The History of Holy Orders

1. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament The present state of scholarship demands great caution in our speaking about ordination, its meaning or its rites in the NT. The words “ordain” and “ordination” are not found there There is considerable disagreement about the extent to which this later Christian use may coincide with the categories of the NT With its pattern, or varied patterns, of understanding, vocabulary and practice.

2. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament The evidence suggests that the church had both unity and differentiation from the beginning. There is equality based on baptism: This equality nevertheless requires authority, leadership; • That is structured and maintained as a unity through special ministers. Ministry rather than order or status is the predominant emphasis: a mission to be accomplished a task to be done Rather than a class to be entered or a status to be attained.

3. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament These differences should not be exaggerated: • ministry may well involve position • a mission may carry with it or may require a certain personal status • ministers may be grouped together because of the nature of their function. Ministry does not however arise merely out of sociological pressure; its necessity is found at a deeper level in the person and mission of Jesus Christ.

4. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament The entire ministry is ultimately the work of God (1 Cor 12:6), the gift of Christ (Eph 4:7–12) and of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:4–11; cf. Acts 20:28) in and through and for the church, the body of Christ.

5. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament The most important forms of ministry can be characterized as those of leadership: • Preaching the gospel and founding new churches, • Supervising and nurturing the growth of the young churches, • Leading the communities as they become established. This ministry of leadership manifests itself in a variety of activities: • Instruction, encouragement, reproof, visitation, appointment and supervision of some ministries, and so on— • Aall that is demanded by the task of building up the body of Christ.

6. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament Scholars are not agreed about the manner in which such Christian leaders came into being in the early church. • The recent trend has been towards the view that leaders emerged or were appointed in different ways in different communities with different church orders. Is there any evidence of a rite associated with this? • Rather than discuss the question simply as a NT issue, it seems best to look at it with an eye to subsequent developments.

7. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament The NT mentions the laying-on of hands on four main occasions that could be important for our consideration of the sacrament of orders (Acts 6:6; 13:3; 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6; and cf. 1 Tim 5:22). Scholars do not agree on the background to this Christian action, • whether it was borrowed from a supposed Jewish rite of ordination • or was derived from more general OT influences • or was primarily a Christian introduction. Nor is there agreement that in these instances the function and the meaning of the gesture are the same.

8. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament In Acts 6:6 the seven are chosen in Jerusalem by the whole body of disciples for appointment by the apostles, who pray and lay their hands upon them. In Acts 13:1–3 Barnabas and Saul are set apart in the church at Antioch for a mission in obedience to a command of the Holy Spirit. • After fasting and prayer they (the prophets and teachers? others?) lay hands on Barnabas and Saul and send them on their mission. • They are understood to be sent out by the Holy Spirit (13:4). In neither of these cases do scholars agree about the function or the meaning of this imposition of hands.

9. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament The second especially may have been no more than a blessing or the acknowledgment of a mandate • (cf. Acts 14:26, which may interpret this rite in saying that they were commended to the grace of God for this work). One other text from Acts makes an interesting parallel. • According to 14:23, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every church with prayer and fasting. The mention of prayer and fasting and the absence of reference to the laying-on of hands are worth noting, though it could well be that the latter is presupposed.

10. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament There is also disagreement as to the meaning of the imposition of hands in the two instances from the pastoral epistles (1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6), But there is a firmer consensus that it is part of what may be called with greater confidence an ordination rite. The choice of Timothy may have been made by prophetic utterance (1 Tim 1:18; 4:14; cf. Acts 13:2) The core of the rite by which he was commissioned is presented as the laying-on of hands done by the body of presbyters and by Paul (1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6). Probably this was done in public (cf. 2 Tim 2:2 “before many witnesses”).

11. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament In or through this rite a spiritual gift, a gift of God, has been conferred. This gift is at the service of the word, strengthening Timothy to bear public witness to the gospel (2 Tim 1:8–14). He is warned “not to neglect”; he is to “rekindle” this gift of God that he has received and in fact the last two chapters of I Timothy envisage a broad range of responsibility for the apostolate and the community.

12. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament It is a power that enables him to carry out his ministry, a charism for the office that he has received. • Here we have the makings of a later explicitly “sacramental” understanding of such a rite. • No doubt these texts, partial as they are, represent different situations of time and place. • They may not simply be collated in the expectation that the ensemble will provide the ordination rite of the early church or of St Paul. Scholars maintain that the pattern of ministry, its understanding and its mode of appointment or recognition, may be more varied than has been acknowledged in the past.

13. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament The precise influences that led to the Christian use of the laying-on of hands are unclear and so the meaning of this action, and in some cases its role, are also unclear. • It is not evident that some such form was always and everywhere used during the NT period or indeed for some time after it, • Nor is there any probability that all these elements were present on all occasions. • But neither can it be proved from the evidence of the NT that such a form was exceptional. Elements do undoubtedly emerge from the church of the NT that will influence all later generations and that will in fact endure.

14. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament Subject to all the qualifications that have been made, the following may serve as a summary of some of the points from the NT that will be prominent also in the subsequent tradition. • In the appointment of ministers to positions of leadership the whole local body of the church and yet also particular ministers or groups of ministers have an important role. • The context of worship, of prayer and fasting is mentioned, suggesting a liturgical setting and referring the ministry and appointment to it to God. • Hands are laid on the candidate by a group within the church and/or by such individuals as Paul and Timothy.

15. The History of Holy Orders The New Testament What the church does through its corporate action or through its leaders is regarded as inspired by the Holy Spirit Through the church’s choice and the liturgical action, God provides for the church and gives a spiritual gift that in some way endures. • This inter-working of God-whole church-special ministers in the appointment of ministers is to be noted, • as is the religious form of prayer-fasting-liturgical rite that is part of it.

16. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments During the 2nd century, Episcopacy, presbyterate and diaconate emerge almost everywhere as the most important ministries and form what will be the universal pattern. • From the letter of Clement onwards, correspondences are noted between the Jewish structure of authority and the Christian. • Ignatius of Antioch already presents the bishop as an image of the Father • Here and elsewhere bishop, presbyter and deacon are related in a variety of ways to God and to Jesus Christ.

17. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments These comparisons manifest the conviction that the existence and the pattern of this ministry in the church are willed by God and mediate the authority and the power of God. Between God and the church is Jesus Christ, who came from God and from whom the power and the authority of the church originated historically.

18. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments In the 2nd and 3rd centuries a consensus may not yet have emerged as to the way in which the church commissions these ministers. Order, Ordain, Ordination. • Clement of Rome and Irenaeus had employed the language of structure and function with regard to the church, • But Tertullian is the first that we know to use the Latin words ordo-ordinare-ordinatio as part of the Christian terminology. • The meaning the words have in his writings is that of the common usage of the time, • He extends this to certain Christian realities and actions, giving them a new application.

19. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments He is followed closely by his fellow North African, Cyprian, and some of Cyprian’s contemporaries. The terminology is still fluid at this stage and the words are not yet the technical terms that they will become later. Ordo for Tertullian generally denotes a certain group or class in the church • With the adjectives ecclesiasticus or sacerdotalis, denotes at least the combined episcopacy, presbyterate and diaconate, • Which are distinguished from the plebs or laici. This ordo is marked by authority and function in the church. The word is thus strongly institutional.

20. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments The verb ordinare and its noun ordinatio are used in a similar way. • To ordain is to designate someone to some function, to install in a charge, to give a mandate. • It is a juridical word, suggesting a legal act carried out by authority • It fits well into an understanding of the church as structured in different groups distinguished by different responsibilities and powers. It conveys a markedly functional understanding of the act and its effects.

21. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments In broader usage the ordination could include the preparatory stages But in a more formal sense it was distinguished from the election of the candidate by the community. By ordination the minister is invested with his charge and with all the powers that it requires.

22. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments There is strong and widespread evidence for the laying-on of hands, at least in the ordination of bishops • It cannot be proved that this took place in every instance. • It seems more plausible to hold that it was used also for the presbyterate and the diaconate. It may have been regarded as a sign, but not an essential one, of the intention to ordain the candidate to the particular charge.

23. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments In some places the ordination of a bishop required the approval of neighboring bishops or provincial synods This showed concern for such ecclesial realities as: • The apostolic succession • The unity and communion of the churches in the universal church • The personal and ecclesial standing of the new bishop.

24. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Though this cluster of words conveys a primarily juridical understanding of the reality they refer to there is also a spiritual side that is important. There is emphasis • on the qualities of holiness demanded in the person to be ordained, • on the acts of sanctification for which ordination grants authority and power • and on the priestly nature of the order to which it gives access.

25. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments The church’s act of ordination is grounded on the will of God and the authority of Christ. • God ordains and the church ordains, and these are in direct relation. • The sanctifying mission of the church that has its origin in God and is derived through Christ is engaged • Through the act of the qualified leaders of the church the candidate is divinely empowered to sanctify. Thus while the early terminology of order and ordination is primarily juridical, from the beginning it is also spiritual and has clearly sacramental elements.

26. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Ordination Rites. • A picture that is different in some respects emerges from the Apostolic Tradition (written in Greek at Rome about 215 by Hippolytus). • There bishop, presbyter and deacon are ordained • Hippolytus uses the word by the bishop in a liturgical rite which has as its core the imposition of hands accompanied by prayer. • The bishop certainly and probably the other ministers were chosen by the whole community. • The prayers provide a context of understanding for the ordination by referring to deeds of God in the OT or in the event of Christ • All pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the candidate, indicating the tasks that the ministry involves.

27. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Thus, by imposition of hands and prayer the bishop —the qualified minister of ordination— accompanied by other bishops or other ministers and by the people, gives the church’s commission. Through this ordination a gift of the Holy Spirit is communicated, • A gift that is the ground of the ministry in question and that empowers the candidate for its exercise. This represents an understanding of ministry and commissioning for it for which there is evidence in the NT and which had been growing in confidence during the 2nd century.

28. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments The pattern of ordination so plainly given in Hippolytus will be followed in the later Roman rituals. The prayers will have the same general character; • They will be strong in OT typology; • They will continue to be addressed to the Father and to have a clearly trinitarian structure; • They will have a petition for the gift of the Spirit and will set it in some relation to the tasks of the ministry and requisite qualities in the minister.

29. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments From all this there emerges the conviction that the ministry of leadership in its threefold form is a gift of God for the church, • A gift foretold and prefigured in the OT, • A gift that had its historical origin and was supremely manifest in Jesus Christ, • A gift that God continues to make to the church through the Holy Spirit in each ordination. This is a gift to be acknowledged and proclaimed in a prayer that has a certain eucharistic quality, a gift to be prayed for humbly over the candidates.

30. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments When the community of the church chooses its candidates, this is understood to be the expression or announcement of God’s choice, as the rite of ordination is the act of the church through which God operates. • In other words, no opposition is thought to exist between God and the church in the process and the rite of ordination. • God announces and accomplishes the divine will through the church’s election and its ordination; The church’s action makes known and realizes God’s provident gift.

31. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Through the church’s act of ordination the gift of the Holy Spirit is communicated to the candidate, conveying the ministry or function together with the spiritual empowerment required for its fulfillment. These are elements that later theologians will bring together in speaking of the sacrament of ordination.

32. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Ordination rites will grow in importance and be acknowledged as the ground of these ministries. Whereas in the first two to three centuries it seems that one presided at the liturgy because of one’s position as leader of the community, Subsequently one is understood to preside and so to lead the community because one has been ordained.

33. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Five important qualities of ordination and of the ordained ministry should be noted from this period. Christological Pneumatological Ecclesial Priestly Personal

34. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Christological. • Jesus, coming from God, is the historical origin of this authoritative ministry in the church, which therefore must always be related back to him. • In his life he gave the supreme example of authentic ministry, and so he remains always the model. • What he taught and preached must be passed on faithfully, so that the church’s ministers must at all times be faithful to Christ’s gospel. • As the risen Lord he is active in the church through his Spirit and the Spirit’s gifts. • In carrying out his responsibility the minister is serving Jesus Christ, who is thus in a sense the goal of the ministry.

35. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Christological. This characteristic of ministers and ministry can be summed up in the phrases, “servants of Jesus Christ,” “the service of Jesus Christ,” understood in all their virtualities. • It is much of this that is implied in the word increasingly used from the second century, “apostolic.” The apostolic character of the ministry declared its authentic relationship to its historical origin in Jesus Christ, and so grounded its fidelity to him.

36. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Pneumatological. • There is recurring reference to the role of the Holy Spirit in the provision of ministry • And regular petition for the appropriate gift of the Spirit in the various rites of ordination.

37. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Ecclesial. The ecclesial character of ministry and ordination is particularly evident in these early centuries. • Ministers are of the church and represent it, public figures of leadership in and for the community • In many cases chosen by the whole people • Ordained by the qualified minister of the church, the bishop, in the presence of all • And perhaps confirmed by neighboring churches. Public service in the church is the summary of the ministry.

38. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Priestly. While the NT uses priestly terms both of Jesus and of the whole church, it does not do so of any Christian minister. • It is only about the turn of the 2nd century that such an extension of sacerdotal vocabulary begins to be common: • First of all and primarily with reference to the bishop • Then more slowly and in a subordinate way of the presbyter • (notably so in the Roman tradition).

39. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Priestly. By the Carolingian era in the West there will be a change it will become more and more the practice to speak of the presbyter primarily as sacerdos. • Involved in this change of usage there can be detected a practical and theological shift in the relationship between bishop and presbyter • Priestly vocabulary was not generally extended to the deacon. Hippolytus had said of him explicitly that he was not ordained to the priesthood. The introduction of priestly terminology and its increasingly widespread acceptance had enormous theological and practical consequences for the understanding and the exercise of the sacrament of orders.

40. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Personal. The one ordained is not merely a functionary but a minister of Christ and of the church, So his call requires a full personal response: • Commitment to this ministry • And holiness of life in imitation of Christ.

41. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons. The triple pattern of episcopacy-presbyterate-diaconate takes some time to emerge and to establish itself, but it then becomes universal in the church • The Reformation will bring some break in the West. The functions of these orders and the relationships between them do not remain unchanged.

42. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons. The bishop becomes the focus of ministry, the center of leadership; • The office mediates divine authority, involving supervision or leadership by the individual bishop and on the part of the whole episcopal college • This is a reality of which the patristic church was strongly conscious. But the exercise of this changes considerably as the territory of the bishops’ episkope grows.

43. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons. The presbyterate, for some time primarily a council to advise the bishop, becomes more diversified: • Individual presbyters, regularly and no longer only in the absence of the bishop, carry out many formerly episcopal functions, • They emerge as leaders of areas and groups of Christians, • Preaching, presiding over the eucharist and other liturgical functions, So that the presbyterate becomes more markedly pastoral and liturgical in character.

44. The History of Holy Orders Early Developments Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons. Throughout the patristic period deacons have important pastoral and administrative tasks in addition to their liturgical functions • It will be some time before the deacon loses his strong and distinctive role in the church to become almost exclusively a liturgical minister overshadowed by the presbyter. It is important to note of all these that the ministry has a broad scope that is not exclusively or predominantly liturgical either in its exercise or in the way it is understood.

45. The History of Holy Orders The Middle Ages The theological contribution of the Scholastics in the 12th and 13th centuries was influenced by changes in the practical exercise of orders that had been taking place for several centuries previously • These changes reflected a sharpening of the distinction between laity and clergy They were part of an older and broader process of clericalization.

46. The History of Holy Orders The Middle Ages With the spread of the church and the social organization of the time, The presbyter continued to establish himself and the functions of his ministry in a more defined and more independent way vis-à-vis the bishop (and also at the expense of the deacon). In practice he became the priest, the minister par excellence of the eucharist and of other sacraments too.

47. The History of Holy Orders The Middle Ages Decline in the popular understanding of Latin and generally in the level of popular participation in the liturgy changed the relationship between the presbyter and the people. It increased the emphasis on his sacramental power. Mass celebrated by the priest alone or with a single minister began to be common.

48. The History of Holy Orders The Middle Ages There were changes too in the Roman ritual of ordination, which now came to incorporate investiture, anointing and the traditio instrumentorum. • The last two would become important for the Scholastic discussion of the matter of the sacrament, • While all three would enhance the perception of the ordained minister as a figure of sacred status and power. A more general change of great consequence was the gradual loss of communication and mutual influence between the churches of West and East.

49. The History of Holy Orders The Middle Ages The Sacrament of Orders. In the course of the 12th century “sacrament” came to be defined narrowly; • Orders was recognized as one of the seven sacraments • And “the sacrament of orders” became a technical term. In addition to the issues common to all the sacraments, this raised a number of particular questions. • There had long been discussion about the number of orders, and this continued to be debated.

50. The History of Holy Orders The Middle Ages The Sacrament of Orders. The more common view emerged that there were seven orders There was less agreement that subdiaconate and the minor orders, recognized to be of ecclesiastical institution, were sacramental in the strict sense. The question was posed most acutely of the episcopacy. • Theologians agreed that orders was a single sacrament and not several • They disagreed about the precise relationship between this unique sacrament and its several parts.