Rabbis and Priests

 

A member of the Facebook group The Bible and Anthropology has asked, "Could a priest be a rabbi and vice versa? Those are always mentioned as two distinct categories, or so it seemed to me."

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Many rabbis were also priests. The roles are different but could overlap. Rabbis taught and preached in the local synagogues. If their synagogue was in a town with a priestly division such as Nazareth, they also served for a term at the Temple in Jerusalem. 

During the Second Temple period (586 BC-70 AD) the twenty-four priestly divisions or "courses" served in the Temple in rotation. Each course served twice a year for a duration of two weeks. A list of priestly divisions is found in 1 Chronicles 24:7-18.

Nazareth was the home of the eighteenth priestly division, ha·pi·TSETS (Happizzez). In 1962 excavators discovered in the ruins of a synagogue at Caesarea a small piece of a list of the twenty-four priestly divisions. This third to fourth-century marble fragment is inscribed with the names of the places where four of the divisions resided, including Nazareth, the residence of Happizzez.

The priests lived in settlements throughout Israel. When it was "time for the division to go up [to Jerusalem]" (Mishnah, Ta'anit 4:2), the priests went up to Jerusalem to fulfill their obligations. When their appointed time of service in Jerusalem ended, the priests returned to their homes. When not functioning as a priest, these individuals went about their normal routines, tending to their various occupations: stone masons, miners, tomb builders, potters, tent makers, shepherds, goatherds, farmers, merchants, smiths, and carpenters. They also taught and preached in the local synagogues.

Deeper Roots

The point of origin of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste is the Nile Valley long before the time of Abraham. That caste had a moiety system, meaning that it was organized into two ritual groups, the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew. Both groups built and maintained shrine and temples along the Nile. The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is at Nekhen on the Nile (4200 BC). 

The Hebrew are probably the oldest known caste. They served at shrines, temples, and mortuary sites at least 1000 years before the caste system of India emerged. Their preserved their ethnic identity by marrying only within their caste (caste endogamy).

During the Old Kingdom (c. 2575-2130 BC) the Hebrew priests were organized in groups called "phyles." Each phyle served a two-week duration at the royal temple before returning home. The later organization of priests in Israel appears to have developed from the earlier Hebrew phyle system.

Sanhedrin Members

The Great Sanhedrin (the highest Jewish court) met in the Hall of Hewn Stones in the Temple in Jerusalem. It convened every day except festivals and Shabbat. Its members included priests, high ranking rabbinical authorities (rabbis), and wealthy Jews whose pure Hebrew ancestral lineages could be verified. The daughters of Sanhedrin members only married priests and rabbis. Only Jewish men belonging to prominent families were members of the Great Sanhedrin (the Beth Din HaGadol). The lesser Sanhedrin courts had members who were priests and rabbis also, but these courts had less authority.

The New Testament reports that many priests became followers of Jesus (Acts 6:7). At least three of Jesus' followers were members of the Sanhedrin: Nicodemus, Joseph Arimathea, and James the Just. The first priests in the service of Christ in southern England were likely ordained by Joseph Arimathea with the written consent of 2 other Sanhedrin members who were followers of the Way.

Members of the Sanhedrin served under the presidency of the high priest much as priests today serve under the presidency of their bishop. The high priest bore the title nasi (ruler, king, prince) and retained this title even after the presidency was transferred to other hands. Similarly, in Anglican and Roman Catholic orders a bishop retains the title "bishop" even after he has stepped down from serving in that office.

Jewish ordination was called semichah and it was necessary for membership in the Great Sanhedrin (The Great Court). Ordination was also required to serve in the lesser courts. Ordination was required to be a member of the Sanhedrin and that was obtained by the imposition of hands by someone who himself had been properly ordained. This is the precedent for the concept of Apostolic Succession in the Church. 

The Sanhedrin members served under the presidency of the high priest much as priests today served under the presidency of their bishop. The high priest bore the title nasi (ruler, king, prince) and retained this even after the presidency was transferred to other hands. Similarly, in Anglican and Roman Catholic orders a bishop retains the title "bishop" even after he has stepped down from serving in that office.

