Mark and I are in a couples’ study group associated with our former parish. We are reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in chunks rather than in a progression through the book; so, for example, we just finished a study of the seven sacraments.
Holy Orders was tough for us to understand, in part because the theology of it seems to depend so much on a seemingly obscure figure from the Old Testament: Melchizidek. We couldn’t figure out why he was supposed to be an especially important type of Christ. The problem gnawed at me a little, and after some reading I understand it a little better.
The explication appears in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Hebrews. Here is my summary:
- The nature of a “high priest” is to be called by God from among men.
- Christ is the “priest forever according to the order of Melchizidek” who is addressed in Psalm 110.
- God promised to Abraham, swearing “by himself,” that he would be blessed and multiplied, and God delivered.
- Jesus has entered on our behalf “behind the veil” of heaven, analogous to the veil which in the Temple shielded the Holy of Holies, as a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizidek.
- Genesis 14 shows that Melchizidek, king of Salem and priest of God most high, met Abraham as he returned from his defeat of the kings and blessed him.
- Genesis 14 shows that Abraham tithed to Melchizidek.
- Melchizidek’s name means “king of righteousness.”
- Melchizidek was king of Salem, which means “peace,” so he was also “king of peace.”
- Genesis 14 doesn’t mention his ancestry, birth, or death, which makes him a timeless and eternal figure, “to resemble the Son of God,” “a priest forever.”
- The levitical priests, the descendants of Levi, who are descendants of Abraham, receive tithes from the rest of Israel, not because they are greater—they are brothers with the rest—but because they are commanded to by the Law.
- But Melchizidek was not of Abraham’s ancestry and received tithes and blessed Abraham.
- In the case of the levitical priesthood, mortal men receive tithes; in the case of Melchizidek, a “priest forever” does.
- “One might even say” that Levi himself was tithed (to God via Melchizidek) by Abraham, “for he was still in his father’s loins when Melchizidek met him.”
- Perfection could not come from the levitical priesthood, “according to the order of Aaron;” so another priest had to arise “according to the order of Melchizidek.”
- This change of priesthood accompanied the change in the law.
- Jesus was of the tribe of Judah, which previously had nothing to do with priesthood.
- Melchizidek became priest not by a law of physical heredity, but “by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed,” i.e., “forever.”
- The Levitical priests after the order of Aaron did not exchange a covenant with God; they became priests according to the law of their inheritance. But Psalm 110 says “the Lord has sworn”—that Melchizidek became a priest in a covenant with God.
- The new priesthood is a priesthood of perfect sonship rather than of weakness of man relative to God.
So to sum even further, the priesthood according to the order of Aaron has these characteristics:
- begins at birth as an inheritance according to the specifications of the Law
- dies when the priest dies
- is limited not just to Israel, but to the tribe of Levi within Israel.
But the priesthood according to the order of Melchizidek has these:
- begins as a covenant between God who calls and the hearer who responds
- does not die; is permanent
- extends not just to other tribes, like Judah, but indeed to all the nations.
The simple fact that Melchizidek’s priesthood is “forever” in Psalm 110 seems to be the defining characteristic of it: it is a priesthood that is indelible, and therefore sustained by God. The form of priesthood that was previously known, the levitical priesthood, is mortal; it dies with the priest. A priesthood that is “forever” must be by definition different. The other obvious difference is that it does not arise from heredity; it is not conferred by a natural inheritance, not mediated by a specification in the Law (which had a beginning and, we see, an end). Instead it arises from something that came before the Law: the direct call of God and the response of the one called, forming a mutual promise, a covenant.
Covenants precede law; covenants also transcend it, so they survive even when the law passes away.
The point of all this, or at least how it relates to the sacrament of Holy Orders, is that our institutional priesthood is a priesthood that is instituted by Christ after his own pattern, “after the order of Melchizidek,” and not a type of Aaron. Because the idea of a hereditary priesthood is so foreign to common practice, indeed to modernity itself, it seems obvious to us that priests should get their priesthood not from heredity, but by making a personal commitment in response to a vocation. It was less obvious to people living in the first-century Holy Land, especially to people who were familiar with Israel’s practice. Hence the sharp distinction between Melchizidek and Aaron.
One more thing about this that I thought was pretty sly. A large number of the more insipid modern hymns have a habit of referring to Jesus mainly as an instrument of “peace” and “justice.” It’s a leftover scrap of wishful thinking that fell off the side of authentic liberation theology, maybe, a scrap that thinks the whole point of Christianity is to achieve the ends of earthly justice and earthly peace.
“nothing more than he can save us, who was justice for the poor, who was rage against the night, who was hope for peaceful people, who was light…” (some hymn by Tom Conry)
“…when the son of peace and justice fills the earth with radiant light…” (some other hymn by somebody else)
Anyway, I think from now on when I hear such things I will be quietly pleased that to declare Jesus Christ the “king of peace and justice” in those or similar words is, essentially, to identify Him with Melchizidek, the king of Salem, the king of righteousness (aka justice), a sort of hidden proclamation in the reality of the priestly vocation. Just a private pleasure, but it’ll be there nonetheless.
bearing blog 