‘Priest’ is not a univocal concept in the New Testament; there are several types of priest in the NT and they are all different. The first type of priest that we come across, mainly in the Gospels, is the priest of Jewish religion, the Aaronic priest, the sacrificing priest. Zechariah was one such priest, of the order of Abijah, who would have served in the temple (Luke 1.5), and he was married to Elizabeth, who is said to have been a descendant of Aaron. In the Gospels, references to such priests, other than the Chief Priest, are either fictional (as in the parable of the Good Samaritan) or generalised (as in the instruction to the healed lepers to ‘go, show yourself to the priest’). To be such a priest you had to have been born into the tribe of Levi, and to be a sacrificing priest you had (in theory at least) to be descended from Aaron (who is referred to elsewhere as ‘the priest’). There was the problem that Levi was one of the ten tribes that had disappeared at the time of the conquest of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians in the eighth century BC, and it has been suggested that some priests at a later date may have been given a fictive genealogy to legitimise their priesthood. Jesus could never have been such a priest unless someone had faked his genealogy, but the first Christians thought it more important that he was descended from David, of the tribe of Judah. However, we need say no more about these kohenim as they had no place in which to offer sacrifice after AD 70 and their functions and significance came to an end.
There is also a passing reference to pagan priests in Acts 14.13, who might count as a fifth type of priest in the NT but they are not relevant to us, so I have nothing to say about them here.
The second type of priesthood is that of the risen Christ. We find this, of course, in the Letter to the Hebrews (and nowhere else in the NT) where he is called ‘our great high priest’. He is ‘a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people’ (2.17). Jesus is a priest who has been made ‘perfect through sufferings’ (2.10).
Hebrews is more a sermon than a letter; it is a curious document that many find off-putting because it is packed with the language of Jewish ritual in the Jerusalem temple and images of sacrifice. However, some find it rather appealing precisely because of its peculiarity. To make sense of Hebrews, it helps to look at its structure. The main theological argument is to be found in the first ten chapters. But it is not an easy argument to follow because the author has broken it up with a number of parenetic insertions. That is, he keeps breaking off to tell his readers to keep the faith and not fall back into their former ways. Because of the language and imagery of the letter, which he assumes his readers are familiar with, these former ways must be those of Judaism centred on the temple. Bracket off these pareneses and what you are left with is the theological argument of Hebrews in blocks.Footnote 1 It is an argument that centres on what it is to be a priest. The argument can also be seen as a sort of midrash on a number of scriptural texts, the most important of which is Psalm 110.
In 5.1-4 the author gives us a definition of what it is to be a priest.
Every priest chosen from among mortals [NRSV – the Greek is ex anthrōpōn] is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does not presume to take this honour, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
So this is what it is to be a priest; called by God as one of humanity, to act as a mediator between God and the rest of us by offering gifts to God and sacrifices for sin and to deal gently with those who sin. Essentially a priest is a mediator between God and mankind.
In 5.5-10 the author shows how Jesus meets those priestly requirements.
So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my son, today I have begotten you” [Psalm 2.7]; as he says in another place [Ps 110.4], “You are a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek”. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
We can see that the author has a problem because Jesus was not and could never be priest in Judaism – he was not born into the right tribe. He was not a Levitical or Aaronic priest; to be a priest, the author has to make Christ a different type of priest, a Melchizedekian priest. The author of Hebrews interprets Ps 110 christologically, and so reckons that Jesus is a priest because God says so in scripture. But we can also see how Jesus fulfils the duties of a priest that are outlined in 5.1-4: he has been appointed by God, he is human, beset by weakness and suffering, but made perfect and so not falling into sin; his offerings to God are prayers and supplications with loud cries. The author sets some of this out in more detail in chapters 7 and 8.
Do not think that the Jewish priesthood was ineffective. The sacrifices of the Levitical priest did indeed forgive sin – but only for a time as their sacrifices had to be repeated day after day, year after year. Jesus, however, offered the perfect sacrifice – himself – so it did not have to be repeated. It was done ‘once and for all’ (ephapax, that important little word in Hebrews [7.27; 9.12; 10.10]). This perfect sacrifice marks the end of blood sacrifices to atone for sins. No more are needed. The limited effectiveness of Jewish sacrifices is shown by the fact that Levitical priests died and had to be replaced by the next generation of priests (7.23-24), whereas Jesus is an eternal high priest like Melchizedek, who was,
Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest for ever.
(7.3)The author also draws on Genesis 14 to show how Melchizedek was superior to Abraham by blessing Abraham and offering him bread and wine (seen to prefigure the eucharist). Abraham, the inferior, was the ancestor of Levi, who was, so to speak, in the loins of Abraham. So the priesthood of Jesus, derived from Melchizedek, is superior to that of the Levites, and he is superior to Abraham who was not even a priest.
