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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
In recent discussions about the Apostolic Ministry of the Church the Jewish factor in its development has proved a disturbing element. Therefore, a book dealing with the early rite of rabbinical ordination, which has been lately published in Germany, should be certain of an interested reception, even though the main facts can be found already in Billerbeck. Dr. Lohse, its author, shows himself well versed in rabbinical literature, and the evidence which he has collected is well-nigh complete. Unfortunately, the author's main thesis, although it is by no means new, is apt to provoke serious misgivings. For he claims (101) that ‘the Christian ordination was modelled on the pattern of that of Jewish scholars, although early Christianity filled it with a new content’. To support his claim the author has given only one important reason, namely that both rites had the imposition of hands as their centre. The other support which the author has tried to build up to strengthen his thesis is, to say the least, feeble. It is therefore necessary to enquire whether the laying-on-of-hands had the same intention in the early Christian ordination rite as in the rabbinical rite. Such identity of intention is, however, not even to be found in all the various cases of laying-on-of-hands in the New Testament, and the same is also true of contemporary Judaism.
page 125 note 1 Lohse, E., Die Ordination im Spät-Judentum und im Neuen Testament, Göttingen 1951Google Scholar.
page 125 note 2 Billerbeck, ii. 647 f.
page 125 note 3 The same view has been propounded already by Gavin, F., The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacraments, 1928, 101Google Scholar.
page 125 note 4 Philo, Leg. alleg., iii. 90 f., ed. Cohn-Wendland, i. 133, 7 f.
page 125 note 5 How S. New in Lake-Cadbury, The Beginnings of Christianity, v (1933), 137 f., has arrived at the form seminkah, we do not know.
page 125 note 6 Philo, de Virtut., 66 f., ed. Cohn-Wendland, v. 284, 8 f.
page 126 note 1 Significant for this is the fact that circumcision does not figure even in the index of J. Elbogen, Der Jüdische Gottesdienst, 2nd ed., 1924.
page 126 note 2 It appears that Lohse himself does not face all the implications of his own statement (98) that the New Testament does not know the idea of the ministry ‘in our sense’, for his two authorities, E. Schlink, Die Theologie der lutherischen Bekenntnis-Schriften, 2nd ed., 1946, 331, and K. H. Rengstorf, Apostolat und Predigtamt, 1934, 82, both comment on the Church's ministry.
page 126 note 3 Strabo in Joseph., Ant. xiv. 7. 2 §117, cf. J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l'Empire Romain, 1914, ii, 111, n. 1.
page 127 note 1 H. Zucker, Geschichte der Jüdischen Selbstverwaltung in Ägypten, 1934.
page 127 note 2 Jos., Ant., xiv. 10. 17 §235.
page 127 note 3 E. Schürer, Gesch. d. jüd. Volkes, 4th ed., iii. 81 f.
page 127 note 4 This has been brought out clearly by L. Finkelstein, Akiba, 1936, 92 f., however much his work may tend to be an eulogy of Aqiba.
page 128 note 1 On the intimate relations between Aqiba and Jehuda b. Baba cf. L. Finkelstein, op. cit., 76.
page 128 note 2 Cf. J. Newman, Semikhah, Manchester 1950.
page 128 note 3 Semikhah is not to be found in O. T. Hebrew.
page 128 note 4 A. Büchler, Das Synhedrion in Jerusalem, 1902, where on p. 163, even if the note 144 is discarded, remarks are found about an official decision on ordinations, which E. Lohse 36, n. 2, though following Billerbeck, ii. 649, may have dismissed too quickly, as bearing only on the post-Hadrianic period.
page 129 note 1 Cf. E. Schürer, Gesch. d.jüd. Volkes, 4th ed., ii, 1907, 250, n. 36.
page 130 note 1 The scene described ties up with A. Büchler's (Das Synhedrion, 163) description of the development of the ordination to the Sanhedrin, according to which at first either the chairman (nasi) or the court as a whole (beth-din) had the right to ordain, whereas eventually they had to combine.
page 130 note 2 Billerbeck, i. 909, has also overlooked the analogy.
page 130 note 3 Cf. our The Apostolic Succession, 1953, 73.
page 130 note 4 E. Schürer, op. cit., 4th ed., ii. 240 f.
page 131 note 1 J. Jeremias, Jerusalem zur Zeit Jesu, iib, 1937, 88 f.
page 131 note 2 Cf. also De sacrif. Abel. 77, ed. Cohn-Wendland i. 234, 2 f., de Sobr. 19; ibid., ii. 219, 10 f., where the Seventy are called the παρδροι of Moses, a reference to their enthronement, which is not mentioned in Num. xi. 16 f., but supplemented by Philo, just as the rabbis supplemented Moses's laying hands upon the Seventy; de Fuga 186; ibid., iii. 150, 19f.
page 132 note 1 Hippol., Ap. Tr., x. 1, ed. G. Dix, 1937, 18. In spite of the concurrence of Dix and B. S. Easton (The Apostolic Tradition, 1934, 39), the Greek χειροτονεῖν makes us wonder whether imposition of hands was at all mentioned, as the Sahidic suggests.
