Do priests rob Christ of his high priesthood? Part 2 of a series on John Calvin’s Institutes IV.18.

atan,” John Calvin says at the begin­ning of Insti­tutes of the Chris­t­ian Reli­gion, IV.18 [find it here], “has attempt­ed to adul­ter­ate and envel­op the sacred Sup­per of Christ as with thick dark­ness.” Those are high words. How has Satan done this? you may ask. Oh, it was “with most pesti­len­tial error,” Calvin tells us. For lo! “he blind­ed almost the whole world into the belief that the Mass was a sac­ri­fice and obla­tion for obtain­ing the remis­sion of sins.” Calvin has no patience for any­one who holds to any such idea as that; he describes it as “the com­mon opin­ion of the vul­gar.” It’s a back­ward super­sti­tion. The “vul­gar,” Calvin says, can only defend the Mass with “puz­zling subtleties”—subtlety being, as we have seen, for­eign to the mind and words of John Calvin. The Insti­tutes is as sub­tle as a sledge.

So what I mean to do in this series, dear read­er, is take a close and refut­ing look at John Calv­in’s hys­ter­i­cal chap­ter on “the Popish mass” and how it osten­si­bly “pro­fanes” and “anni­hi­lates” the cross. (The Latin trans­lat­ed “anni­hi­lates” here is in nihilum redac­ta, lit­er­al­ly, “reduces to noth­ing.” It is tak­en from Psalm 73:22, or 72:22 in the Vul­gate.) Calvin, as we saw in Part 1, has a para­noid ten­den­cy to over­state the mat­ter, as though the Church had any such pow­er over God. But we will root out all his errors; sit tight, for this series may be long.

Calvin begins the chap­ter by mak­ing five charges of “impi­ety” against the Mass.

• It sub­sti­tutes priests for Christ the one priest
• It “over­throws the cross of Christ by set­ting up an altar”
• It “ban­ish­es the remem­brance of Christ’s death” and “cru­ci­fies Christ afresh”
• It “robs us of the ben­e­fit of Christ’s death”
• It “abol­ish­es the Lord’s sup­per”

•••

Calvin begins his first charge with the fol­low­ing premise. Christ, he says, “was not appoint­ed Priest and Pon­tiff by the Fathers for a time mere­ly, as priests were appoint­ed under the Old Tes­ta­ment. Since their life was mor­tal, their priest­hood could not be immor­tal, and hence there was need of suc­ces­sors, who might ever and anon be sub­sti­tut­ed in the room of the dead. But Christ being immor­tal, had not the least occa­sion to have a vic­ar sub­sti­tut­ed for him.”

Christ’s priest­hood, Calvin says (and right­ly), is “for ever, after the order of Melchizedec” (see Ps. 110:4). But from this premise, Calvin leaps to sev­er­al false con­clu­sions.

• That an earth­ly priest­hood “rob[s] Christ of his hon­or” and “take[s] from him the pre­rog­a­tive of an eter­nal priest­hood”;
• That the Church “remove[s Christ] from the right hand of his Father, where he can­not sit immor­tal with­out being an eter­nal priest”

Calvin then pro­ceeds to address Catholic objec­tions to these points.

• First objec­tion: that the Catholic priest­hood does not sub­sti­tute for the one priest­hood of Christ, but shares in it.

Calvin finds “the words of the apos­tle … too strin­gent” to allow “such means of eva­sion.” The “strin­gent” words he refers us to are in Hebrews 7:23–24:

And they tru­ly [i.e., the priests of Levi.] were many priests, because they were not suf­fered to con­tin­ue by rea­son of death: but this man [i.e., Christ], because he con­tin­ueth ever, hath an unchange­able priest­hood.”

• Sec­ond objec­tion, that Melchizidek’s offer­ing of bread and wine (Gen. 14:18) pre­fig­ures the Mass.

Here Calvin throws up his hands and near­ly refus­es to answer. “Such is their dis­hon­esty!” he declaims. “This is too sil­ly and friv­o­lous to need refu­ta­tion!”

But then, by way of refu­ta­tion, he offers us this: “Melchizedek gave bread and wine to Abra­ham and his com­pan­ions, that he might refresh them when worn out with the march and the bat­tle. What has this to do with sac­ri­fice?” You can almost hear his com­i­cal exas­per­a­tion as you read this.

