CINXE.COM

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Priesthood</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12409a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Brief yet thorough examination of this sacrament"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="12409a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/p.htm">P</a> > Priesthood</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Priesthood</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>The word <em><a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a></em> (Germ. <em>Priester</em>; Fr. <em>prêtre</em>; Ital. <em>prete</em>) is derived from the Greek <em>presbyteros</em> (the elder, as distinguished from <em>neoteros</em>, the younger), and is, in the hieratical sense, equivalent to the Latin <em>sacerdos</em>, the Greek <em>iereus</em>, and the <a href="../cathen/07176a.htm">Hebrew</a> <em>kahane</em>. By the term is meant a (male) <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> called to the immediate service of the Deity and authorized to hold public worship, especially to offer sacrifice. In many instances the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> is the religious mediator between <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> (gods) and man and the appointed teacher of religious <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a>, especially when these include esoteric doctrines. To apply the word <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> to the magicians, <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophets</a>, and medicine-men of the <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a> of primitive peoples is a misuse of the term. The essential correlative of priesthood is sacrifice, consequently, mere leaders in the public <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> or guardians of shrines have no claim to the title <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>Our subject may be conveniently treated under four heads: I. The Pagan Priesthood; II. The Jewish Priesthood; III. The Christian Priesthood; IV. The Blessings arising from the Catholic Priesthood.</p> <h2 id="section1">The pagan priesthood</h2> <p>A. Historically the oldest of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a>, the most fully developed, and the most deeply marked by vicissitude is that of <a href="../cathen/07722a.htm">India</a>. Four divisions, distinct in history and nature, are recognizable: Vedism, <a href="../cathen/02730a.htm">Brahminism</a>, <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhism</a>, and <a href="../cathen/07358b.htm">Hinduism</a>. Even in the ancient <a href="../cathen/15318a.htm">Vedic</a> <a href="../cathen/07595a.htm">hymns</a> a special priesthood is distinguishable, for although originally the father of the <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> was also the offerer of sacrifice, he usually sought the co-operation of a Brahmin. From the essential functions of <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">praying</a> and singing during the sacrifice arose in Vedism the three classes of sacrificing (<em>adhvariu</em>), singing (<em>udgâtar</em>), and <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">praying</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> (<em>hotar</em>). The four categories of soldier, <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, artisan or farmer, and slave developed formally in later <a href="../cathen/02730a.htm">Brahminism</a> into the four rigidly distinguished castes (Dahlmann), the Brahmins meanwhile forging ahead of the soldiers to the position of chief importance. The Brahmins alone understood the intricate and difficult sacrificial ceremonial; thanks to their great <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> and <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>, they exercised an irresistible influence over the gods; a <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">pantheistic</a> explanation of the god Brahma invested them with a divine character. The Brahmin was thus a sacred and inviolable <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>, and to <a href="../cathen/07441a.htm">murder</a> him the greatest <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. <a href="../cathen/02730a.htm">Brahminism</a> has wrongly been compared with <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> (cf. Teichmüller, "Religionsphilosophie", Leipzig, 1886, p. 528). In the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a> there was indeed a privileged priesthood, but not an hereditary <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> caste; then as now the lowest classes could attain to the highest <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> offices. Still less justified, in view of the <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">pantheistic</a> character of the <a href="../cathen/02730a.htm">Brahminic</a> religion, are all attempts to trace a genetic connection between the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> and Indian priesthoods, since the <a href="../cathen/10499a.htm">monotheistic</a> spirit of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> and the characteristic organization of its <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> are irreconcilable with a <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">pantheistic</a> conception of the Deity and the unsocial temper of a caste system.</p> <p>The same remarks apply with even greater force to <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhism</a> which, through the reform introduced by King Asoka (239-23 B.C.), forced <a href="../cathen/02730a.htm">Brahminism</a> into the background. As this reform inaugurated the reign of <a href="../cathen/01215c.htm">Agnosticism</a>, Illusionism, and a one-sided morality, the <a href="../cathen/02730a.htm">Brahminic</a> priesthood, with the decay of the ancient sacrificial services, lost its <em>raison d'être.</em> If there be no eternal substance, no Ego, no <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortal</a> <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, no life beyond, the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of a <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, of a Redeemer, of a priesthood forthwith disappears. The <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhist</a> <a href="../cathen/12677d.htm">redemption</a> is merely an ascetical self-redemption wrought by sinking into the abyss of nothingness (Nirvana). The bonzes are not <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> in the strict sense; nor has <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhist</a> monasticism anything beyond the name in common with <a href="../cathen/10459a.htm">Christian monasticism</a>. Modern zealots for <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhism</a> declare with increasing boldness since Schopenhauer, that what they chiefly desire is a religion without <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> and without an alien redeemer, a service without a priesthood. It will therefore perhaps appear all the more extraordinary that <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhism</a>, in consequence of the efforts of the reformer Thong-Kaba, has developed in Tibet a formal <a href="../cathen/07322c.htm">hierarchy</a> and hierocracy in Lamaism (Lama=Brahma).</p> <p>The monasticism and the religious services of Lamaism also present so striking a similarity with <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> institutions that non-Catholic investigators have unhesitatingly spoken of a "Buddhist <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a>" in <a href="../cathen/14718a.htm">Tibet</a>. Pope and dalai-lama, <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> and the city of Lhasa are counterparts; Lamaism has its <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a>, bells, processions, <a href="../cathen/09286a.htm">litanies</a>, <a href="../cathen/12734a.htm">relics</a>, images of <a href="../cathen/04171a.htm">saints</a>, <a href="../cathen/07432a.htm">holy water</a>, <a href="../cathen/02361c.htm">rosary-beads</a>, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop's</a> <a href="../cathen/10404a.htm">mitre</a>, <a href="../cathen/04515c.htm">crosier</a>, vestments, copes, <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>, confession, mass, sacrifice for the dead. Nevertheless, since it is the interior spirit that gives a religion its characteristic stamp, we can recognize in these externals, not a <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> copy of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a>, but only a wretched caricature. And, since this religious compound undoubtedly came into existence only in the fourteenth century, it is evident that the remarkable parallelism is the result of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> influence on Lamaism, not vice versa. We can only suppose that the founder Thong-Kaba was <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">educated</a> by a <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> missionary. Of modern <a href="../cathen/07358b.htm">Hinduism</a>, Schanz draws a gloomy picture: "In addition to Vishnu and Siva, spirits and <a href="../cathen/04710a.htm">demons</a> are worshipped and feared. The River Ganges is held in special veneration. The <a href="../cathen/14495a.htm">temples</a> are often built near lakes because to all who bathe there Brahma promises forgiveness of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. Beasts (cows), especially snakes, trees, and lifeless objects, serve as fetishes. Their offerings consist of flowers, oil, <a href="../cathen/07716a.htm">incense</a>, and food. To Siva and his spouse bloody <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> are also offered. Nor are <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a> and prostitution wanting" ("Apologie d. Christentums", Freiburg, 1905, II, 84 sq.).</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>B. In the kindred but ethically superior religion of the Iranians (Parseeism, <a href="../cathen/02151b.htm">Zoroastrianism</a>, Mazdeism), which unfortunately never overcame the <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> <a href="../cathen/05169a.htm">dualism</a> between the good god (<a href="../cathen/01233a.htm">Ormuzd=Athura-Mazda</a>) and the wicked anti-god (<a href="../cathen/01233a.htm">Ahriman=Angrô-Mainyu</a>), there existed from the beginning a special <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> caste, which in the <a href="../cathen/02151b.htm">Avesta</a> was divided into six classes. The general name for <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> was <em>âthravan</em> (man of fire), and the chief <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a> of the priesthood was the fire-service, fire being the special symbol of <a href="../cathen/01233a.htm">Ormuzd</a>, the god of light. After the destruction of the Persian monarchy only two categories of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> remained: the officiating (<em>zoatar, jôtî</em>) and the ministering (<em>rathwi</em>). Both were later succeeded by the Median magicians (<em>magus</em>), called in modern Parseeism <em>mobed</em> (from <em>mogh-pati</em>, magic-father). In addition to the maintenance of the sacred fire, the <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duties</a> of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> were the offering of <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> (flesh, bread, flowers, fruit), the performance of purifications, <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a>, and <a href="../cathen/07595a.htm">hymns</a>, and instructing in the holy law. Sacrificial animals were placed on a bundle of twigs in the open air, lest the pure earth should be defiled with blood. The human <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>, customary from time immemorial, were abolished by Zoroaster (Zarathustra). In ancient times the fire-altars were placed in the open air, and preferably on the mountains, but the modern Parsees have special fire-temples. The <em>haoma</em>, as the oldest sacrifice, calls for particular mention; manufactured out of the narcotic juice of a certain plant and used as a drink-offering, it was identified with the Deity Himself and given to the faithful as a means of procuring <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a>. This Iranian <em>haoma</em> is doubtlessly identical with the Indian <em>soma</em>, the intoxicating juice of which (<em>asclepias acida</em> or <em>sacrostemma acidum</em>) was supposed to restore to man the <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a> lost in <a href="../cathen/14519a.htm">Paradise</a> (see <a href="../cathen/05572c.htm">EUCHARIST</a>). When, during the reign of the Sassanides, <a href="../cathen/10402a.htm">Mithras</a> the sun-god  according to the later <a href="../cathen/02151b.htm">Avesta</a>, high-priest and mediator between god and man  had gradually supplanted the creative god <a href="../cathen/01233a.htm">Ormuzd</a>, <a href="../cathen/10402a.htm">Persian Mithra-worship</a> held the field almost unopposed; and under the Roman Empire it exerted an irresistible influence on the West (see <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">MASS</a>).</p> <p>C. To turn to classical antiquity, Greece never possessed an exclusive <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> caste, although from the Dorian-Ionian period the public priesthood was regarded as the privilege of the nobility. In Homer the kings also offer <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> to the gods. Public worship was in general undertaken by the State, and the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> were state officials, assigned as a rule to the service of special <a href="../cathen/14495a.htm">temples</a>. The importance of the priesthood grew with the extension of the mysteries, which were embodied especially in the Orphic and Eleusinian cults. Sacrifices were always accompanied with <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a>, for which as the expression of their religious sentiments the Greeks showed a special preference.</p> <p>But among no people in the world were religion, sacrifice, and the priesthood to such an extent the business of the State as among the ancient Romans. At the dawn of their history, their legendary kings (e.g. Numa) are themselves the sacrificial <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>. Under the Republic, the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> office was open only to the patricians until the Lex Ogulina (about 300 B.C.) admitted also the plebeians. As the special object of Roman sacrifice was to avert misfortune and win the favour of the gods, divination played in it from the earliest times an important role. Hence the importance of the various classes of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, who interpreted the will of the gods from the flight of birds or the entrails of the beasts of sacrifice (<em>augures, haruspices</em>). There were many other categories: <em>pontifices, flamines, fetiales, luperci</em>, etc. During imperial times the emperor was the high-priest (<em>pontifex maximus</em>).</p> <p>D. According to Tacitus, the religion of the ancient Germans was a simple worship of the gods, without images; their services took place, not in <a href="../cathen/14495a.htm">temples</a>, but in sacred groves. The <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, if one may call them such, were highly respected, and possessed judicial powers, as the Old High German word for <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, <em>êwarte</em> (guardians of <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a>), shows. But a far greater influence among the people was exercised by the Celtic <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> or <a href="../cathen/05162a.htm">druids</a> (Old <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Irish</a>, <em>drui</em>, magician). Their real home was <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Ireland</a> and Britain, whence they were transplanted to Gaul in the third century before Christ. Here they appear as a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> caste, exempt from taxes and military service; they constitute with the nobility the ruling class, and by their activity as teachers, judges, and physicians become the representatives of a higher religious, moral, and <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> culture. The <a href="../cathen/05162a.htm">druids</a> taught the existence of <a href="../cathen/12510a.htm">Divine providence</a>, the <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, and transmigration. They appear to have had images of the gods and to have offered human <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>  the latter practice may have come down from a much earlier period. Their religious services were usually held on heights and in oak-groves. After the conquest of Gaul the <a href="../cathen/05162a.htm">druids</a> declined in popular esteem.