A History of Ordination

You can easily purchase over the internet a ‘preacher’s license,’ ordainment, ‘pastoral license,’ etc. Because these are matters of ‘church,’ states generally do not regulate such activity.

The rite of ordination finds its foundations in the Old and New Testaments. It was adopted by the Roman state and became, in time, part of common law during the middle ages.

For the first three centuries of its existence, the church existed without churches – buildings in which to gather. In the earliest Jewish Christian communities in Jerusalem, Judea, and throughout the Levant, Christians celebrated the Lord’s Supper in the homes of members of the community. These home churches were small in comparison to the large groups of worshipers that would gather in the large church buildings. Home churches tended to be smaller. There were more intimate gatherings of friends and believers. All the brothers and sisters, of whatever social rank or standing, were welcome.

The Early Church

The early church was not hierarchic, though it was not without its structure. In Paul’s time, and because of his letters and his writings; in the early church we know most about, ministry was not a function of office, but of gift of the Spirit. Members of the community were called to exercise different gifts through the spirit, as they were given.

In the early church there was a radical equality of all in Christ, including an equality of the sexes. There truly were no Jews or Greeks, no slaves or free, no man or woman, but all were one in Christ. There was no need for ordination – indeed there was, as yet, no cultic priesthood. The brothers and sisters gathered to share a meal, literally and ritually, and to remember the Lord. The entire community celebrated. The entire community prayed. If there were a presider. The community called that person to lead it in prayer.

²⁶ For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:26-29

After Paul’s Death

Gradually, especially after Paul’s death, a natural leadership emerged in the communities Paul founded. In later letters attributed to Paul there is mention of elders ‘(presbeteroi), and leaders (episkopoi), though no distinction is drawn between the two. There is certainly no claim of authority based on a call from the apostle through ‘ordination.’ In fact, there is NO mention of “ordination” in the New Testament. During Paul’s lifetime he never asserted an authority of coercion, never attempted to impose uniformity or conformity, or centralized authority (his or anyone else’s) on the communities he founded. Paul was content to trust in the Spirit to guarantee unity, precisely through the diverse gifts of the members of the community, and in particular through the “greatest” of the gifts of the spirit – agapic (selfless) love.

Women, it is clear, played an important role in the early church – Paul addresses women, as well as men, as his synergoi, his “fellow workers.” At the end of his letter to the Romans, Paul acknowledges twenty-nine leading Christians in the Roman community to whom he sends greetings – ten of them were women. He calls Phoebe, a “woman active in the Church in Cenchreae, a diakonos, indicating that she was the leader of a home church. He writes of the woman Junia as being “distinguished among the Apostles.” Suggesting that she was instrumental in spreading the faith, and eminent in the Christian community – in every respect Paul’s equal.

Though cultural biases against women would gradually take root, in the earliest Christian communities women were accepted as the equals of the likes of the Apostle Paul, their ministry welcomed and unrestricted.

Ordination: The Institutional Church

Over the course of the first hundred and fifty years of Christianity the function of presbyter and bishop slowly developed into a clerical caste of professional ministers over and against the “laity.” Bishops, at first merely the informal leaders among the many priests in a community, took on increasing authority, especially after the conversion of Constantine, when the monarchic episcopacy began to develop, and bishops emerged as powerful authorities in both civil and ecclesial society. More gradually still, the bishops of the great cities of the Roman Empire, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, emerged as the Episcopal powerbrokers and Rome, claiming association with both Saints Peter and Paul, claimed central authority. What had been born as a gathering of people proclaiming the Lordship of Christ had become the world’s first fully functioning bureaucracy – the Institutional Church.

Origin of the Word

Maccari-Cicero The modern term “ordination” comes from the Latin ordo (order, class, rank). Its derivative ordinatio appears to refer in ancient Rome to installment or induction, appointment or accession to rank. Historically pagan Roman society was ranked by various strictly separated classes; called “orders” (from the Latin plural ordines).

During the early phase of the Roman Empire’s existence (second century BC), society had evolved into three basic orders. These orders were transferred to the Church when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the state religion. Thus historians speak of an ordo senatorum – the highest class. Ordo equester (the knights), and plebs, the lowest class of the society. Within Roman society there was ordo et plebs, i.e., the higher class of citizens. And then the lower class. To move upward in rank, process of ordinatio was necessary.

“But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:25-28

Concept of Ordination

The idea of ordination was used in the cultic context of pagan Roman Society. A person would be appointed to the cultic office received from the gods of the ancient world. All this suggests that when the word ordinatio was used in the ancient world. It clearly indicated a movement upward in rank and status. Once a man was ordained, he held some kind of office. That office not only separated him from ordinary people. But also allowed him to exercise governmental, jurisdictional, or cultic authority that demanded submission of others. Through the work of second-century Christian writers, and especially the writings of Latin apologist Tertullian (ca. 160-ca. 220 AD). These concepts and ideas seeped into the Christian psyche. Eventually, the post-Constantinian Church wholeheartedly embraced these ways.

Evolution of the Ministry and Ordination

Christianity of the second and third centuries found itself under much pressure, both external and internal: persecutions, schisms and the rise of heresies ravaged the early Christianity. One response to these stressors was to consolidate all power and authority in the church in the hands of its leadership. In early Christian writings as 1 Clement and Didache. Ignatius of Antioch (~110-130AD) a man dedicated to the cause of unity. Ignatius strived to elevate the authority of the bishop in the congregation. His writings prescribed that only one bishop is to govern each church (known as mon-episcopate), surrounded by the council of presbyters and deacons.

The bishop is the first thinker and undisputed head of the congregation; surrounded by a council of presbyters as well as deacons. Who, in Ignatian writings, appear to be at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder. “Let the bishop preside in the place of God,” he wrote.” His clergy in place of the Apostolic conclave. My special friends the deacons, will be entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ.” Obedience to the bishop was equal to the obedience to God; Whom the former represented.

Tertullian introduced the loaded word ordinatio. A rite that separated clergy from laity through an invisible ontological, or essential, barrier. This barrier placed ministers on a higher spiritual level than the rest of the believers. It endowed them with rank, status, and authority. That clearly did not belong to the Christian ministry during New Testament times.

What the Past Must Teach Us Today

Early Church origin is where the essential church needs can be found. Those origins point the way to the church of the future. There can be no Christianity without the Eucharist. That meal belongs to the people of God as a gift from the Spirit. Today the priest are to govern the Lord’s Table at Eucharist. Christians gathered to remember the Lord before there was a professional, hierarchical priesthood. They experienced his presence in bread broken and shared.

The early church can show us a different, yet completely authentic, way to be a church. As early Christian communities allowed ministry to emerge from within it. Not as offices of authority, but as ministries of loving service. Small Christian communities today, meeting in homes or other informal places, can call one of their own to lead. To preside at the Lord’s Supper while remaining completely faithful to the tradition. Both men and women may receive the call when the gift of leadership is discerned. A refreshing return to the fundamental equality of all the sons and daughters of God in Christ.

Source

Sister Brenda