As individuals within the Sanhedrin passed away, or became unfit for service, new members were ordained in what Jews describe as an "unbroken succession" from Moses to Yehoshua the priest of the two crowns (Zec. 6:11), to the elders of Israel, to the prophets (including Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi), to the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah or "Men of the Great Assembly" founded by Ezra c. 520 B.C., to the sages of the Sanhedrin of the Second Temple (c. 520 - A.D. 70).

The second in charge was a ruler-priest who was called ab bet din (father of the court). The role of the ab bet din appears to have been a combination of the roles of the bishop's chaplain and the chancellor of the diocese who serves as the chief legal consultant to the Diocesan bishop. The polity and ordination procedures of the Anglican Church seem to parallel the Sanhedrin. As priestly ordination in Judaism was abolished in 358 AD, Christian priests stand alone as the living succession of priests in the Messianic Faith that we call "Christianity."

The third century Rabbi Johanan enumerates the qualifications for members of the Sanhedrin as follows: they must be tall, of imposing appearance, of advanced age, and scholars. They were also required to be adept in the use of foreign languages. When testimony was given to the Sanhedrin in a foreign language, at least two members who spoke that language were required to examine the witness. There was also a third member who understood the language. These three members constituted a minor court of three, who then reported the testimony to the entire Sanhedrin.

Some High Priests lived in exile among foreign peoples. One example is Hyrcanus who was living among the Parthians. Members of the Sanhedrin did business in foreign parts and visited the local synagogues. Joseph Arimathea would have had Jewish contacts in Cornwall and Devon, places he visited as a mining consultant. Mining in Cornwall and Devon in England began as early as 2150 BC. The Ding Dong mine is one of the oldest mines in Cornwall. An old miner told A. K. Hamilton Jenkin in the early 1940's: "Why, they do say there's only one mine in Cornwall older than Dolcoath, and that's Ding Dong, which was worked before the time of Jesus Christ." (Hamilton Jenkin, A. K. Cornwall and its People. London: J. M. Dent; p. 347) 

Tin ingots from Cornwall dating to 2000 BC have been found in Israel and ingots from Cornwall dating to 1300 BC have been found at archaeological sites in Turkey and Greece. The tin trade brought people together from the Levant, the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, and parts of Europe.

Local legend holds that the Din Dong mine was one of the places visited by Joseph Arimathea. According to the Sanhedrin rules of ordination Joseph could rightfully ordain the first "Christian" priests while in England. He needed the written consent of only 2 other ruler-priests, and it is inconceivable that he would have neglected to do so.

Related reading: The Priestly Divisions; The Hebrew Were a Caste; Horite and Sethite Mounds; The Priesthood in England

The Priesthood in England - Conclusion

This concludes a four-part historical and anthropological study on the priesthood in England. Parts 1-3 are linked at the bottom of this page. Readers are encouraged to begin with Part 1 which compares and contrasts the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox narratives touching on the early presence of priests in England.


Dr. Alice C. Linsley

In this series I have presented information about the two streams of authority in Anglicanism as they came into the British Isles: one via the Sanhedrin authority whereby Jesus' followers in Britain ordained priests, and the other via the Roman Mission which is what most refer to as the "Apostolic Succession".

Apostolic succession pertains to the passage of authority from generation to generation in the Church. It is expressed in 2 Timothy 2:2 where the Apostle Paul directs that “the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will also be qualified to teach others.”

Apostolic succession does not explain why the Church has a priesthood that is patterned on the priesthood of the early Hebrew. That is best explained by the presence of Hebrew priests in Britain who were disciples of Jesus Christ and authorized to ordain priests according to the ordination rules of the Sanhedrin.

Two Sanhedrin members prepared Jesus' body for burial and saw him buried in the tomb excavated by Joseph Arimathea, a mining expert. John 19 makes it clear that Nicodemus and Joseph Arimathea were well acquainted. Their devotion would have been strengthened by the act of laying Jesus' body in the tomb. The third member of the Sanhedrin who recognized Jesus' identity was James the Just. By the consent of these three ruler-priests, men were ordained priests for the Church in Britain.

