{"id":3384,"date":"2017-11-05T09:09:33","date_gmt":"2017-11-05T06:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/?p=3384"},"modified":"2017-11-05T09:09:33","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T06:09:33","slug":"collins-keenan-jones-sharing-the-priesthood-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/3384\/collins-keenan-jones-sharing-the-priesthood-of-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"Collins, Keenan Jones: Sharing the Priesthood of Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Collins, Keenan Jones: Jesus Our Priest – A Christian Approach to the Priesthood of Christ<\/a>
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\nLittle of\ufb01cial teaching and theological re\ufb02ection on Christ\u2019s priesthood developed over two thousand years of Christianity. His priesthood was taken for granted and rarely became controversial. Even when controversies emerged, as they did at the Reformation, they focused on those who shared in Christ\u2019s priesthood rather than on his priesthood in itself. The most sustained period of re\ufb02ection on his priestly of\ufb01ce came in the seventeenth century. But, even then, the French School concentrated on the spiritual life of all those who shared in the self-sacri\ufb01cing priesthood of Christ, whether through baptism or through ministerial ordination.<\/p>\n

Regularly, even if not always, those who did contribute something to a deepening understanding of Christ\u2019s priesthood had all commented on the Letter to the Hebrews (Origen, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin). This letter (or, more accurately, homily) is, unquestionably the key source for understanding and interpreting the priesthood of Christ. Yet over the centuries Hebrews has not drawn the kind of attention that Christians gave to the Gospels, Romans, and other books of the New Testament. One might speak of a \u2018marginalizing\u2019 of Hebrews, a marginalizing that was associated with, and even encouraged, a diminished interest in the priesthood of Christ. Given this widespread and chronic reticence about Christ\u2019s priesthood, we thought it best to be crisply clear about where we stand and set out our conclusions in the form of theses. Some of the theses that follow will be relatively uncontroversial, others more controversial. But in all cases we will provide our motives for proposing them.<\/p>\n

THESIS 1<\/p>\n

The Jewish matrix and some New Testament books other than Hebrews are indispensable sources for those who explore the priesthood of Christ. As regards the Jewish matrix that must enter any adequate appreciation of Christ\u2019s priesthood, we should \ufb01rst recall such passages from Paul as 1 Corinthians 5: 7 (\u2018Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacri\ufb01ced\u2019), 1 Corinthians 10: 18 (about the sacri\ufb01ces that were still going on in the Jerusalem Temple), and Romans 3: 25 (the sacri\ufb01cial ceremony on the Day of Expiation). Some knowledge of Jewish sources is indispensable for grasping what Paul intends to say. Add too the priestly and sacri\ufb01cial vision of the whole Church founded by Christ that 1 Peter proposes and that cannot be adequately grasped without reference to relevant passages in Exodus and Isaiah.<\/p>\n

The heavenly liturgy in the Book of Revelation which centres on the Lamb is patterned on ceremonies celebrated in the Jerusalem Temple. A reading of Revelation that ignores these ceremonies and Old Testament sources for the vivid language which this apocalyptic book employs will go seriously astray in grasping its message about Christ, Victim and Priest. The Letter to the Hebrews highlights the impact of Christ\u2019s priestly activity in rendering \u2018obsolete\u2019 the \u2018old covenant\u2019, with its priesthood and practices (Heb. 8: 13). Nevertheless, to illuminate Christ\u2019s priesthood Hebrews itself draws liberally on Jewish priestly and Temple imagery, as well as picking up very positively the \ufb01gure of Melchizedek. It also endorses some Old Testament principles about priesthood: for instance, that being \u2018taken from among human beings\u2019 is an indispensable quali\ufb01cation for being appointed a priest by God (Heb. 5: 1), and that priesthood and sacri\ufb01ce are essentially connected (Heb. 8: 3).<\/p>\n

Despite this sense of some continuity with the past, Hebrews is bent on expounding the novelty of Christ\u2019s high priesthood. He radically changed the nature of priesthood: by replacing a past of many priests in becoming \u2018the one proper Priest\u2019 (Newman), and, as we shall see, by bringing a massive revision in what sacri\ufb01ce means. In this context we must note the persistent temptation to play down the discontinuity and return to a Levitical-style priesthood, or at least to press excessively into service themes from the priesthood of Aaron when delineating the ministerial priesthood derived from Christ. We saw this trend setting in as early as 1 Clement. In the sixteenth century the Reformers zealously denounced ways in which Catholic priesthood had returned to Levitical styles and practices. Serious re\ufb02ection on the Letter to the Hebrews should have checked these abuses. At the same time, the author of Hebrews never makes or implies the claim: \u2018read my text and you will know everything you need to know about Christ\u2019s priesthood and about sharing in it through universal and ministerial priesthood.\u2019 Along with its elaborated vision of Christ the new High Priest entering the heavenly sanctuary with his own blood (to expiate sins and establish the new covenant), and in his risen glory continuing to intercede for humanity, Hebrews evokes (without developing fully or even to some extent) other key themes in the narrative of that priesthood: the divine kingdom preached by Jesus; his institution of the Eucharist (probably); his cruci\ufb01xion (certainly; see Heb. 6: 6; 12: 2). The Last Supper and the cruci\ufb01xion (followed by his glorious resurrection) enter the story as de\ufb01ning moments in the narrative of Christ\u2019s priesthood. We need the Gospels (and, to some extent, Paul) to \ufb01ll out those moments for us, just as we rely on the Gospels to know and appreciate the years of Jesus\u2019 public ministry, which can and should be read in a priestly key as well as in a prophetic\/teaching key. The Gospels, even if brie\ufb02y, present the risen Christ as sending (and empowering through the Spirit) chosen representatives among his followers to carry that prophetic\/priestly\/kingly ministry out to the whole world (e.g. Matt. 28: 19\u201320). Thus, we must call not only on Hebrews but also on other books of the New Testament to form and fashion an adequate version of Christ\u2019s priesthood. Hebrews is required but not suf\ufb01cient reading for the central theme of this book.
\n
\nTHESIS 2<\/p>\n

The Son of God became a priest, or rather the High Priest, when he took on the human condition.<\/p>\n

From the time of Hebrews right down to the twentieth century (e.g. Chrysostom, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Newman, and Torrance), Christian theologians have repeatedly insisted that the Son of God would not have exercised his priestly of\ufb01ce unless he had truly taken on the integral human condition. His humanity was essential to his priesthood. Augustine developed this theme though his image of Christ as \u2018the humble doctor\u2019: becoming the Priest for the human family involved Christ in a radical self-humbling. Torrance distinguished between (1) the Church rightly recognizing Christ\u2019s divine identity by adoring him \u2018equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit\u2019, and (2) a misguided reaction to Arianism that gave rise to liturgical texts that reduced the place given to the human priesthood of Christ. Any such excessive reactions in defence of Christ\u2019s true divinity at the expense of his humanity entail losing a proper appreciation of his priesthood. That priesthood stands or falls with his being fully and truly human.<\/p>\n

THESIS 3<\/p>\n

The priesthood of Christ and its exercise began with the incarnation. We saw how Hebrews understood Christ\u2019s priesthood to embrace his entire life\u2014from his coming into the world to do God\u2019s will (Heb. 10: 5\u20137) and living a \u2018holy, blameless, and unde\ufb01led\u2019 life (7: 26) during all \u2018the days of his \ufb02esh\u2019 (5: 7). To be sure, for Hebrews the death, resurrection, and glori\ufb01cation of Christ characterized essentially his priesthood. But this did not mean that everything which came before, above all his public ministry, was a mere prelude to the real exercise of his priesthood. The priestly narrative of Hebrews embraced the whole story, right from Christ\u2019s \ufb01rst coming into the world. His priesthood began with incarnation (so e.g. Chrysostom and Calvin). We quoted some vivid, even baroque, language from Be\u00b4 rulle, Condren, and Olier about the exercise of Christ\u2019s priesthood starting within the \u2018temple\u2019 of Mary\u2019s womb. As Be\u00b4 rulle put it, \u2018the heart of the Virgin is the \ufb01rst altar on which Jesus offered his heart, body, and spirit as a host of perpetual praise … making the \ufb01rst perpetual oblation of himself, through which … we are all made holy\u2019. This was to presuppose that Christ\u2019s human mind was actualized in a unique way from the \ufb01rst moment of his conception\u2014a view endorsed by Roman Catholics for many centuries but widely abandoned in the course of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, we endorse a central truth that was maintained by the French School with its own imagery: Christ was a priest (or rather the Priest) from the beginning of his human existence, and did not \ufb01rst become a priest only at some later stage: for instance, at the Last Supper, at his cruci\ufb01xion, or even only at his glorious ascension.<\/p>\n

THESIS 4<\/p>\n

In his public ministry Jesus exercised a priestly ministry. The prophetic teaching and miraculous activity of Jesus during his public ministry should also be recognized as priestly. After the Holy Spirit descended on him at his baptism, Jesus inaugurated his work of evangelization. Right from the time of the New Testament (Acts 10: 38), that descent of the Spirit was understood to be an anointing for a mission, which should be understood not only in a prophetic and kingly key but also in a priestly key. (In our next thesis we will present something on the way in which the three \u2018of\ufb01ces\u2019 of Christ mutually condition each other.) We reported ten points about the priesthood of Christ that can be drawn from the presentation of that priesthood in two landmark documents published in 1982: Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry from the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, and the Final Report from the Anglican\u2013Roman Catholic International Commission. Neither BEM nor the Final Report listed the public ministry of Jesus as an essential feature in the exercise of his priesthood. This was a serious omission, and somewhat puzzling when one recalls (1) the vehement criticisms that came from the Reformers against the priests of their day for neglecting the ministry of the Word, and (2) the primary place given to preaching in Vatican II\u2019s account of the priestly ministry.
\n
\nThis sixteenth-century challenge and the twentieth-century response should have alerted those responsible for composing BEM and the Final Report to the relevance of Jesus\u2019 public ministry for any complete view of his priesthood. The public ministry of Jesus entered essentially into the exercise of his priesthood (see e.g. Origen, Luther, and the French School). His total dedication to the cause of God\u2019s kingdom substantiated what the Letter to the Hebrews said in summing up the priestly work of the incarnate Son: he came to do God\u2019s will (Heb. 10: 7). Jesus\u2019 role as teacher\/preacher exempli\ufb01ed what Jeremiah and other Old Testament witnesses had said about instructing God\u2019s people as a distinguishing feature of priesthood. It also anticipated Paul\u2019s preaching the good news, which the apostle understood to be a priestly, liturgical ministry (Rom. 15: 16).<\/p>\n

Since Paul interpreted his ministry of proclamation as a priestly service, a fortiori we should say this also about Jesus\u2019 proclamation of God\u2019s kingdom. Right from his \ufb01rst chapter, Mark (and then the later evangelists) understood that being active in proclaiming\/teaching was inseparable from Jesus\u2019 being active in healing and other miraculous activity. Since Jesus\u2019 teaching was priestly, so too was his activity as healer. Teaching and healing were two distinguishable but inseparable expressions of his priestly identity and activity. By preaching, healing, and forgiving sins, Jesus built up a \u2018community of the faithful\u2019, those who accepted his message of God\u2019s kingdom that was already breaking into the world. One can summarize much of the public ministry of Jesus by speaking of him as feeding people at \u2018two tables\u2019. Centuries later Augustine, when commenting on the Lord\u2019s Prayer, identi\ufb01ed \u2018our daily bread\u2019 as both our daily material needs and our daily spiritual bread, with the latter including both the Word of God and the Eucharist. In this double perspective of the \u2018Bread of Life\u2019, Christ sustains his followers for time and eternity (John 6: 25\u201365).1<\/p>\n

1 Commentary on the Lord\u2019s Sermon on the Mount, trans. D. J. Kavanagh (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1951), 135.<\/p>\n

Augustine initiated an enduring tradition of interpretation, which would \ufb01nd expression and endorsement at the Second Vatican Council: \u2018Christians draw nourishment through the Word of God from the double table of holy Scripture and the Eucharist\u2019 (PO 18).2<\/p>\n

2 This theme of the \u2018double table\u2019 is expressed more fully in Vatican II\u2019s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum (\u2018The Word of God\u2019), 21; see also the decree on the renewal of religious life, Perfectae Caritatis (\u2018Perfect Charity\u2019), 6. 3 See G. O\u2019Collins, Salvation For All: God\u2019s Other Peoples (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 82<\/p>\n

This theme \ufb01nds its counterpart or \u2018early intimation\u2019 (to use Newman\u2019s language about the development of doctrine) in the ministry of Jesus. His priestly outreach to people took a double form: he both fed them with his teaching and shared his presence with them by joining them for meals. Those meals, especially his eating with the sinful and disreputable, characterized Jesus\u2019 priestly ministry (e.g. Mark 2: 13\u201317 parr.; Luke 19: 1\u201310). The most vivid picture of Jesus nourishing people at a \u2018double table\u2019 comes from the stories of the feeding of \ufb01ve thousand (Mark 6: 30\u201344 parr.) and then of four thousand hungry people (Mark 8: 1\u201310 par.). The former group seem to have been predominantly Jewish and the latter predominantly Gentile\u2014a way of expressing how Jesus\u2019 mission went out to all people.3<\/p>\n

3. On the two feeding stories, see J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, ii (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 950 66, 1022 38.
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\nIn the \ufb01rst story Jesus \u2018taught\u2019 (Mark 6: 34), \u2018healed\u2019 the sick (Matt. 14: 14), or both taught and healed (Luke 9: 11) before feeding them. In the second story, situated in Gentile territory (the Decapolis), a \u2018great crowd\u2019 (Mark 8: 1; see Matt. 15: 30) was drawn to Jesus by his healing and teaching activity. What he does in feeding people on both occasions foreshadows the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. During his ministry and at its end, Jesus nourishes people in a \u2018double\u2019 and priestly way.<\/p>\n

THESIS 5<\/p>\n

The three \u2018of\ufb01ces\u2019 of Jesus are distinguishable but inseparable. We saw how, in Luther\u2019s thought, Christ\u2019s kingship was seamlessly linked with his priesthood,4 and how Calvin elaborated more effectively the doctrine of the threefold of\ufb01ce, with Christ being inseparably priest, shepherd\/ king, and prophet\/teacher\u2014a development treasured and endorsed in the twentieth century by Karl Barth.<\/p>\n

4 A fascinating modern counterpart to this intimate association Luther recognized between Christ\u2019s kingship and priesthood is found in the Feast of Christ the King instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. Addressing God the Father, the preface says: \u2018You anointed Jesus Christ, your only Son, with the oil of gladness, as the eternal priest and universal king. As priest he offered his life on the altar of the cross and redeemed the human race by this one perfect sacri\ufb01ce of peace. As king he claims dominion over all creation, that he may present to you, his almighty Father an eternal and universal kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.\u2019 Christ is being celebrated as King, but the preface (and, to some extent, the prayer over the gifts and the prayer after communion), without any special pleading, also attend to the priesthood of Christ. 5 Some think here of the picture in Wisd. 18: 15 of God\u2019s \u2018stern warrior\u2019, the all powerful word who leaps down from heaven to slay the \ufb01rst born of the Egyptians. But see G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd edn., London: A. & C. Black, 1984), 244.<\/p>\n