And if, Calvin asks again, Melchizidek’s “obla­tion” of bread and wine was a fig­ure of the Mass, how is it that the writer of Hebrews, “who goes into the minut­est details, could have for­got­ten a mat­ter so grave and seri­ous?”

By way of con­clu­sion to his first charge, Calvin states what he believes the argu­ment of Hebrews to be: “that the right and hon­or of the priest­hood has ceased among mor­tal men, because Christ, who is immor­tal, is the one per­pet­u­al priest.”

•••

Alright. Let’s work our way through all this.

First, I should point out that Calvin is absolute­ly right in the premise with which he starts his long rant against priests. Christ is our high priest. There is no need to run from that; I am hap­py to say Amen.

• We have the wit­ness of Scrip­ture on this

Hebrews 2:17. Where­fore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a mer­ci­ful and faith­ful high priest in things per­tain­ing to God, to make rec­on­cil­i­a­tion for the sins of the peo­ple.

Hebrews 3:1. Where­fore, holy brethren, par­tak­ers of the heav­en­ly call­ing, con­sid­er the Apos­tle and High Priest of our pro­fes­sion, Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 4:14. See­ing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heav­ens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our pro­fes­sion.

Hebrews 7:26. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harm­less, unde­filed, sep­a­rate from sin­ners, and made high­er than the heav­ens.

Hebrews 8:1. We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heav­ens.

• It is the teach­ing of the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church [link here].

1544. Every­thing that the priest­hood of the Old Covenant pre­fig­ured finds its ful­fill­ment in Christ Jesus, the “one medi­a­tor between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5). The Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion con­sid­ers Melchizedek, “priest of God Most High,” as a pre­fig­u­ra­tion of the priest­hood of Christ, the unique “high priest after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb: 5:10; Heb. 6:20; Gen. 14:18); “holy, blame­less, unstained” (Heb. 7:26), “by a sin­gle offer­ing he has per­fect­ed for all time those who are sanc­ti­fied” (Heb. 10:14), that is, by the unique sac­ri­fice of the cross.

1545. The redemp­tive sac­ri­fice of Christ is unique, accom­plished once for all; yet it is made present in the Eucharis­tic sac­ri­fice of the Church. The same is true of the one priest­hood of Christ; it is made present through the min­is­te­r­i­al priest­hood with­out dimin­ish­ing the unique­ness of Christ’s priest­hood: “Only Christ is the true priest, the oth­ers being only his min­is­ters.”

Note that the quo­ta­tion with which §1545 ends comes from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Com­men­tary on the Book of Hebrews, specif­i­cal­ly, his gloss of Hebrews 8:4. Aquinas, who was a Domini­can priest, sure­ly did not believe that Christ’s being the “true priest” some­how meant that the priest­hood had been abol­ished.

• It is the teach­ing of the Fathers and Doc­tors of the Church.

St. John Chrysos­tom. Do not now, because you hear that He sits, sup­pose that His being called High Priest is mere idle talk.—Homi­ly 14 on Hebrews

St. Thomas Aquinas. There­fore, because he con­tin­ues for­ev­er, he holds his priest­hood per­ma­nent­ly. The­fore, Christ alone is the true priest.—Com­men­tary on the Epis­tle to the Hebrews 368

St. Thomas Aquinas. Its dig­ni­ty is that we have such a high priest, one who is seat­ed at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heav­en.—Com­men­tary on the Epis­tle to the Hebrews 380

(You can find Chrysos­tom here and Aquinas here.)

Sec­ond, Calvin is also right that Melchizedek is a type of Christ the high priest.

Psalm 110:4. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:5–6, 10. So also Christ glo­ri­fied him­self not to be made an high priest; but that he said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begot­ten thee. As he saith also in anoth­er place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. … Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec.

Hebrews 6:20. Whith­er the fore­run­ner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Hebrews 7:11. If there­fore per­fec­tion were by the Levit­i­cal priest­hood (for under it the peo­ple received the law,) what fur­ther need was there that anoth­er priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron.