These ruler-priests, members of the Sanhedrin, had authority to ordain priests for the church. Joseph Arimathea was a mining expert who also excavated for himself a tomb out of rock. He was a descendant and successor of the early Hebrew ruler-priests, the oldest known priestly caste. If this is so, the validity and the authority of the priesthood in England stands on two feet: that of the Hebrew ruler-priests and that of the succession claimed by the Roman Church. 

Anglicans have held to the Roman account of the priesthood as originating with Jesus' Apostles. This idea was beautifully developed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict), who wrote:

Of great importance for our question is the fact that Jesus gave His power to the Apostles in such a way that He made their ministry, as it were, a continuation of His own mission. "He who receives you receives me". He Himself says to the Twelve (Mt 10:40; cf. Lk 10:16; Jn 13:10). Many other texts in which Jesus gives His power to the disciples could here be cited: Mt 9:8: 10:1: 21:23; Mk 0:7: 13:34; Lk 4:6: 9:1; 10:19. The continuity between the mission of Jesus and that of the apostles is once again illustrated with great clarity in the Fourth Gospel: "As the Father has sent me. even so I send you" (20:21: cf. 13:20; 17:18).

The weight of this sentence is evident if we recall what we said above concerning the structure of the mission of Jesus. As we saw, Jesus Himself, sent in the totality of His person, is indeed mission and relation from the Father and to the Father. In this light the great importance of the following parallelism appears: "The Son can do nothing of His own accord" (Jn 5:19-30). "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5).

This "nothing" which the disciples share with Jesus expresses at one and the same time both the power and the infirmity of the apostolic ministry. By themselves, of their own strength, they can do none of those things which apostles must do. How could they of their own accord say, "I forgive you your sins"? How could they say, "This is my body"? How could they perform the imposition of hands and say, "Receive the Holy Spirit"? None of those things which constitute apostolic activity are done by one's own authority. But this expropriation of their very powers constitutes a mode of communion with Jesus, who is wholly from the Father, with Him all things and nothing without Him. Their own "nihil posse", their own inability to do anything, draws them into a community of mission with Jesus. Such a ministry, in which a man does and gives through a divine communication what he could never do and give on his own is called by the tradition of the Church a "sacrament".

If Church usage calls ordination to the ministry of priesthood a "sacrament", the following is meant: This man is in no way performing functions for which he is highly qualified by his own natural ability nor is he doing the things that please him most and that are most profitable. On the contrary, the one who receives the sacrament is sent to give what he cannot give of his own strength; he is sent to act in the person of another, to be his living instrument. For this reason no human being can declare himself a priest; for this reason, too. no community can promote a person to this ministry by its own decree. (From On The Nature of the Priesthood.)

Catholics and Anglicans traditionally have traced the origins of the office of bishop to the apostles, who it is believed were endowed with a special charism by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Catholics and Anglicans believe this special charism is transmitted through the unbroken succession of bishops by the laying on of hands (Numbers 27:22-23).

The evidence which has been presented in this series suggests that this is only part of the story. There appear to have been two streams of priestly consecration or two sources of validity for the Christian priesthood. One is discontinuous with the priesthood established by God among the early Hebrew, and the other appears to be a continuation of that early priesthood. There is evidence of this in England, and a similar study of the priesthood in other regions of the world would likely support this understanding.

The Hebrew ruler-priests were a caste dating back to at least 4000 BC. They married only within their caste (endogamy). Because of caste endogamy, the Messianic priesthood, of which the Christian priesthood is the only living extension, remained within their caste. Jesus is a direct descendant of those early Hebrew ruler-priests. Long before Judaism, they believed in God Father and God Son, and they expected a woman of their ruler-priest caste to conceive the Son of God by divine overshadowing (Luke 1:35, cf. Gen. 3:15).

