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CHAPTER VII

WHAT IS PRIESTHOOD IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST?

THE question now to be raised will seem to carry us across a considerable interval of time. If we have really had the foundations of it even in the earliest generations, it is rather with reference to the sixteenth century, and its controversies and changes, that the question of the definition of priesthood becomes acute. It is from the sixteenth century that our own form of Ordinal dates. We go at once to the heart of the matter, both in respect of the abstract question, and in reference to Anglicanism, by asking what is really the inner truth which the recasting of the Sarum into the Anglican Ordinal represents?

It is not, however, simply a question between Ordinal and Ordinal. The Sarum Celebratio Ordinum is itself the climax of a long historical process of accretion. Whatever may be thought of this Ordinal as it stands, or of the history which is represented in it, it is certainly also to be remembered that the sixteenth century Divines, when confronting the question, had to deal not only with an authorized form of service which had (or perhaps had not) grown in some directions gradually out of due proportion, but also with a general atmosphere of popular interpretation and assumption, which-to say the leastcertainly outran any tendency towards disproportion which may be found in the text of the Ordinal itself.

There can be in fact no doubt that the sixteenth century

exhibits two currents running in opposite directions, and both alike with most formidable volume and force. On both sides, moreover, there is a ready tendency to extreme, and often most painful, exaggeration.

On the one hand, there is what would sometimes be called the Doctrina Romanensium,' by those who understand by that phrase, not so much the doctrine of authorized Roman forms, as the current conception of Romanists, more or less authorized (or unauthorized), more or less truly (or falsely) deduced from, more or less, in a word, interpreting, or misinterpreting, the forms. Now there can I suppose be no doubt that, at least to a considerable section of popular unreformed thought, the Priesthood was mechanical, and the Sacraments material, to an extraordinary degree; that outward observance had constantly taken the place of spirituality; that superstitious formalism, hard, cold, and unintelligent, had proved too often the paralysis of personal religion; that the Mass was too often, much in the heathen sense, or the Old Testament manner at its worst, a completed sacrifice,—that is an outward performance of intrinsic efficacy, to be so many times repeated, with a value arithmetically calculable; and so that the Priest stood as a real intermediary between the plebs Christiana and its God,-to make, by sacrifice, atonement for sin. I have already had occasion to insist, in an earlier chapter, that this literalizing and materializing tendency is never wholly absent, and while human frailty remains, will never be wholly absent, from the Church1. Man's imperfectness naturally tends towards mechanical formalism in the use and conception even of things most spiritual. It will hardly be denied that in the generations immediately before the Reformation and the Council of Trent, in the age, for instance, of that sale of indulgences which is symbolized for us by the name of a Tetzel, this tendency, never wholly absent, was present in most abnormal and appalling strength,

1 See above, p. 531

But such exaggeration on the side of mechanical formalism, always and necessarily provokes a reaction on the spiritual side. Too often this reaction, itself caused, and in some measure excused, by the formalism it revolts against, runs headlong into the counter-exaggeration of depreciating all outward forms and observances whatever. Over against, then, the appalling exaggeration of mechanical sacramentalism, stands in the sixteenth century the fierce tide of ultra-Protestant reaction. The one matches the other. Nothing indeed short of the terrible excesses of irreligious churchmanship on the Roman side could fully account for the terrible excesses of virulent antichurchism on the Protestant side. This, protesting in the name of personal religion and of spiritual truth, and genuine enough in its original impulse, but ignorant to an extreme degree, and prejudiced in proportion to its ignorance, was eager to sweep away, in one great destructive flood, all ordinances, outward and historical, whatsoever; as if the inward would best express itself without an outward, or spirit be educated best by annihilation of body. The full force of this eager destructiveness turned itself, most of all, against everything which was connected, in popular feeling, with Purgatory, and the Mass, and Sacrificing Priesthood. Nothing indeed but the hideous exaggerations connected, in popular feeling, with this whole phraseology could fully account for the abiding savageness of the popular instinct against it; seeing that this instinct, whatever carnal passions quickly became involved in it, was certainly in its underlying impulse a religious, not an irreligious, instinct.