The author also spiritualizes Jesus's priesthood. Everything is swept up into heaven. He offers his self-sacrifice in the spiritual sanctuary in God's presence. He is ‘seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent that the Lord, and not any human, has set up’ (8.1-2). To do this he has passed through the veil that covers this sanctuary where we have not yet gone, and that veil is death, so it is all pitched in heaven, the true sanctuary, after the resurrection. The point is that Jesus is here the perfect high priest, having taken the priesthood of Melchizedek, having made the perfect sacrifice, once and for all, having forgiven sin for all time, and having been raised from the dead, his is an eternal priesthood. Jesus marks the end of sacrifice and the end of priesthood. Priests are essentially mediators, and baptised Christians no longer need a mediator between themselves and God. They have direct access to God. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has pulled back the veil that hides God's presence in the heavenly sanctuary so that the baptised can all now approach God directly. Priests as necessary mediators are, for Christians, no more. This priesthood of Jesus as described in Hebrews is clearly unique to him, to him alone, and is distinct from any other kind of priest we might want to talk about.
This takes us to the third kind of priesthood, the priesthood of all believers. There are two NT texts that are relevant (and only two), in 1 Peter, where the author addresses all his readers:
let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
(2.5)and
you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you might proclaim God's mighty acts…
(2.9, NRSV modified)This is a Christian development of Exodus 19.6. What does it mean for every Christian to be a priest? The meaning, I suggest, follows on from what we have seen in Hebrews. A priest has direct access to God and acts as a mediator between God and … who? It must be the rest of humanity, the unbelieving world. And Christians do this in the way they live their lives. One is reminded of the line in Paul:
Be blameless and innocent children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars…
(Philippians 2.15)This priesthood of believers is made possible by Christ but it is not the same as his unique priesthood.
This brings us to the fourth type of priesthood, the one we normally refer to when we speak of priests – the men in black suits and white collars – except that they are never called priests in the NT. The NT authors always call them presbyters/elders. The reason for identifying our ordained priests with the presbyters of the NT is the threefold ministry of bishops/overseers/episkopoi; presbyters/elders/presbyteroi; and deacons/servants/diakonoi that had developed by the second-century as evidenced by the letters of St Ignatius of AntiochFootnote 2 to the Smyrnians 8; to the Magnesians 2 and 6.Footnote 3 Broadly an Elder can refer to an older (and perhaps wiser?) person, or to an office, both of which connotations are rooted in OT Judaism, where they could be but were not necessarily priests. As an office in the church, the Pastoral Letters from the latter part of the first-century (probably) tell us a certain amount about bishops and deacons but only a little about elders, despite the several references in Acts to ‘apostles and elders’. This seems to be why some commentators think that in this early period the bishops and the presbyters were one and the same. However, Titus 1.5 tells us that elders should be appointed in every town. 1 Timothy 5.17-19 indicates that they have responsibility for preaching and teaching. And James 5.14 tells us that when we are sick we should call for an elder for anointing.
Etymologically, all these different types become ‘priests’ in English: Kohen, hiereus, presbyteros, sacerdos: all are translated as priest, together with the equivalent in some other languages (priester, prêtre, prete). At a date much later than the NT, presbyter and sacerdos become interchangeable in church documents.Footnote 4 The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very good at recognising the different types of priest but, instead of making clear distinctions, it tends to fudge them all together. So that the uniqueness of Christ's priesthood can get lost when the Catechism says that ministerial priests/presbyters as well as lay believer priests all share the priesthood of Christ. Deacons by the way, while being part of Ignatius's threefold ministry, have not been ordained into the Christian priesthood – that is bishops and presbyters only, with a bishop in effect being a priest who has been promoted for oversight of the local community. Even the Aaronic priesthood is said in the Catechism to prefigure Christ's priesthood, which up to a point it does even though it has become redundant (superseded).
So when did the elder of the NT become the priest of the later church; when did the presbyteros become a sacerdos? Did it happen with the transition to Latin in the western church in the third and fourth centuries? My suspicion that it happened in the transition to Latin in church writings is not born out by the Vulgate, where the presbyteroi of the NT become seniores or seniores fratres; in the translation of Hebrews high priest/archiereus becomes pontifex; while sacerdos/sacerdotium is reserved in the Vulgate Hebrews for the Levitical priesthood and that of Melchizedek. Sacerdotium is also used of the priesthood of believers in 1 Peter – the author of which calls himself an Elder/senior (5.1). So presbyters have not become priests in the Vulgate. What might be the influence that has brought about the change from presbyteros to sacerdos? The influence is certainly not that of the Jewish scriptures, so could it have been the practice of pagan priesthood(s) in the Empire with their animal sacrifices? It may be that after Constantine Christian presbyters replaced the pagan priests and became the new priesthood of the Empire. So, the question remains, when and why the Greek presbyteros become the Latin sacerdos – though, etymologically, in English and some other languages, ‘priest’ is derived from presbyter. There seems to be no escape from our ministers becoming ‘priests’.
The point of this paper, however, is not to try to change our naming of the ordained; our practice has centuries of tradition behind it. The purpose is to ensure that we do not muddle these distinctive types of priesthood. And the recent practice of calling our ordained priests ‘ministerial priests’ is a recognition that their priesthood is distinct from that of Jesus Christ and distinct from that of the baptised. There is no basis in the NT for supposing that that presbyters share the high priesthood of Christ as it is described in Hebrews. On the contrary, that high priesthood has only two members: Melchizedek and Jesus, and only one of those is a historical person. Deciding who may become a presbyter/ministerial priest and on what basis must be decided on its own terms and not by merging it with some other form of priesthood. Muddling these is particularly unhelpful when discussing whether women can be ordained as presbyters/ministerial priests.