Jewish ordination was called "semichah" and was necessary for membership in the Great Sanhedrin, and for membership in the smaller courts. A member of the Sanhedrin required a special level of ordination and that was obtained by the imposition of hands by someone who himself had been so ordained. This is the precedent for the concept of Apostolic Succession in the Church. However, as far as we know, none of the Twelve Apostles were ordained. 

The earliest Christian priests in Britain were probably ordained by believing Sanhedrin priests like Joseph of Arimathea, James the Just, and Nicodemus. Acts tells us that there were other priests who believed Jesus Messiah and followed Him. After Pentecost "a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith". It is also likely that some of the seven sons of Sceva, a chief priest, came to faith and they too were qualified to ordain (Acts 19:14). 

The empowering of his disciples to make other disciples cannot be understood as Jesus ordaining these men to the priesthood, and the charisms of the Holy Spirit are granted to all Christians, not just priests. There is nothing in the account of Pentecost to support the idea that the Apostles were priests. As far as we know, none were priests. This is why there is no scholarly documentation of the chain of succession during the very earliest days of the Church. According to this account, the original bishops were consecrated by one or more of the Apostles. These successor bishops later consecrated more bishops. There is documentation tracing the chain of consecration from the early 2nd century, but before that none. The Vatican acknowledges this fact. The 1973 International Theological Commission on Catholic Teaching on Apostolic Succession states:

The absence of documents makes it difficult to say precisely how these transitions came about. By the end of the first century the situation was that the apostles or their closest helpers or eventually their successors directed the local colleges of episkopoi andpresbyteroi. By the beginning of the second century the figure of a single bishop who is the head of the communities appears very clearly in the letters of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who further claims that this institution is established "unto the ends of the earth" (Ad Epk. 3, 2).

During the second century and after the Letter of Clement this institution is explicitly acknowledged to carry with it the apostolic succession. Ordination with imposition of hands, already witnessed to in the pastoral Epistles, appears in the process of clarification to be an important step in preserving the apostolic Tradition and guaranteeing succession in the ministry. The documents of the third century (Tradition of Hippolytus) show that this conviction was arrived at peacefully and was considered to be a necessary institution. (From here.)

When the best Church scholars fail to find evidence for something, it is probable that the evidence does not exist. Perhaps it is time to look at this from a different perspective.

The Apostolic Canons of the Eastern Orthodox require that the consecration of a bishop must be accomplished by at least three. The same applies to episcopal consecrations in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. There is a precedent for this in history. In the Sanhedrin ordination was conferred by a court of three. There were three ruler-priests among Jesus' disciples, and it is through them that the succession of the priesthood continued and has continuity with the priesthood "after the order of Melchizedek." All three of these priests were members of the Sanhedrin, and the law did not require that they all be present to lay on hands. As long as one was present to lay on hands, the other two could consent by messenger or letter.

Only priests belonging to prominent families were members of the Sanhedrin, the Beth Din HaGadol (The Great Court). A "prominent" family was one whose lineages could be traced back to Horite Hebrew ruler-priests (what Jews call their "Horim"). These members of the Sanhedrin served under the presidency of the high priest much as priests today served under the presidency of their bishop. The high priest bore the title nasi (ruler, king, prince) and retained this even after the presidency was transferred to other hands. Similarly, in Anglican orders a bishop remains a bishop even after he has stepped down from serving in that office.

As individuals within the Sanhedrin passed away, or became unfit for service, new members were ordained in what Jews describe as an "unbroken succession" from Moses to Yehoshua the priest of the two crowns (Zec. 6:11), to the elders of Israel, to the prophets (including Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi), to the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah or "Men of the Great Assembly" founded by Ezra c. 520 B.C., to the sages of the Sanhedrin of the Second Temple (c. 520 - A.D. 70).

The second in charge was a ruler-priest who was called ab bet din (father of the court). The role of the ab bet din appears to have been a combination of the roles of the bishop's chaplain and the chancellor of the diocese who serves as the chief legal consultant to the Bishop. The polity and ordination procedures of the Anglican Church seem to parallel the Sanhedrin. As the ordination was abolished in 358 AD, Christian priests alone stand as the living succession of priests in the Messianic Faith that we call "Christianity".