•••

So Calv­in’s premis­es are right, but the con­clu­sions he draws from them are wrong. The Catholic priest­hood is not a sub­sti­tute for Christ’s one priest­hood, but a shar­ing in it. Now, Calvin attempts to refute this by cit­ing Hebrews 7:23–24. Let us look at that verse again:

And they tru­ly [i.e., the priests of Levi] were many priests, because they were not suf­fered to con­tin­ue by rea­son of death: but this man [i.e., Christ], because he con­tin­ueth ever, hath an unchange­able priest­hood.

The error in Calv­in’s use of this text is that he mis­takes where the con­trast is. He thinks that it is between “many priests” (whose priest­hood is tem­po­rary because they die) and “one priest” (whose priest­hood is eter­nal because Christ lives for­ev­er.) But that is not the con­trast; rather, it is between the priest­hood of the Old Covenant and that of the New. Calvin does not men­tion Hebrews 7:12: “For the priest­hood being”—not abol­ished—“changed.” There still is a priest­hood; only, it is not of Levi but of Christ.

In truth, Calvin draws the wrong con­clu­sion from the fact that the Levit­i­cal priests “were not suf­fered to con­tin­ue by rea­son of death.” He says that Christ, who lives for­ev­er, has no need of priests whose priest­hood ends with death.

• The first mis­take Calvin makes here is to for­get that Christ defeat­ed death.
• The sec­ond mis­take he makes is to over­look the per­ma­nent sacra­men­tal char­ac­ter of Holy Orders. Mat­ri­mo­ny is “until death.” Bap­tism, Con­fir­ma­tion, and Holy Orders are “for ever.”

The Coun­cil of Trent [here]. [I]n the sacra­ment of Order, as also in Bap­tism and Con­fir­ma­tion, a char­ac­ter is imprint­ed, which can nei­ther be effaced nor tak­en away.

The Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church [here]. As in the case of Bap­tism and Con­fir­ma­tion this share in Christ’s office is grant­ed once for all. The sacra­ment of Holy Orders, like the oth­er two, con­fers an indeli­ble spir­i­tu­al char­ac­ter and can­not be repeat­ed or con­ferred tem­porar­i­ly.

What this means is that a priest does not lose his priest­hood upon the death of his body; he takes it with him into eter­ni­ty. In the Levit­i­cal priest­hood, this was dif­fer­ent; Christ had not yet come to defeat death and open up the King­dom of Heav­en. Now he has. That’s the sense of the con­trast in Hebrews 7:23–24.

Nor does Calvin men­tion the many vers­es that specif­i­cal­ly affirm the Catholic view that the priest­hood is a par­ticip­tion in the priest­hood of Christ—that it is not some dif­fer­ent, or usurp­ing, priest­hood.

Hebrews 3:1. Where­fore, holy brethren, par­tak­ers of the heav­enly call­ing, con­sider the Apos­tle and High Priest of our pro­fes­sion, Christ Je­sus.

Rev­e­la­tion 1:5b‑6. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father.”

Rev­e­la­tion 20:6. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first res­ur­rec­tion: on such the sec­ond death hath no pow­er, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thou­sand years.

1 Peter 2:5, 9: Ye also, as live­ly stones, are built up a spir­i­tu­al house, an holy priest­hood, to offer up spir­i­tu­al sac­ri­fices, accept­able to God by Jesus Christ. … But ye are a cho­sen gen­er­a­tion, a roy­al priest­hood, an holy nation, a pecu­liar peo­ple; that ye should shew forth the prais­es of him who hath called you out of dark­ness into his mar­vel­lous light.

Protes­tants like to object here that Peter is only speak­ing of the priest­hood of all believ­ers.

And he is, but he is also speak­ing of a sacra­men­tal priest­hood since he uses the word ἱεράτευμα, hier­a­teu­ma. This word is used in the New Tes­ta­ment to refer to the levit­i­cal priest­hood and the priest­hood of Christ For “sac­ri­fices,” Peter uses the word θυσίας, thysias. This word is used else­where to refer to the sac­ri­fices offered by priests, as well as the sac­ri­fice of Christ him­self, which he offered to God the Father on the Cross. If Peter meant to refer only to a priest­hood of believ­ers, why would he use these words, which imply some­thing sac­er­do­tal?

