4 questions on the origin of the Christian priesthood
Before going deeper, it is important to understand the central idea: the Christian priesthood does not arise as a structure created by the Church, but as a real participation in the unique priesthood of Christ. Everything that follows in this entry explains how this reality was expressed and consolidated from the Apostles to the first ministries.
The Christian priesthood is not born of a human institution, but of the one Priest: Christ, whose mission continues to live on in the early Church and its ministers.
How is it explained that Jesus never referred to himself as a priest?
is, above all, a mediator between God and mankind. Someone who makes God present among people, and at the same time, someone who brings before God the needs of all and intercedes for them. Jesus, who is God and true man, is the most authentic priest.
However, knowing the course that the Israelite priesthood had taken in his time, limited to the performance of ceremonies in which animals were sacrificed in the Temple, but with a heart more attentive than usual to political intrigues and the lust for personal power, it is not surprising that Jesus never presented himself as a priest.
His was not a priesthood like the one seen in the priests of the Temple of Jerusalem. Moreover, to his contemporaries it seemed evident that it was not, since according to the Law the priesthood was reserved to members of the tribe of Levi and Jesus was of the tribe of Judah.
His figure was much closer to that of the ancient prophets, who preached faithfulness to God (and in some cases like Elijah and Elisha performed miracles), or above all, to the figure of the itinerant teachers who went through cities and villages surrounded by a group of disciples whom they taught and whose instruction sessions they allowed to approach the people. In fact, the Gospels reflect that when people spoke to Jesus they addressed him as “Rabbi” or “Teacher”.
But did Jesus perform properly priestly tasks?
Of course. It is proper of the priest to bring God closer to people, and at the same time to offer sacrifices on behalf of men. Jesus' closeness to humanity in need of salvation and his intercession so that we could obtain God's mercy culminates in the sacrifice of the Cross.
Precisely there arises a new clash with the practice of the priesthood of that time. The crucifixion could not be considered by those men as a priestly offering, but quite the contrary. The essential of the sacrifice was not the suffering of the victim, nor his own death, but the performance of a rite in the established conditions, in the Temple of Jerusalem.
The death of Jesus was presented before their eyes in a very different way: as the execution of a man condemned to death, carried out outside the walls of Jerusalem, and that instead of attracting divine benevolence, it was considered - taking out of context a text from Deuteronomy (Deut 21:23) - that he was the object of a curse.
Did we start talking about priests already at the beginning of the Church?
In the moments that followed the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus to heaven, after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles began to preach, and with the passage of time they began to associate collaborators to their task. But if Jesus Christ himself had never designated himself as a priest, it was logical that such a denomination would not even occur to his disciples to use it to speak of themselves in those first moments.
The functions they performed had little to do with those that the Jewish priests carried out in the Temple. That is why they used other names that more descriptively designated their functions in the first Christian communities: apóstolos which means "sent", epíscopos which means "inspector", presbýteros "elder" or diákonos "servant, helper", among others.
However, when reflecting and explaining the tasks of those "ministers" who are the Apostles or who themselves were instituting, it is perceived that these are truly priestly functions, although they have a different meaning from what had been characteristic of the Israelite priesthood.
What is this new meaning of the Christian priesthood?
This "new meaning" can already be appreciated, for example, when St. Paul speaks of his own tasks in the service of the Church. In his letters, to describe his ministry he uses a vocabulary that is clearly priestly, but which does not refer to a priesthood with its own personality, but to a participation in the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ.
In this sense, St. Paul does not intend to resemble the priests of the Old Covenant, for his task does not consist in burning on the fire of the altar the corpse of an animal to remove it - "sanctifying" it in its ritual sense - from this world, but in "sanctifying" - in another sense, helping them to attain "perfection" by introducing them into God's realm - living men with the fire of the Holy Spirit, kindled in their hearts through the preaching of the Gospel.
In the same way, when writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul notes that he has forgiven sins not on their behalf, but in their name. in persona Christi (cf. 2 Cor 2:10). It is not a simple representation or a performance "in the place of" Jesus, since Christ himself is the one who acts with and through his ministers.
It can be affirmed, therefore, that in the early Church there are ministers whose ministry has a truly priestly character, who perform various tasks at the service of the Christian communities, but with a decisive common element: none of them are "priests" in their own right - and therefore do not enjoy the autonomy to perform a "priesthood" of their own accord, with their own personal stamp - but rather they are "priests" in their own right. participate in the priesthood of Christ.
Mr. Francisco Varo Pineda
Director of Research at the University of Navarra. Professor of Sacred Scripture, Faculty of Theology.
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