The third century Rabbi Johanan enumerates the qualifications for members of the Sanhedrin as follows: they must be tall, of imposing appearance, of advanced age, and scholars. They were also required to be adept in the use of foreign languages. When testimony was given to the Sanhedrin in a foreign language, at least two members who spoke that language were required to examine the witness. There was also a third member who understood the language. These three members constituted a minor court of three, who then reported the testimony to the entire Sanhedrin.

Many members of the Sanhedrin did business in foreign parts and visited the local synagogues. Some High Priests lived in exile among foreign peoples (Hyrcanus among the Parthians, for example.)

The only followers of Jesus that are known to be members of the Sanhedrin were James the Just, Nicodemus, and Joseph Arimathea who was called "bouleutēs" (honorable counselor). Joseph was "waiting for the kingdom of God" according to Mark 15:43. He is designated Arimathea, that is, of the ruling line of Matthew. This means he was a kinsman of Jesus. Mary’s parents were Yoachim and Anna. Yoachim was a shepherd-priest and his wife Anna was a daughter of a priest. Hippolytus of Thebes records that Mary’s mother was one of three daughters of a priest named Matthan or Mathea (Matthias).

Apparently, Joseph had business and probably family connections in Cornwall. The Cornish say that he once visited the Ding Dong mining operation. Eusebius of Caesarea (260–340 A.D.) may have been referring to this in Demonstratio Evangelica when he reports that some of Jesus' earliest disciples "have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain." Since one qualification of membership in the Sanhedrin was facility of multiple languages, Joseph would have been able to communicate with the people of Britain.

As a ruler-priest Joseph would have known men who were qualified to serve as Christian priests in Britain and he would have been able to arrange for their ordination. Being of advanced age, he would have been older than Jesus and most of His Apostles. This means that any ordinations he may have arranged in Cornwall could have taken place within a few years of Jesus' death and resurrection.


Priestly and Commercial Records

The hieroglyphs were priestly writings, and the oldest of these are found in the Upper Nile. The oldest known site of early Hebrew worship (both Horite and Sethite) was at Nekhen. 

Orly Goldwasser, professor of Egyptology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argues that the first alphabet, from which all other alphabets developed, was invented by Canaanite miners in the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadem in the Sinai Peninsula. The pictorial hieroglyphs of the Nile Valley served as the inspiration for the later alphabets.

Other ancient writing forms used by merchants for keeping accounts are found along ancient trade routes; the spice routes, the silk routes, the King's Highway from Egypt through Palestine, the ancient tin route from Spain to Ireland, etc. These involve fewer pictographs and more hatch marks that suggest counting or record keeping. Ogham bears resemblance to these earlier commercial scripts. Some of the elements of the commercial scripts are found in Hebrew and in Ainu, scripts which are clearly related.

A comparison of the Ainu (Kata) and Hebrew scripts reveals a connection that is explained by the fact that the earliest scripts were those used by priests in the service of rulers in many regions, and these priest-scribes kept royal accounts. These ancient rulers are the "mighty men of old" mentioned in Genesis 6. One of them was Nimrod, a Kushite kingdom builder (Gen. 10). Among them were the "red" rulers associated with Abraham and his ancestors Adam and Seth, and his descendants Esau and King David.

The wide dispersion of the early Hebrew priests and scribes is evident in the study of ancient texts and through the presence of both priestly and commercial scripts worldwide. This dispersion began at least 3,000 years before Jesus Christ and included movement in in many directions: Africa, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, central Europe, the Western Zagros, Spain, and the British Isles.

There is no reason to doubt the historicity of Joseph Arimathea's connection to Cornwall in spite of the dubious Medieval legends surrounding him. He had business in Cornwall as a metal tradesman and a mining expert. From the time of the earliest pharaohs mining and tomb construction were the work of ruler-priests. Joseph of Arimathea was likely engaged in both, even as he was responsible for the tomb where the Lord Jesus was laid to rest. As a high-ranking priest of the Sanhedrin, he had authority to ordain priests. As a follower of Jesus Messiah, he is an important figure who confirms continuity between the priesthood attached to the promises made to Abraham and his Hebrew ancestors and the priesthood of the Church.