</p> <p>E. The oldest religion of the Chinese is Sinism, which may be characterized as "the most perfect, spiritualistic, and moral <a href="../cathen/10499a.htm">Monotheism</a> known to antiquity outside of <a href="../cathen/08544a.htm">Judea</a>" (Schanz). It possessed no distinct priesthood, the <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> (animals, fruits, and <a href="../cathen/07716a.htm">incense</a>) being offered by state officials in the name of the ruler. In this respect no alteration was made by the reformer <a href="../cathen/04223b.htm">Confucius</a> (sixth century B.C.), although he debased the concept of religion and made the almost deified emperor "the Son of <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">Heaven</a>" and the organ of the cosmic <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>. In direct contrast to this priestless system Laotse (b. 604 B.C.), the founder of Taoism (<em>tao</em>, reason), introduced both monasticism and a regular priesthood with a high-priest at its head. From the first century before Christ, these two <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a> found a strong rival in <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhism</a>, although <a href="../cathen/04223b.htm">Confucianism</a> remains even today the official religion of <a href="../cathen/03663b.htm">China</a>.</p> <p>The original national religion of the <a href="../cathen/08297a.htm">Japanese</a> was Shintoism, a strange compound of nature-, ancestor-, and hero-worship. It is a religion without <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogmas</a>, without a <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">moral</a> code, without sacred writings. The Mikado is a son of the Deity, and as such also high-priest; his palace is the temple  it was only in much later times that the Temple of Ise was built. About A.D. 280 <a href="../cathen/04223b.htm">Confucianism</a> made its way into <a href="../cathen/08297a.htm">Japan</a> from <a href="../cathen/03663b.htm">China</a>, and tried to coalesce with the kindred Shintoism. The greatest blow to Shintoism, however, was struck by <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhism</a>, which entered <a href="../cathen/08297a.htm">Japan</a> in A.D. 552, and, by an extraordinary process of amalgamation, united with the old national religion to form a third. This fusion is known as Rio-bu-Shinto. In the Revolution of 1868, this composite religion was set aside, and pure Shintoism declared the religion of the State. In 1877 the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> establishing this situation was repealed, and in 1889 general religious freedom was granted. The various orders of rank among <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> had been abolished in 1879.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>F. With the ancient religion of the Egyptians the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of the priesthood was inseparably bound up for many thousand years. Though the ruler for the time being was nominally the only <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, there had developed even in the ancient kingdom (from about 3400 B.C.) a special <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> caste, which in the middle kingdom (from about 2000 B.C.), and still more in the late kingdom (from about 1090 B.C.), became the ruling class. The great attempt at reform by King Amenhotep IV (died 1374 B.C.), who tried to banish all gods except the sun-god from the <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egyptian</a> religion and to make sun-worship the religion of the State, was thwarted by the opposition of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>. The whole twenty-first dynasty was a <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> of priest-kings. Although Moses, learned as he was in the wisdom of the Egyptians, may have been indebted to an <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egyptian</a> model for one or two external features in his organization of Divine worship, he was, thanks to the <a href="../cathen/08045a.htm">Divine inspiration</a>, entirely original in the establishment of the Jewish priesthood, which is based on the unique <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of Jahweh's covenant with the Chosen People (cf. "Realencyklopädie für protest. Theologie", XVI, Leipzig, 1905, 33). Still less warranted is the attempt of some writers on the comparative history of <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a> to trace the origin of the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> priesthood to the <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egyptian</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> castes. For at the very time when this borrowing might have taken place, <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egyptian</a> <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a> had degenerated into such loathsome animal-worship, that not only the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, but the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagans</a> themselves turned away from it in disgust (cf. Aristides, "Apol.", xii; <a href="../cathen/04045a.htm">Clement of Alexandria</a>, "Cohortatio", ii).</p> <p>G. In the religion of the <a href="../cathen/13706a.htm">Semites</a>, we meet first the Babylonian-Assyrian <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, who, under the name "Chaldeans", practiced the interpretation of dreams and the reading of the stars and conducted special <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> for <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, besides performing their functions in connection with the <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>. Hence their division into various classes: sacrificers (<em>nisakku</em>), seers (<em>bârû</em>), <a href="../cathen/05711a.htm">exorcist</a> (<em>asipu</em>) etc. Glorious <a href="../cathen/14495a.htm">temples</a> with idols of human and hybrid form arose in <a href="../cathen/02007c.htm">Assyria</a>, and (apart from the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligatory</a> cult of the stars) served for <a href="../cathen/02018e.htm">astrological</a> and <a href="../cathen/02025a.htm">astronomical</a> purposes. Among the Syrians the cruel, voluptuous cult of <a href="../cathen/10443b.htm">Moloch</a> and Astarte found its special home, Astarte especially (Babylonian, Ishtar) being known to the ancients simply as the "Syrian Goddess" (<em>Dea Syria</em>). Likewise among the <a href="../cathen/13706a.htm">semitized</a> <a href="../cathen/12041a.htm">Phoenicians</a>, <a href="../cathen/01431b.htm">Ammonites</a>, and <a href="../cathen/12021c.htm">Philistines</a> these ominous <a href="../cathen/04683a.htm">deities</a> found special veneration. Howling and dancing <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> sought to appease the bloodthirsty <a href="../cathen/10443b.htm">Moloch</a> by <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> of children and self-mutilation, as the analogous Galh strove to pacify the Phrygian goddess Cybele. The <a href="../cathen/11126b.htm">notorious</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> of <a href="../cathen/02175a.htm">Baal</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03569b.htm">Chanaanites</a> were for the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a> as strong an incentive to <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a> as the cult of Astarte was a temptation to immorality. The south-Semitic religion of the ancient <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> Arabians was a plain religion of the <a href="../cathen/04749a.htm">desert</a> without a distinct priesthood: modern <a href="../cathen/10424a.htm">Islam</a> or <a href="../cathen/10424a.htm">Mohammedanism</a> has a <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> (muezzin, announcer of the hours of <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>; imâm, leader of the <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a>; <em>khâtib</em>, preacher), but no real priesthood. The west-Semitic branch of the Hebrews is treated in the next section.</p> <h2 id="section2">The Jewish priesthood</h2> <p>In the age of the Patriarchs the offering of <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> was the function of the father or head of the <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> (cf. <a href="../bible/gen008.htm#vrs20">Genesis 8:20</a>; <a href="../bible/gen012.htm#vrs7">12:7</a>, etc.; <a href="../bible/job001.htm#vrs5">Job 1:5</a>). But, even before Moses, there were also <a href="../cathen/12722c.htm">regular</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, who were not fathers of <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> (cf. <a href="../bible/exo019.htm#vrs22">Exodus 19:22 sqq.</a>). Hummelauer's hypothesis "Das vormosaische Priestertum in Israel", Freiburg, 1899) that this pre-Mosaic priesthood was established by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> Himself and made hereditary in the <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> of Manasses, but was subsequently abolished in punishment of the worship of the <a href="../cathen/06628b.htm">golden calf</a> (cf. <a href="../bible/exo032.htm#vrs26">Exodus 32:26 sqq.</a>), can hardly be scientifically established (cf. Rev. bibl. internat., 1899, pp. 470 sqq.). In the <a href="../cathen/10596a.htm">Mosaic</a> priesthood we must distinguish: <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a>, and <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a>.</p> <h3 id="A">Priests</h3> <p>It was only after the <a href="../cathen/10582c.htm">Sinaitical legislation</a> that the <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israelitic</a> priesthood became a special class in the community. From the tribe of Levi Jahweh chose the house of Aaron to discharge permanently and exclusively all the religious functions; Aaron himself and later the <a href="../cathen/06081a.htm">first-born</a> of his <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> was to stand at the head of this priesthood as <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a>, while the other <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> were to act, not as <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, but as assistants and servants. The solemn <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> of the Aaronites to the priesthood took place at the same time as the anointing of Aaron as <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a> and with almost the same ceremonial (<a href="../bible/exo029.htm#vrs1">Exodus 29:1-37</a>; <a href="../bible/exo040.htm#vrs12">40:12 sqq.</a>; <a href="../bible/lev008.htm#vrs1">Leviticus 8:1-36</a>). This single <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> included that of all the future descendants of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, so that the priesthood was fixed in the house of Aaron by mere descent, and was thus hereditary. After the <a href="../cathen/03315a.htm">Babylonian Exile</a> strict genealogical <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> descent was even more rigidly demanded, and any failure to furnish the same meant exclusion from the priesthood (<a href="../bible/ezr002.htm#vrs61">Ezra 2:61 sq.</a>; <a href="../bible/neh007.htm#vrs63">Nehemiah 7:63 sq.</a>). Certain bodily defects, of which the later Talmudists mention 142, were also a disqualification from the exercise of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> office (<a href="../bible/lev021.htm#vrs17">Leviticus 21:17 sqq.</a>). Age limits (twenty and fifty years) were also appointed (<a href="../bible/2ch031.htm#vrs17">2 Chronicles 31:17</a>); the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> were forbidden to take to wife a harlot or a <a href="../cathen/05054c.htm">divorced</a> <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a> (<a href="../bible/lev021.htm#vrs7">Leviticus 21:7</a>); during the active discharge of the priesthood, marital intercourse was forbidden. In addition to an unblemished earlier life, levitical cleanness was also indispensable for the priesthood. Whoever performed a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> function in levitical uncleanness was to be expelled like one who entered the sanctuary after partaking of wine or other intoxicating drinks (<a href="../bible/lev010.htm#vrs9">Leviticus 10:9</a>; <a href="../bible/lev022.htm#vrs3">22:3</a>). To incur an uncleanness "at the death of his citizens", except in the case of immediate kin, was rigidly forbidden (<a href="../bible/lev021.htm#vrs1">Leviticus 21:1 sqq.</a>). In cases of mourning no outward signs of sorrow might be shown (e.g. by rending the garments). On entering into their office, the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> had first to take a bath of purification (<a href="../bible/exo029.htm#vrs4">Exodus 29:4</a>; <a href="../bible/exo040.htm#vrs12">40:12</a>), be sprinkled with oil (<a href="../bible/exo029.htm#vrs21">Exodus 29:21</a>; <a href="../bible/lev008.htm#vrs30">Leviticus 8:30</a>), and put on the vestments.</p> <p>The <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> vestments consisted of breeches, tunic, girdle, and <a href="../cathen/10404a.htm">mitre</a>. The breeches (<em>feminalia linea</em>) covered from the reins to the thighs (<a href="../bible/exo028.htm#vrs42">Exodus 28:42</a>). The tunic (<em>tunica</em>) was a kind of coat, woven in a special manner from one piece; it had narrow sleeves, extended from the throat to the ankles, and was brought together at the throat with bands (<a href="../bible/exo028.htm#vrs4">Exodus 28:4</a>). The girdle (<em>balteus</em>) was three or four fingers in breadth and (according to rabbinic tradition) thirty-two ells long; it had to be <a href="../cathen/05400a.htm">embroidered</a> after the same pattern and to be of the same colour as the curtain of the forecourt and the tabernacle of the covenant (<a href="../bible/exo039.htm#vrs38">Exodus 39:38</a>). The official vestments were completed by the <a href="../cathen/10404a.htm">mitre</a> (<a href="../bible/exo039.htm#vrs26">Exodus 39:26</a>), a species of cap of fine linen. As nothing is said of foot-covering, the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> must have performed the services barefooted as Jewish tradition indeed declares (cf. <a href="../bible/exo003.htm#vrs5">Exodus 3:5</a>). These vestments were prescribed for use only during the services; at other times they were kept in an appointed place in charge of a special custodian. For detailed information concerning the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> vestments, see <a href="../cathen/08522a.htm">Josephus</a>, "Antiq.", III, vii, 1 sqq.</p> <p>The official <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duties</a> of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> related partly to their main occupations, and partly to subsidiary services. To the former category belonged all functions connected with the public worship, e.g. the offering of <a href="../cathen/07716a.htm">incense</a> twice daily (<a href="../bible/exo030.htm#vrs7">Exodus 30:7</a>), the weekly renewal of the <a href="../cathen/09317b.htm">loaves of proposition</a> on the golden table (<a href="../bible/lev024.htm#vrs9">Leviticus 24:9</a>), the cleaning and filling of the oil-lamps on the golden candlestick (lev., xxiv, 1). All these services were performed in the sanctuary. There were in addition certain functions to be performed in the outer court  the maintenance of the sacred fire on the altar for burnt <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> (<a href="../bible/lev006.htm#vrs9">Leviticus 6:9 sqq.</a>), the daily offering of the morning and evening <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>, especially of the lambs (<a href="../bible/exo029.htm#vrs38">Exodus 29:38 sqq.</a>). As subsidiary services the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> had to present the cursed water to wives suspected of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> (<a href="../bible/num005.htm#vrs12">Numbers 5:12 sqq.</a>), sound the trumpets announcing the holy-days (<a href="../bible/num010.htm#vrs1">Numbers 10:1 sqq.</a>), declare the <a href="../cathen/09182a.htm">lepers</a> clean or unclean (<a href="../bible/lev013.htm">Leviticus 13</a>-<a href="../bible/lev014.htm">14</a>; <a href="../bible/deu024.htm#vrs8">Deuteronomy 24:8</a>; cf. <a href="../bible/mat008.htm#vrs4">Matthew 8:4</a>), dispense from <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, appraise all objects vowed to the sanctuary (<a href="../bible/lev027.htm">Leviticus 27</a>), and finally offer sacrifice for those who broke the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> of the Nazarites, i.e. a <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> to avoid all intoxicating drinks and every uncleanness (especially from contact with a corpse) and to let one's hair grow long (<a href="../bible/num006.htm#vrs1">Numbers 6:1-21</a>). The <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> furthermore were teachers and judges; not only were they to explain the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> to the people (<a href="../bible/lev010.htm#vrs11">Leviticus 10:11</a>; <a href="../bible/deu033.htm#vrs10">Deuteronomy 33:10</a>) without remuneration (<a href="../bible/mic003.htm#vrs11">Micah 3:11</a>) and to preserve carefully the Book of the Law, of which a copy was to be presented to the (future) king (<a href="../bible/deu017.htm#vrs18">Deuteronomy 17:18</a>), but they had also to settle difficult lawsuits among the people (<a href="../bible/deu017.htm#vrs8">Deuteronomy 17:8</a>; <a href="../bible/deu019.htm#vrs17">19:17</a>; <a href="../bible/deu021.htm#vrs5">21:5</a>). In view of the complex nature of the <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">liturgical</a> service, <a href="../cathen/04642b.htm">David</a> later divided the priesthood into twenty-four classes or courses, of which each in turn, with its eldest member at its head, had to perform the service from one <a href="../cathen/13287b.htm">Sabbath</a> to the next (<a href="../bible/2ki011.htm#vrs9">2 Kings 11:9</a>; cf. <a href="../bible/luk001.htm#vrs8">Luke 1:8</a>). The order of the classes was determined by lot (<a href="../bible/1ch024.htm#vrs7">1 Chronicles 24:7 sqq.