Such was the character of the counter influences-no calm academic tendencies, but each embodied as a strong flooding tide of fierce popular enthusiasm-between which the theologians of the sixteenth century stood. Meanwhile on neither side could the great questions be deferred for more peaceful times. They must be met and dealt with in that generation. And in fact they were dealt with

on both sides; by English theologians, in the Anglican Prayer-book; by Romans, in the Council of Trent.

It is of considerable importance for some purposes to remember that the Tridentine definitions are not themselves exactly the Romanism which the Anglican Reformers had in mind. The Council of Trent was itself, as far as it went, a reforming Council. Its statements are not a representation in full, but rather a modification, of current doctrines; a toning down and careful defining made by official theologians in full knowledge of, and with reference to, the great 'Reformation' impulses; meaning, however, by that phrase 'Reformation' not so much the Anglican Prayer-book as the General Protestantism—and the Anglican Prayer-book only so far as it was supposed to symbolize with, or be interpreted by, German Protestantism. The sittings of the Council of Trent were in the years 1546-7, 1551-2, and 1562-3; and inasmuch as all the definitions which belong directly to our present subject fall within the last batch of sittings, it is plain that they were none of them yet in existence at the time of the Prayer-books of 1549, or 1552, or 1559. Nevertheless, with this caution premised, I must use the Tridentine statements along with the language of the Sarum Ordinal, not forgetting that they express some modification—or at least a very guarded statement -of what the Reformers regarded as the unreformed position; but because they nevertheless constitute the fairest and most official statement of what that position can be said actually to be.

What then was the teaching on this subject from which the Anglican Ordinal made its departure? Take first the official language of the Sarum Pontifical. There is a sort of initial definition, in six words, 'Sacerdotem1 oportet

1 The Pontificals of Egbert and Dunstan, as printed by Martene, contain an exposition 'de septem gradibus Ecclesiae quos adimplevit Christus'; in the course of which the words occur: 'Presbyterum autem oportet benedicere, offerre, et bene praeesse, praedicare, et baptizare, atque communicare; quia his supradictis gradibus senior est, et vicem Episcopi in Ecclesia facit.'

et

offerre, benedicere, praeesse, praedicare, conficere, baptizare.' There are four standard prayers in the service-all ancient. The praefatio (oremus') is mainly for a blessing on those whom God has called to the 'munus presbyterii.' The oratio ('exaudi') asks for them the benediction of the Spirit, and the power of spiritual (or 'sacerdotal1') grace. In the great prayer 'Vere dignum 2' the 'dignitas presbyterii' and 'secundi meriti munus' are asked for them; but the one leading and characteristic idea of the whole is that they are to be assistants, 'adiumenta,' 'cooperatores,' to the episcopal order, as the seventy to Moses, as Eleazar and Ithamar to Aaron, as the 'doctores fidei' to the Apostles. In the prayer called 'consecratio' the office is called 'honor presbyterii,' and its holders are to prove themselves true 'seniores': it is prayed that, by the blessing of God, they may meditate and live on the Divine law, teach with their lips and show in their lives righteousness, constancy, mercy, courage, and all virtues; maintain pure and undefiled the 'donum ministerii sui,' and, ‘per obsequium plebis tuae,' transform bread and wine by their benediction into the Body and Blood of Christ, in perfectness of love, 'unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.'

Now so far we have been following the ancient prayers, in substance wholly unchanged since at least the time

Similarly in the modern form of the Roman Pontifical the short Sarum sentence appears as part of an exhortation to the candidates for Priesthood, but with the omission of the word 'conficere.' The difference between this exhortation and that in the Anglican Ordinal is very significant.

1 Maskell gives it as 'spiritualis' in Sarum (and so York), but it is 'sacerdotalis' in Winton and Exon, and in Missale Francorum and the Pontificals of Egbert and Dunstan.

2 Which (beginning from 'Domine Sancte') is called 'Consecratio' in the Pontif. of Egbert and the Missale Franc.; and is, according to Duchesne, the true old Roman consecratio.'

3 Which appears in Miss. Franc. and Egb. as a ' Benedictio,' and in Pontif. Dunstan (cp. possibly Miss. Franc.) as consummatio presbyteri'; and which is probably, according to Duchesne, the old Gallican benedictory or consecratory prayer. • Tui in the older documents.

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