Related reading: The Priesthood in England - Part 1; The Priesthood in England - Part 2; The Priesthood in England - Part 3; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant; E.J. Bicknell on Anglican Orders (1919); Response to Cory Byrum; Was King Arthur a Descendent of Nilotic Rulers?

The Priesthood in England - Part 2

Alice C. Linsley


In Part 1 we considered the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox accounts of how Christianity came to England. The information provided in Part 1 was taken from official websites of each of these branches of the catholic Faith. 

The one point on which all three accounts agree is that Augustine was the official representative of Rome and was based in Canterbury. As Britain was part of the Roman Empire, it is not surprising that the Roman Catholic narrative should predominate. That narrative has dominated the conversation for so long that the deficiencies of the account are rarely questioned.

These standing stones at Gezer date to around 400 years before the time of Abraham.

Photo: Dennis Cole

None of the narratives explore the evidence of a ruler-priest caste in the British Isles before the Roman Period. These priests served as prophets, scribes, smiths, stone masons, and physicians. They performed circumcisions, a practice that persisted among the royal families of Anglo-Celtic heritage. They offered sacrifices and prayers at sacred shrines, performed ceremonies at circles of standing stones, and they were ordained by ruler-priests in a succession extending back well before the time of Abraham. 

The point of origin of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste is the Nile Valley long before the time of Abraham. That caste has a moiety system, meaning that it was organized into two ritual groups, the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew. Both groups built and maintained shrine cities along the Nile. The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is at Nekhen (4000 BC). 

The Nile River was called the Ar and persons with Nilotic ancestry often have names with the Ar prefix. The Ar prefix means "venerable" and applies to rulers, many of whom built their palaces, temples, and treasuries at fortified rock shelters. Indeed, the AR is found in the Irish word Ard Mhacha (Armagh) which was a ceremonial high place. The Ar reference is found in the names of many historical persons, including the Edomite ruler Arêtes, Ar-Shem, Arsames, Artix, Araxes, Artaxerxes, Araunah (Jebusite ruler), Joseph of Arimathea, King Arwium (of Kish), King Arthur, King Arviragus, and King Arishen, a Horite Hebrew ruler whose territory was in the central Zagros. 

The "Ar" is likely a shortened Horus name as is suggested by the Nabataean King Harithath IV who bears the Horus name. In 2 Corinthians 11:32, King Harithath is called King Aretas. Many early Hebrew had Horus names as Horus was the patron of kings and priests in the ancient world.

It is evident that the Ar peoples were highly skilled in the construction of stone tombs and monuments. These were shrine centers attended by priests and were circular with large perimeter stones such as those found at Stonehenge in England, Gezer in Israel, Metsamor in Armenia, and Göbekli Tepe in Turkey (shown below).

The prefix Ar is also found in place names such as Armenia, Arles, Arba, Aram, Arvan, and Arvad. The Arvadites and Arkites are mentioned in Genesis 10:15-18. They are the peoples of Sidon and Het/Heth. They dispersed to the northeast. Some of their Mesopotamian kin are called "Arameans" in the Bible.

Continuity Between the Priesthood of old and the Priesthood of the Church

Some of the Hebrew in Britain would have been living in expectation of the Messiah and would have heard about Jesus' death and resurrection from Jewish kin and Jews with whom they did business. Men like Joseph of Arimathea would have had opportunities to plant a Christian presence among their fellow Jews. As a member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph was qualified to perform ordinations.

In researching how Jewish priests were ordained in the time of Jesus Christ, I found that the rule set down by the Sanhedrin required three ruler-priests to give consent, but only one was required to be physically present for the laying on of hands. The other two could give consent in writing.

This suggests that the priesthood among the natives of Britain has a longer history than has been generally recognized. According to Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae there were already Christians living in Britain in 46 AD. The presence of Christians in Roman Britain predates the episcopacy of Evodius of Antioch (53–69 A.D.) and the episcopacy of James of Jerusalem (d. 69 A.D.), and the episcopacy of Linus of Rome (64-79 A.D.).