It may also be object­ed that Peter lim­its these sac­ri­fices by using the adjec­tive “spir­i­tu­al.”

But that is just the point. The word here is πνευματικὸς, pneu­matikos. This is the adjec­tive form of pneu­ma, and it is used in the New Tes­ta­ment (along with its vari­ant suf­fix­es) to refer to unclean spir­its, the gifts of the Spir­it, or the Holy Spir­it. It is nev­er used to refer to some amor­phous kind of thanks or praise.

And in fact, it is inter­est­ing that this very word pneu­ma is used in Matt. 27:50 to describe what Christ offers to the Father on the Cross: “He yield­ed up his Spir­it.” This is what Christ sac­ri­fices on the cross—his pneu­ma. And what kind of sac­ri­fices does Peter say that priests in the New Covenant are to offer? Pneu­matikas. They are “spir­i­tu­al sac­ri­fices” because priests do not sac­ri­fice lambs but God (who is Spir­it; cf. John 4:24), and because it is an unbloody sac­ri­fice.

One should also note the Old Tes­ta­ment allu­sion in this text, to the Levit­i­cal priest­hood.

Exo­dus 19:6. And ye shall be unto me a king­dom of priests, and an holy nation.

The priest­hood has not been abol­ished but changed; the priest­hood of the Old Covenant gives way to the priest­hood of the New.

We can add oth­er pas­sages to these to show that Christ gives the Church a share in his priest­hood.

Matt. 28:18–19. All pow­er is giv­en to me in heav­en and in earth. Go ye, there­fore, and teach all nations.

That Christ has “all pow­er” does not mean that the Church does not share in it. It does not mean that the Church has “over­thrown Christ” and usurped His pow­er for itself. The Church’s author­i­ty is of Christ.

More­over, Christ gives his dis­ci­ples a specif­i­cal­ly priest­ly role in oth­er pas­sages.

• The pow­er of bind­ing and loos­ing

Matt. 16:18–19. And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not pre­vail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the king­dom of heav­en: and what­so­ev­er thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heav­en; and what­so­ev­er thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heav­en.

• The pow­er to for­give sins

John 19:22–23. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soev­er sins ye remit, they are remit­ted unto them; and whose soev­er sins ye retain, they are retained.

James 5:16. Con­fess your faults one to anoth­er, and pray for one anoth­er, that ye may be healed. The effec­tu­al fer­vent prayer of a right­eous man availeth much.

• The pow­er to cel­e­brate the Eucharist

Matt. 26:26: And when he had giv­en thanks, he took the bread, and brake it, and gave unto them, say­ing, This is my body which is giv­en for you: this do in remem­brance of me. Like­wise also the cup after sup­per, say­ing, This cup is the new tes­ta­ment in my blood, which is shed for you.

Fr. Mitch Pacwa points out, in a debate with James White, that the expres­sion “do this” was a tech­ni­cal term for a par­tic­u­lar class of sac­ri­fices that were unbloody—such as (see below) the Sab­ba­tine sac­ri­fice of bread and wine in tem­ple Judaism. Priests would “do” the sac­ri­fice. Such tech­ni­cal use of verbs is also evi­dent today, as when a priest “says” Mass.

• Holy orders and the pow­er of exor­cism

Mark 3:14–15. And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have pow­er to heal sick­ness­es, and to cast out dev­ils.

• The pow­er to anoint the sick

Mark 6:13. And they cast out many dev­ils, and anoint­ed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.

James 5:14–15. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anoint­ing him with oil in the name of he Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have com­mit­ted sins, they shall be for­giv­en him.

If “Christ be­ing im­mor­tal,” as Calvin says, “had not the least oc­ca­sion to have a vic­ar sub­sti­tuted for him,” then Calvin has the bur­den of explain­ing how it is that Christ is sub­sti­tut­ing vic­ars all the time. Though Christ is the High Priest, priests are mem­bers of his Priest­hood (cf. Rom. 12:4–5). It is not that the priest­hood some­how usurps Christ’s; rather, it flows from Christ’s.