</a>).</p> <p>The income of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> was derived from the <a href="../cathen/14741b.htm">tithes</a> and the firstlings of fruits and animals. To these were added as accidentals the remains of the food, and guilt-oblations, which were not entirely consumed by fire; also the hides of the animals sacrificed and the natural products and money vowed to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> (<a href="../bible/lev027.htm">Leviticus 27</a>; <a href="../bible/num008.htm#vrs14">Numbers 8:14</a>). With all these perquisites, the Jewish <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> seem never to have been a wealthy class, owing partly to the increase in their numbers and partly to the large <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">families</a> which they reared. But their exalted office, their superior <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a>, and their social position secured them great prestige among the people. In general, they fulfilled their high position worthily, even though they frequently merited the stern reproof of the Prophets (cf. <a href="../bible/jer005.htm#vrs31">Jeremiah 5:31</a>; <a href="../bible/eze022.htm#vrs26">Ezekiel 22:26</a>; <a href="../bible/hos006.htm#vrs9">Hosea 6:9</a>; <a href="../bible/mic003.htm#vrs11">Micah 3:11</a>; <a href="../bible/mal001.htm#vrs7">Malachi 1:7</a>). With the destruction of <a href="../cathen/08344a.htm">Jerusalem</a> by Titus in A.D. 70 the entire sacrificial service and with it the Jewish priesthood ceased. The later rabbis never represent themselves as <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, but merely as teachers of the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a>.</p> <h3 id="B">Levites in the narrow sense</h3> <p>It has been said above that the real priesthood was hereditary in the house of Aaron alone, and that to the other descendants of Levi was assigned a subordinate position as servants and assistants of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>. The latter are the <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> in the narrow sense. They were divided into the <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">families</a> of the Gersonites, Caathites, and Merarites (<a href="../bible/exo006.htm#vrs16">Exodus 6:16</a>; <a href="../bible/num026.htm#vrs57">Numbers 26:57</a>), so named after Levi's three sons, Gerson, Caath, and Merari (cf. <a href="../bible/gen046.htm#vrs11">Genesis 46:11</a>; <a href="../bible/1ch006.htm#vrs1">1 Chronicles 6:1</a>). As simple servants of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, the <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> might not enter the sanctuary, nor perform the real sacrificial act, especially the sprinkling of the blood (<em>aspersio sanguinis</em>). This was the privilege of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> (<a href="../bible/num018.htm#vrs3">Numbers 18:3, 19 sqq.</a>; <a href="../bible/num018.htm#vrs6">18:6</a>). The <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> had however to assist the latter during the sacred services, prepare the different oblations and keep the <a href="../cathen/01357e.htm">sacred vessels</a> in proper condition. Among their chief <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duties</a> was the constant guarding of the tabernacle with the <a href="../cathen/01721a.htm">ark of the covenant</a>; the Gersonites were encamped towards the west, the Caathites towards the south, the Merarites towards the north, while Moses and Aaron with their sons guarded the holy tabernacle towards the east (<a href="../bible/num003.htm#vrs23">Numbers 3:23 sqq.</a>). When the tabernacle had found a fixed home in <a href="../cathen/08344a.htm">Jerusalem</a>, <a href="../cathen/04642b.htm">David</a> created four classes of <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a>: servants of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, officials and judges, porters, and finally musicians and singers (<a href="../bible/1ch023.htm#vrs3">1 Chronicles 23:3 sqq.</a>). After the building of the Temple by Solomon the <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> naturally became its guardians (<a href="../bible/1ch026.htm#vrs12">1 Chronicles 26:12 sqq.</a>). When the Temple was rebuilt <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> were established as guards in twenty-one places around (Talmud; Middoth, I, i). In common with the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, the <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> were also bound to instruct the people in the Law (<a href="../bible/2ch017.htm#vrs8">2 Chronicles 17:8</a>; <a href="../bible/neh008.htm#vrs7">Nehemiah 8:7</a>), and they even possessed at times certain judicial powers (<a href="../bible/2ch019.htm#vrs11">2 Chronicles 19:11</a>).</p> <p>They were initiated into office by a rite of <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a>: sprinkling with the water of purification, shaving of the hair, washing of the garments, offering of <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>, <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of the hands</a> of the eldest (<a href="../bible/num008.htm#vrs5">Numbers 8:5 sqq.</a>). As to the age of service, thirty years was fixed for the time of entrance and fifty for retirement from office (<a href="../bible/num004.htm#vrs3">Numbers 4:3</a>; <a href="../bible/1ch023.htm#vrs24">1 Chronicles 23:24</a>; <a href="../bible/ezr003.htm#vrs8">Ezra 3:8</a>). No special vestments were prescribed for them in the Law; in the time of <a href="../cathen/04642b.htm">David</a> and Solomon the bearers of the <a href="../cathen/01721a.htm">ark of the covenant</a> and the singers wore garments of fine linen (<a href="../bible/1ch015.htm#vrs27">1 Chronicles 15:27</a>; <a href="../bible/2ch005.htm#vrs12">2 Chronicles 5:12</a>). At the division of the Promised Land among the Twelve Tribes, the tribe of Levi was left without territory, since the Lord Himself was to be their portion and inheritance (cf. <a href="../bible/num018.htm#vrs20">Numbers 18:20</a>; <a href="../bible/deu012.htm#vrs12">Deuteronomy 12:12</a>; <a href="../bible/jos013.htm#vrs14">Joshua 13:14</a>). In compensation, Jahweh ceded to the <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> and <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> the gifts of natural products made by the people, and other revenues. The <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> first received the <a href="../cathen/14741b.htm">tithes</a> of fruits and beasts of the field (<a href="../bible/lev027.htm#vrs30">Leviticus 27:30 sqq.</a>; <a href="../bible/num018.htm#vrs20">Numbers 18:20 sq.</a>), of which they had in turn to deliver the tenth part to the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> (<a href="../bible/num018.htm#vrs26">Numbers 18:26 sqq.</a>). In addition, they had a share in the sacrificial banquets (<a href="../bible/deu012.htm#vrs18">Deuteronomy 12:18</a>) and were, like the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, exempt from taxes and military service. The question of residence was settled by ordering the tribes endowed with landed <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> to cede to the <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> forty-eight <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levite</a> towns, scattered over the land, with their precincts (<a href="../bible/num035.htm#vrs1">Numbers 35:1 sqq.</a>); of these, thirteen were assigned to the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>. After the division of the monarchy into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Juda, many <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> from the northern portion removed to the Kingdom of Juda, which remained true to the Law, and took up their abode in <a href="../cathen/08344a.htm">Jerusalem</a>. After the Northern Kingdom had been chastised by the Assyrian deportation in 722 B.C., the Southern Kingdom was also overthrown by the Babylonians in 606 B.C., and numbers of the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a>, including many <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a>, were hurried away into the "Babylonian exile". Only a few <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> returned to their old home under Esdras in 450 (cf. <a href="../bible/ezr002.htm#vrs40">Ezra 2:40 sqq.</a>). With the destruction of the Herodian Temple in A.D. 70 the doom of the <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> was sealed.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h3 id="C">The high priest</h3> <p>At Jahweh's command Moses <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecrated</a> his brother Aaron first <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a>, repeated the <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> on seven days, and on the eighth day solemnly introduced him into the tabernacle of the covenant. The <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> of Aaron consisted in washings, investment with costly vestments, anointing with holy oil, and the offerings of various <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> (<a href="../bible/exo029.htm">Exodus 29</a>). As a sign that Aaron was endowed with the fullness of the priesthood, Moses poured over his head the oil of anointing (<a href="../bible/lev008.htm#vrs12">Leviticus 8:12</a>), while the other Aaronites, as simple <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, had only their hands anointed (<a href="../bible/exo029.htm#vrs7">Exodus 29:7, 29</a>). The <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a> was for the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a> the highest embodiment of theocracy, the monarch of the whole priesthood, the special mediator between <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and the People of the Covenant, and the spiritual head of the <a href="../cathen/14379b.htm">synagogue</a>. He was the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> <em>par excellence</em>, the "great <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>" (Greek, <em>archiereus</em>), the "prince among the priests", and, because of the anointing of his head, the "anointed <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>". To this exalted office corresponded his special and costly vestments, worn in addition to those of the simple <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> (<a href="../bible/exo028.htm">Exodus 28</a>). A (probably sleeveless) purple-blue upper garment (<em>tunica</em>) fell to his knees, the lower seam being ornamented alternately with small golden bells and pomegranates of coloured thread. About the shoulders he also wore a garment called the <a href="../cathen/05497a.htm">ephod</a>; this was made of costly material, and consisted of two portions about an ell long, which covered the back and breast, were held together above by two shoulderbands or epaulets, and terminated below with a magnificent girdle. Attached to the <a href="../cathen/05497a.htm">ephod</a> in front was the shield (<em>rationale</em>), a square bag bearing on the outside the names of the twelve tribes engraved on precious stones (<a href="../bible/exo028.htm#vrs6">Exodus 28:6</a>), and containing within the celebrated <a href="../cathen/15224a.htm">Urim and Thummim</a> as the means of obtaining Divine oracles and prophecies. The vestments of the <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a> were completed by a precious turban (tiara), bearing on a golden frontal plate the inscription: "Sacred to Jahweh".</p> <p>The <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a> had supreme supervision of the <a href="../cathen/01721a.htm">Ark of the Covenant</a> (and of the Temple), of Divine service in general and of the whole personnel connected with public worship. He presided at the <a href="../cathen/13444a.htm">Sanhedrin</a>. He alone could perform the liturgy on the Feast of Expiation, on which occasion he put on his costly vestments only after the <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> were completed. He alone might offer sacrifice for his own <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> and those of the people (<a href="../bible/lev004.htm#vrs5">Leviticus 4:5</a>), enter the holy of holies (<em>sanctum sanctorum</em>), and seek counsel of Jahweh on important occasions. The office of <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a> in the house of Aaron was at first hereditary in the line of his <a href="../cathen/06081a.htm">first-born</a> son Eleazar, but in the period from Heli to Abiathar (1131 to 973 B.C.) it belonged, by right of primogeniture, to the line of Ithamar. Under the rule of the <a href="../cathen/13690a.htm">Seleucidæ</a> (from about 175 B.C.) the office was sold for money to the highest bidder. At a later period it became hereditary in the <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> of the Hasmon. With the destruction of the central sanctuary by the Romans, the <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priesthood</a> disappeared.</p> <p>Against the foregoing account of the <a href="../cathen/10596a.htm">Mosaic</a> priesthood, based on the <a href="../cathen/14526a.htm">Old Testament</a>, the negative biblical critics of today make a determined stand. According to the hypothesis of Graf-Wellhausen, Moses (about 1250 B.C.) cannot be the author of the <a href="../cathen/11646c.htm">Pentateuch</a>. He was not the Divinely appointed legislator, but simply the founder of Monolatry, for <a href="../cathen/05556a.htm">ethical</a> <a href="../cathen/10499a.htm">Monotheism</a> resulted from the efforts of much later Prophets. Deuteronomy D made its appearance in substance in 621 B.C., when the astute <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a> Helkias by a <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">pious</a> <a href="../cathen/06249a.htm">fraud</a> palmed off on the god-fearing King Josias the recently composed "Book of the Laws" D as written by Moses (cf. <a href="../bible/2ki022.htm#vrs1">2 Kings 22:1 sqq.</a>) When Esdras returned to Jerusalem from the <a href="../cathen/03315a.htm">Babylonian Exile</a> about 450 B.C., he brought back the "Book of the Ritual" or the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest's</a> codex P, i.e., the middle portions between Genesis and Deuteronomy, composed by himself and his <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a> in Babylon, although it was only in 444 B.C. that he dared to make it public. A clever editor now introduced the portions relating to public worship into the old, pre-Exilic historical books, and the entirely new <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of an Aaronic priesthood and of the centralization of the cult was projected back to the time of Moses. The story of the tabernacle of the covenant is thus a mere fiction, devised to represent the Temple at <a href="../cathen/08344a.htm">Jerusalem</a> as established in fully developed form at the dawn of <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israelitic</a> history and to justify the unity of worship. Although this hypothesis does not contest the great antiquity of the Jewish priesthood, it maintains that the centralization of the cult, the essential difference between <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a>, the supreme authority of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> of the Temple at <a href="../cathen/08344a.htm">Jerusalem</a> as compared with the so-called hill-priests (cf. <a href="../bible/eze044.htm#vrs4">Ezekiel 44:4 sqq.</a>), must be referred to post-Exilic times.