Posted on 12/17/2014 4:04:52 PM PST by Salvation
Where in the New Testament are "priests" mentioned?
Full Question
The New Testament mentions three categories of Church leaders: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. So how can the Catholic Church justify its office of "priest"? The New Testament writers seem to understand "bishop" and "presbyter" to be synonymous terms for the same office (Acts 20:17-38).
Answer
The English word "priest" is derived from the Greek word presbuteros, which is commonly rendered into Bible English as "elder" or "presbyter." The ministry of Catholic priests is that of the presbyters mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 15:6, 23). The Bible says little about the duties of presbyters, but it does reveal they functioned in a priestly capacity.
They were ordained by the laying on of hands (1 Tm 4:14, 5:22), they preached and taught the flock (1 Tm 5:17), and they administered sacraments (Jas 5:13-15). These are the essential functions of the priestly office, so wherever the various forms of presbuteros appear--except, of course, in instances which pertain to the Jewish elders (Mt 21:23, Acts 4:23)--the word may rightly be translated as "priest" instead of "elder" or "presbyter."
Episcopos arises from two words, epi (over) and skopeo (to see), and it means literally "an overseer": We translate it as "bishop." The King James Version renders the office of overseer, episkopen, as "bishopric" (Acts 1:20). The role of the episcopos is not clearly defined in the New Testament, but by the beginning of the second century it had obtained a fixed meaning. There is early evidence of this refinement in ecclesiastical nomenclature in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch (d. A.D. 107), who wrote at length of the authority of bishops as distinct from presbyters and deacons (Epistle to the Magnesians 6:1, 13:1-2; Epistle to the Trallians 2:1-3; Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8:1-2).
The New Testament tendency to use episcopos and presbuteros interchangeably is similar to the contemporary Protestant use of the term "minister" to denote various offices, both ordained and unordained (senior minister, music minister, youth minister). Similarly, the term diakonos is rendered both as "deacon" and as "minister" in the Bible, yet in Protestant churches the office of deacon is clearly distinguished from and subordinate to the office of minister.
In Acts 20:17-38 the same men are called presbyteroi (v. 17) and episcopoi (v. 28). Presbuteroi is used in a technical sense to identify their office of ordained leadership. Episcopoi is used in a non-technical sense to describe the type of ministry they exercised. This is how the Revised Standard Version renders the verses: "And from Miletus he [Paul] . . . called for the elders [presbuteroi]of the church. And when they came to him, he said to them . . . 'Take heed to yourselves and all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you guardians [episcopoi], to feed the church of the Lord.'"
In other passages it's clear that although men called presbuteroi ruled over individual congregations (parishes), the apostles ordained certain men, giving them authority over multiple congregations (dioceses), each with its own presbyters. These were endowed with the power to ordain additional presbyters as needed to shepherd the flock and carry on the work of the gospel. Titus and Timothy were two of those early episcopoi and clearly were above the office of presbuteros. They had the authority to select, ordain, and govern other presbyters, as is evidenced by Paul's instructions: "This is why I left you in Crete . . . that you might appoint elders in every town as I directed you" (Ti 1:5; cf. 1 Tm 5:17-22).
hat tip to vladimir998
Hopefully this is just poor wording by the author. It was never the role of the minister, whether you call him priest, bishop, elder or pastor, to rule over the congregation. It was the role of the minister to guide, to teach, to lead, to SERVE the congregation - but never to rule over them.
JFTR, the Jewish clergy’s leader, the high priest, was called “archiereus” in the Greek text (Hebrew “cohen ha-gadol”); the Greek word is used to refer to Caiaphas.
to guide, to teach, to SERVE
Role of the priest.
I agree with you on the use of the word “rule”
Ok. Next question: Where in the New Testament are “Popes” mentioned?
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The Pope is an episcopal leader, a Bishop.
Advent Series Ping!
I thought the Pope was chosen from the Cardinals which in turn are drawn from Bishops. Do you have insight into these leadership domains?
Ah, so a “Pope” is only authoritative in his own diocese, since he is a Bishop (Ekklesia)?
Oops, I meant “episcopos”, not “ekklesia”. I should really doublecheck my Greek before I use it :)
What are the requirements to serve as an elder?
There was a Greek word for “priest”. It was used in describing Jewish priests, and used of Jesus as High Priest. It was not used of any Christian office in the congregation...
Yes. The Greek word is hiereus. But we are talking about the English word. Like Greek and Latin, Old English had two separate words for priest: preost and sacerd. The former was used to translate presbuteros and the latter hiereus. Preost continued to be used for the office of presbyter in the form priest. Unfortunately sacerd fell out of English usage and its lack was made up by the use of priest. This secondary definition of priest does not, however, take away its original and continuing meaning for the office of presbyter.
If one wants to know what the New Testament says, it helps to pay attention to the language it was written in. If the writers of the New Testament believed there was a priestly office for someone in the church, apart from Jesus as High Priest, they would have said so.
Instead, they used different words.
This certainly suggests they saw no priestly role for an officer in the church.
Instead, they used different words.
This certainly suggests they saw no priestly role for an officer in the church.
Since the English word priest, despite the desire of some, means both presbuteros and hiereus your statement is misleading. Given its original and ongoing meaning as a presbyter, there is a priestly office in the church inasmuch as there is a presbyteral office.
“...Unfortunately sacerd fell out of English usage...”
Interesting. The spanish word for priest is still sacerdote. I don’t know much Spanish, I just looked it up, but assume it must have some root relationship with the word sacerd.
BTTT!
“Priests” Are Not In the New Testament Church
Gary Wills writes:
“Some think that the dwindling number of priests can be remedied by the addition of women priests, or married priests, or openly gay priests. In fact, the real solution is: no priests. It should not be difficult to imagine a Christianity without priests. Read carefully through the entire New Testament and you will not find an individual human priest mentioned in the Christian communities (only Jewish priests in service to the Temple). Only one book of the New Testament, the Letter to Hebrews, mentions an individual priest, and he is unique—Jesus. He has no followers in that office, according to the Letter.”
http://www.johnpiippo.com/2013/03/priests-are-not-in-new-testament-church.html
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