The canon of the New Testament includes an entire book on the priesthood of Christ (Hebrews). Even if there are no corresponding books on Christ as prophet and\/or on Christ as king, the New Testament thoroughly justi\ufb01es acknowledging the prophetic and kingly of\ufb01ce of Christ. We drew together from the Gospels the reasons for recognizing Jesus to be prophet and king, albeit in his own way. To that evidence one might add some witness from other New Testament books. For example, Revelation, when evoking the divine victory over the Antichrist and his empire, tells its readers that the Lamb who was slain will conquer them, because \u2018he is Lord of lords and King of kings\u2019 (Rev. 17: 14). Those royal titles recur a little later, when we learn that the rider at the head of the heavenly armies bears not only the name of \u2018the Word of God\u2019 (Rev. 19: 13) but also that of \u2018King of kings and Lord of lords\u2019 (Rev. 19: 16). By associating the \u2018Word of God\u2019, who presumably bears a divine message and witnesses to the truth of God, closely with the \u2018King of kings\u2019, Revelation in its own dramatic way connects Christ\u2019s prophetic and kingly roles.5 This same book has already connected these roles in its opening chapter by calling Christ \u2018the faithful witness\u2019 and \u2018the ruler of the kings of the earth\u2019 (Rev. 1: 5). This \u2018faithful witness\u2019 testi\ufb01es to the truth, and so is also named as \u2018the faithful and true witness\u2019 (Rev. 3: 14). Once again, a close association of Christ\u2019s prophetic and kingly roles crops up in the text of Revelation. It is Hebrews that supplies full warrant for naming Christ \u2018priest\u2019, although, as we have seen, other books of the New Testament witness, at least implicitly, to his priestly of\ufb01ce. Revelation, as we showed, pictures a kind of heavenly victimhood of Christ through the \ufb01gure of the Lamb who was slain, but does not call him \u2018priest\u2019. It comes very close to doing so, however, when it speaks of him as having \u2018freed us [or possibly \u2018washed us\u2019] by his blood\u2019 (Rev. 1: 5). A love that drove him to accept a sacri\ufb01cial victimhood is prominent here, but the active (rather than passive) role of Christ in the sacri\ufb01ce is to the fore: \u2018he freed\/washed us.\u2019 This amounts to calling Christ simultaneously \u2018priest\u2019 and \u2018victim\u2019. The New Testament testi\ufb01es, then, to Jesus as priest, prophet, and king, with \u2018king\u2019 being easily the commonest of these three titles. Only eight titles of Jesus occur more than twenty times in the New Testament, and \u2018king\u2019 comes in seventh with thirty-eight occurrences. \u2018Priest\u2019, \u2018prophet\u2019, and \u2018king\u2019 \ufb01nd a home, then, among the many distinctive names or titles with which the New Testament designates Jesus, and belong among the earliest answers to the question: \u2018who\/what do you say that I am?\u2019 (see Mark 8: 27\u20139 parr.). The sheer number of his titles (well over one hundred in the New Testament) bears eloquent witness to the fact that no one title exhausts the personal mystery of Christ and his redemptive work.6<\/p>\n

6 The Letter to the Hebrews calls Jesus \u2018priest\u2019 six times and \u2018high priest\u2019 ten times. For further leads and statistics on the titles of Jesus in the New Testament, see G. O\u2019Collins, \u2018Images of Jesus and Modern Theology\u2019, in S. E. Porter et al. (eds), Images of Christ Ancient and Modern (Shef\ufb01eld: Shef\ufb01eld Academic Press, 1997), 128 43; id., \u2018Images of Jesus: Reappropriating Titular Christology\u2019, Theology Digest, 44 (1997), 303 18; id., \u2018Jesus as Lord and Teacher\u2019, in J. C. Cavadini and L. Holt (eds.), Who Do You Say That I Am? Confessing the Mystery of Christ (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), 51 61.
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\nIt is crushingly obvious that, for the authors of the New Testament, \u2018priest\u2019, \u2018prophet\u2019, and \u2018king\u2019 are not disconnected but are strictly interrelated in articulating a threefold dimension of Christ\u2019s ministry and redemptive work. These three titles and the \u2018of\ufb01ces\u2019 to which they refer mutually condition each other. Christ\u2019s priestly role is also prophetic and kingly; his prophetic role is also priestly and kingly; his kingly role is also prophetic and priestly.<\/p>\n

THESIS 6<\/p>\n

The priesthood of Christ involved him not only in being tried and tested but also in becoming vulnerable to lethal persecution. By speaking merely of his \u2018sacri\ufb01ce\u2019, BEM and the Final Report were content to use an umbrella term to recall Christ\u2019s sufferings, but did not pause to recognize, as Hebrews does, how extreme vulnerability belonged to the \u2018job description\u2019 of Christ\u2019s priesthood. By becoming a human priest, the incarnate Son of God made himself vulnerable to suffering and violent death (Heb. 5: 7\u20138). Becoming a priest involved becoming a victim\u2014a new and disturbing aspect of Christ\u2019s priesthood. This becoming personally the victim took him quite beyond the job description not only of Levitical priests (who sacri\ufb01ced animals as victims) but also of Melchizedek (who offered some bread and wine and was held up by Hebrews as foreshadowing Jesus the High Priest to come). BEM and the Final Report rightly invoke \u2018sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 when sketching the nature of Christ\u2019s priesthood. But they would have followed Hebrews more closely if they had also mentioned that Christ accepted in faith the suffering destiny involved in realizing to the full his own priesthood\u2014a theme cherished by the French School. In preparing for the picture of Jesus whose own faith led him to endure the shame and extreme pain of death by cruci\ufb01xion (Heb. 12: 2).7<\/p>\n

7 When the author writes of Jesus as \u2018the pioneer and perfecter of faith\u2019, he means Jesus\u2019 own faith, as commentators almost unanimously recognize. C. R. Koester writes: Jesus \u2018takes faith to its goal, going where others have not yet gone. He is the source and model of faith for others … Jesus pioneers and completes faith by fully trusting God and remaining faithful to God in a way\u2019 that others are to follow (Hebrews (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 523). Curiously, a number of outstanding translations, like the New Jerusalem Bible of 1985 and the New Revised Standard Version of 1989, insert an \u2018our\u2019 that is not found in the original Greek text and translate accordingly: \u2018the pioneer and perfecter of our faith\u2019 (NRSV) and \u2018Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection\u2019 (NJB). See G. O\u2019Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus (2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 262 80.<\/p>\n

Hebrews introduces a long roll-call of heroes and heroines of faith. Right from the opening example of Abel, it is clear that faith regularly made these men and women vulnerable to suffering, persecution, and even violent death. Hebrews notes that many of these persons of faith were tortured, mocked, \ufb02ogged, and imprisoned (Heb. 11: 35\u20136), as well as mentioning three ways in which some of them died: \u2018they were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword\u2019 (11: 37). In this list of heroes and heroines of faith we \ufb01nd one royal name, King David (11: 32), a general reference to \u2018the prophets\u2019 (also vs. 32), but no priests as such, even if several of those listed (like Abel, Noah, Abraham, and King David himself ) did on occasion perform some cultic, priestly action. The Gospels report that Jesus recognized that a prophetic vocation might well involve suffering and even violent death: \u2018Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!\u2019 (Matt. 23: 37 par.; see also Matt. 23: 34 par.). Jesus is also remembered as having mentioned the killing of Zechariah (Matt. 23: 35 par.), a priest who, by command of King Joash, was stoned to death \u2018in the court of the house of the Lord\u2019 (2 Chron. 24: 20\u20132). There are good grounds for taking these statements as stemming substantially from Jesus, and thus concluding to what should be a relatively uncontroversial position: Jesus himself acknowledged the dangers that attended a prophetic and priestly vocation.8<\/p>\n

8 See J. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005), 942, 945 8, 950 1.
\n
\nHe clearly thought of himself and his mission also in prophetic terms (Mark 6: 4 parr.). That he understood his vocation also in priestly terms appears a reasonable conclusion from the narratives of the Last Supper (see next thesis). He seems also to have in some sense thought of himself in kingly terms. We might base this conclusion on such passages as his interchange with James and John when they ask to sit on Jesus\u2019 right hand and left in his coming royal glory (Mark 10: 35\u201345 parr.). Jesus\u2019 ominous reply about what his kingship will involve, the \u2018cup\u2019 that he will drink and the \u2018baptism\u2019 with which he will be baptized, more than hint at the suffering to come. It will culminate with his being cruci\ufb01ed on the charge of being a dangerous royal pretender (Mark 15: 26). That charge suggests that Jesus had given an impression of claiming, at least implicitly, some kind of royal authority. Where the charge af\ufb01xed to the cross indicated that Pontius Pilate thought of that kingship as a threat to public order, Jesus himself understood his kingship in terms of service and suffering.9<\/p>\n

9 See O\u2019Collins, Christology, 67 80. 10 N. Schreurs, \u2018A Non Sacri\ufb01cial Interpretation of Christian Redemption\u2019, in T. Merrigan and J. Haers (eds.), The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000), 551.<\/p>\n

Unquestionably, we cannot draw from the historical witness of the Gospels a picture of Jesus clearly enunciating his threefold of\ufb01ce as priest, prophet, and king. But there are good reasons for concluding that (1) he understood his mission in terms of prophetic, kingly, and priestly functions, and (2) knew the deadly risks inherent in these functions. In particular, as we shall argue in the next thesis, he knew the exercise of his priesthood to involve him in suffering and a violent death. At the Last Supper he dramatized what Hebrews expressed about the utter vulnerability of his priestly vocation.<\/p>\n

THESIS 7<\/p>\n

At the Last Supper, when instituting the Eucharist as a sacri\ufb01cial meal, Jesus committed himself through a cultic, priestly act to his self-sacri\ufb01cing death. Here we come to the \ufb01rst of the three supremely de\ufb01ning moments in the narrative of Christ\u2019s priesthood: the Last Supper, the cruci\ufb01xion, and the resurrection into glory. This thesis bristles with controversial points\u2014not least over two central issues, the \ufb01rst more general and the second more particular. First, what is \u2018sacri\ufb01ce\u2019, and is it still viable language for Christians? Many people \ufb01nd the idea of the sacri\ufb01ce of a human being and, especially, of a totally innocent human being strange and even morally repulsive, especially when it is presented as \u2018placating\u2019 an angry, \u2018bloodthirsty\u2019 God. Nico Schreurs makes the claim: \u2018sacri\ufb01ces in general and blood sacri\ufb01ces, in particular, disgust most of our contemporaries.\u2019 Years earlier, J. S. Whale pointed out how for many people the very idea of such sacri\ufb01ces is \u2018revolting\u2019 and both \u2018morally and aesthetically disgusting\u2019.11<\/p>\n

11 J. S. Whale, Victor and Victim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 42.<\/p>\n

In the Western world and beyond, the language of sacri\ufb01ce seems irreconcilable with contemporary \u2018ideals\u2019 of self-realization and self-ful\ufb01lment, the \u2018good life\u2019 promoted by endless advertisements and TV soap operas. Add too that political rhetoric about dying for one\u2019s country which has been employed for two thousand years or more\u2014not least by unscrupulous modern leaders. For the sake of power, wealth, and prestige, they have debased the language of sacri\ufb01ce and self-sacri\ufb01ce and led millions to their death. Perhaps the sharpest criticisms levelled at sacri\ufb01cial interpretations of the Last Supper and Christ\u2019s death have come from contemporary feminism. Some feminist theologians point out how some traditional presentations of Christ the innocent victim sacri\ufb01cing himself to atone for the sins of others have been misused to legitimate the sufferings of innumerable women. They have been encouraged to endure all kinds of violent injustice and victimization by imitating the self-sacri\ufb01cial love and redemptive death of Christ.12<\/p>\n

12 See e.g. M. Grey, Redeeming the Dream: Feminism, Redemption and Christian Tradition (London: SPCK, 1989); R. R. Ruether, Introducing Redemption in Christian Feminism (Shef\ufb01eld: Shef\ufb01eld Academic Press, 1998).
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\nOne can understand why, for various reasons, Ernst Kasemann and others have wanted to abandon the whole notion of sacri\ufb01ce.13<\/p>\n

13 E. Kasemann, Jesus Means Freedom, trans. G. Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), 114. In his Le Salut par la croix dans la the\u00b4ologie contemporaine (1930 85) (Paris: Cerf, 1988), Michel Deneken puts the case for simply banishing \u2018sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 from Christian vocabulary.<\/p>\n

And yet this would mean also refusing to follow the Letter to the Hebrews and the mainstream Christian tradition in naming Christ as \u2018priest\u2019. From Hebrews and Chrysostom, right down to Torrance and beyond, calling Christ \u2018priest\u2019 stands or falls with the correlative reality of sacri\ufb01ce. If we give up speaking of sacri\ufb01cial self-offering, we should also drop the language of his priesthood. Undoubtedly the language of sacri\ufb01ce has at times been massively misused, but the witness of Hebrews and other New Testament authors makes it a normative way of characterizing Christ\u2019s death and resurrection. Below we return to appropriate ways of using sacri\ufb01cial language.<\/p>\n

But, second, can we apply the language of sacri\ufb01ce to what Christ committed himself to at the Last Supper? Did Christ\u2019s institution of the Eucharist take a sacri\ufb01cial form (so, for example, Cyprian, Chrysostom, and the Council of Trent)? Or, through his words and gestures at the Last Supper, did Christ leave his followers a \u2018testament\u2019 or \u2018covenant\u2019 (Luther), a loving \u2018remembrance\u2019 of the sacri\ufb01ce made on Calvary (Calvin)? Obviously traditional Catholicism and traditional Protestantism collide at this point. Should our interpretation of what Christ did for his followers and bequeathed to them on the night before he died lead us to speak of \u2018the sacri\ufb01ce of the Mass\u2019, or to use rather the \u2018meal\u2019 language involved in speaking of \u2018the sacrament of the Lord\u2019s Supper\u2019? The \u2018sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 language entails speaking of an ordained priest \u2018offering the sacri\ufb01ce of the Mass\u2019, whereas the \u2018meal\u2019 language entails speaking of an ordained minister (or simply someone designated by the community) \u2018presiding at the Lord\u2019s Supper\u2019.<\/p>\n

