Is There a Theology of Priesthood in the Bible?

The New Testament never refers to anyone in the church as being a “priest” except Christ. How then can there be a group of people who call themselves “priests”? If we already have a great High Priest, Jesus, who has ascended into heaven (Heb 4:14), why would we need any other priests at all? What would their offering be and on what altar, if the animal sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple were replaced with Christ’s death on the altar of the Cross? 

Anthony Giambrone OP’s latest book, The Bible and the Priesthood, presents an accessible and attractive response to this problem. What gives it particular merit is that his thoroughly exegetical approach (unsurprising given that he is a New Testament scholar based at the École Biblique in Jerusalem) allows him, firstly, to present a fresh contribution to the longstanding Reformation-era debates about the ordained ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons. But, secondly, it gives him the freedom to write with an eye to the contemporary problems of the church, not least of which is a loss of confidence, during the past sixty years, about the purpose of the priesthood.

Giambrone begins with a poignant quotation on that theme from the Pope Emeritus on “the lasting crisis that the priesthood has been going through for many years.” Benedict XVI locates the origins of that crisis in “a methodological flaw in the reception of Scripture as the Word of God”:

The abandonment of the Christological interpretation of the Old Testament led many contemporary exegetes to a deficient theology of worship. They did not understand that Jesus, far from abolishing the worship and adoration owed to God, took them upon himself and accomplished them in the loving act of his sacrifice. As a result, some went so far as to reject the necessity of an authentically cultic priesthood in the New Covenant.

So, while the Reformation-era debate hasn’t ended, and will always find keyboard warriors willing to take it up online in debates between self-professed apologists, it reached a particularly acute crisis once Catholics were encouraged to be open to the historical-critical study of the Bible. The scholarly portrayal of Jesus as a millenarian Jewish prophet (which was brought to popular attention again about a decade ago by Reza Aslan’s book Zealot) made it seem implausible that a man preaching the imminent judgment of the world could have founded, or be expected to found, the sacerdotal hierarchy of an institutional church. Hence, the crisis of confidence among the laity about whether it was really the will of Christ for them to be dependent on their parish priest for access to the Body of Christ. Why should they have to subject themselves to the poor preaching of a gabbling man dressed up in a sixth-century overcoat, as Ronald Knox put it, Sunday after Sunday, on pain of mortal sin? Nor did the crisis fail to affect the clergy either. There are more than a few who might painfully recall a certain priest or monsignor when hearing Fr. Dougal says in the Irish sitcom Father Ted: “So, God, does he really exist? Who knows? I don’t know. Personally, I don’t even believe in organized religion.” 

Giambrone, in other words, set himself a difficult task, but the result is admirable. Taking the Pentateuch, the Prophets, Gospels, and Apostolic writings in turn, he leads the reader through the canon of scripture in a way that makes intelligible the priesthood of Christ and the priestly nature of those whom he calls to be pastors of his church, against the background of the central role of the Levitical priests in the Mosaic covenant.

His exegesis of the ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood in Leviticus 8-9, perhaps the most overlooked book of the Bible, draws attention to the importance of this moment of theophany occurring almost in the middle of the central book of the Pentateuch. The discussion of the prophetic critique of priestly sins is especially effective at refuting the popular view that pits the prophets, concerned with social justice, against the legalistic and ritualistic priests. A mistaken reading of Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” which is quoted by Jesus to the Pharisees in Matthew 9:13, has been the argument of countless homilies portraying Jesus as sweeping away the fussy rules about sacrificial worship, and replacing it with a religion of love and mercy towards your neighbor. Giambrone skilfully argues instead that the prophets were more concerned with the priests’ failure to perform their cultic duties properly and looked forward to a renewed and perfect eschatological priesthood that would include the Gentiles (e.g. Isaiah 66:21). His discussion of the expectation of a new priesthood in the prophets and the apocalyptic writings from the period between the two Testaments leads very well into his exegesis of the pastoral and priestly language used in the Gospels and in the Epistles.

What emerges is a picture of the New Testament writers having to employ various idioms and ideas prevalent in the expectations of Second Temple Judaism to describe what was new about the priesthood of Christ and his ministers, while avoiding the vocabulary that would wrongly assimilate them to the pagan or Levitical priests. Though there are no references to the Apostles or other ministers as being ‘priests,’ absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Giambrone makes a compelling case for this being a way to avoid misunderstandings that would miss what was unique and novel about Christ’s priesthood and the ministers of the new covenant. It may not convince everyone. But it deserves to be considered, even by the unconvinced.  

The Bible and the Priesthood
By Anthony Giambrone, OP
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022; 320pp

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