Priest and Bishop

Priests and Bishop: Biblical Reflections by Raymond E. Brown, S.S.

This is a slender book written by Brown in 1970. Brown explains that he did not intend to write a formal study, but only his reflections to guide discussions in the Catholic Church about the role of priests and bishops in light of concerns raised about the possibility of changing the role of priests after Vatican II, on the one hand, and the interest of ecumenism, on the other hand.

Brown's booklet is divided into two parts. The first priest addresses Brown's reflections on priests. Brown begins by looking at the priests of the Old Testament (“OT”). That the Hebrews were a “nation of priests” (Exod. 19:6) did not prevent the development of a special ministry of priests to serve God. “A God who is not holier than the world is otiose; and similarly a priesthood that does not stand apart in some way is a priesthood that is not needed.” (p. 9.) Brown then considers the functions that the OT priesthood plays, which he identifies as (a) consulting the will of God by casting lots consisting of the Urim and Thumim; (b) teaching; and (c) offering sacrifice and cultic offerings. (p. 10-12.) Brown opines that because the first two functions were shifted to prophets and scribes, respectively, the priesthood was left with the “ministry of the altar.” (p. 12.)

Brown begins the discussion of the New Testament (“NT”) by noting that no specific person in the NT is ever identified as a “priest.” (p. 13.) Brown dismisses the explanation that the “once for all” formula of Hebrews explains this absence. Brown observes that Hebrews should not be extrapolated to explain the earliest church since Hebrews was probably not written until after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. (p. 14.) In fact, when Hebrews was written, sub-apostolic literature was already beginning to refer to “priests.” (Id.) Interestingly, in this section, Brown rejects Kung's support for this argument; Brown repeatedly rejects Kung in this book. (p. 13, n.6.)

Brown also rejects Luther's “nation of priests” arguments on the reasonable ground that Israel was a nation of priests with its own special priesthood. (p. 14-15.)

Brown also questions the “traditional Catholic explanation” which is that the apostles played the role of priests in the NT. (p. 15.) Brown finds this to be an oversimplification” because, according to him, the Eucharist was not originally associated with sacrifice; rather the eucharist evolved in that direction over time guided by the Holy Spirit, which vouches for the legitimacy of this evolution, and in loyalty to the implications of the NT. (p. 15.)
Brown thinks that the term “priest” was not used in the earliest church because Christians continued to accept that the Temple priesthood remained the legitimate priesthood. (p. 17.) The Christian movement was a “renewal” movement, not a replacement movement. While Christians broke bread at home, they continued to attend the Temple until at least 58 AD. (p. 16; Acts 21:28.)

The priesthood developed institutionally as a result of the push by the Hellenists away from the temple, the recruitment of gentiles, and the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as a center of power in favor of Rome. (P. 18.) It was at this time that the body of Christ as the mediating point between God and man replaced the Temple. (p. 18.) Likewise, Brown sees the understanding of the eucharist as a sacrifice to be another evolutionary development guided by the Holy Spirit over the course of the first century. (p. 19.)

Brown then looks at the NT role of the priest. He unthreads various strands, specifically: (a) disciple, (b) Pauline apostle, (c) presbyter-bishop, and (d) presider at the eucharist. He spends time on unthreading the Pauline apostle role into its various subsidiary ‘services,” including (a) ordinary work, (b) prayer, (c) correction, and (d) suffering. (p. 21-45.) Some of these roles and services are done better by some priests than others, sometimes to the exclusion of some roles and services entirely. Brown takes an evolutionary perspective on this issue as well and finds that these roles were found at some phases of church development earlier than others. However, Brown does not think that it is correct to say that Jesus initiated the priesthood on Good Friday. He seems to think that's anachronistic. Instead he would be fine with the notion that the priesthood was initiated by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and with an evolutionary unfolding of its understanding of the meaning of apostolic teachings. (p. 19-20.)