Maintaining \u2018Sacri\ufb01ce\u2019<\/p>\n

There is much about sacri\ufb01ce and, in particular, cultic sacri\ufb01ce in the Old Testament, even if it nowhere offers a rationale for sacri\ufb01ce. In general, publicly recognized priests offered, ritually and in the name of the people, sacri\ufb01ces in some kind of sacred setting. These authorized priests served God at an altar and performed cultic, sacri\ufb01cial acts on behalf of the community. Sacri\ufb01ces took three forms: (1) gift-offerings of praise and thanksgiving, (2) sin-offerings, and (3) communion-offerings or covenantal sacri\ufb01ces involving a communion meal.14 The Old Testament also used the language of sacri\ufb01ce in a wider sense, as being a matter of inner dispositions and praiseworthy behaviour. Thus, Psalm 51 appears to have ended originally by proposing a \u2018contrite heart\u2019 as \u2018the sacri\ufb01ce pleasing to God\u2019<\/p>\n

14 Along with the references provided in Ch. 1, see also G. A. Anderson and H. J. Klauck, \u2018Sacri\ufb01ce and Sacri\ufb01cial Offerings\u2019, ABD v. 871 91; I. Bradley, The Power of Sacri\ufb01ce (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1995); P. Gerlitz et al., \u2018Opfer\u2019, TRE xxv. 251 99; and G. O\u2019Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to Salvation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 156 72.<\/p>\n

(vs. 17). A later addition (from the time of the Babylonian captivity or shortly thereafter) aimed to modify what seemed an anti-cultic sentiment and to bring the psalm into line with liturgical ritual. It asked God to \u2018rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacri\ufb01ce, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar\u2019 (vv. 18\u201319). But the wider, noncultic sense of sacri\ufb01ce would also persist. In any case, the Old Testament taught that external rituals were worthless without (1) the corresponding interior dispositions, and (2) compassionate behaviour. One psalm acknowledged that doing God\u2019s will counts for more than any formal sacri\ufb01ces of thanksgiving (Ps. 40: 6\u20138); these verses would be quoted and endorsed by Hebrews 10: 5\u20137. Matthew would explain Jesus\u2019 practice of forgiveness by having him quote Hosea 6: 6 and so challenge conventional ideas about divine forgiveness and sacri\ufb01cial sin-offerings: \u2018I desire mercy and not sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 (Matt. 9: 13; see also 12: 7). A wise scribe was to react to Jesus\u2019 teaching on love towards God and neighbour by declaring that practising such love \u2018is more important than all burnt offerings and sacri\ufb01ces\u2019 (Mark 12: 33 parr.). The prophet Micah provided an Old Testament warrant for such a position: rather than all manner of burnt offerings and other sacri\ufb01ces, what God expects of his people is \u2018to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God\u2019 (Mic. 6: 6\u20138). St Paul, as we saw, used the terminology of sacri\ufb01ce in both a cultic (e.g. 1 Cor. 5: 7) and a non-cultic way. Gordon Fee illustrates how the apostle\u2019s use of the imagery of blood shows how he understood Christ\u2019s death in a cultic, sacri\ufb01cial way.15 <\/p>\n

15 G. D. Fee, \u2018Paul and the Metaphors of Salvation\u2019, in S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O\u2019Collins (eds.), The Redemption (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 43 67, at 55 60.<\/p>\n


\nThe non-cultic sense was to the fore when he appealed to the Christians of Rome: \u2018present your bodies (\u00bc your selves) as a living sacri\ufb01ce, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [or \u2018reasonable\u2019] worship\u2019 (Rom. 12: 1). The apostle called on believers to live self-sacri\ufb01cing lives. Sacri\ufb01ce was not merely something that had happened on their behalf; it was something in which they should be intimately involved, even to the point of self-surrender to a new, demanding form of existence in the sight of God. Augustine of Hippo also took up the theme of sacri\ufb01ce in both ways. On the one hand, he declared: \u2018he [Christ] is a priest in that he offered himself as a holocaust for expiating and purging away our sins\u2019 (Sermo, 198. 5).16 On the other hand, Augustine stressed the interior relationship of love, without which the mere external performance of ritual would never bring the desired communion with God: \u2018all the divine precepts\u2019, which \u2018refer to sacri\ufb01ces either in the service of the tabernacle [in the desert] or of the temple [in Jerusalem]\u2019, are to be understood symbolically \u2018to refer to the love of God and neighbour. For \u201con these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets\u201d [Matt. 20: 40]\u2019 (The City of God, 10. 5). It was the interior disposition that gave value to the exterior, cultic actions: \u2018a sacri\ufb01ce is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 (ibid.). The external sacri\ufb01cial gift must symbolize the inner, invisible sacri\ufb01ce\u2014a conviction strongly endorsed not only by the Reformers but also by others writing earlier (e.g. Origen) and later (the French School). In the light of Psalm 51, Thomas Aquinas endorsed a broad, noncultic account of sacri\ufb01ce: \u2018whatever is offered to God in order to raise the human spirit to him, may be called a sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 (STh. 3a. 22. 2). Yet in the very same article Aquinas proposed a more cultic reading of sacri\ufb01ce, or at least of the sacri\ufb01ce of Christ, who was \u2018a perfect victim, being at the same time victim for sin, victim for a peace-offering, and a holocaust\u2019. Like many others before and after him, Aquinas drew here on the Letter to the Hebrews. That extensive treatment of Christ as \u2018high priest according to the order of Melchizedek\u2019 (Heb. 5: 10; 6: 20), as we saw, lavishly used imagery from sacri\ufb01cial rituals prescribed for the Levitical priesthood, with the aim of showing both (1) the superiority of Christ\u2019s own priesthood and (2) the superiority of the sacri\ufb01ce Christ offered once and for all (Heb. 5: 10; 6: 20). At the same time, Hebrews recalled that Christ did not die in a sacred setting but in a profane place, with his bloody death on a cross<\/p>\n

16 Sermons III\/11. Newly Discovered Sermons, trans. E. Hill (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1997), 219.<\/p>\n

occurring \u2018outside the city gate\u2019 (Heb. 13: 11\u201313). Despite the pervasive cultic imagery, Hebrews ended with a non-cultic version of the sacri\ufb01ce of Christ, priest and victim. The Letter to the Hebrews encourages eight convictions about Christ\u2019s priesthood and the strictly related reality of sacri\ufb01ce. (1) We should not simply apply to his sacri\ufb01ce and priesthood models we have drawn from elsewhere. We would miss much of what Christ did and does as priest, if we try to describe and explain it even along the lines of the Levitical priesthood which, according to tradition, had been developed by Moses at the command of God. There is something radically new about the sacri\ufb01ce and priesthood of Christ. We should evaluate priesthood and sacri\ufb01ce in the light of Christ, and not vice versa. The author of Hebrews approached Christ\u2019s death and resurrection in the light of existing notions of sacri\ufb01ce, only to reinterpret dramatically these inherited images and views.17 <\/p>\n

17 Apropos of the modern situation, Robert Daly criticizes those who approach the sacri\ufb01ce of Christ in the light of conventional theories: \u2018We have usually started at the wrong end. We should have tried to learn from the Christ event what it was Christians were trying to express when, at \ufb01rst quite hesitantly, in earliest Christianity they began to speak of the Christ event … as sacri\ufb01cial; instead, we went to look at the practice of different religions in the world, drawing up a general de\ufb01nition of sacri\ufb01ce, and then seeing if it were applicable to Christ. The usual de\ufb01nition drawn from the history of religions or cultural anthropology is reasonable enough in itself but when made to apply to Christ, it is disastrously inadequate\u2019: \u2018Sacri\ufb01ce Unveiled or Sacri\ufb01ce Revisited: Trinitarian and Liturgical Perspectives\u2019, Theological Studies, 64 (2003), 24 42, at 25.
\n<\/p>\n

Both in the ancient world and later, sacri\ufb01ce was normally understood as human beings in a cultic setting surrendering something valuable to God (especially a victim who was slain), with a view to bringing about communion with God and changing the participants who took part in the shared feast. Hebrews, however, while presenting Christ as a sacri\ufb01cial victim in his death, explicitly denied that this death took place in a cultic setting (see above) and at best only hinted at a sacred feast shared by believers (Heb. 13: 9\u201310). The most startling difference, however, from any \u2018conventional\u2019 understanding of sacri\ufb01ce, a difference which Hebrews and other New Testament books illustrate, is that it was not human beings who went to God with their gift(s) or victim(s); it was God who provided the means for the sacri\ufb01ce to take place (e.g. Rom. 3: 25). As Hebrews put it, \u2018in these last days\u2019 God provided his Son for the priestly work of \u2018puri\ufb01cation for sins\u2019 (Heb. 1: 1\u20133). The normal roles were reversed: in this sacri\ufb01cial process the primary initiative was with God and not with human beings. In the words of Edward Kilmartin:<\/p>\n

Sacri\ufb01ce is not, in the \ufb01rst place, an activity of human beings directed to God and, in the second place, something that reaches its goal in the response of divine acceptance and bestowal of divine blessing on the cultic community. Rather, sacri\ufb01ce in the New Testament understanding … is, in the \ufb01rst place, the self offering of the Father in the gift of the Son, and, in the second place, the unique response of the Son in his humanity to the Father, and, in the third place, the self offering of believers in union with Christ by which they share in his covenant relation with the Father.18<\/p>\n

18 E. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. R. J. Daly (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1998), 381 2; italics ours.<\/p>\n


\n(2) Whatever Christ did by way of external sacri\ufb01ce symbolized and expressed his interior self-giving to the Father. Far from being centred on himself, Christ related in love and obedience to God the Father and was ready for painful self-renunciation; he had come to do God\u2019s will (Heb. 10: 7, 9). The interior dispositions of Christ made all the difference. (3) His whole life was a continual free gift of himself (or sacri\ufb01ce) to God and others. The compassionate service of others described by the Gospels \ufb01lled out the obedient self-giving through which the Letter to the Hebrews sums up the human life of Jesus (Heb. 2: 17\u201318; 5: 1\u20133). A spirit of sacri\ufb01ce characterized the entire human existence of the Son of God, from his incarnation through to completing his work of \u2018puri\ufb01cation for sins\u2019 and sitting at the right hand of God (Heb. 1: 1\u20133). It would be a mistake to limit Christ\u2019s sacri\ufb01cial performance to his death and exaltation. The self-giving of his life moved seamlessly into his self-giving at death. (4) This self-sacri\ufb01ce should not be understood as if Jesus were a penal substitute, who was punished in the place of sinners and so appeased an angry God. We saw how Aquinas opened the door for others to develop this interpretation of sacri\ufb01ce by calling it \u2018something which is done to render God due honour with a view to placating him\u2019 (STh. 3a. 48. 3 resp.; italics ours). Luther, Calvin, Catholic preachers such as J. B. Bossuet, and other Christians took to an extreme this view of Christ being punished for sinners and even as a sinner\u2014a morally repulsive view that Hebrews and other New Testament witnesses do not support.19 <\/p>\n

19 For a rebuttal of the penal substitution theory of Christ\u2019s sacri\ufb01ce, see O\u2019Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 133 60.<\/p>\n

(5) The Letter to the Hebrews, our longest New Testament sacri\ufb01cial treatment of Christ\u2019s death and exaltation, strongly emphasizes something different: the sacri\ufb01cial death of Jesus puri\ufb01ed or expiated the de\ufb01lement of sin. Even then, Hebrews does not reduce the impact of his sacri\ufb01ce to a cleansing from the \u2018pollution\u2019 of sin. It also interprets that sacri\ufb01ce as sealing a new covenantal relationship between God and human beings (e.g. Heb. 9: 15; 12: 24). We return below to what Christ\u2019s sacri\ufb01ce did both towards expiating sin and bringing a new covenant of love. (6) Christ\u2019s loving acceptance of his passion leads to a further, key element in his priestly sacri\ufb01ce. Physical pain and other forms of suffering simply as such do not atone for sins and effect human redemption. \u2018Suffering as such\u2019, Aquinas argues, \u2018is not meritorious.\u2019 Only insofar as someone \u2018suffers willingly\u2019 can suffering become \u2018meritorious\u2019 (STh. 3a. 48. 1 ad 1). Only because Christ \u2018suffered out of love\u2019 was his death a \u2018sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 (3a. 48. 4 ad 3). (7) This sixth point ties in closely with a further conviction: the sheer quantity of suffering that Jesus was to endure in his atrocious death does not decide the value of his self-sacri\ufb01ce. The Letter to the Hebrews invokes his sufferings (Heb. 5: 7\u20138) but, unlike Mel Gibson in his \ufb01lm The Passion of Christ (2004) and many before him, makes no attempt to highlight the amount of those sufferings, apart from the horrendous, central fact of his dying by cruci\ufb01xion (Heb. 6: 6). Gibson concentrated on the physical suffering endured by Christ, in order to bring out the enormity of human sin. But the sheer amount of that sacri\ufb01cial suffering is far less important than the identity of the One who suffered to save a world enormously damaged by sin; that identity is underlined by Hebrews right from its opening verse. (8) A \ufb01nal re\ufb02ection in support of reading sacri\ufb01cially the death (and resurrection) of Christ takes us beyond Hebrews to the Gospel narratives. In responding to two major objections (\u2018Did Jesus commit suicide?\u2019 and \u2018How could God collaborate in the slaying of his Son?), we understand the death of Jesus to have come about through a mysterious convergence of divine love and human malice. Calvary was the inevitable consequence of Jesus\u2019 commitment to his mission and the service of others, a commitment that he refused to abandon, even though his words and actions placed him on collision-course with those in power. By continuing his ministry, going to Jerusalem for his last Passover, and facing his opponents, Jesus indirectly brought about the fatal situation. In that sense he willed his death by accepting it rather than by deliberately and directly courting it. He paid the price for his loving project of bringing life to the world. Thus we can see how the self-sacri\ufb01cing death of Jesus was not due to his positive and direct will (or to that of his Father), but to the abuse of human freedom on the part of religious and political leaders whose interests were threatened by the uncompromising message of Jesus.20<\/p>\n

20 See further O\u2019Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 169 71, as well as what John writes about the role of Caiaphas in Jesus\u2019 death.
\n
\nThe Last Supper a Sacri\ufb01cial Meal?<\/p>\n

It is one thing to join Hebrews in holding that the death and exaltation of Christ was a unique, once-and-for-all sacri\ufb01ce. It is another to maintain the sacri\ufb01cial nature of what Christ did and said at the Last Supper\u2014not least because any position here will shape one\u2019s understanding of the Eucharist. Let us begin with a more general consideration.<\/p>\n

(1) It is hardly controversial to speak either of the self-sacri\ufb01cing nature of Christ\u2019s life or of his accepting for others, through the words and gestures he used, a last, deadly confrontation with those in power. In that sense, the Last Supper integrated into his mission a \ufb01nal act of service. In death, as in life, he served and sacri\ufb01ced himself for others and for the kingdom of God (Mark 14: 25 parr.).<\/p>\n