</p> <p>Without entering upon a detailed criticism of these assertions of Wellhausen and the critical <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a> (see <a href="../cathen/11646c.htm">PENTATEUCH</a>), we may here remark in general that the conservative <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a> also admits or can admit that only the original portion of the <a href="../cathen/11646c.htm">Pentateuch</a> is to be accepted as <a href="../cathen/10596a.htm">Mosaic</a>, that in the same text many repetitions seem to have been brought together from different sources, and finally that additions, extensions, and adaptations to new conditions by an inspired author of a later period are by no means excluded. It must also be admitted that, though one place of worship was appointed, <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> were offered even in early times by <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">laymen</a> and simple <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a> away from the vicinity of the <a href="../cathen/01721a.htm">Ark of the Covenant</a>, and that in restless and politically disturbed epochs the ordinance of Moses could not always be observed. In the gloomy periods marked by neglect of the Law, no attention was paid to the prohibition of hill-sacrifices, and the Prophets were often gratified to find that on the high places (<em>bamoth</em>) sacrifice was offered, not to <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> gods, but to Jahweh. However, the <a href="../cathen/11646c.htm">Pentateuch</a> problem is one of the most difficult and intricate questions in Biblical criticism. The Wellhausen hypothesis with its bold assumptions of <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">pious</a> deceits and artificial projections is open to as great, if not greater, difficulties and mysteries as the traditional view, even though some of its contributions to literary criticism may stand examination. It cannot be denied that the critical structure has suffered a severe shock since the discovery of the <a href="../cathen/14477d.htm">Tell-el-Amarna letters</a> <a href="../cathen/04636c.htm">dating</a> from the fifteenth century B.C., and since the deciphering of the <a href="../cathen/07125a.htm">Hammurabi</a> Code. The assumption that the oldest religion of <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israel</a> must have been identical with that of the primitive <a href="../cathen/13706a.htm">Semites</a> (Polydæmonism, <a href="../cathen/01526a.htm">Animism</a>, <a href="../cathen/06052b.htm">Fetishism</a>, Ancestor-worship) has been <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> <a href="../cathen/05781a.htm">false</a>, since long before 2000 B.C. a kind of Henotheism, i.e., <a href="../cathen/12223b.htm">Polytheism</a> with a monarchical head was the ruling religion in Babylon. The beginnings of the <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a> of all peoples are purer and more spiritual than many historians of <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a> have hitherto been willing to admit. One thing is certain: the final word has not yet been spoken as to the value of the Wellhausen hypothesis.</p> <h2 id="section3">The Christian priesthood</h2> <p>In the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a> <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> and <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> are, according to <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">Catholic teaching</a>, the sole bearers of the priesthood, the former enjoying the fullness of the priesthood (<em>summus sacerdos s. primi ordinis</em>), while the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">presbyters</a> are simple <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> (<em>simplex sacerdos s. secundi ordinis</em>). The <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a>, on the other hand, is a mere attendant of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, with no <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> powers. Omitting all special treatment of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a>, we here confine our attention primarily to the presbyterate, since the term "priest" without qualification is now taken to signify the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">presbyter</a>.</p> <h3 id="A">The divine institution of the priesthood</h3> <p>According to the <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> view, there was in the <a href="../cathen/07326a.htm">primitive Christian Church</a> no essential distinction between <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">laity</a> and <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a>, no hierarchical differentiation of the orders (<a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a>), no recognition of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> and <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> as the possessors of the highest <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">power of jurisdiction</a> over the Universal Church or over its several territorial divisions. On the contrary, the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> had at first a democratic constitution, in virtue of which the local churches selected their own heads and <a href="../cathen/10326a.htm">ministers</a>, and imparted to these their inherent spiritual authority, just as in the modern republic the "sovereign people" confers upon its elected president and his officials administrative authority. The deeper foundation for this transmission of power is to be sought in the <a href="../cathen/07326a.htm">primitive Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of the universal priesthood, which excludes the recognition of a special priesthood. Christ is the sole <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">high-priest</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a>, just as His bloody death on the Cross is the sole sacrifice of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. If all <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> without exception are <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> in virtue of their <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>, an official priesthood obtained by special <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> is just as inadmissible as the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a>. Not the material <a href="../cathen/09790b.htm">sacrifice of the Eucharist</a>, consisting in the offering of (real) gifts, but only the purely spiritual sacrifice of <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a> harmonizes with the spirit of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. One is indeed forced to admit that the gradual corruption of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> began very early (end of first century), since it cannot be denied that <a href="../cathen/04012c.htm">Clement of Rome</a> (Ep. ad Cor., xliv, 4), the Teaching of the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">Twelve Apostles</a> (Didache, xiv), and <a href="../cathen/14520c.htm">Tertullian</a> (<a href="../fathers/0321.htm"><em>On Baptism</em> 17</a>; "De præsc. hær.", xli; "De exhort. cast.", vii) recognize an official priesthood with the objective <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a>. The corruption quickly spread throughout the whole East and West, and persisted unchecked during the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a>, until the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a> finally succeeded in restoring to <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> its original purity. Then "the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of the universal priesthood was revived; it appeared as the <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> consequence of the very nature of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. . . . Since the whole <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of sacrifice was discarded, all danger of reversion to the <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">beliefs</a> once derived from it was removed" ("Realency cl. für prot. Theol.", XVI, Leipzig, 1905, p. 50).</p> <p>To these views we may answer briefly as follows. <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> do not deny that the double "hierarchy of order and <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>" gradually developed from the germ already existing in the primitive Church, just as the primacy of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope of Rome</a> and especially the distinction of simple <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> from the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> was recognized with increasing clearness as time advanced (see <a href="../cathen/07322c.htm">HIERARCHY</a>). But the question whether there was at the beginning a special priesthood in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> is altogether distinct. If it is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> that "the reception of the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of sacrifice led to the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> priesthood" (loc. cit., p. 48), and that priesthood and sacrifice are reciprocal terms, then the <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of the Divine origin of the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> priesthood must be regarded as established, once it is shown that the Eucharistic <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a> is coeval with the beginnings and the essence of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. In <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of this we may appeal even to the <a href="../cathen/14526a.htm">Old Testament</a>. When the Prophet Isaias foresees the entrance of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagans</a> into the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">Messianic Kingdom</a>, he makes the calling of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> from the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> (i.e. the non-Jews) a special characteristic of the new Church (<a href="../bible/isa066.htm#vrs21">Isaiah 66:21</a>): "And I will take of them to be <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and <a href="../cathen/09206a.htm">Levites</a>, saith the Lord". Now this non-Jewish (<a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>) priesthood in the future <a href="../cathen/10212c.htm">Messianic</a> Church presupposes a permanent sacrifice, namely that "clean oblation", which from the rising of the sun even to the going down is to be offered to the Lord of hosts among the <a href="../cathen/06422a.htm">Gentiles</a> (<a href="../bible/mal001.htm#vrs11">Malachi 1:11</a>). The sacrifice of <a href="../cathen/01349d.htm">bread</a> and <a href="../cathen/01358a.htm">wine</a> offered by <a href="../cathen/10156b.htm">Melchisedech</a> (cf. <a href="../bible/gen014.htm#vrs18">Genesis 14:18 sqq.</a>), the prototype of Christ (cf. <a href="../bible/psa109.htm#vrs4">Psalm 109:4</a>; <a href="../bible/heb005.htm#vrs5">Hebrews 5:5 sq.</a>; <a href="../bible/heb007.htm#vrs1">7:1 sqq.</a>), also refers prophetically, not only to the <a href="../cathen/14341a.htm">Last Supper</a>, but also to its everlasting repetition in commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross (see <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">MASS</a>). Rightly, therefore, does the <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> emphasize the intimate connection between the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a> and the priesthood (Sess. XXIII, cap. i, in <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, "Enchiridion", 10th ed., 957): "Sacrifice and priesthood are by Divine ordinance so inseparable that they are found together under all <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a>. Since therefore in the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a> the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> has received from the Lord's institution the holy visible <a href="../cathen/09790b.htm">sacrifice of the Eucharist</a> it must also be admitted that in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> there is a new, visible and external priesthood into which the older priesthood has been changed." Surely this <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logic</a> admits of no reply. It is, then, all the more extraordinary that Harnack should seek the origin of the hierarchical constitution of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, not in Palestine, but in <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>. Of the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> he writes: "She continues ever to govern the peoples; her <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> lord it like <a href="../cathen/15015a.htm">Trajan</a> and <a href="../cathen/02109a.htm">Marcus Aurelius</a>. To Romulus and Remus succeeded Peter and Paul; to the proconsuls the <a href="../cathen/01691a.htm">archbishops</a> and <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>. To the legions correspond the hosts of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>; to the imperial bodyguard the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Jesuits</a>. Even to the finest details, even to her judicial organization, nay even to her very vestments, the continued influence of the ancient empire and of its institutions may be traced" ("Das Wesen d. Christentums", Leipzig, 1902, p. 157). With the best of good will, we can recognize in this description only a sample of the writer's ingenuity, for an historical investigation of the cited institutions would undoubtedly lead to sources, beginnings, and motives entirely different from the analogous conditions of the Empire of <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>.</p> <p>But the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a> indicates only one side of the priesthood; the other side is revealed in the power of forgiving <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, for the exercise of which the priesthood is just as <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> as it is for the power of consecrating and sacrificing. Like the general power to bind and to loose (cf. <a href="../bible/mat016.htm#vrs19">Matthew 16:19</a>; <a href="../bible/mat018.htm#vrs18">18:18</a>), the power of remitting and retaining <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> was <a href="../cathen/14133a.htm">solemnly</a> bestowed on the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> by Christ (cf. <a href="../bible/joh020.htm#vrs21">John 20:21 sqq.</a>). Accordingly, the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> priesthood has the indisputable right to trace its origin in this respect also to the Divine Founder of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. Both sides of the priesthood were brought into prominence by the <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> (loc. cit., n. 961): "If any one shall say that in the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a> there is no visible and external priesthood nor any power of consecrating and offering the Body and Blood of the Lord, as well as of remitting and retaining <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, but merely the office and bare ministry of preaching the Gospel, let him be <a href="../cathen/01455e.htm">anathema</a>." Far from being an "unjustifiable usurpation of Divine powers", the priesthood forms so indispensable a foundation of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> that its removal would entail the destruction of the whole edifice. A <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> without a priesthood cannot be the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>. This conviction is strengthened by consideration of the <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychological</a> impossibility of the <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> assumption that from the end of the first century onward, <a href="../cathen/03699b.htm">Christendom</a> tolerated without struggle or protest the unprecedented usurpation of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, who without credentials or testimony suddenly arrogated Divine powers with respect to the Eucharist, and, on the strength of a fictitious appeal to Christ, laid on <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> sinners the grievous burden of public penance as an indispensable condition of the forgiveness of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>.