This section makes for an interesting approach to the priesthood. Brown comes across as remarkably conservative in his defense of clerical celibacy and opposition to “part-time priests.” He ties the “priestly identity crisis” to the diversity of roles that the Catholic priesthood has assumed, some of which are in conflict with each other, e.g., the Pauline apostle, who is missionary, and the presbyter-bishop, who manages a region.

We might find Brown's denial that Jesus directly founded the priesthood to be problematic, but there are two things to consider. First, Brown is committed to an evolutionary paradigm. Virtually nothing exists from scratch in his discussion, everything has to be built up, and there is truth to this – there was an evolution of the priesthood. But was it the way Brown describes it?

I am not convinced. It seems to me that Brown starts loves to breakdown something into hypothetical, heuristic devices– such a the four roles of the priesthood – and then treat his heuristic devices as existing facts that trump evidence.

We can see this in his discussion of 1 Clement which clearly says that the apostles appointed bishops – or leaders of the church – to prevent strife. He explains this inconvenient “coming into existence without evolution” as follows:

“...but for our present purposes it is sufficient to note that when sub-apostolic writing, like 1 Clement and the Ignatian letters, speak of “apostles,” often they have blended together the role of the Twelve disciples and the role of the Pauline apostles. 1 Clement 42-44 pictures the “apostles” appointing bishops wo were in turn commissioned to appoint successors, so that one basic ministry is transmitted in libeal descent. (As we shall see there is some evidence that Paul may have appointed presbyter-bishops, but no evidence that the Twelve did – thus Clement's testimony may be somewhat confused.)”

This illustrates a problem with Brown's approach. Brown is actually dismissing Clement as evidence because it doesn't fit Brown's theoretical model. Subsequently in the book, Brown will argue that the NT sources depict the Twelve – except Peter – as staying in Rome and that Paul appointed some presbyter-bishops, although the significance of the function of those presbyter-bishops is lost in silence in the NT. So, there is nothing in his model that contradicts the testimony of Clement, although it seems important for him to separate the generation of the apostles/Twelve from the presbyter-bishops, presumably because Brown prefers his evolutionary model. One would think that Brown would welcome additional data to fill in the silences found in the NT texts from sources written around the same time as the NT. Further, Brown acknowledges that Clement was a first-century source, but he patronizingly thinks that Clement is “confused” by something that happened in Clement's recent past? If 1 Clement was written circa 90 AD, then the foundation of the episcopate would have happened in the previous ten to twenty years, which is like someone alive today remembering New Year's Eve 2000.

Additionally, Brown admits that Corinth went from a community that had no bishops at one time to one that clearly had a bishop or group of bishops at the time of Clement. (p. 70-71.) He reasonably speculates that bishops were introduced because of the problems that Paul had with a leaderless church. Significantly, Brown asserts that the introduction of bishops created friction, which is what led to the rift that resulted in the writing of 1 Clement. Brown states:

“Since Clement gives the Corinthian presbyter-bishops support, especially as to their place in worship and their not being easily removed from office, one may surmise that the introduction of such officials into Corinth was not without friction. He mentions that the apostles appointed bishops in the cities where they preached – might suggest that after the Corinthian correspondence in 56-57 Paul introduced bishops into Corinth when he visited there in 58? If this hypothesis has any validity, we may doubt that Corinth was typical of Paul's procedure as regards church structure. And since Paul would scarcely have wanted to repeat his experience with Corinth, it is not impossible that the Corinthian experiment may have hastened the development of local leaders in the Pauline churches. Thus, the Lucan picture whereby Paul appointed presbyter-bishops during his lifetime, while simplified, may be true in its essentials.” (p. 71-72.)

The second part of the pamphlet is more problematic than the first. In this section, Brown argues against the traditional, if naïve, model that says that the Twelve apostles went from town to town laying hands on the first bishops in different cities, thereby establishing the episcopate. He disagrees with this model because he reads in the NT that the Twelve – except Peter – remained in Jerusalem. For Brown, the Twelve were not local church leaders, but, following Luke, their concern was with the Church at large. (p. 58.) Brown finds this model plausible based on a similar structure revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Qumran community. (Id.)