More­over, look at how St. Paul refers to min­is­ters of the Gospel in Romans 15:16. We will need to look at this in the Greek too, but here it is in Eng­lish first:

That I should be the min­is­ter of Jesus Christ to the Gen­tiles, min­is­ter­ing the gospel of God, that the offer­ing up of the Gen­tiles might be accept­able, being sanc­ti­fied by the Holy Ghost.

The Greek words to watch are the ones trans­lat­ed “min­is­ter” and “min­is­ter­ing.” Here is Romans 15:16 in Greek:

εἰς τὸ εἶναί με λειτουργὸν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ εἰς τὰ ἔθνη, ἱερουργοῦντα τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα γένηται ἡ προσφορὰ τῶν ἐθνῶν εὐπρόσδεκτος, ἡγιασμένη ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ

λειτουργὸν, lei­tour­gon (the Eng­lish word “litur­gy” comes from this), is used in Greek (see the lex­i­cons of Thay­er & Lid­dell-Scott) to mean a either a pub­lic ser­vant, includ­ing a mil­i­tary con­script, or a priest.

ἱερουργοῦντα, hier­our­goun­ta (trans­lat­ed “min­is­ter­ing”), comes from the Greek noun hiereus, which is the nor­ma­tive Greek word for “priest”—that is, one who offers sac­ri­fice. It is the word used in Hebrews to refer to Christ the high priest, to Melchizidek, and to the Old Tes­ta­ment levit­i­cal priests. But in Romans, Paul uses it to describe the min­istry of the Gospel.

Nor­mal­ly, the New Tes­ta­ment uses the word πρεσβύτερος, pres­byteros, rather than lei­tour­gon or hiereus; it is trans­lat­ed vari­ably “pres­byter” or “elder.” There was a prac­ti­cal rea­son for this. Ear­ly Chris­tian­i­ty was, in the begin­ning, an effort to bring Jews into the new faith. But in their mind the priest­hood was Levit­i­cal, by def­i­n­i­tion. They would have had a hard time even with the idea that Jesus was a priest, since he was from the tribe of Judah. So while Chris­tian­i­ty remained large­ly a Jew­ish sect, the priest­hood of Christ and the apos­tles was men­tioned only rarely, and πρεσβύτερος used instead.

In fact, so for­eign was the idea of a non-levit­i­cal priest­hood to the Jews that the author of Hebrews (note the title) need­ed to write an entire book in order to jus­ti­fy the idea to them. Far from Hebrews being an argu­ment that only Christ is a priest, it is in fact an argu­ment that the priest­hood under the New Covenant is no longer Levit­i­cal. It is not that there is now no priest­hood; that would have been far too rad­i­cal an idea for any Jew to pos­si­bly accept. Rather, the priest­hood has been trans­ferred from Levi to Christ.

Thus when the New Tes­ta­ment speaks of “elders” or “pres­byters,” it is in the con­text of duties that are specif­i­cal­ly priest­ly in char­ac­ter:

• Acts 14:23. And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fast­ing, they com­mend­ed them to the Lord, on whom they believed.
• 1 Tim­o­thy 4:14. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was giv­en thee by prophe­cy, with the lay­ing on of the hands of the pres­bytery.
• Titus 1:5. For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are want­i­ng, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appoint­ed thee.
• James 5:14. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anoint­ing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And so when we find the word “pres­byter” in the ear­ly Church Fathers, we know that they were using the Greek word πρεσβύτερος and speak­ing of this New Tes­ta­ment priest­hood which (1) ordained; (2) prac­ticed the lay­ing on of hands; (3) anoint­ed the sick with oil.

Ignatius of Anti­och. Take care to do all things in har­mo­ny with God, with the bish­op pre­sid­ing in the place of God, and with the pres­byters in the place of the coun­cil of the apos­tles, and with the dea­cons, who are most dear to me, entrust­ed with the busi­ness of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the begin­ning and is at last made man­i­fest.—Let­ter to the Mag­ne­sians 6:1

Ignatius of Anti­och. Take care, there­fore, to be con­firmed in the decrees of the Lord and of the apos­tles, in order that in every­thing you do, you may pros­per in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in Son and in Father and in Spir­it, in begin­ning and in end, togeth­er with your most rev­erend bish­op; and with that fit­ting­ly woven spir­i­tu­al crown, the pres­bytery.—Let­ter to the Mag­ne­sians 13:1–2

