The greeks had a WORD for “priest”.
It is “hiereus”.
The fact that Paul never uses “hiereus” when outlining the offices of the Church should be an eye-opener for you.
The "priesthood" (as in ordained priesthood) in those days consisted of elders (bishops) and heir deacons (disciples). Priest are introduced towards the end of the first century (which is why Paul doesn't mention it; and that historical fact should be an eye-opener for you) because the Church became too wide-spread for one bishop and needed deputies. Priests act only under the authority of an apostolic successor, a bishop.
>> The greeks had a WORD for “priest”. It is “hiereus”. The fact that Paul never uses “hiereus” when outlining the offices of the Church should be an eye-opener for you.
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The word, “PREIST” comes directly from the Greek word, “PRESbyter.” What you might, instead, say is that in the letter to the Hebrews, a different word is used for the High Priest (archaeiereus, or ‘iereus), whose role Christ has fulfilled, than is used for the role that Paul appoints people to.
Protestants have argued that Christ abolished the priests referred to in Hebrews. Akin could point out your argument and simply defeat that Protestant argument, but the truth is that Catholic priests do in some ways act like such priests in Hebrews, since they re-enact the sacrifice of Christ by offering their lives for the congregants. So such an argument would be effective, but shallow.
The greater point made by many Protestants is that he Christian notion of a “priesthood of the people” means that there is no set-aside role for anyone with such authority. (This always seemed to me to be a silly argument, since they go and create such leaders, and simply call them “pastors” instead.) But we find that Paul did, in fact, do exactly that.
See Kosta (9) and Dangus (11).