(2) Then, as we noted, by the time of Jesus the festival of the Passover had long been given a sacri\ufb01cial signi\ufb01cance. In Philo\u2019s view of universal priesthood, the whole nation functioned as priests when celebrating the Passover. To claim that Jesus (and his companions at the Last Supper) did something sacri\ufb01cial would not have appeared strange talk in \ufb01rst-century Judaism. What happened at the Last Supper was, of course, no normal celebration of the Passover: it maintained, strengthened, and personalized the sacri\ufb01cial signi\ufb01cance. Jesus went beyond the normal ritual to introduce gestures and sayings that revealed his priestly intention to offer himself as a self-sacri\ufb01cing victim. He wanted the breaking of the bread, identi\ufb01ed as his body, and the pouring out of his blood to image forth the sacri\ufb01cial surrender of his life, the priestly action of total self-giving that was about to take place in his violent death. Through the words and gestures of the \u2018institution narrative\u2019 (Mark 14: 22\u20134 parr.; 1 Cor. 11: 23\u20135), Jesus offered a covenant sacri\ufb01ce\u2014a cultic, priestly act that he wished to be continued as a central practice in the community which he had gathered.<\/p>\n

Wolfhart Pannenberg sums up the signi\ufb01cance of what happened: \u2018meal and sacri\ufb01ce go together at the Lord\u2019s Supper, just as the covenant sacri\ufb01ce and covenant meal did in Israel.\u201921<\/p>\n

21 W. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. G. W. Bromiley, iii (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 319.<\/p>\n

As we noted, Tom Torrance calls the Eucharist \u2018the Eucharistic sacri\ufb01ce\u2019, and logically does so on the basis of what he says about the Last Supper: through his \u2018self-consecration\u2019 and \u2018high priestly intercession\u2019, Jesus intended that his disciples should be \u2018presented to the Father through his own self-offering on their behalf \u2019.22<\/p>\n

22 T. F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation: Essays Toward Evangelical and Cath olic Unity in East and West (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1996), 106.<\/p>\n

Unlike Paul and the three Synoptic Gospels, John does not report the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Nevertheless, one \ufb01nds clear Eucharistic references in Jesus\u2019 discourse about \u2018my \ufb02esh for the life of the world\u2019 and the invitation to \u2018eat my \ufb02esh and drink my blood\u2019 (John 6: 51\u20138). By \u2018becoming \ufb02esh\u2019 and assuming a complete human nature (John 1: 14), the incarnate Logos could offer himself in death and so surrender his own physical existence \u2018for the life of the world\u2019. The reality of Jesus\u2019 sacri\ufb01cial death is expressed through the distinction between the \u2018\ufb02esh\u2019 to be eaten and the \u2018blood\u2019 to be drunk: \u2018eating the \ufb02esh and drinking the blood entail that the \ufb02esh has been broken and the blood shed.\u201923<\/p>\n

23 A. T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to John (London: Continuum, 2005), 232.
\n
\nIn the discourse on the Bread of Life, John\u2019s Gospel provides its own precious commentary on what Jesus\u2019 institution of the Eucharist intended. We documented the strong resistance of the Reformers to a sacri\ufb01cial interpretation of the Last Supper. In the historical circumstances, this opposition of Luther and Calvin was understandable. The belief that priestly sacri\ufb01ce had been made and mandated by Christ at the Last Supper had led not only to life-giving Eucharistic practice but also to the abuses of \u2018multiple Masses\u2019 and \u2018private Masses\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Reformers called for Eucharistic celebrations at which the faithful regularly communicated and also did so by receiving from the chalice. The title and subtitle of Torrance\u2019s book (see n. 22 above) bring to mind easily what has happened \u2018on both sides\u2019, so to speak.<\/p>\n

On the \u2018Catholic\u2019 side the faithful have come to participate much more in the celebration of the Eucharist and to communicate regularly whenever they do so. By mandating the celebration of the Eucharist in the vernacular and a wide availability of \u2018Communion under two kinds\u2019, the bishops of the Catholic Church have, in fact, said \u2018yes\u2019 to two changes that Luther earnestly desired. The call of the Reformers and members of Roman Catholic religious institutes to hear and preach the Word of God was also heard in Vatican II\u2019s document on the Eucharist. The faithful assembled for the Eucharist should not only be \u2018nourished at the table of the Lord\u2019s Body\u2019 but also \u2018instructed by the Word of God\u2019 (SC 48).24<\/p>\n

24 On the \u2018double table\u2019 of word and sacrament, see Thesis 4 above.<\/p>\n

On the \u2018Protestant\u2019 side, twentieth-century biblical scholars led the way in recognizing the sacri\ufb01cial implications of a key phrase from the institution narrative: \u2018do this in memory of me\u2019. For the ancient Israelites, \u2018memorial (zikkaron)\u2019 was a sacri\ufb01cial word: a victim burned on the altar was called a \u2018memorial\u2019 or \u2018reminder\u2019.25<\/p>\n

25 On the signi\ufb01cance of \u2018memory\/memorial\u2019 for clarifying the sacri\ufb01cial dimen sion of the Last Supper, see R. Moloney, The Eucharist (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995), 42 9.<\/p>\n

A new appreciation of the sacri\ufb01cial signi\ufb01cance of \u2018memorial (anamnesis)\u2019 and of its counterpart in the words of Jesus (Luke 22: 19; 1 Cor. 11: 24\u20135) found its place in such landmark ecumenical documents as BEM and the Final Report.26<\/p>\n

26 On \u2018anamnesis\u2019 see BEM 115 16 (\u2018Eucharist\u2019, 5 13); Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, The Final Report (London: SPCK, 1982), 18 20;<\/p>\n

From the 1920s Romano Guardini and others encouraged Catholics to think of the Eucharist as a sacri\ufb01cial meal and not simply as a sacri\ufb01ce.27<\/p>\n

27 See J. Ratzinger, \u2018Is the Eucharist a Sacri\ufb01ce?\u2019, Concilium, 4\/3 (1967), 35 40.<\/p>\n

Protestant scholars like Pannenberg and Torrance exemplify the shift by heirs of the Reformation in their readiness to recognize how \u2018meal and sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 go \u2018together\u2019 at the celebration of the Last Supper and in the \u2018Eucharistic sacri\ufb01ce\u2019 of the Church.28<\/p>\n

28 This change allows BEM to speak not only of the \u2018eucharistic meal\u2019, 11, 12 (\u2018Eucharist\u2019, 2, 12 14) but also of the Eucharist as a \u2018sacri\ufb01ce of praise\u2019, 10 (\u2018Eucharist\u2019, 4).
\n
\nObserving this shift still leaves us, however, with a crucial question to be faced in the next chapter: what is the relationship between the Eucharist celebrated by the Christian priests and the sacri\ufb01cial self-offering of Christ at the Last Supper? But before closing this chapter, we must state \ufb01ve further theses.<\/p>\n

THESIS 8<\/p>\n

Christ\u2019s priestly self-offering at the Last Supper was consummated in the sacri\ufb01ce of Calvary and its acceptance through his resurrection and exaltation. This thesis evokes the Letter to the Hebrews and its language about the high-priestly sacri\ufb01ce of Christ being completed and made perfect when he was raised and exalted to glory and life everlasting in the presence of God. Commenting on the language of \u2018completion\u2019 or \u2018perfection\u2019 that pervades Hebrews, Christopher Koester states: \u2018Jesus is made complete by his death and exaltation to glory, so that he now serves as high priest forever at God\u2019s right hand.\u201929<\/p>\n

29 Koester, Hebrews, 123.<\/p>\n

Through his suffering, death, and glori\ufb01cation, Jesus has been perfected in his priesthood and its exercise. His death on the cross and glorious resurrection was not only the highest exercise of his priesthood but also brought it to ful\ufb01lment\u2014in his de\ufb01nitive life with God. Eternally interceding now for those still to be brought to completion through the ful\ufb01lment of the divine promises, Christ the High Priest presents forever on their behalf to the Father his sacri\ufb01cial self-offering (see e.g. the French School and Torrance). The \u2018pioneer\/ leader\u2019 in the project of salvation, Christ \u2018sancti\ufb01es\u2019 others, as God the Father \u2018brings them to glory\u2019 (Heb. 2: 10\u201311). The faithful can see in the suffering and exaltation of their High Priest how God\u2019s purposes for them will be realized (Heb. 12: 2).<\/p>\n

THESIS 9<\/p>\n

The priestly work of Christ brought redemption in three forms: deliverance from evil, puri\ufb01cation from the de\ufb01lement of sin, and loving communion with God in the new covenant. (1) To have communion with God, human beings must be delivered from the power of death and the devil. Hebrews \ufb01rst speaks brie\ufb02y of Christ destroying \u2018the one who has the power of death: that is, the devil\u2019 (Heb. 2: 14). In pictorial detail, the letter spells out what this deliverance from evil and sharing in Christ\u2019s glory (2: 10) entails. Through being brought to everlasting life in God\u2019s presence, those redeemed by Christ will \u2018enter God\u2019s rest\u2019 (4: 9\u201310), join the company of angels (12: 23), and take part in the festal gathering in the heavenly Jerusalem (12: 22). The deliverance from evil means deliverance for eternal salvation. (2) Christ\u2019s priestly sacri\ufb01ce was also expiatory and proved itself so in a unique way. The one priestly sacri\ufb01ce of Christ did something the Levitical priests could not achieve by their repeated sacri\ufb01ces: it \u2018cleansed consciences\u2019 from sin (Heb. 9: 14; 10: 14, 22). Where the language of deliverance seems less controversial,30 talk of \u2018expiation\u2019 can encounter dif\ufb01culty and be misunderstood, above all by being taken as equivalent to \u2018propitiation\u2019.<\/p>\n

30 On \u2018Redemption as Deliverance from Evil\u2019, see O\u2019Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 116 32.<\/p>\n

To introduce the topic, we need to notice that, whereas redemption as victorious deliverance enjoys a broader sense of overcoming not only sin but also Satan, death, and evil in all its forms, expiation concerns sin and its results. It would make no sense to talk of \u2018expiating death\u2019 or \u2018expiating Satan\u2019. Hebrews directs our gaze to the great Day of Expiation, \u2018Yom Kippur\u2019, which illustrates classically how sin and expiation are correlative. Any interpretation of the expiatory work of Christ\u2019s priesthood depends on what we make of the damage brought about by those breakdowns in relations with God, our neighbour, and the created world that constitute sin.31<\/p>\n

31 On sin, see ibid. 43 80.
\n
\nSin, in all its various manifestations, disrupts the life and fabric of the universe. Wrong-doing damages the sinner and produces evil effects in one\u2019s basic relationship with God and in social relationships with other human beings. God is always ready to pardon sinners who allow themselves to be touched by divine grace, acknowledge their guilt, and ask for forgiveness. But God cannot treat an evil past and the lasting damage done by sin as if they were not there. Otherwise, as Anselm of Canterbury pointed out, \u2018those who sin and those who do not sin would be in the same position before God\u2019 (Cur Deus Homo, 1. 12). Anselm rightly argued that \u2018it is impossible for God to be merciful in this way\u2019 (ibid. 1. 24). First, sinners themselves need to be changed, to face (sometimes painful) readjustment, and to be rehabilitated. Second, some things\u2014at times, many things\u2014must be repaired and set right. The moral order, damaged by sin, needs to be reordered and puri\ufb01ed. This is where expiation comes into play. The author of Hebrews, like other early Christians, felt at home with the Old Testament language of purifying the contamination caused by sin. Their symbol world included cleansing with blood among the ritual ways of dealing with the evil results of sin. They could appreciate that the sacri\ufb01cial death of Jesus was \u2018the means of expiating\u2019 these effects through \u2018his blood\u2019 (Rom. 3: 25). As Hebrews put it, the blood of Christ, the High Priest who entered once and for all in the heavenly sanctuary, puri\ufb01es sinners (Heb. 9: 11\u201314); his self-sacri\ufb01cing death wipes away the pollution caused by sin.<\/p>\n

Many people in advanced industrial societies, including many Christians, \ufb01nd such language distasteful. Yet they might be reminded of what Mary Douglas argued in a 1993 work: there is a universal feeling that sin somehow de\ufb01les human beings.32<\/p>\n

32 M. Douglas, In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of De\ufb01lement in the Book of Numbers (Shef\ufb01eld: Shef\ufb01eld Academic Press, 1993).<\/p>\n

Years earlier she had studied the widespread sense of purity and de\ufb01lement, pointing out that behind the Code of Holiness in Leviticus and its persistent distinction between clean and unclean lay a common concern for order and completeness. \u2018Holiness\u2019, she wrote, \u2018means keeping distinct the categories of creation. It therefore involves correct de\ufb01nition, discrimination and order.\u201933<\/p>\n

33 M. Douglas, Purity and Danger (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 53; see also D. P. Wright and H. Hubner, \u2018Unclean and Clean\u2019, ABD vi. 729 45.<\/p>\n

The pollution of sin brings dangerous disorder and fragmentation; things must be brought back to harmony and wholeness. Drawing on Douglas, Colin Gunton concluded that \u2018we shall … begin to understand the nature of sacri\ufb01ce when we come to see its function in the removal of uncleanness which pollutes the good creation\u2019.34<\/p>\n

34 C. E. Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement: A Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the Christian Tradition (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 119.<\/p>\n

(3) Talking of the personal causality of priestly love that instituted a new covenant and communion with God might seem to introduce language that takes us away from the Letter to the Hebrews. Yet that text does portray Christ the High Priest actively mediating a new covenantal relationship with God, which brings a \ufb01nal, festal gathering in \u2018the city of the living God\u2019 (Heb. 12: 22\u20134). But what of Christ\u2019s priestly love? Hebrews invokes love when exhorting Christians to a life of faith, hope, and love (Heb. 10: 22\u20134), but needs to be enriched by drawing on John (e.g. John 3: 16\u201317) and Paul (e.g. Rom. 5: 8) for the theme of divine love. The redemption effected through Christ\u2019s priesthood has revealed and communicated the divine love to human kind. The tri-personal God has created the conditions in which our response can be made. One can speak then about the \u2018empowering\u2019, creative quality of the divine love that is embodied in Christ the High Priest and that draws men and women to respond freely in love. They are enabled to love by being loved. Human love has the power to generate love; ever so much more does the divine love, at work in the priestly activity of Christ, possess the power to generate love. Hebrews, through its rich language and pictures, presents Christ as vividly and powerfully actualizing God\u2019s redeeming love.35<\/p>\n

35 On the transforming, priestly love of Christ, see further O\u2019Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 181 99.
\n
\nTHESIS 10<\/p>\n

The priesthood of Christ continues forever, since he eternally intercedes for the world and blesses the world, offers himself through the Holy Spirit to the Father, continues to pour out the Holy Spirit upon the Church and the world, acts on earth as primary minister in all the Church\u2019s preaching and sacramental life, and in heaven remains for ever the Mediator through whom the blessed enjoy the vision of God and the risen life of glory. This unpacking of the activities of Christ as High Priest has \ufb01ve parts; let us take them up in turn. (1) That the exalted Christ exercises forever his priesthood by continuing to intercede for the world comes straight out of the New Testament (e.g. Rom. 8: 34; Heb. 7: 25).<\/p>\n