Ignatius of Anti­och. In like man­ner let every­one respect the dea­cons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bish­op as a type of the Father, and the pres­byters as the coun­cil of God and col­lege of the apos­tles. With­out these, it can­not be called a church.—Let­ter to the Tral­lians 3:1

Ignatius of Anti­och. [A]nyone who acts with­out the bish­op and the pres­bytery and the dea­cons does not have a clear con­science.—Let­ter to the Tral­lians 7:2

Clement of Alexan­dria. Even here in the Church the gra­da­tions of bish­ops, pres­byters, and dea­cons hap­pen to be imi­ta­tions, in my opin­ion, of the angel­ic glo­ry and of that arrange­ment which, the scrip­tures say, awaits those who have fol­lowed in the foot­steps of the apos­tles and who have lived in com­plete right­eous­ness accord­ing to the gospel. Mis­cel­la­nies 6:13:107:2

Hip­poly­tus. On a pres­byter, how­ev­er, let the pres­byters impose their hands because of the com­mon and like Spir­it of the cler­gy. Even so, the pres­byter has only the pow­er to receive [the Spir­it], and not the pow­er to give [the Spir­it]. That is why a pres­byter does not ordain the cler­gy; for at the ordain­ing of a pres­byter, he but seals while the bish­op ordains.—The Apos­tolic Tra­di­tion 9.

Coun­cil of Nicaea. “It has come to the knowl­edge of the holy and great syn­od that, in some dis­tricts and cities, the dea­cons admin­is­ter the Eucharist to the pres­byters, where­as nei­ther canon nor cus­tom per­mits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharis­tic sac­ri­fice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]. And this also has been made known, that cer­tain dea­cons now touch the Eucharist even before the bish­ops. Let all such prac­tices be utter­ly done away, and let the dea­cons remain with­in their own bounds, know­ing that they are the min­is­ters of the bish­op and the infe­ri­ors of the pres­byters. Let them receive the Eucharist accord­ing to their order, after the pres­byters, and let either the bish­op or the pres­byter admin­is­ter them.—Canon 18

So the priest­hood is from the begin­ning. Christ com­mis­sions his apos­tles priests, the apos­tles func­tion as priests, and their priest­hood is described as flow­ing from (not sup­plant­i­ng) the priest­hood of Christ. It is also func­tion­al­ly and sacra­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent than the priest­hood of all believ­ers.

•••

Let us turn, then, to Calv­in’s objec­tion to the claim that Melchizidek pre­fig­ures the Mass through his obla­tion of bread and wine in Gen. 14:18. He had, you will recall, two objec­tions.

Calv­in’s first objec­tion: “Melchizedek gave bread and wine to Abra­ham and his com­pan­ions, that he might re­fresh them when worn out with the march and the bat­tle. What has this to do with sac­ri­fice?”

At this point, one real­ly must won­der whether Calvin under­stands what the priest­hood is and whether he is strain­ing for triv­ial objec­tions. You might say this is too—sil­ly and friv­o­lous!—to need refu­ta­tion. But let’s work through this.

• Melchizidek is “the priest of the most high God”

Oth­er than Psalm 110 and the book of Hebrews, the only men­tion of Melchizidek is in this one verse in Gen­e­sis.

• The func­tion of a priest is to offer sac­ri­fice

The only thing Melchizedek does as priest in Scrip­ture is bring bread and wine. If this is not sac­ri­fi­cial in char­ac­ter, then what were Melchizidek’s priest­ly duties? Calvin does not tell us.

• In Hebrews, Christ is called a priest “after the order of Melchizidek”

What sac­ri­fice does Christ offer as priest? His body and blood. What does Christ use as mate­r­i­al types of his body and blood? Bread and wine. These are sac­ri­fi­cial ele­ments (Luke 22:19–20).

Does all of this real­ly need to be explained to John Calvin? Do we real­ly need to put the two and the two togeth­er for the man?

And I would add this: The fact that Abra­ham was weary from bat­tle at the time Melchizidek brings bread and wine only illus­trates the point in a fig­u­ra­tive way. As Abra­ham was weary from bat­tle in war, so we who approach the sac­ri­fice of the Mass are weary from our bat­tle with sin. “Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).

