The Origin of Christian Priests

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Much has been made of the early writings only mentioning bishops and deacons, no priests. In later writings there are bishops, priests and maybe a deacon here and there.

I noticed a while back those same early writings may make mention of a communal meal and many make mention of bread and wine as central but none mention bread and wine as a blood sacrifice. It bothers believers to suggest the blood sacrifice idea was not there from the beginning.

But if it was not there from the beginning then there was no need for priests because priests were the people who performed the blood sacrifice slaughter.

If so we can sort of date the doctrine of blood sacrifice with the appearance of priests in the writings.

[spin]

Strangely enough, the word "priest" has been traced back through the Saxons and Frisians to the vulgar Latin "prester" (which went into French as "pretre") of the pesky monks who converted various Germans. This vulgar Latin in turn comes from earlier Latin which used a transliteration "presbyter" which is found in the Greek of the new testament and meaning "elder". Check a decent dictionary like the OED or an etymological dictionary. We use "priest" merely as a functional equivalent of a cult performative figure.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

While the etymology of the word is always interesting, the official priest of the order of Malchesedeck (sp) making a connection to the sacrificing priests of the Septuagint is the kind of priest being discussed.

[Peter Kirby]

Here's some data:

http://peterkirby.com/a-table-of-leadership-terms.html

The irony is that both pastor and priest have slim support in the New Testament. The former (with one exception in Ephesians 4:11) refers to Jesus or God, and the latter is found in 1 Peter or Revelation (whatever they are supposed to mean there). The strong normative preference for either "priest" or "pastor" in some forms of contemporary Christianity cannot be based securely on the most ancient texts. The most popular term should be "minister" (deacon) or "elder" (presbyter), with a greater role for "bishop" (episkopos), if it is to follow the predominant usage in these texts.