That such priestly intercession should be characterized as \u2018blessing\u2019 picks up language from Ephesians about God \u2018blessing us in\/by Christ with every spiritual blessing\u2019 (Eph. 1: 3). As we saw, Torrance speaks happily of an \u2018eternal benediction\u2019 being mediated by the exalted Christ, who remains forever the mediator of heavenly blessings and bene\ufb01ts. (2) We cited Augustine on the eternal self-offering of Christ: \u2018as our Priest risen from the dead and established in heaven, Christ now offers sacri\ufb01ce on our behalf \u2019. Condren, Olier, and other notable Christian witnesses followed suit in understanding Christ\u2019s priestly intercession to be an eternal self-offering. They could appeal to the Book of Revelation and its picture of the heavenly liturgy, with the Victim, the Lamb who was slain, forever facing the presence of God. That this eternal self-offering of Christ the High Priest takes place \u2018through the Holy Spirit to the Father\u2019 develops, in general, the theme of Christ being consecrated by the Holy Spirit for his whole mission (Acts 10: 38; see Luke 3: 22; 4: 14) and, in particular, the view of those commentators who understand Hebrews 9: 14 to intend something more than a vague reference to the spiritual (lower-case) aspects of Christ\u2019s self-sacri\ufb01ce: the Holy Spirit enabled Christ to make a perfect (and eternal) self-offering to the Father. Condren and Olier spoke vividly of the \ufb01re of the Holy Spirit eternally consuming the sacri\ufb01ce through which the exalted Christ remains forever Victim and Priest. Through the Spirit the heavenly consummation of Christ\u2019s sacri\ufb01ce continues for all eternity. Apropos of the Eucharistic self-offering of Christ, Torrance expressed vigorously its essentially Trinitarian nature. The last chapter quoted his words about participation in the Eucharist: \u2018we worship and pray to the Father in such a way that it is Christ himself who is the real content of our worship and prayer\u2019; and \u2018in the Spirit the prayer that ascends from us to the Father is a form of the self-offering of Christ himself \u2019. (3) Olier, as we saw, pictured Christ the eternal High Priest as continuing to send the Holy Spirit into the Church and the world. The Johannine testimony to the Holy Spirit supports this, when Jesus says: \u2018When the Paraclete comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, that One will bear witness to me\u2019 (John 15: 26). The evangelist associates the Spirit not only with witnessing to Jesus but also with new birth and life (3: 5\u20138; 4: 10, 14; 7: 37\u20139), with truth and teaching (14: 16\u201317, 26; 16: 13\u201315), and with mission and the forgiveness of sins (20: 22\u20133). Such witnessing, giving new life, teaching the truth, and commissioning on the part of the Spirit are ongoing activities that involve a constant sending by the eternal High Priest. Thus the Spirit universalizes the priestly work of Jesus (Torrance). Here we can deploy the theme of presence. The universal presence of the Spirit accompanies and enacts the presence of the exalted Christ which is a universal presence. Since the CoSender of the Spirit (the risen Christ) is always inseparably there with the Sent (the Holy Spirit),36 and since Christ is present everywhere and in every human life, the Spirit must also be present everywhere and in every human life.<\/p>\n

36 See O\u2019Collins, Salvation For All, 142 60.<\/p>\n


\nHere, to avoid misunderstanding, we should add at once: people do not have to be aware of living in the presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit for this to be the case. Being present does not, as such, imply being known to be present. Torrance\u2019s helpful language about the Holy Spirit universalizing the priestly work of Christ implies a universal presence of the Spirit and Christ.37<\/p>\n

37 On this universal presence of Christ and the Spirit, see further ibid. 207 29.<\/p>\n

(4) To hold that the eternal High Priest incessantly acts as the primary, invisible minister in the preaching and sacramental life of the Church obviously makes more precise what is left more general in the New Testament. The Gospel of Matthew closes with the risen Christ\u2019s command to evangelize and baptize all nations and with the promise, \u2018I will be with you always\u2019 (Matt. 28: 19\u201320). But Christ does not particularize matters by promising: \u2018When you preach, I will be with you always as the invisible preacher; when you baptize, I will be with you always as the invisible minister.\u2019 The longer ending to Mark pictures Christ being \u2018taken into heaven and sitting down at the right hand of God\u2019 after commissioning \u2018the eleven\u2019 to preach and baptize everywhere. They, then, \u2018went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and con\ufb01rmed the message by the signs that accompanied it\u2019 (Mark 16: 19\u201320). Like Matthew, the author of this additional ending to Mark witnesses to the belief and experience of early Christians: the exalted Christ was not absent but dynamically present in their mission to preach and baptize. The Book of Acts, without expressly qualifying the activity as priestly, tells the story of Jesus being with those who preached the Gospel, working with them, and con\ufb01rming what they did in his service through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Lucan scheme, the risen Jesus needs to be withdrawn from the visible scene before the Holy Spirit comes. But the ascension does not mean that Jesus has gone away, as if he were on a very long sabbatical leave in another universe. He remains dynamically, if invisibly, present in and to the life of the Church. Here distinctions may seem to become a little blurred. Luke can move from cases of faithful guidance by the risen and ascended Lord (Acts 9: 10\u201316; 18: 9\u201310; 22: 17\u201321) to cases of guidance by the Holy Spirit (Acts 8: 29; 10: 19; 16: 6), without distinguishing clearly between them. He reports at least once guidance by \u2018the Spirit of Jesus\u2019 (Acts 16: 7), in parallelism with \u2018the Holy Spirit\u2019 (Acts 16: 6).<\/p>\n

Does Luke mean here the Holy Spirit who comes from Jesus, the Spirit who somehow is Jesus, or the Spirit who brings us to Jesus? As regards the initial outpouring of the Spirit, Luke distinguishes Jesus as divine Co-Sender from the divine Spirit who is sent or poured out (Luke 24: 49; Acts 2: 33). But when witnessing to the spread and life of the Christian community, Luke often refers to the powerful guidance of Jesus and that of the Spirit in a seemingly undifferentiated manner. Both are constantly present \u2018in, with, and under\u2019 the ministry of the Church. Luke\u2019s narrative puts \ufb02esh and blood on what the Letter to the Hebrews states about human beings being enabled through Christ the High Priest to approach God\u2019s \u2018throne of grace\u2019 (Heb. 4: 16).<\/p>\n

One might risk summing up what Hebrews conveys about the place and means of salvation: \u2018Outside Christ the High Priest and his ongoing priestly self-offering and intercession there is no salvation.\u2019 To avoid misunderstanding, one should add at once: \u2018But there is no way to be \u201coutside Christ\u201d and no zone beyond him and his priestly activity.\u2019 It was Augustine who classically expressed in debate with the Donatists his faith in Christ as the real, albeit invisible, minister of every baptism, no matter who was the visible minister of baptism. Later, Augustine\u2019s principle was extended to the Eucharist, the administration of other sacraments, preaching, and the celebration of the divine of\ufb01ce. We quoted Vatican II\u2019s Constitution on the Divine Liturgy on the multifaceted presence of Christ in the celebration of the liturgy, preaching the Word, and praying the divine of\ufb01ce.38<\/p>\n

38 See K. Rahner, \u2018The Presence of the Lord in the Christian Community at Worship\u2019, trans. D. Bourke, Theological Investigations, x (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973), 71 83.
\n
\nFew have witnessed more powerfully than Tom Torrance to the active, priestly presence of Christ whenever the Eucharist is celebrated. We cited Torrance\u2019s emphatic words: \u2018when the Church worships, praises and adores the Father through Christ and celebrates the Eucharist in his name, it is Christ himself [in the Spirit] who worships, praises and adores the Father in and through his members, taking up, moulding and sanctifying the prayers of the people.\u2019 (5) The \ufb01fth item in our summary of the permanent exercise of Christ\u2019s priesthood concerns his role as the Mediator for the blessed in heaven. Adapting the words of the Creed, we can say: \u2018His priesthood will have no end.\u2019 In his glori\ufb01ed humanity Christ will remain eternally the Agent (or rather joint Agent with the Holy Spirit) through whom human beings will be raised and enjoy divine life forever.<\/p>\n

In an essay on \u2018The Eternal Signi\ufb01cance of the Humanity of Jesus for our Relationship with God\u2019, Karl Rahner put it this way: \u2018the Word\u2014by the fact that he is man and insofar as he is this\u2014is the necessary and permanent mediator of all salvation, not merely at some time in the past but now and for all eternity.\u201939<\/p>\n

39 K. Rahner, Theological Investigations, trans. K. H. Kruger and B. Kruger, iii (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967), 35 46, at 45; italics ours.<\/p>\n

Augustine was second to none when it came to this eternal priestly mediation of Christ and to applying the image of head and body to the \ufb01nal presence of all in Christ. He summoned Christians to their future life: \u2018Be united in him [Christ] alone, be one reality alone, be one person alone (in uno estote, unum estote, unus estote)\u2019 (In Ioannis Evangelium, 12. 9). From incorporation in Christ, Augustine moved to picture a profound solidarity with him, and even to a personal assimilation. Augustine, while expounding the resurrection of individuals to eternal life,40 also insisted that they will be drawn in the closest imaginable way into the reality of Christ: \u2018and there will be one Christ loving himself (et erit unus Christus amans seipsum)\u2019 (In Epistolam Iohannis, 10. 3).<\/p>\n

40 See G. O\u2019Collins, \u2018Augustine On the Resurrection\u2019, in F. LeMoine and C. Kleinhenz (eds.), Saint Augustine the Bishop: A Book of Essays (New York: Garland, 1994), 65 75.<\/p>\n

Augustine also expressed the \ufb01nal communion of life through Christ\u2019s priestly mediation in terms of praise: \u2018there we shall praise; we shall all be one, in him [Christ] who is One, oriented towards the One [the Father]; for then, though many, we shall not be scattered (ibi laudabimus, omnes unus in uno ad unum erimus; quia deinceps multi dispersi non erimus)\u2019 (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 147. 28). Addressing the triune God, Augustine also wrote: \u2018and without ceasing we shall say one thing, praising You [the Trinity] in unison, even ourselves being also made one in You [the Trinity] (et sine \ufb01ne dicemus unum laudantes te in unum, et in te facti etiam nos unum)\u2019 (De Trinitate, 15. 28. 51).<\/p>\n

THESIS 11<\/p>\n

At all stages (in his incarnation, ministry, death, and risen glory) the priesthood of Christ is essentially Trinitarian. This thesis draws together what the previous thesis has stated under (2) and (3). No New Testament writer goes beyond Luke in his vision of the Trinitarian face of the whole story of Jesus: from his conception through the power of the Holy Spirit through to his sending (with the Father) of the Holy Spirit at the \ufb01rst Pentecost. The Spiritbearer becomes the Spirit-giver (Luke). The Letter to the Hebrews, the New Testament witness to the priesthood of Christ, is also thoroughly \u2018Trinitarian\u2019\u2014not least by its biblical quotations. It treats the Scriptures not as the written word of God but as the spoken word of the tripersonal God. Where St Paul introduces quotations from the Scriptures with such rubrics as \u2018it is written\u2019 (e.g. Rom. 9: 13, 33; 11: 8), \u2018the Scripture says\u2019 (e.g. Gal. 4: 30), and \u2018Moses says\u2019 or \u2018David says\u2019 (e.g. Rom. 10: 19; 11: 9), Hebrews puts biblical texts into the mouth of either God (the Father) (e.g. Heb. 1: 5) or of the Son (e.g. 2: 12) or of the Holy Spirit (e.g. 3: 7\u201311). It is rare that anyone else is allowed to speak the words of Scripture, as Moses does in Hebrews 9: 19\u201320. Hebrews draws on the biblical texts for a Trinitarian doctrine\u2014one might say, drama\u2014 in which the Father speaks to the Son and to us in the Son, the Son addresses the Father, and the Holy Spirit bears witness to us. Thus Hebrews expounds Christ\u2019s priesthood within a kind of Trinitarian drama. Berulle, Condren, and Olier understood Christ\u2019s priestly self-offering to the Father to have begun with the incarnation, even before he was born into the world. Their vision of the various \u2018states\u2019 in Christ\u2019s priestly history included the Father from the outset. This portrayal of Christ\u2019s priestly existence became clearly Trinitarian when the Holy Spirit entered their vision of the consummation of Christ\u2019s sacri\ufb01ce brought by his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven.
\n
\nTHESIS 12<\/p>\n

While the priesthood of Christ is unique, it is also participated in, albeit differently, by all the baptized and by ordained ministers. This \ufb01nal thesis serves to introduce what will be presented and developed fully in the \ufb01nal chapter. We might press on and add further theses about Christ\u2019s priesthood, responding, for instance, to the question: was he, as priestvictim, the substitute and\/or representative of sinful human beings? Or are substitution and representation unsatisfactory, \u2018extrinsic\u2019 terms? Would it be better to use the language of \u2018communion\u2019, \u2018incorporation\u2019, and \u2018solidarity\u2019? Such language \ufb01nds support in the way Hebrews insists on Christ\u2019s priestly solidarity with those to whom he was sent (e.g. Heb. 2: 17\u201318; 3: 1; 4: 15). But these and other questions can be dealt with more satisfactorily in the coming chapter.<\/p>\n

Sharing Christ\u2019s Priesthood<\/p>\n

In the third century St Cyprian of Carthage wrote: \u2018that which Christ is, we Christians shall become (quod est Christus, erimus Christiani)\u2019 (De Idolorum Vanitate, 15). This dictum bears application to the threefold of\ufb01ce of Christ: what Christ is as priest, prophet, and king, Christians become. But what, in particular, does sharing in Christ\u2019s priesthood entail for the baptized faithful and for ordained ministers?<\/p>\n

We can approach these questions through the teaching of Samuel Seabury (1729\u201396), the \ufb01rst bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. Seabury wrote of Christ \u2018as a priest\u2019 offering \u2018himself as a sacri\ufb01ce to God in the mystery of the Eucharist: that is, under the symbols of bread and wine; and he commanded his apostles to do as he had done. If his offering were a sacri\ufb01ce, theirs was also. His sacri\ufb01ce was original, theirs commemorative. His was meritorious through his merit who offered it; theirs drew all its merit from the relation it had to his sacri\ufb01ce and [priestly] appointment.\u2019 After clarifying the sacri\ufb01cial nature of the Eucharist, Bishop Seabury logically proceeded to expound the priestly implications of Christ\u2019s command to his apostles \u2018to celebrate the Holy Eucharist in remembrance of him\u2019: he \u2018communicated his own priesthood to them in such measure and degree as he saw necessary for his church\u2014to qualify them to be his representatives\u2019 and \u2018to offer the Christian sacri\ufb01ce\u2019. As for the non-ordained faithful, \u2018such portion of Christ\u2019s priesthood is given to them as quali\ufb01es them to join in offering the Christian sacri\ufb01ce and to partake of it with the priests of the church\u2019. Hence, Seabury went on to say, \u2018the whole body of Christians\u2019 is \u2018said to be made not only kings to reign with Christ in glory hereafter but [also] priests unto God [Rev. 5: 10; 20: 6]\u2019. He added at once that from this priestly dignity it does not follow that \u2018private Christians have a right or power to consecrate the Eucharist: that right or power being by the institution itself con\ufb01ned to the apostles and their successors and those empowered by them\u2019.1<\/p>\n