More than all of this, we know:

• That the shew­bread in the Tem­ple was a priest­ly offer­ing to God

In fact, “shew­bread” is a bad trans­la­tion from the Ger­man schaubrote. The Hebrew word לֶ֥חֶם, lehem, lit­er­al­ly means “bread of the Pres­ence” or “bread of the Face.”

Whose Pres­ence? Whose Face? To ask the ques­tion is to know the answer.

Under the Mosa­ic law, bread and wine were offered in the Tem­ple every Sab­bath day as a sac­ri­fice to God.

Num­bers 28:9–10. And on the sab­bath day two lambs of the first year with­out spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offer­ing, min­gled with oil, and drink offer­ing there­of: This is the burnt offer­ing of every sab­bath, beside the con­tin­u­al burnt offer­ing, and his drink offer­ing.

Now, the fact that the offer­ing of bread was mea­sured as “two tenth deals” tells us that it was meant to be a remem­brance of the man­na the Hebrews ate in the wilder­ness. It was a sign, that is, of the pres­ence of God. Before the sab­bath, the Hebrews were to col­lect twice their nor­mal allowance of man­na, or two “omers” (Exod. 16:22). An “omer,” Exod. 16:36 explains, is “the tenth part of an ephah”; so two omers would be two tenth parts of an ephah—or “two tenth deals.”

Anoth­er point here—this is inter­est­ing; I learned this from Dr. Brant Pitre’s excel­lent book Jesus and the Jew­ish Roots of the Eucharist—dur­ing Jew­ish fes­ti­vals the priest would remove the Bread of the Pres­ence from the Taber­na­cle, exhib­it it before the peo­ple, lift it up, and say to them, “Behold God’s love for you!” (The event is described in the Baby­lon­ian Tal­mud, Mena­hoth 29a, which you may find online here, on page 12.) Now, that sounds like Eucharis­tic expo­si­tion, does­n’t it? Were the Jews bread wor­ship­pers? Was Christ? In the Gospel of John, we read about how Jesus attend­ed one such festival—The Feast of Taber­na­cles. This occurs in chap­ter 7, imme­di­ate­ly after the Bread of Life Dis­course.

• That bread and wine were part of the Passover seder

In the litur­gy for Passover, the seder begins with the bless­ing of bread and wine (Kadesh and Yachatz).

“Why is this night dif­fer­ent from every oth­er night?” the youngest child asks.

The father—who is priest of the family—replies by retelling the sto­ry of the exo­dus from Egypt. He says, “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I left Egypt. No one imag­ines that the Passover seder is a re-exo­dus from Egypt. But it is a re-enact­ment of the first Passover, in which God, by exten­sion, saves from slav­ery even those who were not there. “It is because of what the Lord did for me.”

Dur­ing the first passover, the Hebrews sac­ri­ficed a lamb to mark their doors with blood. The seder is a litur­gy of re-enact­ment of that sac­ri­fice.

• That Christ referred to him­self as bread

John 6:35. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall nev­er hunger; and he that believeth on me shall nev­er thirst.

Matthew 26:26. And as they were eat­ing, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the dis­ci­ples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.

Note that this is the bread of the Passover seder that Jesus is liken­ing to his body. As Dr. Pitre puts it, “Jesus recon­fig­ures the Passover around his own death.” He says “Do this in remem­brance of me”; and in the Old Covenant, the only one who could pour out blood was a valid­ly ordained priest. “Jesus would have known,” Dr. Pitre reminds us, “that only a priest can pour out the blood.”

And just as the seder was a par­tic­i­pa­tion in the exo­dus from Egypt no mat­ter how many times it took place, the Eucharist is a par­tic­i­pa­tion in the passover of Jesus no mat­ter how many times it takes place. In the seder, you had to con­sume the lamb. You could­n’t just remem­ber it, or eat some­thing sym­bol­ic of it.

The man­na in the wilder­ness, the Bread of the Pres­ence, and the Passover seder were all tied up togeth­er in the Jew­ish mind as evi­dence of God’s covenant love for His peo­ple. Behold God’s love for you. The book of 2 Baruch, though not scrip­tur­al, does tell us what the Jews believed a new Mes­si­ah would mean.

