Dissertation leak #1

What I've been writing while I haven't been writing

Section 1.1 – Statement of the problem

When Hebrews criticizes the sacrifices offered by Levitical priests, how far do its criticisms reach? Central to the epistle’s argument is that Jesus’s high priestly service in the heavenly tabernacle has permanently rendered the atoning function of the Levitical cult obsolete. Because of this, many readers have assumed Hebrews renders all Levitical priestly service obsolete, neglecting the fact that, in Leviticus, priestly service encompasses more than accomplishing atonement. This dissertation offers an intertextual reading of Leviticus and Hebrews that attends to the non-atoning aspects of priestly service. This reading will both (1) investigate how Hebrews reconfigures non-atoning aspects of Levitical priestly service and (2) articulate the motif of non-atoning priestly service that arises from a synchronic reading of Leviticus and Hebrews. In doing so, this dissertation addresses two related lacunae that continue to shape contemporary discussions of Christian priesthood.

Vatican II's recovery of the “common priesthood of the faithful” enriched Catholic ecclesiology with renewed attention to priestly identity. Yet it also introduced pressing questions: How is the ministerial priesthood distinct from the priesthood of the faithful? In what ways are these two priesthoods related? And how can either be articulated in terms of dogmatics and Scripture? Scholars have given sustained attention to Old Testament priesthood and to Christ’s high priesthood in Hebrews. Far less work, however, has explored how Hebrews reconfigures the Levitical priesthood itself as a framework for understanding priestly identity and service under the new covenant.

The remainder of this chapter traces these two discussions in order to position this project within both lacunae. Section 1.2 examines the theological developments surrounding Vatican II, including how the Council and its interpreters have attempted to define the relationship between the common and ministerial priesthoods. Section 1.3 turns to the academic conversation, surveying relevant studies of the Old Testament priesthood, high priesthood in Hebrews, priesthood and sacrifice in Hebrews, and analogical reasoning from Leviticus.

Section 1.2 – The Theological Lacuna

In Mediator Dei, Pope Pius XII sought to address the Liturgical Movement’s emerging theology of active lay participation and renewed sacramental and ritual consciousness. While the encyclical affirms the unique mediating role of the ordained priest, it introduces the idea that the entire Church participates in some way in Christ’s priesthood: “The faithful also, united with their priests, offer the divine Victim to God” (MD, 93). Lay participation must no longer be understood in passive terms, but as “[joining] in the oblation… in a certain manner” (93, emphasis mine). This encyclical neither specifies this “certain manner” of participation, nor distinguishes the priestly vocation of the hierarchium from the priestly vocation of the fidelium. These issues would be taken up in Vatican II.

Section 1.2.1 – Vatican II and the Sacerdotium Fidelium

Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963) famously identifies the liturgy as “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed” and “the fount from which all her power flows” (SC 10). It also reiterates the importance of the actuosa participatio of the fidelium in the liturgy: “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and actuosa participatio. Such participation by the Christian people as a chosen race, a royal priesthood… is their right and duty by reason of their baptism” (SC 14). This sentence formally grounds the priestly vocation of the fidelium in the common, dominical sacrament of baptism, rather than the selective sacrament of holy orders. On the basis of their baptism, the fidelium have two related priestly duties: to “offer the Immaculate Victim to God not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him,” and “they should learn also to offer themselves,” drawing from Rom. 12:1 (SC 48). Sacrosanctum Concilium clarifies in one place that the distinguishing feature of the sacerdotium hierarchicum is that they alone participate in the rite in persona Christi (SC 33).

Since the time of Luther, the concept of a common priesthood had been “debated and debased until it all but disappeared” from the Church’s vocabulary. Because of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the terms “priesthood of the laity” and “hierarchical priesthood” had been understood in dialectical opposition. Vatican II in general, and Lumen Gentium in particular, sought to break out of this dialectic by distinguishing instead between the priesthood of the faithful (sacerdotium fidelium), which is conferred upon clergy and lay alike by virtue of their baptism, and the “ministerial priesthood” (sacerdotium ministerium), which is conferred upon a subset of the members of the common priesthood, for the sake of the common priesthood. The key text in Lumen Gentium is no. 10: “Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated: each is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ.” Articulating this “essential difference” became a puzzle for theologians and biblical scholars over the subsequent decades.

In Presbyterorum Ordinis (1965), the Council sought to clarify the identity and function of the ministerial priesthood within the broader framework of the Church’s renewed ecclesiology. After Lumen Gentium had laid the dogmatic groundwork for a twofold participation in the one priesthood of Christ, Presbyterorum Ordinis focused specifically on the ordained presbyter’s role in service to the faithful and in relationship to Christ the High Priest. Although it doesn’t fully explain the “essential difference,” it does gesture toward an explanation: “By the anointing of the Holy Spirit, priests are signed with a special character and are so configured to Christ the Priest that they can act in the person of Christ the Head (in persona Christi Capitis)” (PO 2). The document identifies the priest’s practical, liturgical roles of presiding over the Eucharist, forgiving sins, and preaching the Word not as isolated sacred functions or powers, but as the means by which the Church’s own sacrificial and sanctifying life is structured and sustained: “They gather God’s family together as a brotherhood all of one mind and lead them in the Spirit through Christ to God the Father,” referring, again, to the spiritual sacrifices of the baptized in Rom. 12:1 and 1 Pet. 2:5 (PO 6).

What had been called the sacerdotium ordinatum or the hierarchical priesthood sacerdotium hierarchicum, the Council began to call the sacerdotium ministerium, in order to signify its functional subservience to the sacerdotium fidelium. While this change in terminology and shift in emphasis elevated the sacerdotium fidelium and grounded it in New Testament texts, it made it more difficult to find a Scriptural basis for a sacerdotium ministerium. The New Testament never refers to an individual as a priest (ῐ̔ερεύς). Early Christian texts will not identity a minister (πρεσβύτερος) as a priest (Greek: ῐ̔ερεύς; Latin: sacerdos) until well into the third century. How, then, can the ordained, or ministerial priesthood be grounded in Catholic dogmatics and in Scripture?

Section 1.2.2 – Responses from Theologians