1 S. Seabury, \u2018Discourses on Several Subjects\u2019 (1793), quoted in G. Rowell, K. Stevenson, and R. Williams (eds.), Love\u2019s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 326 7.
\n
\nAt least in this passage, Seabury developed a view of ministerial priesthood which centred on the cultic powers of offering and consecrating the Eucharist and which remained silent about priests being also called to preach the Word and act as good pastors to the faithful\u2014two themes developed, albeit differently, by the Reformers and Vatican II. What he held about sacri\ufb01cing bishops and priests sharing in Christ\u2019s priesthood in a \u2018measure and degree\u2019 that differed from \u2018the portion of Christ\u2019s priesthood\u2019 given to \u2018the whole body of Christians\u2019 coincided with the teaching of the Council of Trent. Seabury went beyond Trent by expressly recognizing, as Vatican II would also do, the kingly and priestly dignity of all the baptized. What Seabury wrote can set up the central issue for this chapter: granted that all the baptized share in Christ\u2019s priesthood, is there some special, ordained priesthood beyond that \u2018portion\u2019? Or are all Christians endowed with equal spiritual privileges, powers, and responsibilities\u2014as priests, kings\/shepherds, and prophets? As we saw, the Reformers insisted that all the baptized are priests, in order to deny any \u2018special\u2019, priestly ministry derived from Christ. Let us begin with some relatively uncontroversial theses.<\/p>\n

THESIS 1<\/p>\n

All the baptized share in the dignity and responsibility of Christ\u2019s triple of\ufb01ce; they are all priests, prophets\/teachers, and kings\/shepherds. We recalled how Romans and 1 Peter used priestly language for the Christian faithful. The priestly and kingly dignity promised to the Israelites (Exod. 19: 6; Isa. 61: 6) was extended to all the baptized (Rev. 1: 6; 5: 10). Hebrews understood Christ\u2019s priestly self-sacri\ufb01ce to have initiated sacri\ufb01ces of praise and good works among his followers (Heb. 13: 15\u201316). We saw how Origen pictured the ideal Christian life as sharing in the high-priestly holiness of Christ. Chrysostom stressed the priestly holiness required of all the baptized. All believers should share in the priesthood of Christ through acts of virtue and the suitable interior dispositions that should accompany them, the priestly self-sacri\ufb01ce of daily life. Augustine picked up the New Testament language about the royal priesthood of all the baptized. We could move on and cite other Christian witnesses down the centuries who appreciated how baptism conveys a share in Christ\u2019s priestly and kingly of\ufb01ce. That baptism also brings a share in Christ\u2019s prophetic of\ufb01ce may seem less clear. Signi\ufb01cantly, Seabury, at least in the passages quoted above, acknowledged the priestly and kingly dignity of all the baptized but had nothing to say about their sharing in Christ\u2019s prophetic function. Revelation portrayed faithful Christians in royal and priestly terms (Rev. 1: 6; 2: 26, 3: 21; 5: 10; 20: 6). The author of that book was understood to exercise a prophetic gift (1: 3; 22: 7, 10, 18\u201319). But did Revelation also regard the whole Church as a prophetic community, one that prophetically mediated between God and the rest of humanity? The book contains at least one passage where it takes \u2018prophets\u2019 more broadly and, seemingly, as equivalent to \u2018saints\u2019, God\u2019s \u2018servants\u2019, and those who \u2018fear\u2019 his \u2018name\u2019 (Rev. 11: 18). Paul interpreted prophecy to be the special, charismatic endowment of a select number of Christians (1 Cor. 14: 1\u201333; see Rom. 12: 6; Eph. 4: 11), one of the greatest gifts that he listed as second only to that of being an apostle (1 Cor. 12: 28\u20139). The prophets were those whose intelligible preaching built up the Church in faith by explaining the mysteries of God. A Deutero-Pauline letter presented apostles and prophets as \ufb01gures of the past, foundation-stones with Christ as the corner-stone (Eph. 2: 20; see 3: 5). Luke, however, took a broader view of prophetic utterance, taking up words of the prophet Joel about all the people in Judea and applying them to the Spirit being poured out on all human beings (even if the immediate need was to explain the phenomenon of the disciples speaking in foreign tongues).<\/p>\n

It was in universal terms that he understood the promise to have been ful\ufb01lled that prophecy would be revived in the \u2018last days\u2019 (Acts 2: 14\u201321).2<\/p>\n

2 See J. A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 252 4.
\n
\nLike Paul (1 Cor. 12: 13), Luke assumed that all Christians received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10: 44\u20138), and he closely linked prophecy with the reception of the Spirit. As much as anyone, Luke could be considered the scriptural patron of the belief that all the baptized share in the prophetic of\ufb01ce of Christ. In any case, if they share in the priestly and kingly of\ufb01ce of Christ, they should be expected to share in his (inseparable) prophetic of\ufb01ce. Add too the basic Christian conviction, expressed vividly by Paul and John, that faith and baptism entail being incorporated in Christ and becoming living members of his Body that is the Church. Precisely because they participate so intimately in his life, the faithful participate in his priestly, prophetic, and kingly functions. Many Christian communities express this sharing of all the faithful in the threefold of\ufb01ce of Christ through anointing them at baptism and con\ufb01rmation, and using prayers that articulate their new dignity and responsibility as priests, prophets, and kings\/shepherds.<\/p>\n

Obviously the faithful express their priestly identity at the celebration of the Eucharist when they remember and join themselves to the self-offering of Christ. But they also live out their priesthood whenever they become the means through which Christ blesses and sancti\ufb01es others: for instance, as husbands and wives and mothers and fathers. They perform their prophetic function whenever, at home, in schools, and at their workplace, they witness to their faith in Christ. In a special way, all Christian parents, teachers, writers, and artists are called to live out their prophetic of\ufb01ce. They show their kingly responsibility and freedom by promoting the reign of Christ and by serving\/leading others in the spirit of the ideal king that Isaiah vividly pictured (Isa. 11: 1\u20139). Few have expressed better than Luther the royal freedom and responsibility of all the baptized. But, nearly \ufb01ve centuries later, we need to add a major and vitally important item to the scope of this kingship as he envisaged it: namely, responsible stewardship towards our fragile earth. Caring for our planet features among the essential \u2018royal\u2019 duties of all the baptized. The Letter to the Hebrews ended by evoking the priestly sacri\ufb01ces of praise and good works that should mark the existence of the faithful (see above). In the light of other New Testament sources, we should remark that they have also been anointed by the Holy Spirit (e.g. 1 John 2: 20) and sent by Christ on a threefold mission of priestly, prophetic, and royal witness in building up the community and reaching out to the world.<\/p>\n

THESIS 2<\/p>\n

The triple of\ufb01ce of all the baptized and, in particular, their priesthood, possesses a certain priority over the participation in Christ\u2019s triple of\ufb01ce shared by those in the ordained ministry. During his public ministry, Jesus called the Twelve from an already existing community of disciples. In a similar, if not exactly parallel, way those to be ordained for ministry are called in and from the wider community. From the ranks of the faithful, they are chosen to be ordained, and to be missioned for their ministry. In this sense, all the baptized, who constitute the new people of God, enjoy a certain precedence in the dignity of their priestly, prophetic, and kingly of\ufb01ce. No one can enter the ministry of the ordained without being previously baptized; no one should enter the ministry of the ordained without being recognized as a devoted disciple of Jesus. As Roman Catholics, we agree with what the Anglican\u2013Roman Catholic International Commission wrote: the ministry of the ordained \u2018is not an extension of the common Christian priesthood but belongs to another realm of the gifts of the Spirit\u2019.3<\/p>\n

3 ARCIC, The Final Report (London: SPCK, 1982), 36.
\n
\nThe Second Vatican Council had earlier described this distinction between the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of all the faithful as one of kind and not merely one of degree, adding, \u2018each in its own proper way shares in the one priesthood of Christ\u2019 (LG 10). To this we might add: it is by precedence that the priesthood of all the faithful shares in the one priesthood of Christ, since baptism precedes any priestly ordination. No Christian community would ordain those who had not yet been baptized and so do not yet share in a primary way in the priesthood of Christ. It is always from among the members of the priestly faithful that those to be ordained are called. In their ordained ministry they are to serve the priestly faithful; they come from them and function for them. To adopt the language of 1 Peter, all the faithful are the \u2018living stones\u2019 that make up the new, spiritual Temple which is the whole Body of Christ; as priests in that Temple they offer themselves as spiritual sacri\ufb01ces together with Christ the High Priest. There is only one priesthood, one sacri\ufb01ce, and one Temple. In their own idiom the French School proposed something very similar: the whole Christian life and the life of all Christians form a priestly act, united with the priestly self-sacri\ufb01ce of Christ himself. To talk this way is obviously to give a certain priority to the priesthood of all the faithful. Augustine does not expressly invoke the priesthood of all the faithful, but he speaks of their common sacri\ufb01ce, as the one Body of Christ offered in \u2018the sacrament of the altar\u2019. \u2018This\u2019, he writes, \u2018is the sacri\ufb01ce of Christians: while many, they are one body in Christ. This is also celebrated by the Church in the sacrament of the altar, so well known to the faithful, wherein it is shown to the Church that she herself is offered in the thing which she offers (hoc est sacri\ufb01cium Christianorum: multi unum corpus in Christo. Quod etiam, sacramento altaris \ufb01delibus noto, frequentat ecclesia, ubi ei demonstratur, quod in ea re quam offert, ipsa offeratur)\u2019 (The City of God, 10. 6). Without mentioning either the priesthood of the baptized or that of ordained priests who minister at the altar, Augustine prioritizes the common self-offering of the whole priestly Church when writing thus of the Eucharist. We might summarize the basic responsibility that the priesthood of the faithful entails. Through their sharing in the priesthood of Christ, all baptized Christians are called to offer themselves in the Holy Spirit as a living sacri\ufb01ce to God and to intercede for the Church and the salvation of the whole world.<\/p>\n

THESIS 3<\/p>\n

The three of\ufb01ces of all the faithful will often be in tension and sometimes in con\ufb02ict, but should always be set towards resolution and harmony. We recalled a particular insight offered by John Henry Newman about tensions that could emerge through the Church sharing in the threefold of\ufb01ce of Christ. In particular, he wrote about the \u2018con\ufb02icting interests\u2019 and \u2018dif\ufb01culties\u2019 he detected in the exercise of the priestly, prophetic, and kingly of\ufb01ces during the later years of the ponti\ufb01cate of Blessed Pius IX. In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul wrote about the variety of spiritual gifts enjoyed by the Christian community in Corinth and about tensions that could arise through the exercise of these different charisms. The gifts should all serve the common good; diversity should not be at the expense of unity. One might understand Newman to have transposed into the key of the triple of\ufb01ce the possible and actual tensions that Paul detected in the exercise of various charisms. Many readers, without lapsing into harsh judgements, should be able to remember situations where tensions arose between Christians who embodied different emphases in exercising the threefold dignity received through faith and baptism. The more prophetic bent of some can lead to con\ufb02ict with others of a more priestly or kingly\/ pastoral bent. Or the priestly aptitude of some can create issues with others of more pastoral\/kingly instinct. Whatever the diversity, it should be harmonized for the good of all.
\n
\nTHESIS 4<\/p>\n

The priesthood of all the faithful, along with their prophetic and kingly\/ pastoral of\ufb01ce, involves not only being tried and tested but also becoming vulnerable to persecution and lethal hostility. This thesis, which matches our sixth thesis about vulnerability and suffering characterizing the exercise of Christ\u2019s own triple of\ufb01ce, rests on abundant New Testament witness. Jesus himself warned of persecution that his followers would undergo (e.g. Matt. 10: 17, 23). 1 Peter, which calls the faithful a \u2018royal\u2019 and \u2018holy\u2019 priesthood (1 Pet. 2: 5, 9), was written to encourage them in their sufferings. The Book of Revelation, which represents Christians in royal and priestly terms, engages right from the start with the trials and af\ufb02ictions they must undergo (e.g. Rev. 2: 2\u20133, 9\u201310). The Letter to the Hebrews, before applying sacri\ufb01cial, priestly language to Christian existence (Heb. 12: 28: 13: 15\u201316), gathers example after example of the suffering and even death that the life of faith entails (11: 1\u201312: 2). Baptism is the central expression of what it is to become a Christian and so share in the priesthood of Christ. The Eucharist is the central expression of what it is to be a Christian and exercise that priesthood.4<\/p>\n

4 In BEM the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches called the Eucharist \u2018the central act of the Church\u2019s worship\u2019 (\u2018Eucharist\u2019, 1). In the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Vatican II described the Eucharist as \u2018the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed\u2019 and \u2018the fountain from which all her power \ufb02ows\u2019 (SC 10).<\/p>\n

Baptism, along with the priestly identity it confers, involves being assimilated to the suffering and death of Christ (Rom. 6: 3\u20134). The Eucharist, inasmuch as it means \u2018proclaiming the death of Christ until he comes\u2019 (1 Cor. 11: 26), can be described as a self-involving appropriation of the cross of Christ or a sharing in Christ\u2019s death in order to share in his life. The event of the cross constitutes the corporate and individual identity of Christians and shapes the exercise of their common priesthood.<\/p>\n