</p> <p>As for the "universal priesthood", on which <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestantism</a> relies in its denial of the special priesthood, it may be said that <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> also <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> in a universal priesthood; this, however, by no means excludes a special priesthood but rather presupposes its existence, since the two are related as the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete, the figurative and the real. The ordinary <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> cannot be a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> in the strict sense, for he can offer, not a real sacrifice, but only the figurative sacrifice of <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>. For this reason the historical dogmatic development did not and could not follow the course it would have followed if in the primitive Church two opposing trains of thought (i.e. the universal versus the special priesthood) had contended for supremacy until one was vanquished. The history of <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> attests, on the contrary, that both <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> advanced harmoniously through the centuries, and have never disappeared from the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> mind. As a matter of fact the profound and beautiful <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of the universal priesthood may be traced from <a href="../cathen/08580c.htm">Justin Martyr</a> (<a href="../fathers/01288.htm"><em>Dialogue with Trypho</em> 116</a>), Irenæus, (<a href="../fathers/0103408.htm"><em>Against Heresies</em> IV.8.3</a>), and <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> ("De orat.", xxviii, 9; "In Levit.", hom. ix, 1), to Augustine (<a href="../fathers/120120.htm"><em>City of God</em> XX.10</a>) and <a href="../cathen/09154b.htm">Leo the Great</a> (Sermo, iv, 1), and thence to <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> (Summa, III, Q. lxxxii, a. 1) and the <a href="../cathen/13120c.htm">Roman Catechism</a>. And yet all these writers recognized, along with the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a>, the special priesthood in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. The origin of the universal priesthood extends back, as is known, to St. Peter, who declares the <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">faithful</a>, in their character of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, "a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices", and "a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood" (<a href="../bible/1pe002.htm#vrs5">1 Peter 2:5, 9</a>). But the very text shows that the Apostle meant only a figurative priesthood, since the "spiritual <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>" signify <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a> and the term "royal" (<em>regale, basileion</em>) could have had but a metaphorical sense for the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>. The <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">Gnostics</a>, <a href="../cathen/10521a.htm">Montanists</a>, and Catharists, who, in their attacks on the special priesthood, had misapplied the metaphor, were just as illogical as the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a>, since the two <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a>, real and figurative priesthood, are quite compatible. It is clear from the foregoing that the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> alone are entitled to the designation <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">"priest"</a>, since they alone have a <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> and real sacrifice to offer, the Holy Mass. Consequently, <a href="../cathen/01498a.htm">Anglicans</a> who reject the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a> are inconsistent, when they refer to their <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> as "priests". The preachers in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a> quite <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logically</a> disclaim the title with a certain indignation.</p> <h3 id="B">The hierarchical position of the presbyterate</h3> <p>The relation of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a> may be briefly explained by stating that he is, as it were, the middle term between the two, being hierarchically the subordinate of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and the superior of the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a> (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XXVI, can. vi). While the pre-eminence of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> over the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> consists mainly in his power of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a>, that of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> over the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a> is based on his power of consecrating and absolving (cf. Council of Trent, loc. cit., cap. iv; can. i and vii). The independence of the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">diaconate</a> appears earlier and more clearly in the oldest sources than that of the priesthood, chiefly because of the long-continued fluctuation in the meaning of the titles episcopus and <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">presbyter</a>, which until the middle of the second century were interchangeable and synonymous terms. Probably there was a reason in fact for this uncertainty, since the hierarchical distinction between <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> seems to have been of gradual growth. Epiphanius (Adv. hær., lxxv, 5) offered an explanation of this condition of uncertainty by supposing that <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> were appointed in some places where there was no <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, while in other places where no candidates for priesthood were found, the people were satisfied with having a <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, who, however, could not be without a <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a>. <a href="../cathen/06242a.htm">Cardinal Franzelin</a> ("De eccles. Christi", 2nd ed., Rome, 1907, thes. xvi) gives good grounds for the opinion that in the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> are indeed named <em>presbyter</em>, but simple <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> are never called episcopi. The problem is, however, far from being solved, since in the primitive Church there were not yet fixed names for the different orders; the latter must rather be determined from the context according to the characteristic functions discharged. The appeal to the usage of the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> Greeks, who had their <em>episkopoi</em> and <em>presbyteroi</em>, does not settle the question, as Ziebarth ("Das griechische Vereinswesen", Leipzig, 1896) has shown in reply to Hatch and Harnack. Any attempt at a solution must take into account the varying use in different countries (e.g. Palestine, <a href="../cathen/01782a.htm">Asia Minor</a>). In some places the "presbyters" may have been real <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, in others <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> in the present meaning of the term, while elsewhere they may have been mere administrative officers or worthy elders chosen to represent the local church in its external relations (see <a href="../cathen/07326a.htm">HIERARCHY OF THE EARLY CHURCH</a>).</p> <p>Like the Apostolic writings, the "Didache", Hermas, <a href="../cathen/04012c.htm">Clement of Rome</a>, and Irenæus often use the terms <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">"bishop"</a> and <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">"priest"</a> indiscriminately. In fact, it is really a moot question whether the presbyterate gradually developed as an offshoot of the episcopate--which is in the nature of things more likely and in view of the needs of the growing Church more readily understood--or whether, conversely, the episcopate had its origin in the elevation of the presbyterate to a higher rank (Lightfoot), which is more difficult to admit. On the other hand, even at the beginning of the second century, <a href="../cathen/07644a.htm">Ignatius of Antioch</a> (Ep. ad Magnes., vi and <em>passim</em>) brings out with remarkable clearness the hierarchical distinction between the monarchical <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, and the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacons</a>. He emphasizes this triad as essential to the constitution of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>: "Without these [three] it cannot be called the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>" (Ad Trall., iii). But, according to the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> of historic continuity, this distinction of the orders must have existed in substance and embryo during the first century; and, as a matter of fact, <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">St. Paul</a> (<a href="../bible/1ti005.htm#vrs17">1 Timothy 5:17, 19</a>) mentions "presbyters" who were subordinate to the real <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> Timothy. But in the Latin writers there is no ambiguity. <a href="../cathen/14520c.htm">Tertullian</a> (<a href="../fathers/0321.htm"><em>On Baptism</em> 17</a>) calls the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> the "summus sacerdos", under whom are the "presbyteri et diaconi"; and <a href="../cathen/04583b.htm">Cyprian</a> (Ep. lxi, 3) speaks of the "presbyteri cum episcopo sacerdotali honore conjuncti", i.e. the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> united by <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">sacerdotal</a> dignity with the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> (see <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">BISHOP</a>).</p> <p>About 360, after the development of the orders had long been complete, Aërius of <a href="../cathen/12234c.htm">Pontus</a> first ventured to obliterate the distinction between the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> and episcopal orders and to place them on an equality with respect to their powers. For this he was ranked among the <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a> by Epiphanius (Adv. hær., lxxv, 3). The testimony of <a href="../cathen/08341a.htm">St. Jerome</a> (d. 420), whom the Scottish <a href="../cathen/12392b.htm">Presbyterians</a> cite in behalf of the presbyteral constitution of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, raises some difficulties, as he appears to assert the full equality of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>. It is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> that Jerome endeavoured to enhance the dignity of the priesthood at the expense of the episcopate and to refer the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop's</a> superiority "rather to <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> custom than to Divine regulation" (In Tit., i, 5: "Episcopi noverint se magis consuetudine quam dispositionis dominicæ veritate presbyteris esse majores"). He desired a more democratic constitution in which the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> hitherto undeservedly slighted would participate, and he urged the correction of the abuse, widespread since the third century, by which the <a href="../cathen/01693a.htm">archdeacons</a>, as the "right hand" of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, controlled the whole <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a> administration (Ep. cxliv ad Evangel.). It is at once evident that Jerome disputes not the hierarchical rank (<em>potestas ordinis</em>) of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> but their powers of government (<em>potestas jurisdictionis</em>)--and this not so much in principle, but only to insist that the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacons</a> should be dislodged from the position they had usurped and the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> established in the official position befitting their higher rank. How far Jerome was from being a follower of Aërius and a forerunner of <a href="../cathen/12392b.htm">Presbyterianism</a> appears from his important admission that the power of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> is possessed by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> alone, and not by the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> (loc. cit. in P.L., XXII, 1193: "Quid enim facit--excepta ordinatione--episcopus quod <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">presbyter</a> non faciat?"). By this admission Jerome establishes his <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodoxy</a>.</p> <h3 id="C">The sacramentality of the presbyterate</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> decreed (Sess. XXIII, can. iii, in <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, n. 963): "If any one shall say that order or sacred <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ our Lord</a>. . .let him be <a href="../cathen/01455e.htm">anathema</a>." While the synod defined only the existence of the <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Sacrament of Holy Orders</a>, without deciding whether all the orders or only some fall within the definition, it is admitted that the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> possesses with even greater <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a> than the episcopal and the diaconal <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> the dignity of a sacrament (cf. <a href="../cathen/02432a.htm">Benedict XIV</a>, "De syn. dioces.", VIII, ix, 2). The three essentials of a sacrament—outward sign, interior grace, and institution by <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>—are found in the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a>.</p> <p>As regards the outward sign, there has been a long-protracted controversy among <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theologians</a> concerning the <a href="../cathen/10053b.htm">matter</a> and form, not alone of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a>, but of the <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Sacrament of Holy Orders</a> in general. Is the <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of hands</a> alone (Bonaventure, Morin, and most modern <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a>), or the presentation of the instruments (<a href="../cathen/07021b.htm">Gregory of Valencia</a>, the <a href="../cathen/14698b.htm">Thomists</a>), or are both together (<a href="../cathen/02411d.htm">Bellarmine</a>, <a href="../cathen/09418b.htm">De Lugo</a>, Billot etc.) to be regarded as the essential matter of the sacrament? As to the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> in particular, which alone concerns us here, the difference of views is explained by the fact that, in addition to three impositions of hands, the rite includes a presentation to the candidate of the <a href="../cathen/03561a.htm">chalice</a> filled with wine, and of the <a href="../cathen/11541b.htm">paten</a> with the host. Concerning the latter <a href="../cathen/05601a.htm">Eugenius IV</a> says expressly in his "Decretum pro Armenis" (1439; in <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, n. 701): "The priesthood is conferred by the handing of the <a href="../cathen/03561a.htm">chalice</a> containing wine and of the <a href="../cathen/11541b.htm">paten</a> with bread." However, in view of the fact that in the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> (<a href="../bible/act013.htm#vrs3">Acts 13:3</a>; <a href="../bible/act014.htm#vrs22">14:22</a>; <a href="../bible/1ti004.htm#vrs14">1 Timothy 4:14</a>; <a href="../bible/1ti005.htm#vrs22">5:22</a>; <a href="../bible/2ti001.htm#vrs6">2 Timothy 1:6</a>), in all patristic literature, and in the whole East the <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of hands</a> alone is found, while even in the West the presentation of the <a href="../cathen/01357e.htm">sacred vessels</a> does not extend back beyond the tenth century, we are forced to recognize theoretically that the latter <a href="../cathen/03538b.htm">ceremony</a> is unessential, like the solemn anointing of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest's</a> hands, which is evidently borrowed from the <a href="../cathen/14526a.htm">Old Testament</a> and was introduced from the Gallican into the <a href="../cathen/13155a.htm">Roman Rite</a> (cf. "Statuta ecclesiæ antiquæ" in P.L., LVI, 879 sqq.). In defence of the anointing, the <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> condemned those who declared it "despicable and pernicious" (Sess. XXXIII, can. v). As regards the sacramental form, it may be accepted as probable that the <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a> accompanying the second extension of hands (<em>cheirotonia</em>) is the essential form, although it is not impossible that the words spoken by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> during the third <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of hands</a> (<em>cheirothesia</em>): "Receive the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall remit, they are remitted, etc.", constitute a partial form. The first <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of hands</a> by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> (and the priests) cannot be regarded as the form, since it is performed in silence, but it also may have an essential importance in so far as the second extension of hands is simply the moral continuation of the first touching of the head of the <em>ordinandus</em> (cf. <a href="../cathen/06796a.htm">Gregory IX</a>, "Decret.", I, tit. xvi, cap. III). The oldest formularies--e.g. the "Euchologium" of Serapion of <a href="../cathen/14658a.htm">Thmuis</a> (cf. Funk, "Didascalia", II, Tübingen, 1905, 189), the "Pseudo-Apostolic Constitutions" (Funk, loc. cit., I, 520), the lately discovered "Testament of the Lord" (ed. Rahmani, Mainz, 1899, p. 68), and the Canons of <a href="../cathen/07360c.htm">Hippolytus</a> (ed. Achelis, Leipzig, 1891, p. 61)--contain only one <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of hands</a> with a short accompanying <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>. In the eleventh century the Mozarabic Rite is still quite simple (cf. "Monum. liturg.", V, Paris, 1904, pp. 54 sq.), while, on the contrary, the <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenian</a> Rite of the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a> shows great complexity (cf. Conybeare-Maclean, "Rituale Armenorum", Oxford, 1905, pp. 231 sqq.). In the Greek-Byzantine Rite, the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, after making three signs of the cross, places his right hand on the head of the ordinandus, meanwhile reciting a <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>, and then, <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">praying</a> in secret, holds the same hand extended above the candidate, and invokes upon him the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost (cf. Goar, "Euchol. Græc.", Paris, 1647, pp. 292 sqq.). For other formularies of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> see <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, "Ritus Orientalium", II (Würzburg, 1864); Manser in Buchberger, "Kirchliches Handlexikon", s.v. Priesterweihe.