Who Is A Priest? | Fr. Benedict Ashley, O.P.

Jesus, the High Priest

 “Jesus was not a priest, but a layman.” So I recently heard a young priest declare. He seemed anxious not to be too “clerical.” It is true that Jesus never officiated in the services of the Temple. He was not even an ordained rabbi. In the eyes of his contemporaries Jesus was just a layman. His legal father, Joseph, was a member of the tribe of Judah, not of Levi from which the hereditary Jewish priesthood had to come (Mt 1:1-18; Lk 2:4-5, 3:1-38).
Nevertheless, the early Christians were concerned to show that Jesus was the Messiah (Greek: Christos, the Anointed One). He was to fulfil the Old Testament prophecies by being invested by a ceremony of anointment with the same divine authority conferred on Aaron as High Priest and on David as King and on their successors. From the Dead Sea Scrolls we have learned that some Jews of Jesus’ time expected both a “Messiah of David” and a “Messiah of Aaron,” and the Christians believed that Jesus fulfilled both hopes. To avoid a political understanding of his mission, however, Jesus did not make this claim for himself publicly or permit the Twelve to do so. Yet privately he accepted Peter’s profession of faith in him as the Christ (Mk 8:27-30; Mt 16:13-20; Lk 9:18-21).

According to the Synoptics, Jesus, even when asked by Pilate at his trial whether he was “the King of the Jews,” only replied “You say so” (Mk 15:2; Mt 27:11; Lk 23:3) and remained silent. Yet in the fuller account in John 18:28-40, he explained, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
Was Jesus a priest? For the church of New Testament times and today for all those who accept the inspiration of the Bible, the Epistle to the Hebrews settles that question without any ambiguity. Even from a literary point of view Hebrews is one of the most impressive books of the New Testament, although we are not sure who was its author. Because of the style of the epistle many of the Church Fathers doubted that St. Paul was its author and so do most exegetes today. Nevertheless, it is an inspired, canonical work, and may have been written before the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. since it seems to assume that the Temple services were still continuing (Heb 10:1-3, etc.). Some exegetes explain these passages as mere references to the Old Testament prescriptions for these services. Yet surely if the author wrote after the destruction of the Temple, he would have mentioned the abolition of the Temple sacrifices as a striking proof of his thesis that the services of the Old Law were only temporary, a mere shadow of the things to come. It is obvious enough why this epistle, in spire of the obscurity of its author, was thought by the early Church to be important enough to be included in the canon. On the basis of many Old Testament references it eloquently argues that (1) Jesus Christ is the Son of God superior to all creation; (2) yet he is also truly human, in all but sin like one of us; (3) and therefore as the Christ he is our Mediator. He is the only true priest who is able with us and for us to offer himself to God as a worthy sacrifice and thus bring us the gift of salvation from God, his Father.
Thus, although St. Paul and the Gospels never speak explicitly of Jesus as a priest, Hebrews firmly insists that he is not only a priest but also the only true priest. Moreover, though the Synoptics and Paul do not speak of Jesus as a “priest,” they do relate his solemn words and action at the Last Supper. What could be more clearly a priestly act than his sharing of the bread and wine as he said to the Twelve, “This is my body that is for you ... This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me,” thus symbolizing the coming sacrifice of the cross (1 Cor 11:23-34, cf. 10:16-17; Mk 14:22-26; Mt 26:26-29; Lk 22:14-23)? Certainly these many references make clear that the early Church understood the Last Supper as a cultic, priestly act on Jesus’ part to be continued as a central practice in the Christian community. Central to the whole argument of Hebrews is its claim that this sacrificial death of Jesus was the one true sacrifice that can take away sin. Hence, Jesus is the one and only true High Priest of whom the Aaronic priests of the Old Testament were merely prophetic types.