THESIS 5<\/p>\n

It was not only at the Last Supper but also earlier (during his ministry) and later (after his resurrection) that Christ called and \u2018established\u2019 some of his disciples as priestly ministers who would share in a special way in his priesthood for the service of his community and the world. Christ, the supreme embodiment of priesthood, exercised his priesthood before the Last Supper and in his risen glory after his suffering and death. Likewise, before the Last Supper he called from the wider group of disciples a core group of Twelve and, through a trial mission, associated them with his priestly work of preaching and healing (Mark 3: 13\u201319; 6: 7\u201313 parr.). After his resurrection, as Matthew 28, Luke 24, John 20\u20131, and Acts 1 illustrate, he de\ufb01nitively commissioned and sent them, as well as (with the Father) empowering them with the Holy Spirit for their mission. In the sixteenth century the Council of Trent taught that Christ\u2019s institution of ministerial priesthood coincided with his institution of the sacri\ufb01ce of the Mass (DzH 1740, 1752, 1764; ND 1546, 1556, 1707). But it did not teach that the institution of ministerial priesthood coincided totally with Christ\u2019s institution of the Eucharist. If the core group of the Twelve are taken to embody initially the ministerial priesthood, did Christ \u2018establish\u2019 them in that role merely during a few minutes at the Last Supper and even merely with the words \u2018do this in remembrance of me\u2019?
\n
\nTo be sure, the Last Supper was a (or even the) de\ufb01ning moment in their being initiated into a priestly of\ufb01ce by Christ. But all the moments, which make up the full story of his sharing with them his priesthood, included what came before the Last Supper and what followed afterwards. Only an impoverished view of their ministerial initiation would ignore what Christ shared and did with the Twelve earlier and later than their \ufb01nal meal together. Trent, as we saw, in defending the sacri\ufb01cial nature of the Eucharist, concentrated on the cultic side of priesthood and remained silent about the inseparable prophetic and pastoral of\ufb01ces. By expounding a richer view of priesthood as including preaching the Word of God and pastoral ministry, Vatican II set the ordained ministry in a context which included, but went beyond, cultic ministry. This richer view of priesthood requires us to rethink seriously the series of events through which Christ inducted a select group of his disciples into sharing in his priesthood. What, then, of those who succeed the Twelve and the wider group of New Testament apostles (e.g. Paul) by sharing in Christ\u2019s priesthood through an ordained ministry?<\/p>\n

THESIS 6<\/p>\n

Through the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands, priests are ordained to share in a special way in the priesthood of Christ. With this thesis we move to the ordained ministry and to controversial positions which should be founded on the New Testament, to the extent that this is possible. Like all the baptized, the ordained share in the priesthood of Christ but do so differently. Both contribute, but in their own way, to building up the Body of Christ and serving the world. Commenting on Hebrews, Christopher Koester maintains that \u2018it is clear\u2019 that the letter \u2018assumes that Christ\u2019s heavenly ministry (leitourgia; 8: 2, 6) undergirds earthly Christian worship (latreuein; 12: 28) and that his self-sacri\ufb01ce gives rise to sacri\ufb01ces of praise and good works among his followers (13: 15\u201316)\u2019. Koester ends by saying: \u2018a place remains for leadership in the community of faith (13: 7, 17). But Hebrews does not call these leaders \u201cpriests\u201d.\u20195<\/p>\n

5 C. R. Koester, Hebrews (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 380. It is worth noting, more broadly, that the New Testament never applies priestly language to Christian leaders as such except for Rom. 15: 16 (see Ch. 2 above). 6 Acts 20: 7 12 provides the only case where we can identify the person who presided and preached (at length!) at a Sunday Eucharist: Paul himself. On this passage see J. A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, 667 9.<\/p>\n

Koester might have added that Hebrews does not specify whether these \u2018leaders\u2019 (no matter what they are called) presided at Christian worship and, above all, at the Eucharist. Nor does the letter clarify just how these leaders became leaders. Paul (1 Cor. 11: 23\u20136) shows that the Eucharist was the central act of Christian worship. Yet neither he nor anyone else in the New Testament identi\ufb01es clearly those who presided at the Eucharist and how they came to perform that role.6 Paul and further witnesses use, however, some more particular terms than the very generic \u2018leaders (hegoumenoi)\u2019 when reporting leadership roles in established churches and how Christians were appointed to such roles. Admittedly, in his earliest letter Paul speaks vaguely of those who \u2018preside (proistamenoi)\u2019 in the Church (1 Thess. 5: 12). But, writing to the Philippians, Paul addresses \u2018overseers (episcopoi)\u2019 and their \u2018helpers (diakonoi)\u2019, terms that are often translated, somewhat anachronistically as \u2018bishops\u2019 and \u2018deacons\u2019 (Phil. 1: 1).7<\/p>\n

7 In Rom. 16: 1 Paul names Phoebe as a \u2018deacon\/helper\u2019. 8 On \u2018prophets\u2019, \u2018teachers\u2019, and other ministries in Paul\u2019s letters, see J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (London: T. & T. Clark, 2003), 580 93.
\n
\nBut how they originated, what rites made them into \u2018overseers\u2019 and \u2018helpers\u2019, and what they did is left obscure. In another letter he notes that, within the whole Body of Christ, God has appointed apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, healers, helpers, administrators, and speakers in various \u2018kinds of tongues\u2019 (1 Cor. 12: 8\u201312, 28\u201330; see Rom. 12: 4\u20138).8 These eight ministries in 1 Corinthians 12: 28 become \ufb01ve in another list of ministries for building up the Body of Christ: \u2018The gifts he [Christ] gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers\u2019 (Eph. 4: 11). The list now includes the \u2018evangelists\u2019 or of\ufb01cial messengers\/preachers of the good news (see Rom. 10: 8\u201317). \u2018Prophets\u2019 are mentioned not only by Paul but also by Luke, who records details of their activity in the emerging Church (Acts 11: 27; 13: 1; 15: 32; 21: 10). At least for Paul, \u2018prophets\u2019 seem to have been something like inspired or gifted preachers. The Acts of the Apostles also reports \u2018elders\/presbyters\u2019, who along with \u2018the apostles\u2019 lead the Jerusalem church under James (Acts 11: 30; 15: 2, 4, 6, 22\u20133; 16: 4). Used of authority \ufb01gures in Judaism, \u2018elders\u2019 came to designate of\ufb01cials in Christian communities, without Luke or anyone else indicating how that happened. Early in Acts, Paul and Barnabas are said by Luke to have installed \u2018elders\u2019 in local churches (Acts 14: 23). Yet neither in the certainly authentic letters of Paul nor in the Deutero-Paulines does the apostle ever speak of \u2018presbyters\u2019 as such in the churches to which he writes, let alone install such persons. When Paul visits Jerusalem for the last time he meets \u2018all the elders\u2019 and James, but neither \u2018apostles\u2019 nor \u2018the Twelve\u2019 are mentioned (Acts 21: 18). Earlier, Acts 6: 1\u20136 has reported the appointment of seven to \u2018serve (diakonein)\u2019 in administering the Jerusalem church. One of them (Stephen), however, works wonders and acts as an outstanding speaker (6: 8\u201310) before being put on trial and martyred.<\/p>\n

Another (Philip) becomes a wandering preacher and miracleworker (8: 4\u201340). The foundation of many local churches by apostles and others brought a shift in leadership, when pastors (called \u2018overseers\u2019, \u2018elders (presbuteroi)\u2019, and \u2018helpers\u2019 or \u2018deacons\u2019) took over from the missionary apostles, the other \u2018evangelists\u2019, and the founders, among whom had been the \u2018pillars\u2019 of Galatians 2: 9. A range of New Testament sources re\ufb02ects this movement from missionary to settled pastoral leaders (e.g. along with Phil. 1: 1; Acts 20: 17, 28; 1 Pet. 5: 1\u20134; the Pastoral Letters to Timothy and Titus). Nevertheless, many details about the appointment of these pastors, their leadership functions, and their relationship to the travelling missionaries remain obscure. The Pastoral Letters, when recording a more developed organization of ministries, speak of \u2018overseers\u2019 or \u2018bishops\u2019 and their quali\ufb01cations (1 Tim. 3: 1\u20137; see Titus 1: 7\u20139), of \u2018the elders\u2019 or \u2018presbyters\u2019 to be appointed by Titus in \u2018every town\u2019 of Crete (Titus 1: 5\u20136; see 1 Tim. 5: 17\u201320), and of the qualities of \u2018deacons\u2019 (1 Tim. 3: 8\u201310, 12\u201313), and apparently also of deaconesses (1 Tim. 3: 14). At least in Titus 1: 5\u20137, \u2018overseers\u2019 and \u2018elders\u2019 seem to be overlapping and almost synonymous categories. Luke also seems to take \u2018presbyters\u2019 and \u2018overseers\u2019 as equivalent (Acts 20: 17, 28). There is some indication of succession in teaching authority (2 Tim. 2: 2). Much is conveyed about the teaching, preaching, defence of sound doctrine, administration, and family behaviour expected from leaders. But apart from some passing regulations concerning worship (1 Tim. 2: 1\u20132, 8) and several references to the \u2018laying on of hands\u2019 (1 Tim. 5: 22; see 4: 14; 2 Tim. 1: 6), nothing further is said about the liturgical life of the community and, for instance, about the roles taken by these leaders (or others) in baptizing, celebrating the Eucharist, and instituting others as their successors in leadership functions.9<\/p>\n

9 On various of\ufb01cials in the early Church, see Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: on \u2018apostles\u2019 (pp. 196 7), \u2018bishops\/overseers\u2019 (pp. 678 9), \u2018deacons\u2019 (p. 345), \u2018elders\/ presbyters\u2019 (pp. 482 3, 535), \u2018prophets\u2019 (p. 481), and \u2018teachers\u2019 (p. 496).
\n
\nAll in all, the New Testament, while witnessing to some organized ministry and structured leadership, yields no standard terminology for ministerial leaders and no fully clear pattern about how they functioned. To the extent that we can glimpse something about their appointment, commissioning, or \u2018ordination\u2019 (to speak somewhat anachronistically), it seems to have occurred through the \u2018imposition\u2019 of hands and an invocation of the Holy Spirit (e.g. Acts 13: 3; 14: 23; 1 Tim. 4: 14; 2 Tim. 1: 6). The threefold ministry of leadership in the Pastoral Letters (\u2018overseers\/bishops\u2019, \u2018elders\/presbyters\u2019, and \u2018deacons\u2019) offers an early intimation of the threefold leadership (\u2018bishop\u2019, \u2018presbyters\u2019, and \u2018deacons\u2019) that emerged in the second century\u2014a ministry for which they would be ordained through invoking the Holy Spirit and imposing hands.10<\/p>\n

10 On all this see BEM 21 5 (\u2018Ministry\u2019, 7 25); G. O\u2019Collins and D. Kendall, \u2018Leadership and the Church\u2019s Origins\u2019, in The Bible for Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997), 101 16.<\/p>\n

During the \ufb01rst centuries, as we saw, the application of \u2018priest\u2019 (hiereus in Greek and sacerdos in Latin) was not uniform. Origen attached the term to those whom Ignatius of Antioch called \u2018presbyters\u2019, whereas Cyprian of Carthage usually applied sacerdos only to bishops. Augustine, as we noted, applied sacerdos occasionally to bishops and merely now and then to \u2018simple\u2019 priests. Normally he used the term only of Christ himself. We return below to this phenomenon of \u2018reticence\u2019 in the use of the term \u2018priest\u2019 for both ordained ministers and Christ himself.<\/p>\n

THESIS 7<\/p>\n

Those who are ordained to priestly ministry are called by Christ in the Church and through the Church. Here Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and some other Christians part ways with those who understand ordained ministers to be simply delegates of the community. In this view, ordination to ministry derives its authority and substance by delegation from the priesthood of the baptized. Ministers, in this view, are called by the community and not precisely by Christ. Nowadays, at Catholic and some other ordinations to priestly ministry, the faithful are expected to express their approval of the candidates for priestly ministry through applause and other signs of acceptance. Nevertheless, after someone responsible for their preparation has presented the candidates, the ordaining bishop accepts and calls them. This call is understood as follows: just as God chose and called Jesus to be the High Priest (Letter to the Hebrews), Jesus in turn chose and called his apostolic representatives (the Gospels). They in turn, enlightened and empowered by the Holy Spirit, chose and called overseers\/bishops to succeed them. The bishops continue to be responsible, in the name of Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit, for the choice and call of those to be ordained bishops, priests, and deacons. As Ignatius of Antioch expressed matters succinctly in the early second century, bishops do not owe their ministry to the Christian people but to the \u2018Father and the Lord Jesus Christ\u2019. In BEM, the Faith and Order Commission wrote similarly: \u2018Christ continues through the Holy Spirit to choose and call persons into the ordained ministry.\u201911<\/p>\n

11 \u2018Ministry\u2019, 11. A few years later the Commission commented on this passage: \u2018for the sake of the ongoing life and mission of the Church there must be persons, called by God, sent by Christ, and assisted by the Holy Spirit and recognized by the people of God, to preach the word, to celebrate the sacraments, to bring together and guide the Christian community in faith, hope and love\u2019 (Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry 1982 1990 (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1990), 121).
\n
\nTHESIS 8<\/p>\n

Those ordained to the priestly ministry are called to promote the unity of Christian communities, their continuity in the faith \u2018that comes to us from the apostles\u2019, and their pilgrimage towards the heavenly kingdom. This thesis sets the ordained ministry, its sharing in the one priesthood of Christ, and its service within a broader mission and context that includes but extends beyond presiding at public worship. Those ordained are not only presiders at the Eucharist but also preachers of the Word and pastors of the people. Through their prophetic activity as preachers\/teachers and their \u2018kingly\u2019 activity as pastors, ordained priests play a major (but obviously not unique) leadership role in promoting communion among the faithful, guiding them to their \ufb01nal goal, and preserving and actualizing the lifegiving revelation that comes from Christ and his apostles, as well as sharing with all people the good news that is Jesus himself. In their inseparable, if distinguishable, roles as priests, prophets, and kings, ordained ministers are called to be Christ\u2019s instruments who face, so to speak, in three directions. As prophetic teachers they are to maintain continuity with the apostolic past; as priests they visibly actualize Christ\u2019s powerful presence through the Holy Spirit; and as pastors they lead the faithful towards God\u2019s future kingdom. Just as with the priesthood of all the faithful, so the priesthood of the ordained must be set in the wider framework of the three of\ufb01ces and their exercise. Thesis 2 above about the baptized faithful \ufb01nds its counterpart in this thesis about the ordained.<\/p>\n

THESIS 9<\/p>\n

Ordained to act in the person of the invisible Christ, priests act and intercede for others as his visible representatives. Augustine, as we noted, understood the Church\u2019s ministers to be visible signs of the invisible but dynamically present priesthood of Christ\u2014sacraments of Christ, the Head of the body that is the Church. In 1964 Vatican II linked the pastoral work of priests to the Shepherd and Head (LG 28). In a subsequent document of 1965 the Council returned to this thought and portrayed priests as being \u2018con\ufb01gured to Christ the Priest in such a way that they are able to act in the person of Christ, the Head\u2019 (PO 2; see also 6) and as \u2018servants of the Head\u2019 (PO 12).<\/p>\n

THESIS 10<\/p>\n

Participation in Christ\u2019s priesthood through ministerial ordination may be misused through evil conduct but can never be retracted or undone.<\/p>\n

Whether we speak of an \u2018indelible mark\u2019, a \u2018sacramental character\u2019, or simply of the permanent nature of ordination, this thesis in effect states: \u2018once a priest, always a priest.\u2019 We summarized what Aquinas wanted to say about the \u2018indelible mark\u2019 brought by sharing in Christ\u2019s priesthood through baptism and then by sharing in that priesthood through ministerial ordination. In both cases a related but different participation in Christ\u2019s priesthood left an enduring \u2018stamp\u2019 or \u2018character\u2019 on the person baptized or ordained. Just as Christ\u2019s priesthood is eternal, Aquinas argued, so too is the priesthood of those baptized and those ordained. One cannot be either baptized or ordained a second time.
\n
\nTHESIS 11<\/p>\n

