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There is no Christian priest (hiereus) in the New Testament. Saint Paul pays tribute to more than a dozen Christian ministries, but none of them is the priesthood. He never calls himself or his assistants priests, and never offers sacrifice (the priestly act). Jesus was a layman, not a priest. He did not even belong to the priestly line of Levi. But he went to the Temple where priests offered sacrifice -- and so did his early followers. James the brother of Jesus kept the first Christians of Jerusalem observant of Temple worship. He directs Paul to get himself ritually purified from travel in the Temple, and Paul does so (Acts 2:17-24). So, until the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., Jerusalem Christians had the same (and only) priests as other Jews.
Then where did a separate Christian priesthood come from? At the end of the first century C.E., a group (probably in Rome) of Christians missed the comfort of Jewish worship some of them had experienced before the year 70. The unidentifiable author of the New Testament's "Epistle to Hebrews" assured them, in elegant Greek, that the old Jewish rites were useless anyway, since Jesus was a better priest with a better sacrifice. The Jews had just offered animal sacrifice. Jesus offered human sacrifice (a savage act in most cultures), since he was both priest and victim. Was -- not is -- since, according to Hebrews 10:11-15, he offered himself only once, in an unrepeatable way, while Jewish priests repeated their ineffectual offerings.
Though Jesus could not be a Jewish priest, since he was not a Levite, this author said he was a priest like the mythical Melchizedek, a priest of Canaanite gods to whom Abraham paid a tithe. Later, Catholic priests would claim descent from Melchizedek (though he had no descendents) and claim to repeat the sacrifice of Jesus (though "Hebrews" says it was "once for all").
Many religions have sacrificial rites, and priests to offer them. Some early Christians obviously felt the jibes of their contemporaries that they had no sacrificial buildings and no sacrificing priests. So Christians acquired both. They had to make the body and blood of their communal meal become a real body for a real sacrifice, though this meant that the physical body of Jesus was in many places at once, hiding under the substance-less "accidents" of bread and wine. This made Jesus relive (or re-die) on altars his agony on the cross.
A long line of intellectual Christians, typified by Saint Augustine, denied that sacrifice and consumption of the body of Jesus was an original part of the religion. A typical passage in Augustine is from his Sermon 227:
What you see [bread and wine] passes away, but what is invisibly symbolized does not pass away. It perdures. The visible is received, eaten, and digested. But can the body of Christ be digested? Can the church of Christ be digested? Can Christ's limbs be digested? Of course not.
Some Christians, like the Anglicans, have and honor their own priests; but popes have told them these are not real priests, since they do not descend from the mythical Roman bishopric of Peter. In dismissing other people who do things in the name of Jesus, the Vatican resembles the Apostle John, returning with the disciples Jesus had sent out on their first mission:
"Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out devils in your name, but as he is not one of us we tried to stop him." Jesus said to him, "Do not stop him, for he who is not against you is on your side." (Luke 9:49-50).
What we really need are no priests. We should remember what Jesus told the disciples in Matthew 23:8-11:
You must not be called "rabbi"; for you have one Rabbi, and you are all brothers. Do not call any man on earth "father"; for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor must you be called "teacher"; you have one Teacher, the Messiah.
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This comment has not yet been postedThis is interesting.
Many Catholics decided they did not need priests nearly 500 years ago. They, and the churches that follow their tradition, are called "Protestants".
That said, there is no shortage of Byzantine priests. They have wives.
What is the purpose of a church, other than to waste resources on whatever they feel they need, to be filling the space between you and God?
If it's about helping people, why not just seek organizations that strictly help people, and don't concern themselves with communication with God, and talk to God on your own terms?
Since there was deliberate discussion and sometimes strong debate over what was and was not cannon the word choice you translate can also have been deliberately chosen.
It is quite easy to criticize and say what is wrong. It is much more challenging to find what is good and right and add what would be better. certainly the RCC is flawed, very flawed. Yet it is global, the laity and nuns as well as local priests do meet many human needs, physical and emotional and spiritual. People have yet to develop a viable alternative and until we do I prefer to work to remedy the wrongs and improve on areas of obvious flaws.
What would you, Mr. Willis, do to replace the priests' work, build community, teach people to consider others if not before themselves at the very least along with themselves, demonstrate in a very real and global way kindness and outreach?
your local community ...and fill it.......strengthen community ....check in on your elderly neighbor.
Sometimes we make the simplest things so difficult.
because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
Yep.