laying on of hands, cheirothesia, means “benediction” in the Greek Church today.

12 Lohse, op. cit., pp. 77–79.

13 Jerome, In Isa. XVI, 58 (PL XXIV, 591); Chrysostom, Horn. XIV in Acts 6 (PG LX, 116); Gregory Nyssa, “On the Baptism of Christ” (PG XLVI, 581 D); Leo, Ep. IX, 1; Stat. Eccl. Ant. 90–92. Cf. Vita Polyc. 3d, “cover such a head with his hand and to bless … with his voice.” In a non-ordination context Tertullian interprets the laying on of hands as a benediction and relates this rite in the church to Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph (Gen. 48)—de Bapt. 8.

14 Cf. the church orders: Ap. Trad. (Ed. Dix, pp. 4–6, 13, 15–17); Ap. Const. VIII.iv.2 ff.; Test, of Lord I, 21, 30.

15 The Holy Spirit was one blessing which might be given in this way — Acts 8 — but even here there is also an accompanying prayer, v. 15.

16 Not even Philo, de Gigantibus 24 f., is an exception to this, although it is the main passage to which Ehrhardt appeals, in spite of his skepticism about Philo’s value for views held by Palestinian Jews (op. cit, p. 131). Justin, Dial. 49, combines Num. 11:17 with Num. 27:18 and Deut. 34:9 in a way not found in Jewish sources. Nevertheless, even in Justin’s treatment the transfer of Moses’ spirit to Joshua is not ascribed in the imposition of hands but to a separate act by God. The only Rabbinic passage this writer has found which would connect the imposition of hands with the giving of the spirit is the quite late Midrash Rabbah, Numbers, xv.25, which seems to connect the honor bestowed on Joshua with the spirit given to the elders in Num. 11.

The following statement accords with the available evidence: “It is precarious also to assume that Rabbinic ordination by the laying on of hands in the first century was meant to signify the transmission of the Holy Spirit.” Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1955), pp. 212 fGoogle Scholar.

17 Ehrhardt, op. cit., pp. 125, 134–136. In the Pseudo-Clementine account of Peter’s ordination of Clement (Clem, ad Jac. 5:3,4) the bishop’s teaching function is stressed to the disparagement of the responsibility of judging. Perhaps this is a deliberate contrast between Christian and Jewish ordination.

18 Ibid., pp. 129 ff. Lauterbach, J. E., “Ordination,” Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1905), IX, p. 428Google Scholar, has anticipated Ehrhardt in connecting the original practice of ordination with admission to the Sanhedrin, although he does not argue the case.

19 Sanhedrin iv.4 following Danby’s translation. I think it more reasonable to take the passage for what it purports to be — a description of the Sanhedrin prior to the destruction of 70 — rather than a description of the time of centralization in the second century as Lohse (op. cit., pp. 30 f.) suggests.

20 Op. cit., p. 131.

21 Loc. cit.

22 See the references cited in footnote 8.

23 Sifrè Numbers 11:16.

24 pBikkurim 3.

25 pMegilloth 1, 72b and pChagigah 76c.

26 Moore, G. F., Judaism (Cambridge, 1930), III, 15Google Scholar.

27 Clem, ad Jac. 2:2; 3:1,2; 17:1; 19:1.

28 Horn. III. lx–lxxii. Strecker, Georg, “Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen,” Texte und Untersuchungen, LXX (1958), pp. 101–103Google Scholar, has argued that the accounts of ordination in the Clementines are derived by the editor from one source, a document containing an ordination ritual. I incline to the view that the editor has taken a Jewish Christian account in which seating was the key act and adapted this account to later practice.

29 H. E. II.i.2; xxiii.i; III.v.2; xi; xxxv; IV.xxiii.i; VI.xxxix.4; Vll.xiv; xxxii.29; xix. In addition Eusebius twice refers to the thrones for the “presidents” in the new church at Tyre (X.iv.44; iv.66), quotes the disparaging report of the exalted throne Paul of Samosata prepared for himself (VII.xxx.9), and refers to “Heraclas now seated in the presbytery of the Alexandrians” (VI.xix.13).

30 Molland, Einar, “Irenaeus of Lugdunum and the Apostolic Succession,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, I (1950), pp. 12–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

For Irenaeus, to be a presbyter was to hold a “chief seat” (Adv. Haer. IV.xli.i). Cf. “the seat is a symbol of teaching” (Demons. 2).

31 Ehrhardt, Arnold, The Apostolic Succession (London, 1953), pp. 65Google Scholar, 82.

32 Instinsky, H. U., Bischofsstuhl und Kaiserthron (München, 1955), pp. 11–34Google Scholar, and the even more significant review article by Stommel, Eduard, “Bischofstuhl und hoher Thron,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, I (1959), pp. 52–78Google Scholar.

33 “Jewish and Christian Ordination,” p. 130 and passim.

34 Apos. Const. VIII.V.9 f.; Vita Polyc. xxiii; Theodoret, H. E. IV.xx, xxi. A third century testimony is supplied by Didas. 4.

35 Greg. Naz., Or. 18:33; Or. 21:8; Synesius, Ep. LXVII.