Members of the Sanhedrin served under the presidency of the high priest much as priests today serve under the presidency of their bishop. The high priest bore the title nasi (ruler, king, prince) and retained this title even after the presidency was transferred to other hands. Similarly, in Anglican orders a bishop remains a bishop even after he has stepped down from serving in that office. Note the continuity of the tradition concerning the ordination of priests!

The doctrine of Apostolic Succession received from Rome remains problematic since none of the Apostles were priests, as far as we know. Apostolic succession addresses who has authority over the flock, but it does not shed light on the continuity of the priesthood between the Old order and New order. In fact, the best scholars of the Roman Catholic Church have been unable to demonstrate unbroken succession from Jesus to the priesthood of the Church. There is no documentation tracing the chain of consecration from before the Second Century. 

The implications of the priesthood being introduced into England by Messianic Jewish priests are why many will not even consider this angle. My concern is the problem of discontinuity when I do not see that in the Scriptures, or in the immutable way God works. I also suspect that there is more continuity between the priesthood of old and the priesthood of the Church in areas of the world claimed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism since Messianic priests had dispersed into those areas even before the time of the Incarnation. However, those areas are not the focus of this exploration.

When we come to ancient Britain, we find a priest among Jesus' followers who was qualified to ordain according to the Sanhedrin rule: Joseph of Arimathea. After we remove the embellishments of the Middle Ages we are left with this picture: Joseph was in southern Britain where he consulted as a mining expert. He is said to have visited the Ding Dong mine in Cornwall. (Lodes from that mine were worked well before the time of Abraham.) Mining experts also excavated cave tombs such as the one Joseph provided for our Lord’s repose. It is likely that Joseph saw the need for priests among the Messiah’s followers in Britain and that he ordained a few with the consent of two other members of the Sanhedrin. The two most likely are Nicodemus and James the Just, the first bishop of Jerusalem. If this is so, the priesthood in England clearly predates the papacy of Linus which began in A.D. 64.

The empowering of the Apostles to proclaim the Gospel, to plant churches, and to act as authorities in defense of the Faith cannot be understood as ordination to the priesthood. This is the most logical explanation for why there is no documentation of the chain of succession during the earliest days of the Church. There is documentation tracing the chain of consecration from the early Second Century, but before that none. The Vatican acknowledges this fact. The 1973 International Theological Commission on Catholic Teaching on Apostolic Succession states:

“The absence of documents makes it difficult to say precisely how these transitions came about. By the end of the first century the situation was that the apostles or their closest helpers or eventually their successors directed the local colleges of episkopoi and presbyteroi. By the beginning of the second century the figure of a single bishop who is the head of the communities appears very clearly in the letters of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who further claims that this institution is established "unto the ends of the earth".

During the second century and after the Letter of Clement this institution is explicitly acknowledged to carry with it the apostolic succession. Ordination with imposition of hands, already witnessed to in the pastoral Epistles, appears in the process of clarification to be an important step in preserving the apostolic Tradition and guaranteeing succession in the ministry. The documents of the third century (Tradition of Hippolytus) show that this conviction was arrived at peacefully and was considered to be a necessary institution.” (INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION, Catholic Teaching on Apostolic Succession, 1973)

Rome is in error when it claims to have brought Christianity to Roman Britain and that there was no Christian priesthood in Britain prior to Augustine. Father Louis R. Tarsitano expressed the truth when he wrote: ... it is a simple error of fact to claim that the Anglican Church “began” in the Reformation, or even with the late 6th century mission of St. Augustine to evangelize the newly arrived Anglo-Saxon pagans. The bishops of a five-centuries-old Christian Church met Augustine on the beach. (Of Forms and the Anglican Way)

Related reading: The Ar Rulers, Was King Arthur a Descendant of Nilotic Rulers?; My Response to Cory Byrum on Visible Unity of the Church; The Priesthood in England - Part 1; Who Laid the Foundations of Science?; The Priesthood in England - Part 3; The Priesthood in England - Conclusion