As noted previously, Brown thinks that bishops were installed by the Pauline apostles, although he is at pains to stress that “it is possible to trace only some (bishops' lineage) to apostles like Paul.” (p. 73.)

Presumably, this means that there is a breakage in the Christ to the Twelve to Bishops chain, unless, of course, the apostles laid hands upon the “Pauline apostles” and put them into the chain of ordination, which Brown acknowledges happened, except that the ordination of Timothy was not as a bishop. (p. 63, n. 42.) It also means that individual claims of the various Sees to being founded by this or that member of the Twelves “is simply without proof” (p. 73) unless the traditions themselves count as proof, which Brown doesn't discuss.

Ironically, the one See that can make a claim to the contrary is Rome with respect to Peter. Brown does not dispute that Peter was in Rome, and thinks that John went to Asia Minor. (p. 52.) Brown writes:

“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelves are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Pauline type of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (p. 72, n.53.)

Brown argues that Peter was not a bishop on the grounds of the absence of any NT evidence showing that Peter had concern for the local church, as opposed to the general church, although he does acknowledge that Peter himself called himself a “bishop”:

“There is little in the NT to support the thesis that peter was a bishop, except for the fact that 1 Peter 5:1 has Peter speak as a presbyter – but does this mean presbyter-bishop or simply “elder”? The latter is possible even though other presbyters whom Peter addresses have episcopal functions.” (p. 53, no. 34.)

Brown's approach is fairly strange when you think about it. Brown is arguing that in the earliest church things were fairly formless and developing, but, then, Brown turns around and denies that apostles or Peter could have been bishops because they didn't operate in the precise form that Brown insists is typical of bishops. Perhaps the term or concept of “bishop” encompassed all these things? Maybe a “bishop” would spend some time taking care of a local community and then pull up stakes and go missionizing? That happens today with some bishops and we don't think they aren't bishops. So, again, this seems to be another example of how Brown makes a fetish of his heuristic model rather than paying attention to the evidence.

Brown, therefore, denies that Peter was the first “bishop” of Rome, although he acknowledges that Peter was in Rome, was concerned with the world church, and was certainly available to provide input, guidance, and teaching to the Christians in Rome, and even called himself a bishop, but he was not a bishop, and within 20 of Peter's death, Christians in Rome were saying that the apostles ordained their successors, and there are bishop lists in the second century affirming that the bishops of Rome began with Peter, but he wasn't a bishop of Rome, much less the first bishop.

Ok...whatever. A rose by any other name.

Brown also doesn't think that there was a monarchical bishop, i.e., a single bishop, who governed all of Rome, unlike every other instance we know about from Ignatius, until “well into the second century.” (p. 53.) “Leaders such as Linus, Cletus, and Clement, known to us from the early Roman church, were probably prominent presbyter-bishops but not necessarily “monarchical” bishops.” (p. 53.)

Alternatively, when in the history of humanity has there ever been a committee without a chairman? Even the Twelve were collegial, but they had a primus inter pares. Presumably, the chairmanship was institutionalized fairly early because any other way of doing things wouldn't have worked. (And interestingly, Brown thinks that the Council of Jerusalem slams together two councils, one with Peter present and one with him absent. (p. 58.)
Brown does not see this as problematic:

“Lest I cause unnecessary scandal, may I point out that in my judgment, the probability that Peter was not the first “monarchical” bishop of Rome does not weaken in any way the claim that the position of primacy held by Peter has been continued in the Church and is now enjoyed by the bishop of Rome. The two roles of primate and of bishop, separate at the beginning were subsequently joined. (Even the most conservative Catholic would have to admit this, since Peter was primate among the Twelve long before he went to Rome.)” (p. 54.)

Finally, in the end, Brown makes a plea that the magisterium includes theologians on the basis that bishops simply don't know theology all that well. He also notes that while the episcopacy is essential for the Christian church, the Catholic church should recognize that during the earliest church there were churches without bishops and churches with bishops and that this disparity did not impair Christian unity.