</p> <p>As a sacrament of the living, <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> presupposes the possession of <a href="../cathen/06701a.htm">sanctifying grace</a>, and therefore confers, besides the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> to the actual <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">graces</a> of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> office, an increase of <a href="../cathen/06701a.htm">sanctifying grace</a> (cf. "Decret. pro Armenis" in <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, n. 701). But in all cases, whether the candidate is in the state of <a href="../cathen/06701a.htm">sanctifying grace</a> or not, the sacrament imprints on the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> an indelible spiritual mark (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. VII, can. ix, in <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, n. 852), i.e. the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> character, to which are permanently attached the powers of consecrating and <a href="../cathen/01061a.htm">absolving</a>—the latter, however, with the reservation that for the valid administration of the <a href="../cathen/11618c.htm">Sacrament of Penance</a> the <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">power of jurisdiction</a> is also required (see <a href="../cathen/03584b.htm">CHARACTER</a>). As the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> character, like that imparted by <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> and confirmation, is indelible, <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> can never be repeated, and a return to the lay state is absolutely impossible (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XXIII, can. iv, in <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, n. 964). That <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> was instituted by Christ is <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> not alone by the Divine institution of the priesthood (see above, A), but also by the testimony of <a href="../bible">Holy Writ</a> and Tradition, which unanimously testify that the Apostles transmitted their powers to their successors, who in turn transmitted them to the succeeding generation (cf. <a href="../bible/1ti005.htm#vrs22">1 Timothy 5:22</a>). Since the charismatic gifts of the "apostles and <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophets</a>" mentioned in the "Didache" had nothing to do with the priesthood as such, these itinerant missionaries still needed the <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of hands</a> to empower them to discharge the specifically <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> functions (see <a href="../cathen/03588e.htm">CHARISMATA</a>).</p> <p>For the valid reception of the Sacrament of Orders, it is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> that the minister be a <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and the recipient a <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> of the male sex. The first requisite is based on the episcopal prerogative of ordaining; the second on the conviction that <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> opens the door to all the other <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a> and that <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a> are definitively barred from the service of the altar (cf. Epiphanius, "De hær.", lxxix, 2). <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">St. Paul</a> is a resolute champion of an exclusively male priesthood (cf. <a href="../bible/1co014.htm#vrs34">1 Corinthians 14:34</a>). In this respect there is an essential difference between <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> and <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">Paganism</a>, since the latter recognizes priestesses as well as priests--e.g. the hierodules of Ancient Greece, the vestal virgins of <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>, the bajaders of <a href="../cathen/07722a.htm">India</a>, the wu of <a href="../cathen/03663b.htm">China</a>, and the <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">female</a> bonzes of <a href="../cathen/08297a.htm">Japan</a>. The early Church condemned as an absurdity the <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">female</a> priesthood of <a href="../cathen/10521a.htm">Montanism</a> and of the Collyridiani, and it never regarded the Apostolic institute of <a href="../cathen/04651a.htm">deaconesses</a> as a branch of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>. For the licit reception of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a>, canon law demands: freedom from every irregularity, completion of the twenty-fourth year, the reception of the earlier orders (including the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">diaconate</a>), the observation of the regular interstices, and the possession of a title to <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a>.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>In addition to the requisites for the valid and lawful reception of the priesthood the question arises as to the personal worthiness of the candidate. According to earlier canon law this question was settled by three ballots (<em>scrutinia</em>); it is now decided by official examination and certification. One of the most important means of securing worthy candidates for the priesthood is careful inquiry regarding vocations. Intruders in the sanctuary have at all times been the occasion of the greatest injury to the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and of <a href="../cathen/13506d.htm">scandal</a> to the people. For this reason, <a href="../cathen/12137a.htm">Pope Pius X</a>, with even greater strictness than was shown in previous <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> regulations, insists upon the exclusion of all candidates who do not give the highest promise of a life conspicuous for firmness of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and moral rectitude. In this connection the importance and necessity of colleges and <a href="../cathen/13694a.htm">ecclesiastical seminaries</a> for the training of the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> cannot be too strongly emphasized.</p> <h3 id="D">The official powers of the priest</h3> <p>As said above, the official powers of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> are intimately connected with the <a href="../cathen/03586a.htm">sacramental character</a>, indelibly imprinted on his <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>. Together with this character is conferred, not only the power of offering up the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a> and the (virtual) power of forgiving <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, but also authority to administer extreme unction and, as the regular minister, solemn <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>. Only in virtue of an extraordinary faculty received from the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> is a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> competent to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation. While the conferring of the three sacramental orders of the episcopate, presbyterate, and <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">diaconate</a>, pertains to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> alone, the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> may delegate a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> to administer the four <a href="../cathen/10332b.htm">minor orders</a>, and even the <a href="../cathen/14320a.htm">subdiaconate</a>. According to the present canon law, however, the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> permission granted to <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbots</a> of <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> is confined to the conferring of the <a href="../cathen/14779a.htm">tonsure</a> and the four <a href="../cathen/10332b.htm">minor orders</a> on their subjects (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XXIII de Ref., cap. x). Concerning the privilege of conferring the <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">diaconate</a>, claimed to have been given to <a href="../cathen/03780c.htm">Cistercian</a> <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbots</a> by <a href="../cathen/08019b.htm">Innocent VIII</a> in 1489, see Gasparri, "De sacr. ordin.", II (Paris, 1893), n. 798, and Pohle, "Dogmatik", III (4th ed., Paderborn, 1910), pp. 587 sqq. To the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> office also belongs the faculty of administering the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> <a href="../cathen/02599b.htm">blessings</a> and the <a href="../cathen/13292d.htm">sacramentals</a> in general, in so far as these are not reserved to the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> or <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>. By preaching the Word of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> has his share in the teaching office of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, always, however, as subordinate to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and only within the sphere of <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a> to which he is assigned as <a href="../cathen/11537b.htm">pastor</a>, <a href="../cathen/04570a.htm">curate</a>, etc. Finally, the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> may participate in the pastoral <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a> in so far as the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> entrusts him with a definite <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> office entailing a more or less extensive <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>, which is indispensable especially for the valid <a href="../cathen/01061a.htm">absolution</a> of penitents from their <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>. Certain external honorary privileges, e.g. those enjoyed by <a href="../cathen/03333b.htm#p">cardinal-priests</a>, <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelates</a>, <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> councillors, etc., do not enhance the intrinsic dignity of the priesthood.</p> <h2 id="section4">What the Catholic priesthood has done for civilization</h2> <p>Passing entirely over the <a href="../cathen/14336b.htm">supernatural</a> <a href="../cathen/02599b.htm">blessings</a> derived by <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">mankind</a> from the <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> of the priesthood, the celebration of the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Holy Sacrifice</a>, and the administration of the <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a>, we shall confine ourselves to the secular civilization, which, through the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> priesthood, has spread to all nations and brought into full bloom religion, morality, <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a>, art, and industry. If religion in general is the mother of all culture, <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> must be acknowledged as the source, measure, and nursery of all <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> civilization. The <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, the oldest and most successful teacher of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">mankind</a>, has in each century done pioneer service in all departments of culture. Through her organs, the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and especially the members of the <a href="../cathen/12748b.htm">religious</a> orders, she carried the light of Faith to all lands, banished the darkness of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">paganism</a>, and with the Gospel brought the <a href="../cathen/02599b.htm">blessings</a> of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> morality and <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a>. What would have become of the countries about the Mediterranean during the epoch of the migration of the nations (from 375) if the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a>, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, and <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> had not tamed the German hordes, converted them from <a href="../cathen/01707c.htm">Arianism</a> to <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a>, and out of barbarism evolved order? What <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Ireland</a> owes to <a href="../cathen/11554a.htm">St. Patrick</a>, <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> owes to <a href="../cathen/02081a.htm">St. Augustine</a>, who, sent by <a href="../cathen/06780a.htm">Pope Gregory the Great</a>, brought not only the Gospel, but also a higher morality and culture. While the light of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> thus burned brightly in <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Ireland</a> and Britain, part of <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a> was still shrouded in the darkness of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">paganism</a>. Bands of missionaries from the Island of Saints now brought to the continent the message of <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a> and established new centres of culture. <a href="../cathen/03610c.htm">Charlemagne's</a> great work of uniting all the German tribes into an empire was only the glorious fruit of the seed sown by <a href="../cathen/02656a.htm">St. Boniface of Certon</a> (d. 755) on German soil and watered with the blood of <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrs</a>. The <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a>, having now attained to power, continued through her <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> to propagate the Gospel in <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> lands. It was missionaries who first brought to <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> news of the existence of <a href="../cathen/03663b.htm">China</a>. In 1246 three <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscans</a>, commissioned by the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, appeared in audience before the emperor of the Mongols; in 1306 the first <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> church was built in Peking. From the Volga to the Desert of Gobi, the <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscans</a> and <a href="../cathen/12354c.htm">Dominicans</a> covered the land with their missionary stations. In the sixteenth century the <a href="../cathen/15753a.htm">zeal</a> of the older orders was rivalled by the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Jesuits</a>, among whom <a href="../cathen/06233b.htm">St. Francis Xavier</a> must be accorded a place of <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a>; their achievements in the Reductions of Paraguay are as incontestable as their great services in the <a href="../cathen/15156a.htm">United States</a>. As for the French colonies in America, the American historian Bancroft declares that no notable city was founded, no river explored, no cape circumnavigated, without a <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Jesuit</a> showing the way. Even if Buckle's one-sided statement were <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, viz. that culture is not the result of religion, but vice versa, we could point to the work of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> missionaries, who are striving to lift the savages in <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> lands to a higher state of morality and civilization, and thence to transform them into decent <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>.