page 132 note 2 L. Sukenik, Jüd. Gräber Jerusalems um Christi Geburt, 1931, 18.
page 132 note 3 In the inscription quei dicerunt trenus duo apostuli et duo rebbites (J. B. Frey, Corp. Inscr. Jud., i. 438) such an analogy is made; but E. Schürer (Gesch. d. Jüd. Volkes, 4th ed., iii. 81) saying that the conditions under which Italian Jewry lived did not change from the first to the fifth century, only underlines our lack of sufficient information.
page 132 note 4 Carried on especially in Theology.
page 133 note 1 T. W. Manson, The Church's Ministry, 1948, 35 f.
page 133 note 2 The sources are easily accessible through Billerbeck, ii. 649 f., under 3.
page 133 note 3 So, e.g., F. Gavin, The Jewish Antecedents etc., 102, n. 2.
page 133 note 4 L. Finkelstein, Akiba, 122 f.
page 133 note 5 L. Finkelstein, op. cit., 126.
page 133 note 6 J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l'Empire Romain, i. 393.
page 133 note 7 A. Büchler, Das Synhedrion in Jerusalem, 163.
page 134 note 1 A. Büchler, Das Synhedrion in Jerusalem, 163.
page 134 note 2 J. Jeremias, Die Abendmahlsworte Jesu, 2nd ed., 1949, 60 f.
page 134 note 3 For this purpose cf. our The Apostolic Succession, 1953.
page 135 note 1 This is assumed by J. E. Belser, Die Apostelgeschichte, 1905, 163, and would provide us with the three persons required in rabbinical ordinations; but it is uncertain since it was the whole Church at Antioch which ‘prayed and fasted’.
page 135 note 2 Cf. F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles, 1951, 254.
page 135 note 3 Cf. our The Apostolic Succession, 32.
page 135 note 4 F. F. Bruce, op. cit., 153 f., following but not quoting Billerbeck, ii. 647 f., refers in his note on Acts vi. 6, to the semikhah in Sanh. iv. 4, but does not state that the rite of laying on of hands was a copy of rabbinical ordination, as does E. Lohse, op. cit., 78.
page 135 note 5 F. F. Bruce, op. cit., 152: ‘perhaps τραπζα is used here in the financial sense’, is not supported by Mark xi. 15 par., to which Bruce refers, and is impossible: the meaning ‘bank’ for τραπζα is well established, but that of administering financial assistance does not occur.
page 135 note 6 The tradition in Asia identified Philip the Evangelist, to whom E. Lohse refers, with the apostle; is it so certain that the identification with Philip the ‘deacon’ is preferable?
page 136 note 1 Cf. Knopf-Lietzmann-Weinel, Einleitung in das N.T., 3rd ed., 1930, 86, not one of whose reasons has been satisfactorily answered by E. Lohse.
page 136 note 2 In The Apostolic Succession, 34, we have suggested that the presbytery visualised in I Tim. iv. 14, was that of Derbe, Lystra and Antioch in Pisidia. This would open up the possibility that the rite considered was baptism; but it seems that the intention of the Pastorals was to establish a succession after St. Paul.
page 136 note 3 The claim of S. New, ‘the laying on of hands is not only a well-known Jewish custom, but frequent in all ages and in all countries’, in Lake-Cadbury, The Beginnings of Christianity, v. 137, is as true as it is unhelpful. Lohse, 13 f., has collected a fair amount of evidence to show that Gentile sources provide no valid analogies to the Church's ordination rite with its laying-on-of-hands.
page 137 note 1 Billerbeck, ii. 647 f.
page 137 note 2 Justin, Dial. 49, cf. our The Apostolic Succession, 88.
page 137 note 3 (a) Philo, Gigant., 24, ed. Cohn-Wendland, ii. 46, 16f.; (b) id. de Fuga, 186, ibid, iii. 150, 20 f.
page 137 note 4 Philo, Gigant., 28; ibid., ii. 47, 10 f. On the idea of the Holy Spirit in the whole passage—and its pagan antecedents—cf. W. L. Knox, St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles, 1939, 117, n. 1; 133, n. 5.
page 138 note 1 The Apostolic Succession, 27.
page 138 note 2 None of the Apostolic Fathers mentions the laying-on-of-hands. Can that be purely accidental? Ignat., Philad., x. i; Smyrn., xi. 2; Polyc., vii. 7, χειροτονεῖν θεοπρεσβετην etc., has nothing to do with ordination, but may refer to a practice analogous to the sending of a shaliach by the Synagogue. It is, moreover, interesting to note that, according to his vita by Gregory Nyssene, Gregory Thaumaturge was consecrated bishop of Neo-Caesarea in his absence by Phaedimus of Amasea, and that Jerome, book xvi in Is. lxviii, warns against such ordinations in absentia; cf. Bingham, Antiquities, iv. vi. 8, ed. 1875, 157 sq.