The special sharing by the ordained in the priesthood of Christ involves a further call to a life of holiness. Right from Paul (and his themes of the spiritual \u2018worship\u2019 and \u2018ministry\u2019 exercised in daily life) and 1 Peter, the royal priesthood of the baptized was understood to call them to live out a holy existence. Paul and Hebrews, in particular, extended cultic language to picture the \u2018priestly\u2019 existence of all Christians. In later centuries Chrysostom was second to none in emphasizing the priestly holiness in daily life expected of all Christians. Yet sharing in Christ\u2019s priesthood through ministerial ordination involves a further call to holiness. Origen, the French School, and other Christian witnesses down the centuries have insisted on the spiritual, self-sacri\ufb01cing qualities required of ministerial priests. The Reformers, Vincent de Paul, and others have expressed their sorrow and indignation over the unworthy lives of many priests and bishops. In particular, presiding at the celebration of the Eucharist puts priests into an intimate and self-involving role in proclaiming the Lord\u2019s death and resurrection. At the Eucharist all the faithful, to be sure, are called to identify with Christ who gave himself for others. Yet the presiding priests are summoned in a special way to manifest a true consistency between their cultic activity and their human lives.<\/p>\n

Their identity at the altar should be seamlessly linked to a manifestly holy identity in daily life. As we noted, Yves Congar played a major role in preparing Vatican II\u2019s decree on the ministry and life of priests. Writing shortly after the Council closed, he \ufb01rmly set out the selfgiving that the Eucharist requires from priests and people: \u2018The Eucharist of the New Testament is not a rite that could exist apart from our giving ourselves to God and to one another, in order to form one body of sacri\ufb01ce in Jesus Christ, who was delivered for us.\u2019 He drew the logical conclusion: \u2018However beautiful, ritually, the celebration may be, if it does not include the effective spiritual sacri\ufb01ce of human beings [it] is not really and truly the sacri\ufb01ce of the New Testament.\u2019 In the same vein, Congar added: \u2018we do not discharge our duty to God by offering him in sacri\ufb01ce \u201csome thing\u201d, however precious or costly, if it is anything, or even everything, except our selves.\u2019 For \u2018the one thing God desires from us\u2019 is \u2018our heart, our selves, living persons made in his image\u2019.12<\/p>\n

12 Y. Congar, Priest and Layman, trans. P. J. Hepburne Scott (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967), 79 80, 92 3; trans. corrected.<\/p>\n

Congar put his \ufb01nger here on the persistent temptation for priests to indulge and be satis\ufb01ed with ritualism. Gestures, words, and what accompanies them can become more important than interior devotion and loving service to others. In the New Testament and the works of early Christian writers, \u2018liturgy (leitourgia)\u2019 referred both to Christian worship and to the obligation to meet the material needs of others. The double usage of this term suggests the essential bond between worship and social action through the service of the needy and suffering.13<\/p>\n

13 See G. O\u2019Collins, Living Vatican II: The 21st Council for the 21st Century (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2006), 59 60; and S. R. Holman, The Beggars Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
\n
\nFinally, Augustine and Luther are at their best on this theme. As we documented, Augustine emphasized that the external rituals performed by priests should be matched by the inner obedience and sacri\ufb01ce of their lifestyle. True sacri\ufb01ce, for Augustine, was always found in a life given to God in faith and love. Luther puts matters more vividly. Introducing a speci\ufb01c detail from the rite of priestly ordination, he draws out the pastoral implications of being anointed and writes: \u2018beyond other Christians, they [priests] are anointed on their \ufb01ngers, not so much for the purpose of being worthy to touch the sacrament of the body of Christ as to deal gently with the matter of the same sacrament: that is, with the people of Christ.\u201914<\/p>\n

14 Lectures on Hebrews (Heb. 5: 1), in LW xxix. 170.<\/p>\n

With this image we arrive at our \ufb01nal thesis, and the question: how do ordained priests participate in Christ\u2019s priesthood when they celebrate the Eucharist? Unquestionably, there are less controversial issues that belong here: for instance, about the \u2018invocation (epiclesis)\u2019 of the Holy Spirit at the Eucharist and the Trinitarian nature of the Eucharist. In BEM the Faith and Order Commission dealt clearly and helpfully with both matters. In its Report on the Process and its Responses, the Commission drew matters together: \u2018in the Holy Spirit, Christ comes to us, clothed in his mighty acts, and gathers us in his self-offering to the Father.\u201915<\/p>\n

15 Faith and Order Commission, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry 1982 1990, 116.<\/p>\n

This same Report delineated and rejected two extreme views of what happens at the Eucharist: \u2018the Lord\u2019s Supper is neither the occasion of a simple recollection of Christ and his death, nor yet a repetition of Calvary.\u201916<\/p>\n

16 Ibid. 115.<\/p>\n

If so, what then is the Eucharist in its essential link with the once-and-for-all, sacri\ufb01cial, self-giving of Christ?<\/p>\n

THESIS 12<\/p>\n

In the celebration of the Eucharist ordained priests are visible signs of the invisible Christ, Priest and Victim or Offerer and Offering, whose unique and suf\ufb01cient sacri\ufb01ce, accomplished once and for all in his life, death, and resurrection, continues to be present and operative on behalf of the whole human race. The heart of this thesis is the Augustinian-style distinction between the \u2018visible signs\u2019 (the ministerial priests) and the \u2018invisible Christ\u2019, perpetually present and active through the Holy Spirit in his priestly work at the sacri\ufb01cial meal that is the Eucharist. In the founding event of his sacri\ufb01ce that would de\ufb01ne forever the Christian story, Jesus established a new covenant with God, which he visibly articulated at the Last Supper and rati\ufb01ed through his death and resurrection. Through instituting the Eucharist as the perpetual, living, and effective commemoration of his sacri\ufb01ce in which he would remain dynamically present, he could draw into his own self-offering all later generations of believers. This is to recognize that the Eucharist is neither a mere \u2018memorial\u2019 of Christ\u2019s sacri\ufb01ce nor simply a communion in the \u2018bene\ufb01ts\u2019 Christ has brought to human beings. His bene\ufb01ts, whether at the Eucharist or beyond, are \u2018unavailable without his person\u2019 and his personal presence.17<\/p>\n

17 G. Hunsinger, The Eucharist and Ecumenism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 16.
\n
\nIn their Final Report, ARCIC joined all those who insist that the Eucharist is not \u2018a repetition of the historical sacri\ufb01ce\u2019, and added: \u2018it is a sacri\ufb01ce in a sacramental sense\u2019.18<\/p>\n

18 Final Report, 2 and 20.<\/p>\n

Both points invite comment. If \u2018repetition\u2019 is false or at least hopelessly misleading, so too is another \u2018re-\u2019 word: \u2018re-presentation\u2019. That can too easily suggest that somehow Christ\u2019s self-sacri\ufb01ce was not being constantly presented to the Father. If we speak of a case being \u2018re-presented\u2019 before a court, we imply that it was presented earlier and now, after a certain lapse of time, is being presented again. As regards the Eucharist being \u2018a sacri\ufb01ce in a sacramental sense\u2019, it might be better to speak here of a \u2018sacramental form\u2019. Following some insights from Tom Torrance, George Hunsinger writes of the action of the Eucharist not being \u2018another action than that which Christ has already accomplished on our behalf \u2019. It is \u2018the very same action\u2019 performed by Christ but now in a \u2018sacramental form\u2019.19<\/p>\n

19 Hunsinger, Eucharist and Ecumenism, 17; he quotes T. F. Torrance, Con\ufb02ict and Agreement in the Church, ii (London: Lutterworth, 1960), 152.<\/p>\n

At every Eucharist Christ is the Offerer, the One who invisibly but truly presides at the visible, sacramental celebration of his once-andfor-all sacri\ufb01ce. He takes up into his self-offering the visible priest and the assembled faithful. He is then the One who in the Eucharistic meal shares himself with all the faithful. The ordained priests act \u2018in the person of Christ\u2019\u2014not in the sense of replacing him or substituting for him but in the sense of acting as visible signs of his invisible and dynamic presence as the Offerer and the Offering. The visible priest presides at the Eucharistic ceremony, but it is Christ who perpetually offers his sacri\ufb01ce. One might adapt Augustine and say: Peter presides, Christ offers. Paul presides, Christ offers. The presence of Christ, the High Priest and Head of the Church, is made visible not only through the assembled faithful but also through his ministerial priests. Yet we should never forget that statement we quoted from Thomas Aquinas: \u2018only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers\u2019 (Super Epistolam ad Hebreos, 8. 4). We may gloss this statement and say: only the invisible Christ is the true priest; the others, while visible, are only his ministers. Addressing God the Father, the ancient Roman Canon or First Eucharistic Prayer speaks of \u2018your people and your ministers (servi)\u2019. Signi\ufb01cantly, it reserves the title of \u2018your priest\u2019 to the \ufb01gure of Melchizedek.<\/p>\n

EPIL OGUE<\/p>\n

We could obviously press on and add further theses: for instance, about (1) tensions that arise between the exercise of the priesthood of the baptized and the ordained priesthood; (2) about the suffering and vulnerability involved in being ordained to the priesthood; and (3) about the role of the Holy Spirit in baptism\/con\ufb01rmation and in ordination to the priesthood (or to the episcopacy and diaconate). Both at baptism and at ordination the Holy Spirit is invoked, but differently, just as the Spirit is involved, albeit differently, in the exercise of the universal priesthood and in that of the ministerial priesthood. The stated aim of this book has been to facilitate a better understanding of Christ\u2019s unique priesthood. Yet, as we have demonstrated, \u2018Christ the High Priest\u2019 or simply \u2018Christ the Priest\u2019 has not been a title that has \ufb02ourished within the Christian story. The Creed of 381, accepted and used by all Christians, has privileged three other titles: \u2018Christ (Messiah)\u2019, \u2018Lord\u2019, and \u2018Son of God\u2019. Down through the centuries \u2018Saviour\u2019 (used of Jesus sixteen times in the New Testament) and \u2018Redeemer\u2019 (curiously, never applied to him in the New Testament) have also proved enduringly valuable Christological titles. Jesus\u2019 title as \u2018priest\u2019, along with the theme of his priesthood, has been somewhat marginalized down through the centuries, just as the major biblical document on his priesthood, the Letter to the Hebrews, has also suffered a certain marginalization. The priesthood of Christ should be drawn into the mainstream of theological, pastoral, and prayerful re\ufb02ection. His priesthood will prove revelatory and transformative for those who wish to appreciate more deeply and deploy more effectively the graces of universal priesthood and ordained priesthood. Without a much richer understanding of Christ\u2019s priesthood, will it be possible to energize and mobilize more fruitfully the ministries of the baptized and the ordained? In practice, such understanding, energizing, and mobilizing will come mainly through the impact of Christian faith\u2019s primary language: biblical and liturgical texts, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Such verbal, musical, and \u2018material\u2019 expressions show the highpriestly actions of Christ rather than attempting to explain them. These primary expressions communicate meanings directly and appeal to the imagination and the heart. From the beginning of Christianity, for example, the fourth \u2018Servant Song\u2019 (Isa. 52: 13\u201353: 12), which pictures someone whose cruel suffering brings blessings to many, has functioned to show directly rather than explain intellectually what the priestly death of Jesus means. Any account of the primary religious language that has \u2018shown\u2019 his priesthood down through the centuries must include at the very least the Letter to the Hebrews, the constant celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments, the liturgy of Holy Week, and representations of the cruci\ufb01xion. They all exemplify the primacy of \u2018showing\u2019 over \u2018telling\u2019 for those who wish to be touched by the priesthood of Christ. To be sure, we need the secondlevel language of theological re\ufb02ection and clari\ufb01cation, but it cannot take the place of the primary religious language and its \u2018showing\u2019. Let us conclude with one example of such primary language.
\n
\nIn the apse of San Clemente in Rome a monumental mosaic brings together visually into an integrated unity things that would otherwise have remained separate and scattered. At the centre is Christ on his cross, inaugurating all the movements in the mosaic. As the source of all else, especially the life of the vine and its branches, the thin wood of the cross communicates vibrant existence to the thriving world of the whole mosaic. Christ is the \u2018source of eternal salvation\u2019 (Heb. 5: 9) and a vital dynamism characterizes that salvation. The cross is a throne of victory and triumph. From the top of the mosaic a hand emerges from the sanctuary of heaven and crowns the cross with a laurel wreath. God has accepted the priestly sacri\ufb01ce of Christ. At the foot of the cross a small snake slithers away\u2014to represent evil being banished by that sacri\ufb01ce. The rich vitality of the salvation effected by Christ the High Priest is expressed not only by the lively doves placed along the cross and the two deer drinking water at the foot of the cross, but also by the panorama of a redeemed world: a woman feeding her chickens, a bird nourishing its young, a man tasting wine, and cherubs gambolling with joy. The richness and variety of these scenes point to Christ the High Priest gathering all creation to himself and presenting it to the Father. At the bottom of the apse two processions of sheep, six leaving from the town of Bethlehem and six from the city of Jerusalem, meet in the middle under the cross. They recall, respectively, the place where the High Priest was born \u2018in these last days\u2019 (Heb. 1: 2) and the place of his death and resurrection, where he \u2018entered the inner shrine behind the curtain\u2019 (Heb. 6: 19). Bethlehem features a set of descending stairs and Jerusalem features a window opening on an ascending stairway: the descent and ascent, respectively, of Christ\u2019s incarnation, passion, and priestly exaltation to \u2018the presence of God on our behalf \u2019 (Heb. 9: 24). Vibrant activity \ufb01lls the apse of San Clemente. Life \ufb02ows out from the cross and, in turn, all life is gathered together by the cross\u2014to become a supreme gift of praise offered to the Father by Christ the eternal High Priest.
\n—
\nFrom Collins, Keenan Jones: Jesus Our Priest – A Christian Approach to the Priesthood of Christ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Collins, Keenan Jones: Jesus Our Priest – A Christian Approach to the Priesthood of Christ — Little of\ufb01cial teaching and theological re\ufb02ection on Christ\u2019s priesthood developed over two thousand years of Christianity. His priesthood was taken for granted and rarely became controversial. Even when controversies emerged, as they did at the Reformation, they focused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[6702,6707],"tags":[1547,282,3203,6824,6825,6826,247,618,6827,743,6828],"class_list":["post-3384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thechrist","category-studies-thechristcontents","tag-aquinas","tag-chrysostom","tag-gospels","tag-keenan","tag-letter-to-the-hebrews","tag-ministerial-ordination","tag-priesthood","tag-reformation","tag-reticence","tag-spiritual-life","tag-two-thousand-years-of-christianity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}