</p> <p>In the wake of religion follows her inseparable companion, morality; the combination of the two forms is the indispensable preliminary condition for the continuation and vitality of all higher civilization. The decadence of culture has always been heralded by a reign of unbelief and immorality, the fall of the Roman Empire and the <a href="../cathen/13009a.htm">French Revolution</a> furnishing conspicuous examples. What the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> accomplished in the course of the centuries for the raising of the standard of morality, in the widest sense, by the inculcation of the <a href="../cathen/04664a.htm">Decalogue</a>, that pillar of human <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a>, by <a href="../cathen/12454b.htm">promulgating</a> the commandment of <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and one's neighbour, by preaching purity in single, married, and <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> life, by waging <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">war</a> upon <a href="../cathen/14339a.htm">superstition</a> and <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> customs, by the practice of the three counsels of <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntary</a> poverty, obedience, and perfect purity, by holding out the "imitation of Christ" as the ideal of <a href="../cathen/11665b.htm">Christian perfection</a>, the records of twenty centuries plainly declare. The <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history of the Church</a> is at once the history of her charitable activity exercised through the priesthood. There have indeed been waves of degeneracy and immorality sweeping at times even to the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> throne, and resulting in the general corruption of the people, and in <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostasy</a> from the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. The heroic struggle of <a href="../cathen/06791c.htm">Gregory VII</a> (d. 1085) against the <a href="../cathen/14001a.htm">simony</a> and incontinence of the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> stands forth as a fact which restored to the stale-grown salt of the earth its earlier strength and flavour.</p> <p>The most wretched and oppressed classes of humanity are the slaves, the <a href="../cathen/12327a.htm">poor</a>, and the sick. Nothing is in such harsh contrast to the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> of human <a href="../cathen/11727b.htm">personality</a> and of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> freedom as the slavery found in <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> lands. The efforts of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> were at first directed towards depriving slavery of its most repulsive feature by emphasizing the equality and freedom of all children of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> (cf. <a href="../bible/1co007.htm#vrs21">1 Corinthians 7:21 sqq.</a>; <a href="../bible/phm001.htm#vrs16">Philemon 16 sqq.</a>), then towards ameliorating as far as possible the condition of slaves, and finally towards effecting the abolition of this unworthy bondage. The slowness of the movement for the abolition of slavery, which owed its final triumph over the African slave-traders to a crusade of <a href="../cathen/09050d.htm">Cardinal Lavigerie</a> (d. 1892), is explained by the <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> consideration of the <a href="../cathen/12213b.htm">economic</a> <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a> of the owners and the personal welfare of the slaves themselves, since a bold "proclamation of the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a> of man" would simply have thrown millions of helpless slaves breadless into the streets. Emancipation carried with it the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> of caring for the bodily needs of the freedmen, and, whenever the experiment was made, it was the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> who undertook this burden. Special congregations, such as the Trinitarians and the <a href="../cathen/10197b.htm">Mercedarians</a>, devoted themselves exclusively to the liberation and ransom of <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prisoners</a> and slaves in <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a>, and especially in <a href="../cathen/10424a.htm">Mohammedan</a> lands. It was <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> compassion for the weakly and languishing Indians which suggested to the <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spanish</a> <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a>, <a href="../cathen/03397a.htm">Las Casas</a>, the unfortunate <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of importing the strong <a href="../cathen/12627a.htm">negroes</a> from <a href="../cathen/01181a.htm">Africa</a> to work in the American mines. That his <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> would develop into the <a href="../cathen/13506d.htm">scandalous</a> traffic in the black race, which the history of the three succeeding centuries reveals, the noble <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> never suspected (see SLAVERY).</p> <p>As to the relief of the poor and sick, a single <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, <a href="../cathen/15434c.htm">St. Vincent de Paul</a> (d. 1660), achieved more in all the branches of this work than many cities and states combined. The services of the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> in general in the exercise of charity cannot here be touched upon (see <a href="../cathen/03592a.htm">CHARITY AND CHARITIES</a>). It may however be noted that the famous School of <a href="../cathen/13396b.htm">Salerno</a>, the first and most renowned, and for many centuries the only medical faculty in <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>, was founded by the <a href="../cathen/02443a.htm">Benedictines</a>, who here laboured partly as practitioners of medicine, and partly to furnish a supply of skilled physicians for all <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>. Of recent pioneers in the domain of charity and social work may be mentioned the <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Irish</a> "Apostle of Temperance", Father Theobald Matthew and the German "Father of Journeymen" (<em>Gesellenvater</em>), Kolping.</p> <p>Intimately related with the morally good is the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> and the beautiful, the object of <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> and art. At all times the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> have shown themselves patrons of <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> and the arts, partly by their own achievements in these fields and partly by their encouragement and support of the work of others. That <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a> as a <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> should have found its home among the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> was but to be expected. However, the whole range of <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> lay so exclusively in the hands of the priesthood during the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a>, that the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> distinction of clericus (<a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">cleric</a>) and laicus (<a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">layman</a>) developed into the social distinction of <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">educated</a> and <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a>. But for the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> and <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerics</a> the ancient classical literature would have been lost. A <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> proverb ran: "A <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> without a <a href="../cathen/09227b.htm">library</a> is a castle without an armory." Hume, the <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosopher</a> and historian, says: "It is rare that the annals of so uncultivated a people as were the English as well as the other <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">European</a> nations, after the decline of Roman learning, have been transmitted to posterity so complete and with so little mixture of falsehood and fable. This advantage we owe entirely to the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>, who, founding their authority on their superior <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, preserved the precious literature of antiquity from a total extinction" (Hume, "Hist. of England", ch. xxiii, Richard III). Among English historians Gildas the Wise, <a href="../cathen/02384a.htm">Venerable Bede</a>, and <a href="../cathen/09270c.htm">Lingard</a> form an illustrious triumvirate. The <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of scientific progress, first used by Vincent of Lérins with reference to <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a> and later transferred to the other <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">sciences</a>, is of purely <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> origin. The modern maxim, "Education for all", is a saying first uttered by <a href="../cathen/08013a.htm">Innocent III</a>. Before the foundation of the first <a href="../cathen/15188a.htm">universities</a>, which also owed their existence to the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a>, renowned <a href="../cathen/03438a.htm">cathedral</a> <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> and other scientific institutions laboured for the extension of secular <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. The father of German public <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> is <a href="../cathen/12617a.htm">Rhabanus Maurus</a>. Of old centres of civilization we may mention among those of the first rank Canterbury, the Island of Iona, Malmesbury, and York in Great Britain; <a href="../cathen/11480c.htm">Paris</a>, <a href="../cathen/11318b.htm">Orléans</a>, Corbie, Cluny, <a href="../cathen/03635a.htm">Chartres</a>, Toul, and Bec in <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a>; <a href="../cathen/06313b.htm">Fulda</a>, <a href="../cathen/12723a.htm">Reichenau</a>, St. Gall, and Corvey in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>. The attendance at these <a href="../cathen/15188a.htm">universities</a> conducted by <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergymen</a> during the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a> awakens one's astonishment: in 1340 the <a href="../cathen/11365c.htm">University of Oxford</a> had no less than 30,000 students, and in 1538, when the German <a href="../cathen/15188a.htm">universities</a> were almost deserted, about 20,000 students, according to <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a>, flocked to <a href="../cathen/11480c.htm">Paris</a>.</p> <p>The elementary <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> also, wherever they existed, were conducted by <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>. <a href="../cathen/03610c.htm">Charlemagne</a> had already issued the capitulary "Presbyteri per villas et vicos scholas habeant et cum summa charitate parvulos doceant", i.e. The <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> shall have <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> in the towns and hamlets and shall teach the children with the utmost devotion. The art of printing was received by the whole Church, from the lowest <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> to the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, as a "holy art". Almost the whole book production of the fifteenth century aimed at satisfying the taste of the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> for reading, which thus furthered the development of the book trade. <a href="../cathen/05510b.htm">Erasmus</a> complained: "The booksellers declare that before the outbreak of the Reform they disposed of 3000 volumes more quickly than they now sell 600" (see <a href="../cathen/05094a.htm">Döllinger</a>, "Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwickelung u. ihre Wirkungen", I, Ratisbon, 1851, p. 348. Early <a href="../cathen/07538b.htm">Humanism</a>, strongly encouraged by Popes <a href="../cathen/11058a.htm">Nicholas V</a> and <a href="../cathen/09162a.htm">Leo X</a>, numbered among its enthusiastic supporters many <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerics</a>, such as <a href="../cathen/11778a.htm">Petrarch</a> and <a href="../cathen/05510b.htm">Erasmus</a>; the later Humanistic <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a>, steeped in <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">paganism</a>, found among the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> priesthood, not encouragement, but to a great extent determined opposition. <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spain's</a> greatest writers in the seventeenth century were priests: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, <a href="../cathen/03156a.htm">Calderon</a>, etc. At Oxford in the thirteenth century, by their skill in the natural <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">sciences</a> the <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscans</a> acquired celebrity and the <a href="../cathen/07037a.htm">Bishop Grosseteste</a> exercised great influence. The friar, <a href="../cathen/13111b.htm">Roger Bacon</a> (d. 1249), was famous for his scientific <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, as were also Gerbert of <a href="../cathen/12725a.htm">Rheims</a>, afterwards Pope Silvester II, <a href="../cathen/01264a.htm">Albertus Magnus</a>, <a href="../cathen/12670c.htm">Raymond Lully</a>, and <a href="../cathen/15439a.htm">Vincent of Beauvais</a>. <a href="../cathen/04352b.htm">Copernicus</a>, canon of Thorn, is the founder of modern <a href="../cathen/02025a.htm">astronomy</a>, in which even to the present day the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Jesuits</a> especially (e.g. Scheiner, Clavius, <a href="../cathen/13669a.htm">Secchi</a>, Perry) have rendered important services. For the first geographical chart or map we are indebted to Fra Mauro of <a href="../cathen/15333a.htm">Venice</a> (d. 1459). The <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spanish</a> <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Jesuit</a>, Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (d. 1809), is the father of comparative philology; the <a href="../cathen/03354a.htm">Carmelite</a>, <a href="../cathen/11587a.htm">Paolino di san Bartolomeo</a>, was the author of the first Sanskrit grammar (Rome, 1790). The foundation of historical criticism was laid by Cardinal <a href="../cathen/02304b.htm">Baronius</a> (d. 1607), the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> of St. Maur, and the <a href="../cathen/02630a.htm">Bollandists</a>. A study of the history of art would reveal a proportionately great number of the apostles of the beautiful in art among the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> of all centuries. From the <a href="../cathen/11395a.htm">paintings</a> in the <a href="../cathen/03417b.htm">catacombs</a> to <a href="../cathen/01483b.htm">Fra Angelico</a> and thence to the Beuron <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a> we meet numerous <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, less indeed as practicing artists than as Mæcenases of art. The <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> have done much to justify what the celebrated <a href="../cathen/13641b.htm">sculptor</a> <a href="../cathen/03298b.htm">Canova</a> wrote to <a href="../cathen/10687a.htm">Napoleon I</a>: "Art is under <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> to religion, but to none so much as the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> religion."