And it will hap­pen that the Mes­si­ah will begin to be revealed. … And those who are hun­gry will enjoy them­selves. And they will, more­over, see mar­vels every day, and it will hap­pen at that time that the trea­sury of man­na will come down again from on high, and they will eat of it in these years because these are they who will have arrived at the con­sum­ma­tion of time. (2 Baruch 29:38)

In John 6, Christ explic­it­ly tells us that he is, in fact, “the trea­sury of man­na … come down again from on high.” He is the Bread of the Pres­ence; He is the Bread of the Face (cf. Matt. 12:1–8).

He is the sac­ri­fice.

In the Lord’s Prayer also, Jesus likens him­self to the man­na. The Greek word trans­lat­ed “dai­ly bread” is ἐπιούσιον, epi­ou­sion—a word that is used nowhere else in the New Tes­ta­ment or Greek lit­er­a­ture, whether koine Greek or clas­si­cal Greek. It is a com­bi­na­tion of two words: epi, which means “above,” and ousion, which means “sub­stance.” Lit­er­al­ly, then, it means “sub­stance from above.” In §2837 of the Cat­e­chism, we are told that “it refers direct­ly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ … with­out which we have no life in us.” In recall­ing the man­na in the Lord’s prayer (“sub­stance from above”), and in link­ing him­self to man­na in John 6, Jesus is telling us that he is the “sub­stance from above”; and we are to eat of Him in these years.

St. Paul tells us how we are to think of the Eucharist; and he links it specif­i­cal­ly to the Passover, in 1 Corinthi­ans 5:7–8: “For even Christ our passover is sac­ri­ficed for us: There­fore let us keep the feast.”

That is what the Mass is: It is a keep­ing of the feast. It is a sac­ri­fice.

If you are keep­ing a feast, and the feast is a sac­ri­fice, you must have a priest. Only a priest can pour out blood.

And if Christ’s priest­hood is a type of Melchizidek, and all we know about Melchizidek is that he offers bread and wine, then the Mass is pre­fig­ured by Melchizidek.

Calv­in’s sec­ond objec­tion: If the bread and wine offered by Melchizedek were to be a fig­ure of the Mass, why did not the author of Hebrews take pains to say so?

This one is more eas­i­ly answered. And there are three rea­sons I would give here in response.

• The book of Hebrews is about the priest­hood in gen­er­al, not the Mass in par­tic­u­lar
• Christ’s priest­hood is likened to Melchizedek, and the only thing Melchizedek ever does in Scrip­ture is to offer bread and wine
• The priest­hood, by its nature, is a sac­ri­fi­cial func­tion, and bread and wine were a nor­mal part of Old Tes­ta­ment sac­ri­fice

The author of Hebrews would have not need­ed to spell these things out, for they were well known. The fact that his sub­ject was the priest­hood at all was enough for his audi­ence to have under­stood the oth­er things. To have tak­en pains about it would have been con­de­scend­ing. We might have to put these things togeth­er from the dis­tance of time. They would not have.

But tru­ly, the idea that Scrip­ture needs to spell out and spec­i­fy a thing out in elab­o­rate detail before there can be war­rant for it is a bur­den that Scrip­ture was nev­er meant to car­ry in the first place. Calvin is beg­ging the ques­tion of the func­tion of Scrip­ture here.

Calv­in’s con­clu­sion is that the point of the book of Hebrews is to show how the priest­hood has ceased among men. On the con­trary, its sub­ject is to show how the priest­hood has changed and been trans­fered from the sons of Levi to the apos­tles of Christ. That Christ insti­tutes a priest­hood, that the ear­ly Chris­tians under­stood him to have done so, and that priests have a share in the high priest­hood of Christ, is more than ade­quate­ly tes­ti­fied by the full wit­ness of Scrip­ture and the ear­ly writ­ings of the Church.

The Old Covenant has not been abol­ished; it has been ful­filled in the New. The old priest­hood has not been abol­ished; it has been ful­filled by the new.

In Part 3, I shall take up Calv­in’s sec­ond charge of “impi­ety” against the Mass.