</p> <p>The basis on which higher culture finds its secure foundation is material or <a href="../cathen/12213b.htm">economic</a> culture, which, in spite of modern technics and machinery, rests ultimately on labour. Without the labourer's energy, which consists in the power and the will to work, no culture whatever can prosper. But the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> priesthood more than any other professional body has praised in word and <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> by deed the value and blessing of the labour required in agriculture, mining, and the handicrafts. The curse and disdain, which <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">paganism</a> poured on manual labour, were removed by <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. Even an <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a> (Polit., III, iii) could <a href="../cathen/01455e.htm">anathematize</a> manual labour as "philistine", the humbler occupations as "unworthy of a free man". To whom are we primarily indebted in <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> for the clearing away of the primitive forests, for schemes of drainage and irrigation, for the cultivation of new fruits and crops, for the building of roads and bridges, if not to the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>? In Eastern <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> the <a href="../cathen/02324a.htm">Basilians</a>, in Western the <a href="../cathen/02443a.htm">Benedictines</a>, and later the <a href="../cathen/03780c.htm">Cistercians</a> and <a href="../cathen/15024a.htm">Trappists</a>, laboured to bring the land under cultivation, and rendered vast districts free from fever and habitable. Mining and foundries also owe their development, and to some extent their origin, to the keen <a href="../cathen/12213b.htm">economic</a> sense of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a>. To place the whole <a href="../cathen/12213b.htm">economic</a> life of the nations on a scientific foundation, <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> and <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> early laid the basis of the <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> of national economy--e.g. <a href="../cathen/05194a.htm">Duns Scotus</a> (d. 1308), <a href="../cathen/11296a.htm">Nicholas Oresme</a>, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of Lisieux (d. 1382), <a href="../cathen/01585b.htm">St. Antoninus</a> of Florence (d. 1459), and Gabriel Biel (d. 1495). The <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> and <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> have therefore truly endeavoured to carry out in every sphere and in all centuries the programme which <a href="../cathen/09169a.htm">Leo XIII</a> in his famous <a href="../cathen/05413a.htm">Encyclical</a> "Immortale Dei" of 1 Nov., 1885, declared the ideal of the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>: "Imo inertiæ desidiæque inimica [Ecclesia] magnopere vult, ut hominum ingenia uberes ferant exercitatione et cultura fructus". The "flight from the world", with which they are so constantly reproached, or the "hostility to civilization", which we hear so often echoed by the <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a>, have never prevented the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> or her <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> from fulfilling their calling as a civilizing agency of the first order, and thus refuting all <a href="../cathen/14035b.htm">slanders</a> with the <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logic</a> of facts.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">PAGAN PRIESTHOOD: Of the vast literature only a few fundamental works can be cited: <br>General Works: MöLLER, Physical Religion (London, 1891); IDEM, Anthropological Relig. (London, 1892); IDEM, The Books of the East (Oxford, 1879-94); LIPPERT, Alligemeine Geschichte des Priestertums (2 vols., Berlin, 1883); DE LA SAUSSAYE, Lehrbuch der Religionsgesch. (2 vols., Freiburg, 1905); VOLLERS, Die Weltreligionen in ihrem geschichtl. Zusammenhang (Jena. 1907). <br>Concerning the Indian priesthood: ASMUS, Die indogerman. Religion in den Hauptpunkten ihrer Entwickelung (2 vols., Leipzig, 1875-7); BARTH, Les religions de l'Inde (Paris, 1880); LAOUENAN, Du brahmanisme et ses rapports avec le judaïsme et le christianisme (Paris, 1888); MONIER-WILLIAMS, Brahmanism and Hinduism (London, 1891); OLDENBURG, Die Religion des Veda (Leipzig, 1894); HOPKINS, The Religions of India (London, 1895); HARDY, Die vedisch-brahman. Peroide des alten Indiens (1893); IDEM, Indische Religionsgesch. (1898); MACDONELL, Vedic Mythology (London, 1897); HILLEBRANDT, Ritual-Literatur, ved. Opfer u. Zauber (Leipzig, 1897); DAHLMANN, Der Idealismus der. ind. Religionsphilos. im Zeitalter der Opfermystik (Freiburg, 1901); DILGER, Die Erlösung des Menschen nach Hinduismus u. Christentum (1902); ROUSSELL, La religion védique (Paris, 1909). <br>On Buddhism: COPLESTON, Buddhism primitive and present in Magadha and in Ceylon (London, 1893); WADDELL, B. of Tibet (London, 1895); DAVIDS, Buddhism, its History and Literature (London, 1896); KERN, Manual of Indian B. (London, 1898); AIKEN, The Dhamma of Gotama, the Buddha and the Gospel of Jesus the Christ (New York, 1900); SMITH, Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of India (London, 1902); HARDY, König Asoka (1902); IDEM, Buddha (1903); SILBERNAGL, Der Buddhismus, seine Entstehung, Fortbildung u. Verbreitung (1903); SCHULTZE, Der B. als Religion der Zukunft (2nd ed., 1901); FREYDANK, Buddha u. Christus, eine Apologetik (1903); WECKER, Lamaismus u. Katholicismus (1910). <br>On the Iranians: DARMESTETER, Ormuzd et Ahriman, leurs origines et leur histoire (Paris, 1877); SPIEGEL, Eranische Altertumskunde, II (1878); DE HARLEZ, Origines du zorastrisme (Paris, 1879); CASARTELLI, La philosophie religeuse du mazdéisme sous les Sassanides (Louvain, 1884); MENANT, Les Parses, Hist. des communautés zorastriennes de l'Inde (Paris, 1898); GASQUET, Essai sur le culte et les mystères de Mithra (Paris, 1899); JACKSON, Zoraster, the Prophet of Ancient India (New York, 1899); CUMONT, les mystères de Mithra (2nd ed., Paris, 1902; tr. London, 1903). <br>Concerning the Greeks and Romans: REICHEL, Ueber vorhellenische Kulte (1897); GRUPPE, Griechische, Mythologie u. Religionsgesch. (Munich, 1897-1906); JENTSCH, Hellenentum u. Christentum (1903); BEURLIER, Le culte rendu aux empereurs romains (Paris, 1890); WISSOWA, Relig. u. Kultus d. Römer (1903). <br>Concerning the Celts and Germans: BERTRAND, La religion des Gaulois (Paris, 1897); DE LA SAUSSAYE, The Religions of the Teutons (London, 1902); DOTTIN, La religion des Celtes (Paris, 1904); GRUPP, Die Kultur der alten Kelten u. Germanen (1904); ANWYL, Celtic Religion in Pre-Christian Times (London, 1906). <br>On the Chinese and Japanese: DE HARLEZ, Les religions de la Chine (Brussels, 1901); DVORAK, Chinas Religionen (Leipzig, 1895-1903); MUNZINGER, Die Japaner (1898); HAAS, Gesch. des Christentums in Japan (Berlin, 1902). <br>On the Egyptians: WIEDEMANN, Die Religion der alten Aegypter (1890); BRUGSCH, Aegyptologie (1891); SAYCE, The Religion of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (London, 1892); BUDGE, The Gods of the Egyptians, (London, 1894); HEYES, Bibel u. Aegypten (1904); OTTO, Priester u. Tempel im hellenistischen Aegypten (2 vols., 1905-8); ERMAN, Die ägyptische Religion (2nd ed., Berlin, 1909). <br>Concerning the Semites: LENORMANT, La magie chez les Chaldéens (Paris, 1871); LAGRANGE, Sur les religions sémitiques (Paris, 1903); SCHRADER, Die Keilinschriften u. das Alte Testament (3rd ed., 1903); SCHRANK, Babylonische Sühneriten mit Rücksicht auf Priester u. Büsser (1908); VINCENT, Canaan (Paris, 1907). <br>JEWISH PRIESTHOOD: On the general question:--LIGHTFOOT, Ministerium templi in Opp., I (Rotterdam, 1699), 671 sqq.; UGOLINI, Thesaur. antiquit. sacrarum, IX, XII-XIII (Rome, 1748-52); BéHR, Symbolik des mosaischen Kultus (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1839; 2nd ed., 1 vol., 1874); KöPER, Das Priestertum des Alten Bundes (Leipzig, 1866); SCHOLZ, Die heiligen Altertümer des Volkes Israel (2 vols., Ratisbon, 1868); IDEM, Götzendienst u. Zauberwesen bei den alten Hebraern (Ratisbon, 1877); SCHéFER, Die religiösen Altertümer der Bibel (2nd ed., 1891); NOWACK, Lehrbuch der hebr. Archäologie (2 vols., Freiburg, 1894); BAUDISSIN, Gesch. des alttest. Priestertums (Berlin, 1892); GIGOT, Outlines of Jewish Hist. (New York, 1897); VAN HOONACKER, Le sacerdoce lévit. dans la Loi et dans l'hist. des Hébreux (Louvain, 1899); SCHöRER, Gesch. des jüd. Volkes im Zeitalter Christi, II (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1898), 224 sqq.; KOBERLE, Die Tempelsänger im Alten Test. (1899). <br>For modern Biblical criticism:--WELLHAUSEN, Prolegomena zur Gesch. Israels (Berlin, 1883), tr. BLACK AND MENZIES (Edinburgh, 1885); IDEM, Die Komposition des Hexateuchs u. der geschichtl. Bücher des A.T. (2nd ed., Berlin, 1899); FREY, Tod, Seelenglaube u. Seelenkult im alten Israel (1898); VOGELSTEIN, Der Kampf zwischen Priestern u. Leviten seit den Tagen des Ezechiel (Leipzig, 1899); VAN HOONACKER, Les prêtres et les Lévites dans le livre d'Ezéchiel in Rev. bibl. internat. (1899), 177 sqq.; American Journal of Theol. (1905), 76 sqq.; KENNET, Origin of the Aaronite Priesthood in Journal of Theol. Studies (Jan., 1905); MEYER, Die Israiliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme (Leipzig, 1906). <br>Catholic works:--HUMMELAUER, Das vormosaische Priestertum in Israel (Freiburg, 1899); NIKEL, Wiederherstellung des jüd. Gemeinwesens nach dem babylon. Exil (Freiburg, 1900); DORNSTETTER, Abraham: Studien über die Anfänge des hebr. Volkes (Freiburg, 1902); Zapletal, Alttestamentliches (Freiburg, 1903); NIKEL, Genesis u. Keilschriftforschung (Freiburg, 1903); HOBERG, Moses u. der Pentateuch (Freiburg, 1905); ENGELKEMPER, Heiligtum u. Opferstätten in den Gesetzen des Pentateuch (Münster, 1908); SCHULZ, Doppelberichte im Pentateuch (Freiburg, 1908); PETERS, Die jud. Gemeinde von Elephantine-Syene u. ihr Tempel im 5. Jahrh. v. Christus (Freiburg, 1910). <br>CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD: General Works: ST. THOMAS, Supplem., Q. xxxiv sqq., and the commentators: PETRUS SOTO, De instit. sacerdotum (Dillingen, 1568); HALLIER, De sacris electionibus et ordinationibus ex antiquo et novo jure (Paris, 1636), also in MIGNE, Cursus theol., XXIV; MORIN, Comment. de sacris Ecclesiæ ordinat. (Paris, 1655; Antwerp, 1695); OBERNDORFER, De sacr. ord. (Freising, 1759); among later works consult: KOPPLER, Priester u. Opfergabe (Mainz, 1886); GASPARRI, Tractatus canonicus de sacr. ordinat. (Paris, 1893); SCHANZ, Die Lehre von den Sakramenten d. kathol. Kirche (Freiburg, 1893); GIHR, Die Lehre von den hll. Sakramenten der kathol. Kirche, II (Freiburg, 1903); KLUGE, Die Idee des Priestertums in Israel-Juda u. im Urchristentum (1906); POURRAT, La théologie sacramentaire (Paris, 1907); SALTET, Les réordinations (Paris, 1907). The following are written rather from the ascetical standpoint: OLIER, Traité des saints ordres (7th ed., Paris, 1868); MANNING, The Eternal Priesthood (London, 1883); MERCIER, Retraite pastorale (7th ed., Brussels, 1911). <br>Concerning the alleged pagan influences on the Catholic Sacrifice and priesthood: DOLLINGER, Heidentum u. Judentum (Ratisbon, 1857); HATCH, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, ed. by FAIRBAIRN (LONDON, 1890); ANRICH, Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das Christentum (Göttingen, 1894); WOBBERMIN, Religionsgeschichtl. Studien zur Frage der Beeinflussung des Christentums durch das antike Mysterienwesen (Berlin, 1896); CUMONT, Textes et mon. relatifs aux mystères de Mithra (Brussels, 1896-9); ROBERTSON, Christianity and Mythology (London, 1900); CHAPUIS, L'influence de l'essénisme sur les orinines chrét. in Rev. de théol. et philos. (1903), pp. 193 sqq.; CUMONT, The Mysteries of Mithra, tr. McCORMACK (London, 1903); GRILL, Die persische Mysterienreligion u. das Christentum (Leipzig, 1903); DIETERICH, Eine Mithrasliturgie (Leipzig, 1903); BLOTZER, Die heidnischen Mysterien u. die Hellenisierung des Christentums in Stimmen aus Maria-Laach (1906), pp. 376 sqq., 500 sqq.; (1907), pp. 37 sqq., 182 sqq.; FEINE, Ueber Babylonische Einflüsse im Neuen Testament in Neue kirchl. Zeitschr. (1906), pp. 696 sqq.; JENSEN, Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur, I (Strasburg, 1906); WENDLAND, Die hellenisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum u. Christentum (Tübingen, 1907); SOLTAU, Das Fortleben des Heidentums in der altchristl. Kirche (Berlin, 1906); DE JONG, Das antike Mysterienwesen (Leiden, 1909); CLEMEN, Religionsgeschichtl. Erklärung des Neuen Testaments (Giessen, 1909). <br>Concerning the relations between the bishop and priests in the primitive Church consult: KURZ, Der Episkopat der höchste vom Presbyterat verschiedene Ordo (Vienna, 1877); HATCH, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (2nd ed., London, 1882); SMITH AND CHEETHAM, Dict. of Christ. Antiq., s.v. Priest; SCHULTE-PLASSMAN, Der Episkopat ein vom Presbyterat verschiedener, selbständiger und sakramentaler Ordo (Paderborn, 1883); LONING, Die Gemeindeverfassung des Urchristentums (Halle, 1889), cf. Hist. Jahrb. der Görresgesellschaft, XII (1900), 221 sqq.; SOBKOWSKI, Episkopat und Presbyterat in den ersten christl. Jahrhund. (Würzburg, 1893); GOBET, L'origine divine de l'episcopat (Fribourg, 1898); DUNIN-BORKOWSKI, Die neueren Forschungen über die Anfänge des Episkopats (Freiburg, 1900); MICHIELS, L'origine de l'épiscopat (Louvain, 1900); WEIZSéCKER, Das apostolische Zeitalter der christl. Kirche (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1902); BRUDERS, Die Verfassung der Kirche von den ersten Jahrzehnten der apostolischen Wirksamkeit bis zum Jahre 175 nach Chr. (Mainz, 1904); KNOPF, Das nachapostolische Zeitalter (Leipzig, 1905); BATIFFOL, L'église naissante et le Catholicisme (2nd ed., Paris, 1908); HARNACK, Entstehung und Entwickelung der Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts (Leipzig, 1910). For special treatment of the views of St. Jerome, consult: BLONDEL, Apologia pro sententia Hieronymi de episcopis et presbyteris (Amsterdam, 1646); KOENIG, Der katholische Priester vor 1500 Jahren: Priester und Priestertum nach Hieronymus (Breslau, 1890); SANDERS, Etudes sur S. Jérome (Paris, 1903), 296, sqq.; TIXERONT, Hist. des dogmes, II (Paris, 1909). On clerical training see bibliography under SEMINARY. <br>ON THE BENEFITS OF THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD: For the literature of the various branches of ecclesiastical and clerical activity in the furtherance of civilization the special articles must be consulted, e.g., MISSIONS, SCHOOLS, UNIVERSITIES, etc. Only a few works can be here given. General: BALMES, Der Protestantismus verglichen mit dem Katholizismus in seinen Beziehungen zur europäischen Civilisation (Ratisbon, 1844); GUIZOT, Hist. de la civilisation en Europe (Paris, 1840); LACHAUD, La civilisation ou les bienfaits de l'église (Paris, 1890); LILLY, Christianity and Modern Civilization (London, 1903); Christ and Civilization, a Survey of the Influence of the Christian Religion upon the Course of Civilization (London, 1910); DEVAS, Key to the World's Progress (2nd ed., London, 1908); HETTINGER, Apologie des Christentums, V (9th ed., Freiburg, 1908); EHRHARD, Kathol. Christentum u. moderne Kultur (2nd ed., Mainz, 1906), (cf.); SADOC SZALO, Ehrhards Schrift etc., ein Beitrag zur Klärung der religiösen Frage der Gegenwart (Graz, 1909); CATHREIN, Die kathol. Weltanschauung in ihren Grundlinien mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Moral (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1910). <br>Special works are: SCHELL, Der Katholizismus als Prinzip des Fortschritts (7th ed., Würzburg, 1909); PESCH, Die soziale Befähigung der Kirche (2nd ed., Berlin, 1897); DE CHAMPAGNY, La charité chrétienne dans les premiers siècles (Paris, 1856); COCHIN, L'abolition de l'esclavage (Paris, 1862); MARGRAF, Christentum u. Sklaverei (1865); RATZINGER, Gesch. der kirchl. Armenpflege (Freiburg, 1868); SCHAUB, Die Kathol. Charitas u. ihre Gegner (Freiburg, 1909); MONTALEMBERT, The Monks of the West (tr. Boston, 1872); WHEWELL, Hist. of the Inductive Sciences (London, 1847); WISEMAN, Science and Religion (London, 1853); MAITRE, Les écoles de l'Occident (Paris, 1858); WEDEWER, Das Christentum u. die Sprachwissenschaft (1867); ROSCHER, Principles of Pol. Economy (tr. New York, 1878); SECRETAN, Civilisation et croyance (Lausanne, 1882); DAHLMANN, Die Sprachkunde u. die Missionen (Freiburg, 1891); LILLY, Christianity and Modern Civilisation (London, 1903); PAULSEN, Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts (2 vols., Berlin, 1896); KNELLER, Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science (tr. St. Louis, 1911); MöLLER, Nik. Kopernikus. Der Altmeister der neueren Astronomie (Freiburg, 1898); POHLE, P. Angelo Secchi, ein Lebens-u. Kulturbild (2nd ed., Cologne, 1904); WILLMANN, Gesch. des Idealismus (3 vols., Brunswick, 1908); ILGNER, Die volkswirtschaftl. Anschauungen des hl. Antonin von Florenz (Breslau, 1904).</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Pohle, J.</span> <span id="apayear">(1911).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Priesthood.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12409a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Pohle, Joseph.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Priesthood."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 12.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1911.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12409a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Robert B. Olson.</span> <span id="dedication">Offered to Almighty God for Fr. Jeffrey A. Ingham and all priests in Our Blessed Lord's Holy Catholic Church.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.</strong></center></td></tr></table><p align="center"><a href="../utility/contactus.htm">CONTACT US</a> | <a href="https://cleanmedia.net/p/?psid=491-308-20180429T2217479770">ADVERTISE WITH NEW ADVENT</a></p></div> <ins class="CANBMDDisplayAD" data-bmd-ad-unit="30849120210203T1734389107AB67D35C03D4A318731A4F337F60B3E" style="display:block"></ins> <script src="https://secureaddisplay.com/au/bmd/"></script>  <ins class="CMAdExcludeArticles"></ins> </body> </html>